Best Universities for Computer Graphics/Animation?

Unlimitedsoph don't worry, my life drawing skills are far beyond thenoodlepirate's, but if we practice we will manage, don't worry^^

Well guys, as promised i've uploaded some images into deviantart ( the website is damn confusing btw ). However i think i will re-upload them because i took the photograph with artificial light, hence the orangy colour.

http://thecyan.deviantart.com/gallery/

Any comments/ feedback / critisize tell me please

Hi all.

I just joined the forum. This is an awesome thread. Took me bloody ages to read all 70 pages though but worth it! I'm also going to try to get in to Herefordshire Uni animation but am in a bit of a different situation to you young whippersnappers having done my first degree before most of you were born...

P.S. Moid: Is your nickname from Terrahawks? That was an awesome program. (really showing my age there...)

L8R,
Adam.

It's a bad form of Antwerps/Flemish dialect slang / kind of Dutch and is a concatenation of the phrase 'zoe moe ied' (just put something), and as moid it kind of means 'just something'

Don't draw from photos, photos are 2D representations of 3D forms, when you draw from them (unless you know your anatomy well) you are copying a 2D form to a 2D form and the images always look flat. Don't put random body parts in a portfolio (unless they are really amazing - maybe some well observed hands in different poses would be good) but any lecturer interviewing you will want to know if you can draw the whole body, not part of it - animators rarely get to just animate feet for example , so get to as many life drawing classes as you can. And draw your friends as well- get the mto psoe, the ydon't have to be fully nude. If you are studying art somewhere at the moment you are doing so with other students - organise figure drawing sessions where one of you will pose and the others draw and then swap round. If your friends wantto study art at university they will need practice too. Help each other.

From my experience, it's kinda pointless to apply for both. If you get onto one of them, your application for the other will be automatically rejected, which is what happened in my case. And since the requirements are exactly the same for each course, then if you fail to get onto one then you'll fail to get onto the other as well. So either way that extra course choice will be a rejection.

So if you think Games Art is the best fit for you, then my advice would be list that as your choice from Herts. If you're accepted onto the Animation programme, but realise Games Art isn't for you, then you will still have the opportunity to transfer to another strand like 3D Animation, VFX etc.

And don't worry about 3D so much, they actually prefer to see solid traditional artwork, because it demonstrates that you have artistic ability. They can teach you everything about the software, but they need you to have some artistic ability to work with it.

As I recall my interview was actually more of a conversational type thing, we chatted a bit about Unreal Engine 3, and some technical stuff about it, a bit about where I was from, and then I just remember being asked "why do you want to study here?". But, I don't know if that's everybody's experience because it might be different from lecturer to lecturer, candidate to candidate.

Hope that helps

So heres most of the work I got to show, I would really appreciate some feedback!

I got two animations on my Youtube channel at the moment, one is a 2D rotoscope animation which was for my final major project of my BTEC course. The other is a 3D stop-motion animation which was my final project for the first year of my BTEC course. I got a blog dedicated to my 2D rotoscope animation which shows the process I went through etc, I used the blog as my workbook instead of writing up in a book.

Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/user/mrtimtang
Rotoscope Blog
http://mrtimtang.wordpress.com/

As for drawings, I got some life drawing, perspective and observational drawings and a 3D house I made. The photos of the life drawings aren't so great as the lighting is quite bad in my room, but I photoshopped them a bit to bring the drawings out more. These aren't all my life drawings, these are just the ones I bought to the interview.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tim_tang/

When I was at the interview, I think my biggest mistake was that I didn't show any 3D work. So I've currently made a 3D house and I downloaded a free model from creativecrash.com and attempted a walk cycle. The walk cycle is on my second Youtube channel cos I don't want to put small clips on my main one. I've also got some other stuff on the second channel related to my 2D rotoscope animation.

Second Youtube channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/mrtimtangblog

So I plan on doing more perspective and life drawings, and I'm going to either make a 3D car or a 3D person in proportion.

ttang, just thought I'd let you know that your work seems excellent!

I've only got a few illustrations as of yet. I'm still not sure if I'm good enough to apply - so I'm torn between animation and something more straightforward like Pharmacy. Hopefully I can put together a few life drawings and animations once I've got my NEVER ENDING graphics work out of the way.

http://helloharriet.deviantart.com/

Cheers!

Thanks for the advice Moid! So you don't recommend at all drawing from photos? I've seen portfolio examples where the applicant in question drew from photos, but still i trust you more ( obviously ) and will get my friends/brothers/family to sit down for a couple of hours and draw them.

All the hand, feet and shoe drawing is suposed to be practice work, preparation. ( the hands, for instance, are not finished as they are simply a quick sketch ).

