Some of you may already know, but once a month we like to post a free tutorial on our website. We started creating these so that you could pick up new tips & tricks, tighten up the skills you already have or add a new technique to your toolkit.

After a previous visit to Double Negative, James Dower and his class mates really got a taste for the high standard of work that DNeg set.  And on this, their second visit, they were all keen to get some professional feedback for their own VFX Production projects.

The Softimage Creatives launch event went ahead on May 29th as planned, and it was nothing short of amazing. There was an incredible turn out of XSI enthusiasts, which confirms to us all that the community of users is still very much alive. Over 150 people squeezed into Jerusalem Bar on Rathbone Place to celebrate the launch of the London Softimage user group, and among those were visitors who travelled from Ireland and the continent. It’s this dedication to the cause that will undoubtedly help make the independent Softimage user group a real success, and I’m sure it has proved to the SiC founders that their efforts have not been in vain.

Want to introduce yourself to some of the fundamental techniques of compositing? Well now you can. The lovely Simon Richardson, compositing escapee and one of our esteemed Studio Assistants here at Escape, has put together a free NUKE tutorial that will demonstrate exactly that. This short video will walk you through a basic CG rebuild inside NUKE, using Maya’s Mental Ray passes. For anyone starting out using this software, it’s a great insight into the processes behind building a shot ready for edit.

The Foundry are planning on launching a range of new online live product demos this summer, set to be a regular feature on The Foundry website. But before anything is set in stone they want to know what YOU want to hear about!

IKinema has been the go to plug-in for Autodesk Maya when it comes to creature and model animation especially after their performance on smash hit films like Wrath of the Titans and X-Men: First Class. With the release of IKinema Action 2 in April there was a bit of a buzz around the newest features included in the latest version (check out my previous blog for more details!)

Do you have a high-quality paper that demonstrates research or work related to media production? If the answer is yes, then now is the time to present it at CVMP 2012. The Best Student Paper prize is being sponsored by Google and the award is a very substantial £2,000.

The Visual Effects Society (VES) are holding their annual worldwide VFX career fair this year in LA, New York, Montreal, San Francisco and London. This daylong event brings together some of the biggest names in the business and aims to inform, educate and employ the VFX community.

Doing a VFX course can lead your career in many directions. For many of our students it has been the launching pad for a career in post-production, for film, TV and commercials. Many students have also gone on to work in other areas such as games and architectural visualisation. We teach the fundamentals and practicalities of working in CG, paving the way for what you will eventually specialise in.

For those of you battling with 3D and 2D interoperability, there may be light at the end of the tunnel. Autodesk and Adobe are joining forces to try make these problems a thing of the past.