Overview of the Major

The Animation major is highly aligned with the national strategic emerging industry - the digital creative industry. Currently, the digital creative industry is developing rapidly and has become one of the important pillars of China's economic development. As an essential branch of the digital creative industry, animation not only provides rich content resources for the national cultural industry but also promotes the development of related industrial chains. Simultaneously, the animation industry has tremendous potential in cultural soft power output and the expansion of the digital creative industry. With the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, the animation industry has begun to integrate AI technology to achieve a more intelligent and automated creative process, placing higher demands on the technical abilities and innovative thinking of animation professionals.

To cultivate high-quality animation professionals who adapt to the development of the digital creative industry, strengthen cooperation with industry enterprises, build school-enterprise cooperation platforms, and promote the improvement of students' practical abilities. Relevant courses and various creative activities are offered to inspire their creative potential. Technology is the core of the animation industry, emphasizing the cultivation of students' technical abilities, proficiency in production techniques such as 2D animation, 3D animation, and post-production special effects. Additionally, specialized AIGC courses are offered, and AI technology is applied to the teaching of core courses. Students are also encouraged to learn other disciplines, such as art, design, and psychology, to cultivate their cross-disciplinary thinking abilities.

Training Objectives

This major primarily targets Guangdong and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, aiming to cultivate individuals who are comprehensively developed in moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic, and labor aspects. They should possess homeland emotions, a healthy personality, an international perspective, craftsmanship spirit, and innovation ability. They should master the basic theories and professional skills of Animation, possess certain abilities in animation and game creative design, design aesthetic abilities, and good comprehensive qualities. They should be proficient in animation and game artistic design techniques, tools, and technologies. They should possess strong abilities in animation design, game design, and animation IP design. They are expected to engage in composite applied positions such as storyboard artists, character designers, scene artists, modelers, animators, game special effects designers, and IP designers in fields like animation, games, cultural creativity, advertising production, film and television packaging, network, and new media design. To meet the future needs of the animation market for technical innovation talents, this major also emphasizes attention to emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality, cultivating students' ability to continuously grow under new trends in animation technology development and meet long-term market demands.

Knowledge and Abilities

Professional ethics: Possess a firm and correct political orientation, good ideological and moral character, and a sound personality. Love the country and the people, support the leadership of the Communist Party of China. Care about social issues and national development, possess a sense of social responsibility, and actively participate in social practice. Understand national conditions, social conditions, and people's lives, practice socialist core values, and possess specialized humanistic and artistic accomplishments and cultural taste. Have a scientific spirit, professional ethics, and an enterprising spirit. Able to disseminate Chinese excellent culture and possess a healthy physique and mindset.

Subject knowledge abilities: Possess knowledge in the field of Theater and Film Studies and interdisciplinary knowledge. Master the basic theories, fundamentals, and skills of Animation. Understand the history, current status, and frontiers of Animation and related disciplines. Possess research methods and related technologies in animation design, game design, and animation IP design. Understand the development status and prospects of Animation, the development status and trends of aligned industries, and industrial policies, cultural market, and online media regulations.

Application abilities: Possess the ability to produce full-process film and television animation, online animation, and animation advertisements. Have the ability to produce game modeling, game motion, game development, game concept art, and game special effects. Possess the ability to plan, design, manage, promote, and operate animation IPs and their derivatives. Have the ability to apply professional knowledge and skills to professional job roles.

Innovation and creativity: Possess creative thinking and innovative abilities in animation, game, and animation IP design. Have a strong spirit of innovation, entrepreneurship awareness, and certain independent entrepreneurship abilities. Have the ability to digitally inherit and innovate traditional culture.

Information abilities: Have strong abilities to collect and process information using digital technology. Possess strong computer application abilities, able to proficiently use common office software and animation production software. Able to use information technology to solve practical problems in the professional field.

Communication and expression abilities: Have strong communication and expression abilities, able to use accurate and standardized language and writing to logically express opinions, effectively communicate with peers and the general public, and possess certain promotional and dissemination abilities.

Teamwork abilities: Have a good spirit of unity and cooperation. Possess strong planning, organization, coordination, and management abilities.

International perspective: Master a foreign language, possessing strong reading, translation, and certain oral communication abilities. Have a certain international perspective and cross-cultural cooperation and communication abilities. Able to promote Chinese excellent culture and wisdom through animation IP creation.

Learning and development abilities: Have self-learning abilities and the ability to learn and integrate cross-disciplinary knowledge and skills. Possess self-planning, self-management, and lifelong learning abilities. Able to adapt to the sustained development needs of the animation and game industry, digital economy, and society.

Characteristics of the Animation Major

This major aligns with the industries in the Greater Bay Area, following the OBE (Outcome-Based Education) philosophy of "student-centeredness, output orientation, and continuous improvement." It constructs talent cultivation programs and curricula closely aligned with industrial demands, featuring collaborative training between government, schools, and enterprises.

