Wednesday 29th of February marks the official release of HIERO, a VFX tool we’ve been lusting over for the past 6 months. Following rigorous beta testing this product is now ready for integration with VFX pipelines around the globe. To give this product the welcome it deserves, The Foundry are hosting launch events in LA, Toronto, Vancouver, New York, London, Paris, Hamburg, Munich and Sydney. Escape Studios are teaming up with The Foundry for the launch in London, an event we hope you can all attend. The event is on Tuesday, 6th March at the VUE Leicester Square, running from 7-9pm, followed by drinks. Registrations will start at 6:15pm so try to get there early to avoid queues.

A couple of weeks ago we announced a reunion of the first Escape Pod from 2005, and last Friday we got them together. Pictured above are the Podi on their return to Escape, from whence they were jettisoned seven years ago.

Digital artist Kelly Richardson recently completed an artist’s residency at the Pixel Palace, a new digital media arts programme of the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle upon Tyne. During her time there, she began initial research and production into an ambitious new three projection video installation entitled ‘Mariner 9’. During her residency, the Pixel Palace commissioned a short film about the work being developed where she explains some of her processes and ideas behind the new installation.

The judging is done, and the votes are in – the winners for CG Whiz 2011 have been decided upon, but you’ll have to wait until the 14th December to find out who the winner are. I know, it's a bit cruel, but we like to make a big deal of our Reveal Event. It's only fair considering how much work all our entrants have put in to their reels.

On 16^th November 2011, Escape Studios and Autodesk joined forces to organise a Softimage user group meeting.  The event was held at the Autodesk London office on Broadwick Street, where product manager Jason Brynford ‘Chinny’ Jones presented updates as well as a preview on the Softimage roadmap. An over subscribed event, the UGM attracted an obvious attendance from users within Soho but also users from as far as Sweden, France, Bulgaria, and Germany.

The 10th Edition of the VES (Visual Effects Society) Awards is upon us, and whilst I know many of you will already be working on your entries for it, I thought I would take time to write about it in this blog to encourage those of you who haven't considered entering the competition.

Here is my usual Weekly Round-Up of News, with stories that I have picked up over the past week. If you have suggestions for stories I missed, just drop me a line or post a comment.

This Friday, our Character Animation Tutor Alex Williams will be presenting a talk at the Aesthetica Short Film festival. Aesthetica Film Festival is hosted by Aesthetica Magazine a respected voice in contemporary art and culture. The talk being given by Alex is called: Creating and Designing Memorable Animated Characters and its aim is to help you achieve just that! There is certainly no better man for the job. Alex understands exactly what it takes to get to the heart of characters, giving them their very own personalities and making them totally believable. If you don’t believe us, you should check out his CV which includes: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Lion King and The Iron Giant, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawntreader.

Are you a MARI user or have an interest in MARI, then you may be keen to know that a group of artists are getting together on November 24th in London, Soho for a few beers. The venue is currently top sectret but will be released soon.

Mingle and network with fellow MARI users over a drink. There are a few special gifts up for grabs too.

I've also heard that some of the MARI engineers should be attending, which is a great opportunity to ask those all important questions! Should be quite a geek fest.

Have you ever thought about taking your artistic talent and transferring those skills to VFX? Then the webinar that we’re running on November 10^th could be the start of you doing that. For the industry to remain fresh and buoyant, it’s important that there are constant waves of creative and original talent. We always say that creativity is key – if you have that, learning the technical skills is the easy bit. The current growth of the VFX industry in the UK means there is a growing demand for fresh talent. In this webinar I'll look at the potential routes a Fine Art graduate may take into the industry and the transferable, creative skills that will allow them to stand out from the crowd when making the move into this demanding and competitive industry.