Escape Blog

I thought I’d give you all a sneak peek at what’s currently happening on our Animation course. The students have just completed a day of life drawing lessons to help with their understanding of composition, staging, silhouetting and several other traditional art skills vital for 3D animators.

Next week the guys will be partaking in a mime acting class to help them understand movement and character, so look out for more photos soon.

If you are interested in learning more about our Animation course, or would like to visit the studios on one of our Open Days, please feel free to drop me a line.

This is hot off the press from Autodesk at the Games Developers Conference in San Fran… Rather than paraphrase their release, I thought you’d like to see it in its entirety. So here it is:

GAME DEVELOPER’S CONFERENCE,SAN FRANCISCO, March 11, 2010 – Autodesk, Inc. and Epic Games, Inc. have collaborated to provide greater connectivity between Autodesk’s art creation and animation tools and Epic’s Unreal Engine 3, using Autodesk FBX data interchange technology. Autodesk FBX 2011 offers a faster, more streamlined workflow for transferring content created in Autodesk Maya 2011 and Autodesk 3ds Max 2011 software into Unreal Engine 3 – helping boost production efficiency and preserve creative intent.

“The streamlined interchange of 3D assets between Autodesk art creation tools and Unreal Engine 3 is the result of a long-standing, productive relationship between Autodesk and Epic Games,” said Mark Rein, vice president, Epic Games. “The Autodesk FBX file format is a robust standard for rich 3D data exchange within the games community. With this streamlined workflow, FBX should be the first choice for developers using the powerful Unreal Engine 3 when it comes to transferring art from Autodesk software.”

New for Unreal Engine 3 licensees and Unreal Development Kit (UDK) users is an FBX importer that enables game developers to import FBX files created in Maya or 3ds Max directly into the Unreal Editor. The importer automatically breaks files down into assets in the Unreal Editor, such as level of detail (LOD) information, animations, character meshes, character rigs, and models. In addition, if a 3D model is updated in 3ds Max or Maya, a new FBX file can be imported into the Unreal Editor where the assets will be automatically refreshed.

“Working with Epic Games, we have taken the once labor-intensive task of importing 3D content into a game engine and turned it into a one-click workflow,” said Marc Stevens, Autodesk vice president, Games. “Autodesk software and middleware is designed to integrate into a wide range of games pipelines. We are working in cooperation with leading games companies like Epic to help improve the connectivity between our tools and their engines – making game authoring simpler and more efficient.”

We have some exciting news from Autodesk today. They have just unveiled the 2011 versions of its Digital Entertainment Creation software with the promise of increased production efficiency, especially in terms of  interaction, workflow, interface design and interoperability. The release dates are yet to be announced, but from what we’ve seen the new versions promise great value and some avant-garde technology developed with the likes of Sony Pictures Imageworks.

These new products will all be available as part of the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites which will give artists a significant cost saving.

Maya is now available for the Mac OS X 64-bit operating system, and has an improved user interface and character animation and has new 3D editorial features, as you can see  in the video I have posted here. As for 3ds Max 2011, we are told that it will be easier and quicker to produce higher-quality images thanks to the introduction of new techniques for creating and texturing models and animating characters.

Finally, changes to Softimage mean that artists can now create more complex and higher-quality characters and effects much faster. For game developers, there will be new versions of Autodesk Kynapse and Autodesk HumanIK to get stuck into.

Sneak previews will be available online at Autodesk’s website in the community area of their virtual Autodesk GDC booth or by viewing the Autodesk® MasterClass online. Presentations and MasterClasses will be available for on-demand streaming after the event.

Check out the full set of features here:  http://bit.ly/annw5o.

Here’s the sixteenth step in my Top Down Animation, Work in Progress series. In this video I once again choose to concintrate on just one small part of the animation. This time the left arm, elbow and wrist animating them through the end of the scene.

Step Sixteen – Left Arm:

Again, if you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment or send me a Tweet (@escape_studios)

Here’s the fifteenth step in my Top Down Animation, Work in Progress series. In this video I go back down to the feet and animate them through to the end of the scene. I pay extra attention to make sure it looks like the feet are pushing off and driving the chair tipping and rocking.

Step Fifteen – Feet:

Again, if you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment or send me a Tweet (@escape_studios)

On Wednesday we were at the Apollo cinema in Picadilly, for our CG Workflows event with Framestore, looking at some of the extremely difficult shots they were asked to tackle on Avatar.

As well as the guys from Framestore, we had presentations from Al Mooney of Adobe, Lawrence Windley and Deepraj Sandhar from Avid, The Foundry’s Simon Robinson, Stuart Pitcher of Fugitive, Gary Meyer at Iridas, and our very own Dan Young.

