Animation Blog: Joining Instructions for MA in 3D Animation

Tuesday, 6 September 2022

Joining Instructions for MA in 3D Animation

Joining Instructions September 2022

It will soon be time for our new animation students starting with us at our degree-awarding partner Buckinghamshire New University to get started on their animation journey.

Below are some Joining Instructions for students starting with us on the Online MA in 3D Animation.

Online Student Enrolment at "Bucks Connect"

All students registering on BNU courses for the academic year 2022/23 should enrol via the "Bucks Connect" Student Portal. Academic Registry colleagues have been working with the Bucks IS&T Directorate to further develop the Portal functionality to include Online Enrolment, as well as students’ results. Please read the full details here.

Enrolment at Bucks

Enrollment guidance process here
Set up a username and password by following the instructions here.
Then access the enrolment form through our Bucks Connect system, here. It should just take a few minutes.
Finally, check out the enrolment user guide here

Course Structure
Familiarise yourself with the course structure; there are five modules to tackle over the course of 18 months. To see how the course works in detail, see this blog post. To see what the main academic deadlines are over the next year and a half, see this blog post.

The Animator's Survival Kit.
All our students should buy a copy of The Animator's Survival Kit, by Richard Williams. It is the standard textbook for animators and the most comprehensive book available for learning animation.

Download your free educational license

Download your free copy of Autodesk Maya
Get yourself a free copy of Autodesk Maya. Maya is the main software we animate with, and still the industry standard. You can find a free educational license for Maya here. If Autodesk ask for proof of enrollment, send me an email and I will send you a formal letter of confirmation.

Start watching our Videos

Get yourself a decent laptop

Take a look at the week 1 videos at the Animation Apprentice website. The week 1 videos give you a general introduction to animation, helping you to get familiar with the language of the medium. After that, you should start doing the animation tutorials, starting with basics such as the bouncing ball.

Free Tutorials at Animation Apprentice
Start animating! You will find a number of free animation tutorials at Bucks New Uni Animation YouTube Channel.

Buy a laptop
You will need a decent laptop to run Maya from home. Laptop specs change all the time but see this blog post for some useful advice.

Log in to Animation Apprentice
Make sure you have a login to the Animation Apprentice official site, which hosts the bulk of the learning resources for the practical side of the Animation MA. If you don't yet have a login, email me at alex@animationapprentice.org and I will get it sorted.

Bucks New Uni Email Address
All our students will be supplied by the Bucks IT Dept with a BNU email address once they are enrolled. Contact Bucks IT for assistance with this.

Getting Started Resources at Bucks
For more resources on getting started at Bucks, see the blog posts below:

There is a bit to do to get started, but once you're underway you should find the course, first launched in 2015, a well-oiled machine. If in doubt, send me an email at alex@animationapprentice.org and I'll get back to you right away. To find out more about how the course works, see this blog post. And also read this welcome page.

To find out more about Animation Apprentice, click here for a link to Frequently Asked Questions. To sign up for our November 5th classroom at Animation Apprentice, follow this link.