On March 29th, Shapes in Motion will be running an 'Acting for Animators' class. It's a great little course and one which can really help you understand how to bring your animations to life. If you'd like to find out more, here are the details.

Here is the trailer for the new 3D stop motion comedy thriller by Laika, the animation studio that brought us 'Coraline'. Norman 'I see dead people' Babcock is a local boy from a small New England Town who has the ability to see and speak with the dead. The movie will follow Norman as he takes on ghosts. zombies and worst of all, grown ups to save his town from a century old curse. Cannot wait to see this film! But what do you think of the trailer - we want to hear it!? 

HP has partnered with DreamWorks since the beginning, helping the business mature into the well-oiled animation machine we know today. HP is responsible for the hardware platforms at the very heart of the company, with a storage infrastructure that allows the team to share data quickly and easily over a global network, as well as state of the art workstations and monitors for creating detailed and realistic effects. In the video above, the team at DreamWorks discuss how HP technology has contributed significantly to the company staying on the cutting edge and how this technology brought to life the 2011 production of Puss in Boots.

Following an extensive period of beta testing The Foundry release HIERO 1.0. This new project management, conform and review tool is now available for purchase worldwide.

On Thursday 29^th March, Escape Studios are hosting an event at the Barbican Centre that will discuss the art of 3d visualisation. Joined by four industry speakers this is an opportunity to discover how professionals in film and other media create stunning as well as captivating animated visuals. The event is aimed at anyone working in the business of 3d visualisation, whether that’s in architecture, design, engineering or media and entertainment. We would like to invite you all to this exclusive event as we expose the creative side of this visual form.

As an avid zombie fan, I spend my days either killing zombies on the game console or watching them get hacked to pieces on tele (not to mention seeing one in the reflection of the mirror, the morning after a night of partying). One TV series which I'm sure most of you have heard of, is 'The Walking Dead'. Apart from the ghastly zombies and the characters of the show - one of the most common things people talk about is the lovely VFX. The talented guys at Stargate Studios are responsible for the VFX for The Walking Dead and they have just released their Season 2 showreel.

Enjoy, VFX/Zombie fans!

A few friends of mine have posted the Nike 'FlyKnit' commercial link on Facebook and I can't help but share it with you all because it's so cool. Nike is showing off its latest technology for the upcoming 2012 Olympics in London. It was created at Digital Domain, and is directed by David Rosenbaum and VFX supervised by Aladino Debert.

The whole shoe weighs a mere 160g (5.6 ounces) for a size 9 and has been worn by the first, second and third place athletes in the men's marathon at the 2011 World Championships. Nike released the Flyknit HTM Racer in London on Saturday 25th of February, to much anticipation.

I think you'll agree that the commercial looks amazing and stylish. It just makes me want a pair of these bad boys! Well done to the guys at Digital Domain!

Here is my usual jumble of news to start off this week. There are tutorials, news of various software releases, a cool "Making of Rango", and really sweet advert for Twinnings tea, and lots more. Feel free to add anything I may have forgotten.

The fifth week of the Maya Core evening course is equivalent to day five of the intensive day time class, so we have now covered one week of the comparable daytime course. The advantage of the evening course is you have more time to soak in the deluge of information showered onto you, but the daytime class are constantly thinking in Maya so perhaps absorb it more thoroughly.

The lives of professional VFX artists, who during their working hours create amazing effects, are generally fuelled by a colossal coffee culture, which is almost as strong as the pub culture that exists after work.