I will soon sign up for the life drawing classes and when i have some examples will upload them. I suppose that with so few pieces uploaded you can't give a general opinion of level? ( as you haven't seen 3D Work, Life Drawing, Perspective Drawing, Colour use etc. )

By the way, in a few posts back you linked a website where you could download free rigs to animate. Thing is i use Lightwave 3D and they happen to not have rigs for that software, if you knew a website where they have for lightwave i would apreciate it.

Finally, in a portfolio would it be nice to have a character design based on someone? For example i'm planning to use my brother. Like develop ideas, first drawing him as he is from different perspectives, then change him and make him a soldier, or anything and again draw in different perspectives?

Thanks for your help!



Thank you very much, it did help ^^! however i think i will still apply to both >.<

No, don't draw from photos, you are just cheating yourself. To draw well from photos you have to understand the underlying forms (the anatomy) so that you can add the additional roundness of the structure back into the drawing. A simple test for you: Get a friend to stand still against a wall, take a photo of their head and shoulders, print it out and stick it to the wall next to their head. Try drawing from them. One will contain much more information (and allows you to walk around to check the anatomy from different angles) while the other is flat and a pale imitation of life. You choose which one will teach you more.

Lightwave has a very small userbase in the UK/the world. You'd be better off with a major package like Maya or 3DSMax - Maya is best for free rigs. I'm not surprised there aren't any free rigs for it; it's a very niche package these days.

A character design based on a real person - maybe, if it was done really well, but you might get a lot more scope from a written description that you could use your imagination on. There's a great book called The Skillful Huntsman which is all about taking a fairly 'normal' Grimm's fairy tale and then coming up with hundreds of different original design ideas to retell the story in completely unexpected ways.

Colonel Moore is right. Do not apply to two courses, you are wasting your UCAS options. If your work isn't good enough for one course, it won't be good enough for another, there's no quality requirement difference between the four degrees. We look at the work in the portfolio and ask a lot of questions to work out whether the course you have applied for is right for you and to find out whether you really do want to do it. If we feel that you have good work but have applied to the wrong course we will tell you and make an offer based on that.

Hey everyone, I haven't posted in a while. I'm really excited about sending my UCAS off soon, I was meant to earlier this week. But some of my references aren't finished yet.

Moid, would you mind looking at some of my art and saying what you think? In my opinion the standard of some of my drawings are not as good as others here, so it would be great to know what aspects I need to improve on, as time is now ticking. My deviantart is http://loxeni.deviantart.com/#/d31yuoy, Thanks

Hi, i applied to hertfordshire uni last year for 3d animation whilst studying a Btec ND Multimedia y2 at Barnet College and did not get accepted and was told to do a art foundation diploma. I really wanted to get into hertfordshire as I could tell there very experienced and i know i will become the best that i can be there. I got accepted to middlesex for ba hons 3d animation and game design and i was really unsure what to do, when it came to the end of september i had to decide what to do and i decided to turn down middlesex offer because i knew that it wasnt a good course as when i went to the interview aswell my work wasnt even that gd compared to now and i still got accepted, also the course is new so it is the techers wont be that experienced, I had other friends who went to that course and when i found out what they are studying for the first year then i knew i made the right decision. So i thought i could not take a gap year because i need to make sure my portfolio is the best so i needed a 1 year at course to help me, I went to barnet college enrolment and there wasnt any place left for Art and Design Foundation Diploma and i was gutted so i went to other colleges like southgate and enfield and still full up, i didnt know what to do so I went back to barnet college as I was there the year before and my only choice was to do a btec first diploma in art and design which is a 1 year, i know that i went down from a level 3 to level 2 but i didnt have choice and the course isnt even that bad it has the same modules as a foundation diploma but not so intense and this gives me a bit more time to focus on to make for more 3d models and animations, i have got 2 actual 3d animation running for about 2 minutes and its textured, walk cycle and has camera but is that enough?, Im gonna make sure i get into hertfrodshire next year for sure and aware how difficult it is and in 2012 the governments raising the fees so everyone aint taking gap years this year,, i have got the right requiremnets MMM but people have been telling me at the interview they could raise the grade requirements is this true also thanks a lot for the information about what to put in a portfolio its been very helpful. Iv got a other question. When Im at the hertfrodshire interview for 3d animation for digital work should i show my 2d work aswell as my 3d or just 3d because i thought if the interviever saw everything i have and then if my 3d work is not good enough they could recomend me to do the 2d animation course if my 2d work is better? then im accepted into hertfrodshire. I do really want to do 3d animation or 3d Games Art instead but the other reason why i want to go to hertfordshire is that for the 2nd year you could change course if you want to so if i was on 2d course i could change. Last year interview only lasted for like 2 mins and felt very rushed, i was realy dissapointed im hoping i have atleast 15 mins this year as it says interviews will be 15 mins on hertfirdshires websites and leaflets. Could someone please read what i have to so and help me out/answer my questions. Also I havent got a C in English Gcse which hertfordshire do ask for but I got a D instead and i am retaking it this year to get a C but I heared that they let people of if they have a D if there portfolio is good enough is this true? Also here are 2 animations I have done coud someone let me know if these are good enough to show at the interview or should I make more? or just 3d models?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIx8_B9Orvs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOlZ3eqMHtA

