For those of you considering working in this thriving, dynamic industry, we’re offering a taster into the world of computer graphics with a range of three-day short courses. They’re a great opportunity to get a better understanding of the career opportunities out there while gaining valuable insight into the industry.

The new Turtle™ 5.1 version for Autodesk Maya 2010 has been released!  Illuminate labs have made improvements to their rendering and baking plug-in for Autodesk Maya, to make it better for lighting and content creation in next-gen game development.

As I’m sure some of you would have seen, last week figures were released showing that revenues from UK videogames hit £1.73 billion last year – a whopping 44% higher than what was generated from UK films during the same time. If you consider some of the huge cinema releases we saw last year, it’s no mean feat that it was only UK television that made more money than the video games industry. Impressive stuff, but is it really a surprise? I’ve said before that playing videogames is becoming a family past time – games consoles are now found in the family living room rather than banished to a “geeky” teenager’s bedroom. Gaming has a far reaching appeal, and I doubt that the growth of the gaming industry will cease any time soon. Interest in our games course, particularly since Sony veteran Simon Fenton came on board, has continued to grow. It’s great to see this exciting industry gaining rightful recognition – not just in terms of increased sales, but in the demand for creative talent which boosts the development of video gaming in the UK. Would you rather spend two hours playing Modern Warfare 2 or watching Blackhawk Down?

Very recently there has been a release of two games engines that you can use at home.

I’ve been reading a lot about tax breaks in the past couple of months. First there was the anticipation and ultimate disappointment of Digital Britain, when we hoped that the games industry might get the tax breaks it needed. A missed opportunity, many said.

The games industry hogged the spotlight at this year’s SIGGRAPH. For the first time ever, two social games ran throughout the conference and SIGGRAPH’s annual CG showcase was spiced up with live games art and animation demos.

When Edge magazine came along to talk to founder of Escape Studios, Dominic Davenport, Recruitment Director Paul Wilkes and Games tutor Simon Fenton, what one thing did they all agree on? That, becoming a games artist has never been trickier without the right training. You can read the full article in the June issue of Edge magazine...