It was a fascinating session, scratching the surface on all things stereoscopic and how apps like NUKE are finding ways to address the issues faced. Many questions were fired out including the ‘big debate’ of shooting in parallel versus convergence.

The highlight for many, though, was Framestore’s case study of Avatar. Tim Keene, Executive Producer – VFX and Christian Kaestner, Compositioning Supervisor, took us through working both on and off-set on this century’s biggest film, breaking down key scenes and showing how many of the elements were put together. As you can see from the images of Christian below, there were some incredible shots.

From our feedback, it’s clear we need to dive in deeper into the whole stereoscopy debate  as it’s obvious this is one piece of next gen tech that’s not going to go away in a hurry!

Many thanks to all our presenters, sponsors HP, and also to everyone who attended.

Here’s the fourteenth step in my Top Down Animation, Work in Progress series. This video has me animating the root, shoulders, and head through to end of the scene. Now that the chair animation is all pretty much done I can finish off the body animation through the tip up, balance, fall back and impact.

Step Fourteen – Body:

Again, if you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment or send me a Tweet (@escape_studios)

Here’s Jeff’s previous step in case you missed it: http://www.escapestudios.com/blog/top-down-animation-work-in-progress-step-13/

Escape this Spring!

Want to know what it’s like to work in a thriving, dynamic industry?  Escape Studios is offering a taster into the world of computer graphics with its new three-day short courses that highlight the exciting career opportunities on offer to students and provide valuable insight into the industry.

Escape Studios is offering four new taster courses: Introduction to 3D using Maya (the leading 3D imaging software), Introduction to Computer Animation, Introduction to Visual Effects and Introduction to Games, which all contain abbreviated content from Escape Studio’s full-time courses. Over three days, students will learn the basics of 3D effects creation and gain a better understanding of what’s involved in visual effects,  character animation and games art with guidance from world-class tutors. The courses are aimed at giving people a chance to get a feel for what a computer graphics job is like and understand what discipline they might want to pursue in the industry.

All four short courses cost £399, which is refunded should the student decide to sign up to an Escape Studio classroom course. Full courses are typically 12 weeks long and have been designed to cover all the basics and provide someone new to the industry with the required skills to begin their career. Escape Studios offer a range of courses including visual effects, animation, games and more. For more information please contact the training team.

Are you a woman trying to break into the film industry? If so, this training course could be just what you’re looking for.

Thanks to funding support from Skillset, Birds Eye View is offering a range of 3D and VFX training, including a 3D Graphics and VFX course specifically for women, which will be delivered by us here at Escape Studios. The training takes place on Sat 6^th & Sun 7^th March and is designed to give a practical, introduction from anyone wanting an insight into 3D for visual effects and post-production.

This hands-on session will take you through the basic creation of 3D models, the process of camera tracking these into live-action footage and the skills required in lighting and texturing, in order to achieve photo realistic results – it’s a great opportunity for any woman looking to boost their skills, confidence and experience in film.

If you’re interested, download an application column on the right hand column of this web page. All you have to do is submit your application and CV to the following address  office@birds-eye-view.co.uk and Birds Eye View will let you know if you’ve been successful.

We look forward to seeing some of you there in a couple of weeks.

Birds Eye View Film Festival runs from 4-12 March at the ICA and the BFI. See at full 2010 programme at: www.birds-eye-view.co.uk/2010/festival

As some of you may have seen, we’ve got a fantastic event coming up in March – a two day masterclass with the doyens of CG animation, Pixar.

On 18th and 19th March we’ve got Pixar Animation Studios’ senior animator Andrew Gordon and story artist Matthew Luhn going through what’s needed to become a great animator. With contributions to almost all of Pixar’s films over the last decade, from A Bug’s Life to Up, Andrew and Matthew are perfectly placed to take both professional and student animators through the principles and practices of CG animation.

Andrew will be leading the Animation Masterclass on Thursday, covering animation principles, staging and pose design, locomotion, acting for animation, scene planning, blocking and high level polishing techniques. Matthew will be leading the story masterclass on Friday, looking at the role of the story artist, preliminary storyboards, three act story structure, gags, storyboarding from scripts, composing storyboards and line and value. Both will have Q&A sessions to cover specific issues.

This is a fantastic opportunity to get up close with two of the world’s top animation talents. The two day course will cost £375, including VAT, and tickets are available from us. The masterclasses will be held at the Apollo Cinema in Picadilly, and we’re expecting a flood of interest, so make sure you book early to avoid missing out.