Animate Monty "Smokin!"

In the short beginner's animation tutorial below we show how to animate a character with no mouth saying a line of dialogue.  But how can you animate dialogue and lipsync - with no lips?  The answer is - it's all in the acting and the performance.  If the body language is working, then the audience will believe that the character is speaking - even if the character itself has no mouth.  In this tutorial we animate "Monty" saying a line of dialogue - "Smokin!" - the line originally delivered by Jim Carrey in the 80s hit movie The Mask. 

Materials, Lighting & Rendering Tutorials at Vimeo

3D VFX at our Vimeo Tutorial Channel 

Our Escape Studios Vimeo Tutorial Channel supports our students with online resources for Materials, Lighting and Rendering.  

Our Vimeo Tutorial Channel is our central hub for our animation and VFX video tutorials, making it easy for our students to find tutorials to support their classroom studies.  

We have tutorials on Materials, Lighting and Rendering in Arnold, Renderman, Unreal Engine, and also how to use Qube, the Escape Studios' Render Farm. 

FX Animation in Maya at Our Vimeo Channel

FX animation by Conall Ferguson

Escape Studios Vimeo Tutorial Channel supports our students with online resources for their studies, including Technical Animation such as nCloth, Muscle Systems, Dynamics, Simulations and Hair.  

 
Our Vimeo Tutorial Channel is our central hub for our animation and VFX video tutorials, making it easy for our students to find tutorials to support their classroom studies.  

Tutorials include how to use nCloth in Maya, as well as the use of muscle systems in Ziva Dynamic, and two cool tutorials in After Effects. 

Vimeo Channel - Character Animation Tutorials

Animation by Sunny Asadi

Our Vimeo Tutorial Channel is a hub for our animation and VFX video tutorials, making it easier than ever for our students to find tutorials to support their classroom studies.  

Tutorials begin with the basics, such as the bouncing ball, and progress through to complex character and creature animation.  Start at the beginning, and work your way though.

Andrew Schlussel: Future of VFX - 15th April

Framestore's Andrew Schlussel

Join us tomorrow Wednesday 15th April from 11:00am until 11:30am for a free webinar with Andrew Schlussel, Director of Global Talent Development at Framestore, one of the world's leading animation and VFX houses.

Covid-19 is causing a lot of trouble for us all these days, but during tomorrow's webinar "The Schlussel Show", Andrew will explain that "Crisis Creates Opportunity".  Registration is free.

Unlike live action shoots, which have ended entirely pending the lifting of the lockdown in the UK and Los Angeles, animation continues to thrive and flourish, even in these dark times.

Escape Studios E-resource Hub Now Live

Escape E-resource hub

The Escape Studios E-resource Hub is now live.  This web page has much of our online content in one place, including information and links to register for our online events, webinars, video resources, links to Escape blogs and links to all of our downloadable guides.

As we continue to do more virtually, it's a useful tool to help us make our content and events more accessible to current and prospective students.

Michael Davies Teaches on Discord & Shotgun

Michael Davies

Like all our animation tutors at Escape Studios, Michael Davies is now teaching his classes purely online.

Using Discord and Shotgun for remote interaction with his students at Escape Studios, Michael continues to manage the ambitious third year Studio Project currently being completed by the third year animation students.

In this blog post, Michael explains what tools he is using to make the move online, and how his students can get the best out of the new working environment. 

Marc Stevenson Moves L4 Teaching Online

Marc Stevenson

Like all our animation tutors, Marc Stevenson has moved his teaching of animation basics to purely online delivery.  To communicate with his students, Marc is using a combination of Google Meet, SyncSketch and Facebook, and has in addition created a new animation tutorial channel at YouTube. 

In this guest post, Marc explains what's involved in teaching the fundamentals of animation from an online platform, and how his first-year animation students can make the best use of the resources available. 

Learn to Animate a Walk at Our Vimeo Channel

Learn to animate a basic walk cycle with "Monty", the green pea, at our Vimeo Channel, available to all our students and Escapees.

The videos have added to our growing series of animation tutorials, hosted at Vimeo, with a tutorial on how to animate a basic walk.

The tutorial uses the free Monty rig, one of the rigs that we recommend for student use in the early stages of learning animation.  Monty was created back in 2007 by Raveen Rajadorai, and is free for download at Highend3D.com.

Tips to Work Remotely From Saint John Walker

Saint John Walker

As we move our classes to online delivery, Our Deputy Dean, Saint John Walker, has written a helpful guest post titled 12 Tips to Working Remotely for Students.

Online learning is our new reality, and fortunately we have many online resources here at Escape Studios to facilitate distance learning.

Saint Offers some advice on how to stay sane in these very strange times, which will impose significant stresses on students and faculty alike.

OBS Studio - Free Screen Recording Software

Following on from yesterday's blog post about Quick Time, and its utility for tutors practicing distance learning, Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) offers another useful option for our tutors at Escape Studios. For those of who are switching to online delivery of our courses, OBS is easy to install and completely free to use, for Windows and Mac devices.

Online Resources at Escape Studios

Working from home

In these uncertain times it's important to remember that we have many online resources at Escape Studios, lots of ways of supporting our students who are currently working from home.

As long as you have a laptop and a decent broadband connection, our students can continue to work remotely, following tutorials, working on projects and also working in teams on platforms such as Facebook and Slack.

The tutors at Escape Studios offer feedback and support to all our students via email, our online classrooms, bespoke video feedback, and through our Vimeo channel.

3D Online VFX Taster Now Live

Online 3D VFX Taster Course

Escape Studios is proud to launch our new online 3D VFX taster course.

This online taster has been developed by our Head of 3D, Mark Spevick.

The course is delivered through the Smashcut platform, costs just £25, and takes under 6 hours to complete. What are you doing between now and New Year's Eve? Watching movies? Why not spend a day learning the fundamentals of VFX instead?

Bouncing Ball by Amanda Costa

All animation courses begin with a bouncing ball, and ours are no exception. The bouncing ball exercise introduces animators to the basic concepts of timing and spacing, weight, paths of action and also squash and stretch.

A ball can be bounced well or badly, and the exercise - although superficially simple - can be done to a high level of skill and complexity.  As with most of our classroom content, we have online videos to support classroom study.

Missed a class, or fallen behind? We've got you covered.  In this video, hosted at our Vimeo Channel, Studio Assistant Amanda Costa walks students step-by-step through the basics of animating a bouncing ball.

Escape Studios' Vimeo & Panopto Tutorial Libraries

The Escape Studios Tutorial Libraries (Vimeo and Panopto) are our main hubs for our animation and VFX video tutorials, making it easy for our students to find tutorials to support their classroom studies. 

Our tutorials cover Animation, 3D VFX,  Compositing, Rigging, Motion Graphics, Storyboarding & Character Design, Unreal Engine and Cinematography.  Many hundreds of tutorials can be found at our Vimeo and Panopto Libraries.