There is some excellent work here, well done I'm glad you actually did something creative with the rotoscope - and you made something impressive too, we generally avoid rotoscoped animations because usually there is no story behind the work and the student can't animate which is why they've used rotoscope - you've used it for the right reason - a gigantic quantity of work to create and a limited time to do it in. I would be concerned from seeing just roto work, but your 3D walk cycle is definitely good enough for a portfolio piece, please put both in, if you are applying for one of our 3D degrees, show the 3D walk first. If you want to present it more professionally (and seeing as you have a widescreen render), take the render you already have and place it on the left or right side of the screen, then render the same walk at the same frame rate but do it from the side and place that in the empty half of the screen. Save the lot as a MOV in H264 or an MP4 and hte interviewer can scrub through your animation frame by frame to check out the motion and see it from two angles. If you can turn off the frame blending that would be lovely too.

If you could do a run cycle, or a decent run and jump and land, that would be lovely (use the same model, it's fine). If you did not build the rig/model, please credit the original author in the clip - that's fine with us for someone who is demonstrating their animation knowledge; building a working rig takes a long time and a lot of lectures! Always remember to credit the original artist - good academic and professional practice.

Put all the life drawings in the portfolio, put the colour ones first. If you are bringing scans instead of originals (we prefer originals) please take the black and white images and adjust the levels in photoshop so that the paper becomes lighter and the linework is easier to read. I like the perspective drawings, you clearly understand depth and recession.

The best images are the Arboretum park, Calke Abbey house, Building Drawing#1 and the photo of the cellar.

The 3D house is OK, but has errors in scale/proportion - look at the roof tiles, they are quite gigantic. Could you attempt to build a more interesting and complex structure? Like part of the abbey you have been drawing? Other than that it's a good selection of work, it would be nice to see some character designs if you can, or maybe take some of your drawings into Photoshop or Painter and really give them a finished painted look - transform the sketch into a fully worked up digital painting. If you have any more good photos, add them as well. Keep working

Ah some good work here! Take one or two of the dsigns and produce a model sheet in colour and to scale of them - draw front, side, back views, one character per page, that will look very good in your portfolio for any animation college. If you drew facial expression sheets and mouth shapes that would be lovely.

There are great black and white references from professionals here:

http://www.animationmeat.com/modelsheets/modelsheets.html mostly hanna barbera cartoons

http://animationarchive.net/Model%20Sheets/index.php
Disney only sheets

What sort of animation do you want to do?

ttang, just thought I'd let you know that your work seems excellent!

I've only got a few illustrations as of yet. I'm still not sure if I'm good enough to apply - so I'm torn between animation and something more straightforward like Pharmacy. Hopefully I can put together a few life drawings and animations once I've got my NEVER ENDING graphics work out of the way.

http://helloharriet.deviantart.com/

Cheers!

Your work is extremely impressive for a undergrad applicant So if animation is really what you want to do then go for it You remind me of myself, torn between animation and something more straight forward But i knew animation was where i really wanted to be and i havent looked back!

I would advise you get some more traditional artwork into your portfolio, just to show the interviewers you're not a one-trick pony Also dont worry about lack of 3D animation. I had done none and i still got into Bournemouth. I ended up choosing UCA Farnham, which i can reccomend you have a look at. Especially if you want to do 2D & 3D because we do all media all in one animation course you can then choose where to specialise.

One little question to you do you use Manga Studio??

Ooooh, thanks very much for the feedback/advice!

I'll take a look at UCA Farnham as soon as my internet stops being so moody and slow. Talk talk, you're useless, ha.

And no, I mostly use Photoshop!

Are you still doing your course?

Hey everyone, it's been a few days since I posted on here.
I have been working really hard reading a book about anatomy for artists. Straight away I have seen my drawings improve. I was wondering if I could get some feedback from some people on how I could improve and what you think.

Just judge on the last two images, the rest are understandably rubbish. So yeah, what do you think of "Shaded Life Drawing" and "Life Drawing 6"?

http://loxeni.deviantart.com/art/Shaded-Life-Drawing-185618474?q=sort%3Atime+gallery%3Aloxeni&qo=0#/d32ig4q