Fundamentals Of Creative Technologies

This unit has two elements, the first is aimed at your professional development and the second introduces you to the practices of the digital creative industries.

Firstly, this unit will equip you with the skills needed to cope with the demands of your course (which are also important to employers) and to help you to become more ‘self-aware’ learners. It will also teach you to develop an awareness of the expectations and professional requirements of your chosen industry.

The second element of the unit will lead you to develop your knowledge of the fundamental practical skills of digital creative technologies, and the ability to use them as applied to computer games development, interactive digital technologies and computer animation and visual effects. This section will be comprised of a series of practical-based labs where a range of techniques will be introduced.

Games And Digital Asset Design

The games and animation sectors require individuals who can design and create assets for deployment within interactive products such as games and visual novels. This unit will introduce students to techniques and foundational principles for visual, animated and interaction design, specifically for use in digital entertainment products.

The unit will examine key features, differences and constraints that apply when creating content for different platforms and audiences. It will also introduce fundamental principles of how media content such as digital images, audio and animations are created, stored and edited. The unit will also provide valuable experience and development of technical skill in designing and producing media content including artwork, animations and digital audio. Students will be given opportunities to apply the design principles they have learned in order to review and improve their digital asset creations.

2D Graphics And Digital Art

The games and animation sectors require individuals who have an understanding of both traditional drawing techniques and digital creation platforms, but may specialise in artwork created digitally with custom software and drawing tools. At the heart of this are the key skills for representational art; drawing, painting, illustration.

The unit will examine key features of available 2D graphics platforms used for creating drawings and paintings for games and animation. It will also introduce the fundamentals of drawing and representation through exercises in methods that are typically used for environmental and concept art in the games development and animation production process

The unit will also provide valuable experience and development of technical skills in extending and customising applications for content including artwork, animations and digital media. Students will be given opportunities to apply the drawing principles they have learned in order to review and improve their 2D graphics artwork.

Digital Video And Animation

This unit aims to introduce basic digital video production skills, use of digital video camera equipment and video editing packages.

In the second part you will focus on digital compositing, and the digital animation development process.

The unit includes practical teaching about production terms and their use, digital video and sound recording and digital editing.

Students are encouraged to try out different techniques and work in a group to produce a product that applies them in a digital video format

Compositing For Visual Effects

This unit provides an overview of the concepts and practices of digital compositing for visual effects, with the practical application of specific industry-standard software tools to create visual sequences or effects.

This is based around 2 parts: 

• 2D and 3D compositing techniques, and imaging for visual effects
• The emphasis is on the practice of technical skills with a complimentary underpinning on the theory of optics, physics and algorithms used for visual effects.

3D Graphics And Animation

Computer animation and graphic technologies draw upon a large pool of theoretical principles from computer graphics and related fields. This unit aims to introduce you to the principles associated with computer animation, graphics and features of its main techniques. You will be shown how to implement these techniques through modern software and programming languages. The major aims of the unit are for you to:

• Distinguish intermediate 2D and 3D modelling principles and techniques.
• Be able to apply rendering and shading in 3D graphics.
• Incorporate 2D and 3D assets with animation principles and techniques.
• Be able to extend basic graphics and animation features in code
• Be knowledgeable of the state of the art of computer animation packages
• Explore features of modern animation software and link them with the underlying theory.
• Demonstrate ability in the use of specialist software packages to create computer graphic sequences.

Professional Industry Portfolio

This unit gives students the opportunity to improve their employability by developing an individual portfolio of work based on initial research and analysis of job roles and practices in their focused area of the creative technologies industry. This research may also be related to an enterprise project or industry partner introduced by the department. Portfolios are a common tool use in the creative industries for evidencing skills and talent.  Further, portfolios can be used to assist a student with reflective practice as well as platform to articulate complex and technical matters.

The first assignment will be focused in preparing a professional application and Curriculum Vitae (CV) related to a specifically target job role, and will be assessed through presentation, and from feedback from a Lecturer acting as an advisor.

