Fabrizio & Gioia Interns at Fire Without Smoke

Fire Without Smoke

Escape Studios Undergraduates Fabrizio Bergamo and Gioia Varago recently landed summer internships at the leading UK games company Fire Without Smoke.

We asked them to talk a little about their internship, how they got it, and how other undergraduate students can follow in their footsteps.

YouTube Sound Effects Channel - Free Sound!

Where can you find free sound effects for your animation? Sound design is something that animators at a big studio take for granted - because someone else does it for you.

But when you are creating your own animation, and your own animation demo reel, you need to think (at least a little) about sound effects, and sound design, for your shots. One excellent resource for royalty-free sound effects is the YouTube Sound Effects Channel.

Animation Taster Days Aug 24, 13 & 27th Sept

Learn to animate a bird in flight

We're running three more Animation Taster Days here at Escape Studios, on Thursday 24th August, Wednesday 13th September, and Wednesday 27th September. Taster Days are a great chance to learn about character and creature animation, and find out what an animator's job is all about.

We run animation taster days to give future animators an idea of what it's like to work in the  industry, and discover if this is a career that's right for them.

You will work with Autodesk Maya and the Adobe Creative Suite, and you’ll get a hands-on introduction to 3D Animation techniques, all for just £25!  By the end of the day you'll have your own piece of animation uploaded to your YouTube channel.  So, how do you sign up?

Pixabay.com - Free Stills and Videos!

Sooner or later every digital artist has to get to grips with copyright law. In particular, where can you find royalty-free images and video for use in your work? It's no use just grabbing stuff from Google. Copyright owners can and will hunt you down, especially the stock image companies like Getty Images. One excellent solution to the problem is Pixabay.com.

Pixabay.com describes itself as "a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images and videos. All contents are released under Creative Commons CC0, which makes them safe to use without asking for permission or giving credit to the artist - even for commercial purposes."

Faster, Better, Rigging in Maya with Rapid Rig

"Rapid Rig: Modular" is a powerful automated rigging tool developed by Dustin Nelson and available for $90 at Highend3D.com.

Rapid Rigdoes what the name suggests - it allows you to build rigs rapidly, with speed and efficiency.

And it doesn't just rig bipeds. Rapid Rig will allow to rig characters with "four arms, two heads, twenty eyes, fourteen fingers, eight legs" - you get the picture. And all without having to understand anything much about rigging.

I Want To Live in the Zoo by Evgenia Golubeva

I Want To Live in the Zoo by Evgenia Golubeva

Check out this charming trailer for by Escapee Evgenia Golubeva, who has been pursuing a career as an independent film-maker and animator.  "I Want To Live in the Zoo" is Evgenia's latest film project, and comes on the heels of her award-winning short "I am not a Mouse", and the very funny "Hold Me Clothes", which was created in just four days at Film Festival Cinemadamare in 2011. Many congratulations to Evgenia on her beautiful animation.

New Dragon Rig from Josh Sobel

Josh Sobel is an excellent rigger and animator who has brought animation students a number of excellent rigs, including the excellent Kayla rig, and also the very useful (and free) Bonnie rig.

He has now released a completely new rig - "Arc the Dragon", which isn't free, but is priced at a very reasonable $18.

Arc is described as "a full quadruped with expressive facial control, intuitive body setup, full picker, pose library and limitless customization."

Stuart Penn Unlocks Alien Covenant

Last night Escape Studios was proud to welcome Framestore VFX Supervisor Stuart Penn to talk to students and guests about his visual effects work.

Framestore is one of London's leading visual effects houses, and is now a global company with locations in Canada and elsewhere.

Stuart, whose VFX work includes Avatar, The Dark Knight, Iron Man 3 Guardians of the Galaxy, was talking about his recent work as VFX supervisor on Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant.
 
So, what were the secrets behind this most coveted of VFX roles - working for one of the greatest living film directors on this legendary film franchise?

PC -v- Mac - Which Is Best For Animation?

Mac -v- PC. Which is best?

One question we get asked a lot by animation students looking to buy a new laptop is "which is best for animating in Maya - a PC or a Mac?"

It's an important question because you don't want to spend a lot of money on a machine that doesn't do the job properly. Of course, while you are studying at Escape Studios we provide you will all the hardware and software you need. But lots of students like to have their own workstation at home, so they can keep working on their projects out of hours, or on holiday.

So, which is best? A Mac or a PC?

Find Your Future on 9 August 2017

Want a career in creative media, but not sure what route to travel? Get yourself to "Find Your Future 2017", right here in London on 9 August.

If you're interested in working in the creative industries, then Find Your Future is the careers event for you.

Best of all, it's completely free!