At the beginning of the month we gave a little insight into the world of Escape and how our graduation ceremonies work. As mentioned, we assemble all the different graduating classes into our breakout space, where students and tutors watch what each student has worked on during the first, or last, six weeks of their course.
Putting The "New" in PFTrack and PFMatchit
We are pleased to share you that The Pixel Farm products PFTrack and PFMatchit are now available on the Escape Studios Technology Store.
The Foundry Summer Spectacular
Yesterday we announced the 1-day sale for The Foundry’s MARI but what we didn’t mention is that The Foundry and Escape Studios are treating everyone to a super summer sale. And there is no need to wait until August for these ones!
The summer promotions come in three pretty epic packages:
RenderMan proves Brave enough!
MARI 1-Day Sale
Want to get your hands on MARI, The Foundry’s 3D texture painting tool? Well you can…for a fraction of the current price, but for one day only!
Prometheus - Inside and Out
Framestore has partnered with Secret Cinema to create enhanced viewing's of Scott's Prometheus. Secret Cinema has always been known to think outside the box when it comes to how films can be screened, with this box office smash being no different.
21st Century Oz
As mentioned in my previous blog, Comic Con 2012 provided us with a lot of new releases, information and sneak peeks in regards to upcoming films. One to keep an eye out for is Disney's upcoming release Oz: The Great and Powerful, whose trailer debuted at the convention.
Teaming Up For Restoration
Last week FilmLight and our friends at The Pixel Farm announced the collaboration of PFClean and Baselight in a strategic partnership to create an end-to-end restoration, colour grading and remastering solution.
Scene Setters
If you haven’t seen clips of Prometheus yet, or even the film itself, then you are either living under a rock or from Germany (release date is August 8th apparently – unlucky).
A long time coming... mocha Pro mini series video three!
A few weeks back we started posting a mini-series of mocha Pro V3 videos, we got up to two out of four and then we went quiet for a bit. Before you say we forgot about you, we didn’t, we just wanted to keep you in suspense.
Burton Talks Actresses, Stopmotion And Frankenweenie
Following our previous blog post about Tim Burton’s new project ‘Frankenweenie’, we bring you a further update via the IGN website.
Mark Spevick VS. Indiana Jones... Bridge
Don’t you all just love it when our resident VFX tutor Mark Spevick shares his knowledge with us? And don’t you just love watching, with bated breath, Indiana Jones conquering new feats as he crosses a rope bridge that appears to be on it’s last tethers above a dangerous gorge? And of course we know you'll just love to know that we've put the two together.
Happy 10th Birthday V-Ray!
Some of you may, or may not, know that V-ray is currently celebrating it’s 10 year anniversary. So, to mark the occasion, what could they be doing? Are they throwing a week long wild party? A massive shopping spree for all employees? Or maybe a month's extra holiday time to all...
The Joy of Stop Motion Animation - Behind the Scenes Special
Working in the CG industry, I have always been fascinated with stop motion animation. Growing up watching films like Tim Burton's 'Nightmare Before Christmas', I have always wondered what goes on behind the scenes and how it all works. And, funnily enough, a couple of months ago, the flat where I live actually turned into an animation studio overnight.
Ben Cantor Tips
There is a lot of nonsense out there on the internet, and often the line between fact and fiction is a blurred one. For the VFX industry however, the net provides a sturdy back catalogue of fact based webinars, tutorials and breakdowns, with many of the key players in the business regularly exhibiting online what they do. The internet is truly a tool that when utilised, can inspire and educate.
Do you only have eyes for NUKE?
A few months ago our very own Simon Richardson, Escape’s in-house 2D genius, posted a series of blogs declaring his undying love for NUKE.
Now Announced... Speakers For HUG London!
Less than one week to go before the UK's first HIERO user group, HUG London and we have kept you waiting long enough as to who will be speaking.
The Alenka Abraham Success Story
We’ve been catching up with lots of the escapees from over the years, and one story in particular has been hugely inspiring to us. Having studied a ten week Maya comprehensive course at Escape Studios back in 2003, Alenka Abraham has paved a very exciting career for herself. Taking on an R&D software project at Glassworks, Alenka met her future business partner, Adam Cubitt. Together they set up Existential Ltd., a company that develops both real-time and off-line computer visualisation and animation technology. Collaborating with leading post-production companies like MPC, and many others across the UK, they’ve been involved in pioneering projects and are making quite a name for themselves.
Bad Hair Day?
If we are watching a live action film with actors, it’s very rare that one of the main character features we concentrate on is the hair. Occasionally a judgemental comment of whether it looks good or not is thrown out there but that’s the extent of it. The average viewer will fail to notice if the colour looks wrong in one of the scenes or that it doesn’t look realistic enough.
Studio Secrets Come Out From The Shadows
During it’s opening weekend, Dark Shadows topped just over $29million at the Box Office. This may not be up to the usual par of some of Johnny Depp’s films but the CG within the film didn’t fail to impress once again.