For the second task mentoring will be given towards preparing a portfolio of work – or showreel – over the course of the year. This portfolio, which would also include artefacts developed in other units would collect the entire student’s work by the end of level 5 and provide a point of focus for the student’s development before entering the final year.  Styles and types of portfolios will be examined in a series of seminars over the second-half of the course.

On completing this unit the student will have re-enforced the context for the technical studies that receive in the concurrent units of this degree course, and the ability to reflect on how the technical skills they are developing are relevant and can be applied in further research in the major Undergraduate project in Level 6.

Studio Development Project

This unit will give students in Creative Technologies subject courses the opportunity to further refine the skills attained in Level 4 of the course relating to their chosen pathways; programming, design, graphics, and animation as applicable.

This element of team-working is typical to work in both small and large companies in industry and the aim of the unit is to give experience of working on tasks in a way similar to a game development or design workplace environment.

They will be expected to work in mixed cross-pathway groups assigning roles and working towards a pitch and prototype based on a given topic. A briefing for this group work topic will be given, but students could chose to follow briefs from external projects and events such as Game Jams, Competitions, as available.

The main aim of the unit is to enable students to build up a body of professional work to focus on their skill set for employability. This unit will consider critical analysis and project management of production techniques used in the creative technologies' studio environment.

Research Methodologies And Emerging Technologies

This unit is designed for you to prepare for your honours project utilizing your subject experience from the first two years of your study. You will also asked to contextualize your project idea within current or emerging technologies, typically underpinned by academic publications and to do systematic market research that will equip you with a sound strategy on how to implement your honours project.

Undergraduate Project

Whether you go on to further study or into employment one of the most important skills expected in an Honours Graduate is the ability to work autonomously.  This unit is an ideal vehicle for the development of that skill.

You will typically implement the project proposal developed during the unit CIS013-3 Research Methods and Emerging Technologies (an alternative approach will be agreed with the unit coordinator and your project supervisor if you haven’t successfully completed CIS013-3 yet). 

Although you will be working independently, you are expected to arrange regular meetings with your supervisor to guide and support you.  You will apply coherently your technical, analytical, practical and managerial skills during your project development.

The project is an important opportunity to expand your experience in an area which is of close relevance to the course that you are studying (e.g. Computer Science, Electronic Engineering, and Computer Games Development).  Your project may be of relevance to a future employer, and will demonstrate your interest and ability in the chosen area.  As such your project topic should be aligned with your career aspirations.

The following aims are addressed in particular:

• To provide you with an opportunity to work autonomously on a sustained piece of work.
• To develop your ability to manage a project from start to finish.
• To develop your ability to identify problems, analyse the requirements and produce and evaluate solutions.
• To develop your ability to work to the relevant academic and professional standards.

Advanced Animation And Visual Effects

In Advanced Animation and Visual Effects, students will work on a development project that supports your final year development (for your pathway) and produce a significant computer animation artefact that could become part of your portfolio. It is important that you have a clear, well informed career goal and ensure that the work you do in level 6 provides useful portfolio pieces to support your career aspirations.

The major aims of the unit is for the student to:

• practice emerging tools within the computer animation and visual effects industry
• gain experience in the application of recent tools and techniques
• develop a significant portfolio piece
• gain additional experience of team working

Disruptive Technologies

This unit will expose students with state-of-the-art practice and research on disruptive technologies for creative technologies in a range of areas. This may include VR, AR, MR XR, interactive technologies, graphics software and hardware, network gaming, pervasive and ubiquitous gaming. Such technologies will be analysed to determine their applicability and appropriateness for and impact from their adoption in the creative Technologies industries

During the unit, you will study a number of emerging topics within the Disruptive Technologies and perform critical research on a topic of your choosing. This will include both practical evaluation of tools and packages and critical review of published material.

The aims of this unit are:

• To introduce cutting-edge technologies and research trends
• To give final-year students an insight and understanding into the application of emerging technologies to different areas
• To provide students with the skills to critically evaluate the benefits, drawbacks and pitfalls of applying the latest techniques to their chosen field
• To give the student higher analytical skills to determine the impact of applying cutting-edge technologies
• Give the student a solid grounding in new research and commercial developments that can then be reflected on for developing research for the Undergraduate project unit