I grew up with parents who couldn’t bear driving around in a dirty car. It just wasn’t socially acceptable in Ireland amongst that generation. And so, many a weekend during my childhood was spent polishing car windows. However, little did my parents know, we were washing away free art materials. Yep, that seems unlikely right? I thought the same, until I read about Scott Wade, the Da Vinci of dust!

If like me you’ve been eagerly anticipating every weekend for the time when you can stream the latest episode of Spartacus: War of the Damned,  you’ll know that this weekend was the penultimate episode of arguably the most fantastically gory series ever to hit television screens.

Just when you thought Hollywood couldn’t create VFX on a larger scale than Cloverfield or Transformers, this trailer is released, for ‘Pacific Rim’, and it really takes the biscuit!

Directed by the world renowned Guillermo del Toro, this is a tale of wait for it, giant robots made by humans, fighting giant monsters that have arrived through a time portal at the bottom of the sea - Sounds crazy right? Check out this trailer and if you plan to go to see this at the cinema, be sure to prepare yourself for some bone crushingly epic VFX sequences.  

Want to build your own Bond car? Today may be your lucky day. The Aston Martin DB5 used in Skyfall seems like a pretty expensive car to blow up a good couple of times, which is why it isn’t a DB5 that you see blown to smithereens.

The Escape Studios Technology team have received some rather exciting new solutions recently, one of which being the new Fusion ioFX board.

We announced back in May that the Chaos Group in association with CG Society, NVidia, MAXON and BOXX would be running the “Decisive Moment” competition. The challenge was to create a single image, using any application and V-Ray to render, that tells a decisive moment in time.

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:

Enthralled about the latest instalment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy? Fancy yourself as a bit of a Bat-fan? Well prepare to eat your words, as this mega (rich) fan eclipses all others, and prepares to embark on a $2 million renovation of his basement, transforming it into a ‘Bat-cave’ themed, home theatre. 

Now, I have to admit that I'm not the biggest fan of stop motion videos, but quite a few people around here really like them and I certainly appreciate the work that goes into creating them. Therefore I felt the need to share this one I spotted at TheVerge.com. It was made by a guy called Zach King and contains everyones favourite Mario and a couple of other guest appearances which you'll no doubt spot.

Following on from my previous blog about The Dark Knight Rises, I thought you would all be interested to see what IGN claim are Batman’s Greatest Movie Moments. They span across all Batman films and, although there will be some obvious choices thrown in there, a couple will probably shock you.