Escape Tutor Dan Shutt shared one of his past times with us this week, in the form of FPV flight.
October’s FREE Tutorial: Bring a Photo to Life with Camera Mapping
This month’s free tutorial is a sneak peak of a workshop presented at the VIEW conference in Turin, Italy. Earlier this month one of our VFX tutors, Daniel Shutt, led a 6-hour workshop to demonstrate camera mapping, transforming a still photograph into a photo realistic animated shot. A technique used in film, commercials and broadcast television, it’s now time to apply this process to your own projects.
Robocop-out?
Pictures surfaced yesterday from the set of the Robocop remake, to be released in August 2013 - "very exciting!" I hear you say. Well for most of us it is!
An overwhelming amount of unhappy Tweeters, Facebookers and bloggers alike, took to their keyboards over the weekend - unleashing a tirade of distain on the new costume design, placing it firmly in the shadows of the iconic suit from the original 1987 film.
Union VFX's 'River Zoom'
In a bid to cure our post-Oylmpic blues, we've been re-watching Union VFX's fantastic opening sequence, comprising a mix of real photography, animation and CG elements, which helped to kick off the celebrations at the opening ceremony for the Games.
Weird Wins!
With the US release of Paranorman last month (UK release 14th September), sporting giants Nike have released a one of a kind edition of their synonymous, ‘foamposite’ sports trainer. Only 800 of these Paranorman themed pumps were made and get this - they could only be won by weirdos.
Taking the next step into VFX wizardry!
Before becoming a mighty VFX warrior, you need to become a master of Maya. That is why our VFX courses are designed so you dedicate significant time to mastering the tools inside Maya before taking the next step into more advanced visual effects. And of course, it’s only when you know the limitations of any creative tool, that you know how far to push it.
Selby's App of the Week: Postagram - the new age of postcards!
In this modern age of gadgetry we've got tablets, suri and GPS coming out of every oraphis, but sometimes it's nice to remember the past, the things that people used to do before all the technological world took over, like writing a letter - with an actual pen and paper, using real stamps from a post office?! That's quite a retro step too far but if there was some way to combine the old and the new worlds...some sort of post card sending app maybe?? But if only you could use your own picture - not the generic touristy crap you can get every, something more personal...Everyone LOVES taking photos on their phone - it's fast and it's easy but what do you do with them after that - sure you can whack them on twitter, upload them to facebook and wait for the likes but what about posting it...as a postcard?!
BOOM! Hello Postagram! This super cool app puts a perfectly digital spin on the dying art of postcards allowing you to take any picture you've captured on the hot photo-sharing service Instagram (anyone who's anyone is using Instagram!), convert them into a postcard, add your own 140-character message and click send! Postagram allows you to look at your Instagrams while on the go and then send any picture - new or old - to anyone all from your iPhone! All you need is a recipient's name and address and a credit card - details will all be remembered after the first entry.There are a couple of photo-postcard-sending-apps on the market at the moment, including Touchnote, but Postagram is super user-friendly, quick and convenient and allows a direct connection with Instagram - which is great for editing and jazzing up pictures.
So if you too would like to send the personal touch of a postcard, without the old skool hassle of finding those fiddly stamps and a pesky old mailbox you can download the Postagram app for FREE! Each postcard costs just £1.49 to send - if you think that's pricey, have you been into a card shop recently?! You can thank me later. You're welcome.
In this modern age of gadgetry we've got tablets, Siri and GPS coming out of every orifice, but sometimes it's nice to remember the past, the things that people used to do before the technological world took over, like writing a letter—with an actual pen and paper, using real stamps from a post office?! That's perhaps a retro step too far, but if there was some way to combine the old and the new worlds...some sort of postcard sending app, maybe? But if only you could use your own picture—not the generic touristy crap you can get everywhere, something more personal...Everyone LOVES taking photos on their phone—it's fast and it's easy. But what do you do with them after that? Sure you can whack them on twitter, upload them to facebook and wait for the likes but what about posting it...as a postcard?
Selby's App of the Week: Get 360-Degree Snap Happy with Photosynth
It's a well known fact that the iPhone camera is pretty cool but there's always been a certain je ne sais quoi missing from its camera interface. Granted it does make taking a quick pic a breeze but there isn't much on offer in terms of customisation or creativity. That's where Microsoft's Photosynth app comes in. This versatile panorama app automatically stitches vistas out of your iOS device camera's images.
World's Largest Digital Photo: Say Cheese!
Feast your eyes upon this image. No it's not just a random cityscape image - it is in fact the World's largest digital photo.
Finish Line: Henry Stuart's gigapixel image of Usain Bolt
I wanted to share this fantastic image, which shows the men’s 100m Olympic Final in stunning detail.
Dad What Are You Doing? It's Shark Week!
Get ready for bone crushing monsters in mind blowing HD slow motion next week, as on August 12th, the Discovery Channel (US) is set to broadcast the 25th season of ‘Shark Week’. The resounding success of this series speaking for itself as it celebrates its quarter century anniversary.
Match It with 3.1
Last week we informed you of the new releases from the Pixel Farm, PFTrack and PFMatchit.
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.
Last in the Current Series...
It is with great sadness that we post the last in the current series of mocha Pro V3 videos from our mocha Pro mini-series. But we had a good run...wouldn't you say?
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.
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.
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.