Some of you may have read the Frankenweenie blog from last week, well, after doing a little research on the film myself I came across this video that I think anyone who is interested in the film, the director, or stop motion should watch.

Tim Burton is one of my favourite directors, with my favourite animation film of all time (so far) being The Nightmare Before Christmas. Nearly every film he has done I’ve loved, whether it’s Batman Forever, Corpse Bride or my favourite. Everything about the films scream his trademark ‘look’, from the plots and animation to his infamous dark twists which make him so easily recognisable. It won’t come as a shock to you then, that his latest film, Frankenweenie, is no different.

I was on holiday last week, enjoying the almost total lack of sun, and having a week long geekasm at the E3 coverage. Imagine my surprise, then, to come back to work at Escape to discover hardly a mention of all that awesomeness on the blog. This is not, I thought to myself, acceptable. So have a peek at this!

Once again, I’m going to have to promote how great a developer Valve is by showing you another presentation that I found on their website. I know I have already showcased some of their expertise in a post a couple of days ago but I think this presentation is equally as impressive as the last one.

If you're anything like me, you'll have a favourite developer, and mine just happens to be Valve. For those of you who don’t know Valve, it's an entertainment software and technology company that has been around since 1996. Since its beginning, it has produced an overwhelming amount of award winning games, with the most recent including Left 4 Dead 1 & 2, Portal 1 & 2, Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike. It is also the developer of leading-edge technologies including game engine Source, and premier online gaming platform Steam.

After a previous visit to Double Negative, James Dower and his class mates really got a taste for the high standard of work that DNeg set.  And on this, their second visit, they were all keen to get some professional feedback for their own VFX Production projects.

The Softimage Creatives launch event went ahead on May 29th as planned, and it was nothing short of amazing. There was an incredible turn out of XSI enthusiasts, which confirms to us all that the community of users is still very much alive. Over 150 people squeezed into Jerusalem Bar on Rathbone Place to celebrate the launch of the London Softimage user group, and among those were visitors who travelled from Ireland and the continent. It’s this dedication to the cause that will undoubtedly help make the independent Softimage user group a real success, and I’m sure it has proved to the SiC founders that their efforts have not been in vain.

A month ago I was fortunate enough to be one of the lucky few to preview the newest attraction at Universal Studios, Transformers the Ride.

San Jose University, California came up trumps at the recent Interior Design Association of Northern California (IIDA) Student Design Awards and have their 3D visualisation toolkit to thank for their success.

For those of you battling with 3D and 2D interoperability, there may be light at the end of the tunnel. Autodesk and Adobe are joining forces to try make these problems a thing of the past.