Alex Budulan FX Artist at Wild Child Animation

Alex Budulan joins Wild Child Animation 

Many congratulations to Escapee Alex Budulan who has joined Wild Child Animation as a Senior FX Artist. 

Alex Budulan studied the Art of Visual Effects at Escape Studios.  During his studies at Escape Studios, Alex contributed to a number of successful animated films, including the short film "Reece" and the short animated teaser "Street Ratz", which won multiple festival awards.

Houdini Taster Evening Tonight 27 January 2026

We're hosting a Houdini Taster at Escape Studios today Tuesday 27th January at 5.30pm. 

There's still time to sign up and find out more about one of the fastest-growing areas of software expertise in the world of VFX.

SideFX Houdini is a digital tool that allows users to create FX work such as smoke, fire and water.  Come along tonight at 5.30pm to find out more.

Falling Dice in Maya - Rigid Bodies Tutorial

Falling Dice - FX tutorials in Maya

In this short beginners' tutorial in Maya, students learn how to animate dice falling and bouncing onto a hard surface.  

The tutorial uses Active and Passive Rigid Bodies in Autodesk Maya, and shows how physics can be used to speed up the animation process.  

This tutorial is part of our FX tutorials in Maya - which you can find at our Vimeo Tutorial Channel, available for all our students (and recent Escapees) at Escape Studios.

Simon Browne to Teach Houdini at Escape Studios

Simon Browne Teaches Houdini

Escape Studios welcomes veteran VFX artist Simon Browne in early January 2023 to Teach Houdini to our second year undergraduate VFX students, as part of their Specialism Module CR5001. 

Simon Browne has worked in TV, advertising and corporate media. He specialises in simulation-based animation,  but he is also an experienced 3D animator with over 20 years of experience.

Simon has experience with Matchmove, Coding, and is skilled in Maya, Houdini, 3DSMax, Redshift, After Effects and Unity. 

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. 

Houdini Tutorials at Our Vimeo Channel

Escape Studios Vimeo Tutorial Channel supports our students with online resources for their studies, including an extensive playlist in Houdini.

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

Grass Waving Tutorial in Maya

Below a is a free tutorial on how to animate grass waving in Maya using the Paint Effects Tool, part of our series of tutorials on FX Animation. 

The tutorial shows how to use wind speed to simulate a light breeze in a grassy field.  

Also covered is how to export a geo cache and re-import the cache back into Maya. 

FX TD Timothy Stam Visits Escape Studios

FX TD Timothy Stam

Yesterday we held our latest "Evening With..." event, this time with Timothy Stam, Houdini FX TD at Goodbye Kansas Studios in London.

Animation with Houdini is a growing part of the business, especially for FX work, such as explosions, simulations and dynamics. Think water and fire effects, and giant cityscapes - this sort of work is increasingly done in Houdini, rather than Maya.

A few studios are even using Houdini for keyframe animation, though Maya remains the dominant software package, with a huge user base.