This is possibly the moment many of you have been waiting for… HIERO, The Foundry's latest software project, has gone to beta. A closed beta ran over a short period of time for few individuals who got their name on a waiting list nice and early, and from what I’ve heard, they really enjoyed putting it to the test.
What is an '80% Showreel Ready' Shot?
With all the excitement of new courses starting here at Escape in 2012, we’ve not yet had time to share the work that last year's students put together at the end of their courses.
Maya Core Calendar Begins 30th Jan 2012
If you share my fascination with 3D and have always wanted to learn how to do it yourself, make 2012 the year your Maya calendar begins.
Animation Tutor Alex Williams is Eggstatic
The biggest egg hunt that London has ever witnessed is taking place on the 21st February this year, all in the name of charity.
Houdini: The VFX Industry’s Best Kept Secret
A few weeks ago, we posted some details of changes and improvements we were making to our courses. We promised we would be giving details of these improvements soon, and today we are going to be talking to you about Houdini.
News Round-Up: Monday 16th Jan 2012
After an interesting last week in our Los Angeles studios, I have come back to what seems to have been a week dominated with announcements about the state of our education system. But my round up of news is not just about education news, and this week, there is news about what the London Olympic stadium is going to look like, details of Cinecite's internship program and lots more...
10th Annual VES Award Nominations
The Visual Effects Society (VES) are holding their 10th annual awards ceremony very soon, set to define the greatest VFX moments from 2011. Earlier in the week VES released their nominations for this year’s awards, a list that recognises the outstanding VFX achievements across film, animation, television, commercials and games. Regularly referred to as the “Oscars” for the visual effects world, this is a highly prestigious event for VFX professionals internationally. Receiving an award from any of the 23 categories is a great honour.
Learning to Master Houdini with Escape
I promised to keep you posted on how we're changing our curriculum to include Houdini in some of our courses, and that’s the subject of this post.
The Future of 3D Display for Post Production Houses
Good news for people who require outstanding visualisation of their work, because as part of their Digital Signage series our friends at Planar have introduced the Clarity Matrix 3D.
Win an HP Mobile Workstation with V-Ray for 3ds Max Software
For all of you architects and designers out there, we’ve just launched a competition which could see you win the latest kit on the market! In association with HP and Chaos Group we have a much coveted prize up for grabs for one lucky winner who can answer three questions correctly. The successful winner will take home an HP EliteBook laptop with software V-Ray for 3ds Max – two essential tools to compete in a fast paced, competitive industry.
News Round-Up: Monday 9th Jan 2012
First week back at work and it's as if Xmas was months ago. The news certainly kept on coming this week, and here is a quick summary of what I picked up on this week.
Create Your Very Own Atomic Appliance
Ever bored at home?... Why not stick a laser pointer inside your tumble drier and create your very own "atomic" washing applicance? OK, so you'll be doing so at your own risk, but judging from the images published here, the results are pretty impressive.
Pixel Palace Artist in Residence: Kelly Richardson
Digital artist Kelly Richardson recently completed an artist’s residency at the Pixel Palace, a new digital media arts programme of the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle upon Tyne. During her time there, she began initial research and production into an ambitious new three projection video installation entitled ‘Mariner 9’. During her residency, the Pixel Palace commissioned a short film about the work being developed where she explains some of her processes and ideas behind the new installation.
Escapee Showcase: Hyeon Joon Kang
As some of you may know, we recently launched a new course called "Visual Effects Animation Professional". Well, our first group of students from the courses have been handing their projects in and I wanted to take the opportunity to showcase a fantastic piece of work by Hyeon Joon Kang. His work clearly shows how the VFX pipeline works and if we retrace his steps, we can take a closer look at each part of the process. Joon's project is a great illustration of what we teach in this new course and what you can achieve in just 18 weeks with us.
iNuked - Part Deux (Read & Write Nodes)
After an incredibly busy couple of months dealing with students' end of courses projects, as well as completing the first shot for my own showreel, I've found the time to work on the next episode of iNuked: my personal project to explore the possibilities of using The Foundry's professional compositing software NUKE, on my MacBook Air.
January Free Tutorial: How to Animate a Bird Flap (Part 2)
For those of you who logged into my November Free Tutorial entitled Animate a Bird and Make it Fly, you'll remember that I promised to deliver a second part to it. This tutorial uses a pre-created rig, which you can buy here and explores the mechanics of bird locomotion. It costs just $5 and trust me, it’s worth it. If you'd like a re-cap of what was in part 1, you can find all the details here.
The Gift That Keeps On Giving
There is a VFX buzz coming from Barcelona and it's due to Big Lazy Robot. Their stand out piece for the Phillips TV Parallel Lines Cinema campaign based around 'The Unicorn' was The Gift - and every time I watch, it keeps giving more.
V-Ray Renders in 3 Seconds on a New BOXX Workstation
We came across this video and just had to share it with you all. Check it out!
News Round-Up: Tuesday 3rd Jan 2012
It's been a while since my last News Round-Up... Hopefully, you will all be rested after this holiday season and rearing to go. So, to get you going, I have selected a whole bunch of news items which have been published over the last couple of weeks.
Dneg Champion ICT in Schools
It is exciting to see Double Negative lead the charge for the VFX houses, getting on board with Next Gen Skills and being extremely vocal in their support.