I met up with Jon Wadelton at The Foundry a few days ago and we had a chat about what's new in NUKE 6.3. Here's what he had to say.
An Evening with NUKE & MARI in London
We’re going to be hosting an event with The Foundry and Hewlett Packard called An Evening with NUKE and MARI in London on August 18th. The event is designed for professional artists who want to take a peek at the new features of NUKE, NUKEX and the newly launched bridge between NUKE and MARI. It will definitely be exciting to see first hand all that’s new in these products.
Globalisation of the VFX Industry
How VFX artists can seize the opportunities of this changing landscape
Private Colleges Set to Undercut on Tuition Fees
Did any of you read this recent story (Private college undercuts on tuition fees) published on the BBC? If you haven’t, it basically focused on the emergence of competition in the education sector from private colleges. The journalist, Sean Coughlan, took the example of the ifs College of Finance in London who recently announced that they would be charging fees of £5,750 to £6,000 per year.
Would You Pay For Your Own Training to Get Ahead?
Would you pay for your own training to get ahead of the competition and secure a better job? Well that’s one of the hot topics in our new Creative Futures Report which launches today.
Online Mentored Student Spotlight: Miska Janhunen
Finland native, Miska Janhunen had been working for his family’s visual design firm as a Webmaster for some time, but he harboured a dream of working in VFX. For years he has been trying to find time and flexibility to study CG. “Because of my location and current situation in life, it felt more or less ‘mission impossible’. Then, in the autumn of 2010, I found Escape Studios’ Online Mentored VFX course and all the pieces fell into place.”
Join us at this Year's Pixar RenderMan User Group Meeting
We are delighted to announce that Pixar and Escape Studios in association with the VES will be hosting the London RenderMan User Group meeting on Thursday, July 21st at 6:30 pm. In a break with the usual tradition, the first of this year's RenderMan User Groups is actually taking place in London, ahead of the Siggraph RenderMan UGM.
Do Universities Need To Teach Basic Job Skills?
An announcement by Edge, the education charity, caught my eye this week. It said that universities should now be required to teach employment skills as part of degree courses. According to its latest study, employers now believe too many graduates are unfit for the workplace.
Escape Studios Online Mentored Student Spotlight - Ricardo Viana
Current Escape Studios’ VFX Online Mentored student, Ricardo Viana is approaching the end of his course and looking forward to developing his showreel and meeting with our recruitment team. In addition to his coursework, he has a very busy schedule to maintain, but that has not stopped him from pursuing his dream.
Pixel Farm and Escape Studios Offering Exclusive Demo of PFTrack 2011 in London
If you are a professional looking to really understand PFTrack 20011, join Pixel Farm and the Escape Studios’ team on Wednesday, June 8 for and exclusive demonstration in London.
Autodesk and Escape Studios to Host Event at Aardman Studios
Autodesk and Escape Studios are hosting an evening event at the Academy Award winning Aardman Studios in Bristol.
The BBC Visits Escape Studios
We were absolutely delighted when Iain Mackenzie of the BBC chose to come to Escape Studios to chat to Lee Dankin and Mark Cass about the state of the UK Visual industry, which is currently booming.
Escape Studios' Website Awarded Best SilverStripe Website for Enterprise
We are delighted to announce that our website has received the "Best SilverStripe Website for Enterprise" award at the CMS Expo in Chicago last week. Our thanks go to the team at GPMD and Distinguished & Co who have worked so hard to make our site what it is today.
Amazing Mick Ebeling
I was sent a link to this the other day by one of the Fireflies riders in LA. Mick Ebeling has a great company and has done something pretty amazing with the resources he has to hand. Enabling a close friend suffering from a life destroying disease to use his creativity again after complete paralysis shows amazing resourcefulness and generosity.
Breaking into the VFX industry – Escape Studios Featured on The Guardian’s Latest Careers Q&A
You may remember last month that Lee Danskin and Paul Wilkes were featured on The Guardian’s careers blog about the film industry. This month, the topic was ‘Breaking into the Visual Effects’, and as it’s our specialist subject we had no less than three spokespeople on the panel this time.
Digital Compositor and Escapee Victor Perez Thanks Escape Studios
When Victor Perez finished our 12-week Compositing for Production course last year, we knew that he was destined for great things. Since completing the course he has worked for an impressive range of companies - most of the post houses in Soho in fact - and is absolutely loving it. Victor was born to be a compositor -it's just in his blood. He's been hooked since his early days watching Star Wars. For Victor being able to use his artistic and technical skills to tell a story is one of the most important aspect of what he does -he's definitely in the right job then!
iPad – is it CG Friendly?
Last year, Apple shook the tech world when it released the iPad, and it quickly became the must have gadget for 2010. Apple is now in the spotlight again with lots of hype around iPad 2. It's all very well lusting after one of these little babies, but for me, the real question is "what can a 3D pro like me actually use it for?".
StudioSysAdmin Event Wrap-up
Thank you to everyone who came along to last Thursday’s StudioSysAdmin event at Framestore. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, and gained a little more insight into virtualisation and PC-over-IP technologies.
University Tour Update
The tour continued with a whirlwind week of talks. Firstly I met with a small group of the Games Development students at the University of Westminster. They have a number of interesting courses there as well as some interesting research projects - I hope we can build on this initial meeting and I'll be able to tell you more about what they are up to in the future!