The art of filmmaking has come a long way over the last 100 years. The technology we use today to create breath-taking scenes continues to push the boundaries of high-definition and realism, but we should never forget the genius of film crews who didn’t have the opportunity to ‘fix it in post’ or rely on computer graphics to set the scene. As lots of you know, some of the best moments in film history were created by filmmakers having to think on their feet, making the best of an impossible situation. And of course there are certain skills that were essential to the filmmaking process back then that will start to be forgotten due to the rise in post-production capabilities and accessibility.
Maxon Cinema 4D
It has been announced this week that MAXON will be releasing CINEMA 4D R14 in September this year. MAXON have almost 20 years of programming innovation under their belts and CINEMA 4D is one of the best known and most successful 3D motion graphics, painting and rendering software applications around.
Introducing the BOXX renderPRO
BOXX Technologies present the BOXX renderPRO, the first personal, dedicated, rendering solution for animation, VFX, engineering and architectural visualisation. The renderPRO is designed for desk-side rendering with easy configuring and a compact design for professional performance in minimal space.
Escapee Reunion at Saddington Baynes
Last Wednesday we sauntered down to our friends at Saddington Baynes, devoured some gourmet Pizza, washed it down with some ice cold beer and cleansed our pallets with some invigorating VFX related conversation, all in the name of our second graduate reunion…who says you can’t mix business with pleasure? And with a high calibre of industry employed attendees from the likes of Double Negative, Framestore, The Mill and MPC London, conversation was rife.
Pixologic Release New Upgrade
Pixologic have just released a new update for ZBrush. Any one of the new features would have been worth the price of upgrade... but wait, I forgot...you don't have to pay for the upgrade because its free and totally awesome.
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:
Coming Out Of The Woodwork
First we shared the big news that the next release in the Starship Troopers franchise would be a fully CG film, and now we've just heard that the Resident Evil franchise has followed suit, releasing their own fully CG film towards the end of this year. The film, entitled Resident Evil: Damnation, has so far only been given a release date in Japan, which will be towards the end of October on blu-ray and DVD.
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!
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.
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.
50% Off!
Sometimes it’s difficult to take time out of an already busy schedule to work on something you love. You might not be able to take days off work, or have an entire evening taken up with travelling as well as learning in order to pursue your dream career.
Comic Con
Last weekend saw the annual convention ‘Comic Con’ take place in San Diego. The event is always extremely popular as it offers attendees an opportunity to meet directors and actors, witness never before seen footage and be the first to hear about new releases, with this year being no different.
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.
The Amazing Making-Of The Amazing Spider-Man
OK, you all know by now how much we like talking about certain CG heavy / animation films, and it might be quite obvious why this is. Yes, generally it's because the film features one of our favourite directors, or we love a certain genre, action hero or story line, but another reason for us to get so excited about a new release is for the array of behind the scenes footage for the making of, on how certain sequences were achieved!
Rise Of The Fairy Tale Creatures...
DreamWorks have released two trailers (second here) for their upcoming animation film Rise of the Guardians.
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...
Wreck-It Ralph
I think it's safe to say that most of you now know I love a bit of Disney. So, whenever I hear news of new releases, you get to hear about them. Therefore, I would like to bring to your attention the trailer for Disney’s new release; Wreck-it Ralph.