It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a career in Visual Effects is far from boring. As far as careers go, this is an industry that keeps us on our toes, offering us a never ending number of new creative project ideas to be realised, fun new problems to be solved and new technologies to be developed. This is an industry that constantly pushes us to learn and discover more.

I will happily admit that my taste in what I watch on television has always been teetering on the edge of strange.

Last week saw the UK’s very first VFX Festival, hosted by Escape Studios—a four-day spectacular exploring the breath-taking world of visual effects. Our industry pals and we celebrated the last decade of VFX with a jam-packed schedule of exclusive events, and it was our tutor-led workshops at Escape HQ that seemed to particularly whet the appetites of all those budding VFX artists out there.

Thinkbox Software will be in London on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of September and will be working alongside Escape Studios to organise meetings and demos of their product line up.

Another year another SIGGRAPH and what a packed in week it was. This year, LA didn't just give us earthquakes, heat waves and the biggest burritos known to man but also a full week of presentations from some of the biggest and newest studios plus an exhibition hall packed with the latest technology from around the world.  

Here is a quick summary and a few favourites from last week. These are just some of the things to check out:

These Autodesk eyeball sweets are causing quite a storm at Escape Studios—not least because a trail of Chinese whispers has led some students to believe we're giving away 'free Autodesk suites' ... awkward!

Also awkward: the look visitors give as you sit casually munching eyeballs, whilst taking a phone call.

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.

On Tuesday, a lucky few of us got to go on a trip that ventured outside of the confines of the Shepherds West building. Drinking more coffee than one body ever needs, we went to do some film and games grade motion capture at the impressive facility at E.Motion.

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.

IKinema has been the go to plug-in for Autodesk Maya when it comes to creature and model animation especially after their performance on smash hit films like Wrath of the Titans and X-Men: First Class. With the release of IKinema Action 2 in April there was a bit of a buzz around the newest features included in the latest version (check out my previous blog for more details!)