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.
Fusion ioFX
The Escape Studios Technology team have received some rather exciting new solutions recently, one of which being the new Fusion ioFX board.
Prime Focus Effects on 'Total Recall’... Part II
Following on from Part I... Of course, the challenging work didn’t stop there. The team was faced with a range of tasks, including the China Falls sequence, creating multiple Synths for the Synth bay as well as getting the reflective metal and shiny plastic surfaces just right. To tackle this, the team customised their pipeline to help make the workload all the more manageable. Alex continued saying...
Prime Focus Effects on 'Total Recall’... Part I
If a movie is a massive studio blockbuster, then the Prime Focus World visual effects team have most likely had some involvement in its making. Prime Focus was responsible for creating the stunning effects for titles such as Men in Black 3, Dredd 3D, Mirror Mirror and Total Recall…to name just a few! And of course, every new VFX project comes with its own challenges. Len Wiseman’s remake of Total Recall was one such project that allowed the team to flex their creative and technical muscle.
Do you dream of becoming a VFX artist?
Ever found yourself pondering over a possible career in VFX? We’ve all had those moments when we’ve seen some awesome CG visuals and thought ‘how did they do that?’ The people who created these effects all started out somewhere, and that starting point is usually the time they started learning the tools they needed to get the job done.
Compositing Escapee: Carlos de la Sotilla
Taking the leap from Storyboard Artist to Compositor is no easy feat at the best of time. Well what if I was to tell you that recent escapee, Carlos de la Sotilla, managed it in less than 2 years.
Explosive Dates for your Diary!
Calling all VFX artists…….
Is it time to take your career to the next level?
Learn how to create earth shattering natural disasters, amazing particle flows, beautifully complex dynamic simulations and cataclysmically destructive explosions… without being prosecuted.
Our 6 week Pro VFX courses are set to begin on the 1st October and the 12th November. If you have already completed the 12 week Visual Effects for Production course here at Escape or can demonstrate a sound knowledge of Maya this course could be open to you.
Our expert tutors cover the following topics which will take your show reel to the next level:
Primary Dynamics
Renderman Fundamentals
Fur and Hair
Fluids
NCloth/N Particles
Currently, the industry is in hot pursuit of those who possess this high standard of skill to create such magic.
For more information, contact our wondrously polite training team here.
Calling all VFX artists! Is it time to take your career to the next level? Learn how to create earth shattering natural disasters, amazing particle flows, beautifully complex dynamic simulations and cataclysmically destructive explosions…without being prosecuted.
Everything is just Vine...
Over the past six months we have been working with Michael Illingworth, founder of Vine Post Production to expand his studio. Michael has worked at The Mill and Cinesite and has been involved in post-production, compositing and visual effects supervision on some of the biggest film names in the industry including the Harry Potter franchise, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down.
Get Involved with Thinkbox
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.
Autodesk Scaleform
A one day VFX taster session!
“Big things have small beginnings”, was an idea acknowledged in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, released earlier this year. And for us, this statement couldn’t be more true. Taking the art of visual effects as a prime example, the spectacular CG you see on screens today was born from the most basic of concepts, and the people who created those effects invested significant time and energy to become the talented artists they are today. Every creative talent has to start out somewhere, and with the right levels of care and determination, it can evolve into something magnificent.
Total Recall, Terrific Reception?
This year’s remake of cult classic ‘Total Recall’ has sparked some serious controversy in the world of film. Here at Escape Studios we are PUMPED for its release, given the fact that a number of our graduates have been hard at work over the last year, on the VFX side of things.
A total of 1600 digitally enhanced shots are used in the film, the vast majority of which were worked on by our pals over at Double Negative in Soho – pretty damn cool right?
The hugely complex cityscape of a futuristic London was some challenge for the artists, and it required some high detail rendering, luckily these digital wizards called upon previous lessons learnt from their work on the ground breaking, Oscar winning, Inception.
Total Recall is yet to be released in the UK, so we can’t join the squabbling masses just yet. But if you do spend your bank holiday weekend watching this high action sci-fi flick, we want to know - Does this contemporary version do the original justice?
