It's been a few years since Paul Debevec produced his paper with Jitendra Malik, Recovering High Dynamic Range Radiance Maps from Photographs, at SIGGRAPH. Since then, people all the world have begun to generate high dynamic range still images and probes - essentially capturing all the light information from a scene in mulitple passes using digital cameras and then merging these into a single HDR image. A simple web search for HDR Images in google images will present you with an array of hyper-real looking images, or try here for some examples.
Balloons & Zeppelins: Fresh VFX escapee work
Here's my final post showing some work from the courses which have just finished. These clips are from escapees who were on the Visual Effects Production course taught by Dan Shutt. Again these are 'work in progress' and need a little more polishing but you can see they are both great ideas that have been really well executed.
Lundgren vs Unicorn and The Hoff!
Absolute genius on the part of the creatives at Leo Burnetts for Norton.
VFX Professional - New work!
We've just had another round of courses finish and again we've seen some really great work!
Free 1-Week Mentored VFX Training
So, to celebrate the launch of our Online Mentored VFX course, we have decided to go mad and give away for free the first week of the course to fifteen lucky people.
Houdini 11 Ready for the Masses?
VFX Showreel: Part 2
Last month, we showcased some fantastic work which came off the back of our Visual Effects Course. Seems that everyone really enjoyed it so we thought we'd treat you to another. The quality of work from these guys, especially as it's after just 12 weeks of training, is pretty amazing. Hat's off to them!
Pixels – a must see piece of work
If you haven’t seen this already from our tweet a while back, you must check out this awesome piece of work from Patrick Jean.
Interview with our CG Whiz – Adam Droy
Back in December, Adam Droy became the first winner of our CG Whiz competition for his fantastic showreel. Part of his prize was a 12 week classroom course here, which Adam started last Monday. We caught up with him to see how his first week had gone.
This month's Free Tutorial - Reflections, Raytracing and Render Settings
Make sure you don't miss out on this month's free tutorial - Reflections, Raytracing and Render Settings. This month we've focused on the skills that graduates need when looking for work. This free professional-level tutorial concentrates on developing those key skills as well as understanding reflectivity, material attributes & render settings. Here's a quick breakdown of what's included:
New online courses for next generation of bedroom CG enthusiasts
We’re launching a brand new set of online courses – Self Directed Learning. These low-cost distance learning courses are aimed at students, aspiring 3D artists and computer graphics (CG) hobbyists across the world, and cover CG industry staples Maya, ZBrush and Nuke in detail.
New Skillset course open for applications
We're pleased to announce that we’re running a ‘3D for Visual Effects’ classroom course, which runs for 12 weeks and includes hands-on practical training using the latest industry standard software and techniques.
CG Workflows with Avatar
On Wednesday we were at the Apollo cinema in Picadilly, for our CG Workflows event with Framestore, looking at some of the extremely difficult shots they were asked to tackle on Avatar.
New dates for short courses announced
Escape this Spring!
Birds Eye View Training Course
Are you a woman trying to break into the film industry? If so, this training course could be just what you’re looking for.
Escape this Spring
For those of you considering working in this thriving, dynamic industry, we’re offering a taster into the world of computer graphics with a range of three-day short courses. They’re a great opportunity to get a better understanding of the career opportunities out there while gaining valuable insight into the industry.
A work of art
On one of my (out of work hours) trawls around the internet, I came across this little gem (if you can, watch fullscreen).
VFX in the 70s
Upgrade to Maya, 3ds Max and SoftImage 2010 apps and save up to 59%!
New online courses: VFX Advanced Shading and Lighting
We’ve got a couple of exciting new online courses coming up for slightly more experienced CGers. The Advanced Lighting and Advanced Shading modules are aimed at people with a bit of Maya knowledge, having completed the Maya Core program.