Amanda Costa "Prehistoric Planet" Reel

AMANDA COSTA - Animation Reel 2023 from Amanda Costa on Vimeo.

We're delighted to congratulate Escapee Amanda Costa on her latest demo reel, showcasing some of her best work on "Prehistoric Planet" Seasons 1 and 2, created at MPC in London.  Amanda took our short course in Computer Animation at Escape Studios, taught by veteran animator Lee Caller.  After graduation, Amanda became a Studio Assistant at Escape Studios, and then joined Jellyfish Pictures and MPC.  

Kevin Richards to Teach Dinosaur Animation

Kevin Richards Teaches at Escape Studios

Animator and Escapee Kevin Richards will be coming to Escape Studios on Wednesday and Thursday to teach our 2nd year animators.

Kevin is a traditional 2D animator who took our short course in animation at Escape Studios, and successfully made the transition to 3D animation in Maya, working as an animator on "Shane the Chef" at Cloth Cat animation in Cardiff.

Kevin will be teaching our students dinosaur locomotion, showing how to use live action reference of birds and reptiles to create believable dinosaur animation. 

ILM on the Making of Jurassic World

Fallen Kingdom

One of the highlights of last week's VFX Festival at Escape Studios was the presentation by Jance Rubinchik, animation supervisor at ILM on the making of Jurassic World, and Fallen Kingdom.

The talk was a masterclass in creature animation, demonstrating how much careful research goes into the creation and animation of the dinosaurs.

The Jurassic World series of movies as are a "balance between science and entertainment", as the film-makers try to keep both audiences and paleontologists happy.

From the point of view of animators looking to tackle realistic dinosaur animation, the lesson is simple: use as much reference as you can, and make sure you use live action reference that is as close as possible to the anatomy of the creatures you are trying to animate. 

Introducing "Vivi Ossa"

Vivi Ossa from piraveen satkunam on Vimeo.

Many congratulations to our third year VFX students on creating the excellent short film "Vivi Ossa". Vivi Ossa (Latin for "living bones") is a story about a museum visitor who brings ancient bones to life through the power of music. It's a very short film - only two shots - but as you watch it, note that the entire environment is digital; the students created the museum and all the objects inside it from scratch. Directed by Callum Walters and produced by Matthew Wight, Vivi Ossa brought together many craft disciplines, including CG, compositing, roto, prep, keying, integrating a live action character into a digital set and, of course, animation.

Dinosaur Walk Animation Tutorial at Vimeo

"Indominus Rex" by Truong

Escape Studios have released a new series of animation tutorial videos at our Vimeo channel; this time on dinosaur locomotion.

The video can be found at our Vimeo channel, along with the rest of the digital content we're creating to supplement our classroom studies.  Missed a class due to illness? We've got a video tutorial that covers the same - or similar - ground.

Using the excellent  free Dino rig by Harry Geoghegan, available for free download at Creative Crash, the tutorial explains how to create a believable dinosaur walk cycle and performance.

Dinosaurs: The Making of Jurassic World

Jurassic World

One of the highlights of last week's VIEW conference in Turin, Italy, was Glen McIntosh's presentation on  the making of Jurassic World, and Fallen Kingdom.

Glen was the animation supervisor on both projects. His talk was essentially a masterclass in creature animation, demonstrating how much careful research goes into the creation and animation of the dinosaurs.

McIntosh introduced himself as a man "obsessed with dinosaurs, obsessed with "how they looked, and how they moved."

He described the Jurassic Park series of movies as a "balance between science and entertainment", as the film-makers try to keep both audiences and paleontologists happy. 

Dinosaurs by Sebastian Kuder

We've been animating dinosaurs this past week at Escape Studios; the video above is a particularly successful example of dino locomotion by second year animator Sebastian Kuder. It's a great piece of work because it combines technical skill - the ability to bring a fantasy creature to life convincingly - with a compelling performance, making the piece fun to watch and entertaining for the audience. Congratulations to Sebastian on a great piece of work. To see more of the animation being done here at Escape Studios by our talented students, check out our YouTube Channel.

Meet the Dino Rig!

Here at Escape Studios our student animators are testing out this excellent dinosaur rig by Harry Gladwin-Geoghegan. It's a great free rig for Maya animators, and you can download it here.

The Dino rig is excellent for doing creature locomotion, and just about the only thing it won't do is close-ups, as the facial controls are quite limited.

But, to get some great dino action on your animation demo reel, this could well be the best rig to choose.