Twitter is telling me a number of different things, from…“WARNING: Total Recall remake is unbelievably boring.” To “Total Recall - Amazing cinematography, perfect execution. More exciting than Avengers. 9/10”
I just don’t know what to think!
This year’s remake of cult classic ‘Total Recall’ has sparked some serious controversy in the world of film. Here at Escape Studios we are PUMPED for its release, given the fact that a number of our graduates have worked on it over the last year, on the VFX side of things.
Iteration to a whole new level
As an artist, I have a huge passion for the process of pre-production; taking an idea and iterating until you achieve the correct result.
Mortal Kombat: Legacy
Mortal Kombat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Kombat) is a franchise everyone's familiar with. Along with Street Fighter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter) and Tekken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tekken), it's one of the classic beat 'em ups of early arcades and game consoles, pitching several outrageous competitors against each other in an excessively violent fight to the death for who cares what the reason was it was awesome. Spawning a huge list of games from 1992 all the way to the present day, MK has helped taint innocent childhoods for 20 years. It had two major films, one acceptable (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113855/), one classically woeful,(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119707/) and last year, around the release of Mortal Kombat 9 (http://www.ign.com/games/mortal-kombat/ps3-14317281), came a pleasant surprise; Mortal Kombat: Rebirth. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9YUeTTaVqo)
Rebirth was a 8 minute short film from director Kevin Tancharoen(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Tancharoen), who wanted to create a 'proof of concept' for a MK movie. It retold the MK story in a style that focused on realism, without the Outworld or any of the supernatural elements from the game, and was used as a way to convince Warner Brothers (http://www.warnerbros.com/) to reboot the MK film franchise. While they didn't immediately agree, they did help Tancharoen create his webseries Mortal Kombat: Legacy. (http://www.youtube.com/show/mortalkombatlegacy?s=1)
Legacy was the follow up to Rebirth, telling the stories of several different MK characters, mostly in the same gritty, real world fashion, with some others taking a less grounded approach. Although both had famous actors in them, you can see through the series that they've spent their modest budget wisely, even though there are some episodes that rely more of VFX than others. While the story of Jax, Sonya and Kano focused more of acting and gunfights, Kitana and Mileena's episodes were heavily supernatural and involved both 2D and 3D animation. My favourite of the bunch is Raiden's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tWh4Z42SJk&list=SL) story which is both raw and stupendous at the same time, and packs an emotional punch.
It's another example of how webseries' are evolving to incorporate brilliant visuals with real production and producing something that is legitimately worth watching. Its worth noting that the series did so well that Warner Brothers have now agreed to let Tancharoen helm a new MK feature film! Keep your eyes peeled for my next Webseries spotlight, where I'll show my favourite web show. And if you have anything that you think should be covered, sound off in the comments below!
Mortal Kombat is a franchise everyone's familiar with. Along with Street Fighter and Tekken, it's one of the classic beat 'em ups of early arcades and game consoles, pitching several outrageous competitors against each other in an excessively violent fight to the death for...well who cares what the reason was, it was awesome! Spawning a huge list of games from 1992 all the way to the present day, MK has helped taint innocent childhoods for 20 years. It had two major films, one acceptable, one classically woeful, and last year, around the release of Mortal Kombat 9, came a pleasant surprise; Mortal Kombat: Rebirth.
The Decisive Moment Winners Announced
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.
MARI: the best thing since sliced bread for texturing
The latest version of 3D digital paint tool MARI is being harnessed by LucasArts to help power the impressive visuals seen in its hotly-anticipated title Star Wars 1313.
Our latest escapees break out!
A fresh batch of escapees have broken out of the Escape studio and what a talented bunch to emerge, even if we do say so ourselves...
Assimilate BBQ Date Change...
We are sad to have to tell you that due to our demand for such a massive amount of beef for our BBQ, Argentina has told us that they don’t have enough cows.
Reasons to be Creative, 3-5 September 2012
Roll up! Roll up! This year's Reasons to be Creative festival (formerly known as Flash on the Beach) is fast approaching, ready to serve up its esteemed melting pot of minds from the realms of digital art, coding, and design.