Chaos have just announced the much anticipated release of V-Ray 2.0 for Maya and are now calling for beta testers to test out all the new features and tools in this new version.
25 Years of Pixar Animation
I'm sure many of you will have seen the film medley that represents 25 years of Pixar Animation. Well, it's amazing to be reminded of all their fantastic work - not just the images and characters, but the stories also. They pretty much have it all. I would personally like to thank Pixar for The Incredibles, which for me is unsurpassed. Simply brilliant.
StudioSysAdmin Event Wrap-up
Thank you to everyone who came along to last Thursday’s StudioSysAdmin event at Framestore. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, and gained a little more insight into virtualisation and PC-over-IP technologies.
Escapees Work on God View
We're really pleased to show you the trailer of a new short film project by Billy Lumby titled 'God view'. Billy approached Escape Studios to help him out with some of the visual effects work on the project. I'm not going to give away any of secrets of the project but you'll see it's a great concept and some really interesting techniques were used to create the film's final look.
BOXX's Entry-level Workstation Gets Editor's Choice Award
The 3DBOXX 4860 may be BOXX's entry-level single CPU machine, but it performed very well in a recent review, picking up the Editor's Choice Award from 3D Professor.
New Version of Smedge 2011 is Out Now
Budget Brings no Relief for the Games Industry
We are always looking for a glimmer of hope with any budget... These days it's hard to find any. And that's certainly the case for the UK Games industry. I appreciate we are a niche sector, but the fact that we are a long established (in CG terms) and vibrant industry that allows us to lead the way just goes seemingly forgotten. The petition paperwork will have been 'filed' and once again we find that there is no support.
Budget day - Tax relief for gamers?
Dr Richard Wilson, TIGA CEO, submitted a petition to Number 10 Downing Street yesterday, calling on the Government to introduce Games Tax Relief in the Budget on March 23rd. Richard also handed in a copy of TIGA’s publication Budget for Growth: Powering the Video Games Sector to Support the Economic Recovery to officials in Downing Street.
Teradici and BOXX to Talk at StudioSysAdmin Event
There’s been a lot of talk about virtualisation and PC-over-IP lately, with a lot of studios asking what benefits it can bring to a CG pipeline. It’s a fair question that’s best explained by the experts, so we’ve asked Teradici to come along to this Thursday’s StudioSysAdmin event at Framestore, and shed a little more light on this emerging technology.
Rushes Lead TD Mark Pascoe talks to Escape Students
This week Escape is very pleased to welcome Mark Pascoe from Rushes to speak to our current classroom students. Mark joined Rushes 5 years ago off the back of the Visual Effects Production Grade course at Escape, doing the Maya comprehensive course before that. He is currently in the Film and TV department at Rushes, taking up a technical role on projects. He has also been nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Series.
University Tour Update
The tour continued with a whirlwind week of talks. Firstly I met with a small group of the Games Development students at the University of Westminster. They have a number of interesting courses there as well as some interesting research projects - I hope we can build on this initial meeting and I'll be able to tell you more about what they are up to in the future!
Coming Up: Live Twitter Q&A with The Mill’s Steve Venning
Want to get an insider’s view on all things VFX? If the answer’s yes, then our next Twitter advice session is right up your street.
Changing Workflows Within the Post Pipelines...
I noticed this over at JupiterJazz: AtomKraft Beta2. It's a massive plugin to Nuke enabling a whole host of 3D rendering type workflows. Believe it or not, it puts control of final renders and outputs in the hands of the compers!
Illusion VFX Work on New Fantasy Epic
Illusion VFX have just finished work on their latest project, a teaser short for a new fantasy epic, Mrs. Peppercorn's Magical Reading Room, creating four VFX shots in just 3 months, a really impressive feat.
Games BAFTA's Announced Last Night
Last week I mentioned the 'red carpet day' for Games companies at the BAFTA's. Well, The awards ceremony was last night and the results are in!
Find Out About New Job Opportunities via Twitter
As most of you know, the UK Visual Effects' industry appears to be in a very healthy position at the moment. Many of the large post houses in Soho are in the middle of long term projects and most studios are commenting on the lack of available freelancers. As a result, the Recruitment team here at Escape has never been busier!
Tech Industry will be Affected by Mega Japanese Earthquake
After the shocking events that hit Japan there is of course a severe knock on effect to our industry in terms of technology.
Create Lens Flares Easily with Optical Flares Plug-in
Do you use After Effects? Do you spend a lot of time designing and animating lens flares? Then Optical Flares might just be the plug-in for you. We’ve just added it to our Techstore, and we think it is pretty cool.
Add Realism to Composite Shots with 220 Organic Effects
OK, so Sapphire is not a new product. It has been used by a lot of the top studios like Framestore, MPC and The Mill for some time now. But is it new to our Techstore range, so we thought we’d make a bit of noise about it.
New Way to Sculpt and Model with 3D-Coat
It’s not often that I come across a new product that shows me a completely different way of working… We’ve been checking out 3D-Coat and have come to the conclusion that it might just provide something quite special in terms of modelling and sculpting.