This major is a featured major built by our school to adapt to the economic and social development of the Pearl River Delta region, align with the cultural and creative industry cluster in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and meet the needs of the government in promoting the development of the animation and cultural industry. It belongs to the undergraduate program of Theater and Film Studies under the category of Arts.

Implement project-based teaching based on the integration of professional creation and industry-education integration, introducing subject competitions, innovation competitions, innovation and entrepreneurship, or real enterprise projects into the classroom to cultivate students' practical application abilities and innovation and entrepreneurship abilities.

Implement the "five-pronged collaborative" industry-education integration and school-enterprise collaborative talent cultivation model to promote the initial development of students' vocational abilities. Carry out teaching model reforms in collaboration with well-known enterprises and institutions such as NetEase Games, Alpha Group, Guangdong Original Power Cultural Transmission Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Blue Arc Cultural Transmission Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Global Digital Media Technology Co., Ltd., and Guangzhou Dali Animation Co., Ltd. Through real enterprise projects, students' vocational abilities are initially developed.

Student works have repeatedly won awards in national and international competitions, including over 20 national awards, over 100 provincial awards, and over 100 municipal awards. Some works have been selected for important events such as the China International Animation Festival and have won the "Golden Dragon Award," known as the "Oscar of Chinese Animation," for Best Organization, demonstrating high professional standards and social recognition.

This major aligns with the strategic emerging industry of digital creative industries, targeting the latest digital creative fields and exploring emerging and future hot applications such as film and television CG, virtual reality, digital humans, and AIGC.

Core Courses of the Major

Character and Scene Design, Fundamentals of Animation, 3D Animation Design, Special Topic Design in 3D Animation, Animation Advertising Design, Animation Post-production Compositing, Film and Television Animation Creation, Game Concept Design, Game Model Making, Advanced Digital Sculpting, Animation IP Design and Operation, Animation Derivative Product Design, AIGC Digital Creativity and Design.

Practical Teaching

On-campus concentrated practical teaching links: Sketching and Color Sketching, Graphic Image Processing Training, Modeling Design, 2D Animation Design, 3D Animation Design Training, Special Topic Design Training in 3D Animation, Experimental Animation Creation (Animation Design Module), Game Special Effects Design (Game Design Module), Virtual Digital IP Special Topic Design (Animation IP Design Module), Animation Short Film Creation, Special Topic Design in Animation.

Enterprise practical teaching projects: Online self-study extension module courses, professional ethics education, regional, industry, enterprise research (choose one of three), professional (production) internships, graduation internships, and graduation theses.

Teaching Conditions

Teaching equipment

Relying on our school's overall design plan for building a "digitalized" and "intelligent" campus, and leveraging our provincial-level converged media experimental teaching demonstration center and provincial-level art and design experimental teaching demonstration center, the Animation major possesses advanced and complete experimental and teaching equipment for digital image processing, digital video, human-computer interaction, digital design, digital input and output, and intelligent teaching, which can well satisfy teaching, experimentation, research, and extracurricular practice.

Laboratories

The Animation major currently has 10 professional laboratories, 3 art studios, and 3 smart classrooms. The main laboratories include 2D animation rooms, 3D animation rooms, game design rooms, digital special effects rooms, stop-motion animation rooms, etc. Each laboratory is equipped with advanced computers and WACOM digital tablets, enabling paperless painting and animation creation.

Practice bases

The Animation major attaches great importance to the construction and planning of practice bases. It has established close

cooperative relationships with many well-known large enterprises such as NetEase Games, Alpha Group, Guangdong Original Power Cultural Transmission Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Blue Arc Cultural Transmission Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Global Digital Media Technology Co., Ltd., and Guangzhou Dali Animation Co., Ltd. These collaborations have established multiple off-campus enterprise practical teaching bases, providing sufficient opportunities for students to undergo on-the-job internships and graduation internships during their senior year.

Employment Prospects

Graduates of this major are primarily employed in various positions related to animation, games, comics, illustrations, post-production special effects, animation derivative product design, digital IP design, digital human design, virtual reality design, advertising and graphic design, and e-commerce art design in the media and cultural industries in Guangdong and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Each year, graduates find employment in large enterprises such as Xishanju, NetEase Games, Color Pencil Animation, Jibitei Thunder, Alpha Group, Crystal CG, and Tencent Games, indicating good employment prospects.

Faculty Team

The Animation major currently has 9 full-time teachers, including 1 associate professor, 6 lecturers, and 2 teaching assistants. Among them, 3 teachers are "dual-teacher" qualified. All teachers hold master's degrees or above, and 4 teachers have overseas study experiences. The professional backgrounds of the full-time teachers cover animation, film and television animation, visual communication design, fine arts, and story comics. They possess disciplinary backgrounds related to design science, fine arts, communication science, drama and film studies, etc. Additionally, the major invites renowned domestic professors and industry experts to serve as mentors, forming a highly qualified and experienced faculty team that combines theory and practice to comprehensively enhance students' comprehensive practical abilities.