Tech, Hardware & Software at Escape Studios

Escape Studios VPN

What Hardware & Software do we use at Escape Studios? To get started, take a look at our official "What Hardware Do You Need" page, which you can find here.  We also have a handy page on tips for buying a laptop for home use.  

There is also a page on hardware in our classrooms, which you can find here.  You can also find out how to use the Escape Studios VPN (Virtual Private Network), which allows enrolled students to connect to our computers from home. 

Don't forget that a lot of theSoftware we use at Escape Studios can be downloaded at home for free.  For example, Autodesk Maya offers free licenses to enrolled students.  The open source software Blender is also free to download, and extremely versatile. 

Our 2D animation students can use Toonboom Harmony and TV Paint at Escape Studios, and also have access to discounted rates for home use. 

IK- v - FK: What Does It Mean? And Which is Best?

IK - v - FK - which is best?

One question that often confuses student animators is "IK vs FK" - Inverse Kinematics (IK) vs Forward Kinematics (FK).  The IK -v- FK debate is a bit of a techie question - it's not immediately obvious what these terms even mean, let alone how to explain which option you should choose.

IK -v- FK is really about hierarchies - usually shoulders, arms and hands.  If a character's hand controls are set to IK, then you are controlling the hands from the bottom of the arm hierarchy, from the hand control.  If you set the controls to FK, then upper arm, shoulder and body is in control of what the hands do.

In a walk cycle, you usually set arms and hands to FK, because the arms are swinging, controlled from the shoulders. But if you were to animate a sword fight, where the position of the hands is key, then you would likely choose IK.  For a bit more visual clarity, watch the short video below.

Vimeo Tutorials - Installing Maya Plugins and Tools

Maya has many free plugins and tools which make an animators life much easier.  Below is a roundup of tutorials and links that explain how to use these free plugins.

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

IT Support at Escape Studios

IT Dept: 2nd floor at 190 High Holborn

How does IT support work at Escape Studios? IT problems are a feature of modern life, endlessly frustrating - but always solvable in the end. We have a great IT team at Escape who are always willing to out staff and students.  

We also have technical support from Pearson, our parent company. So, depending on what has gone wrong, and what you need, there are a number of ways to get help.

VPN Access for Students at Escape Studios

VPN at Escape Studios

One question our students often ask is how to use the VPN at Escape Studios. "VPN" stands for "virtual private network", ie a service that helps users maintain privacy and security online.  

Our VPN establishes a secure, encrypted connection between our students' home computer and the internet, providing a private tunnel for data and communications.

At Escape Studios, the VPN allows our students to work remotely, accessing all the software that they would normally use if they were working on site. 

Normally the network inside Escape is kept separate from the wider internet.  You can access the internet from within Escape, but you can't access Escape from the internet - since it is separated by a firewall for security reasons.  

But, by connecting to our VPN, users open a "tunnel" that goes from your computer and through our firewall to connect to to the Escape network.

"It Doesn't Work": How to Fix Tech Problems

Why Doesn't It Work?

"It doesn't work"  is a problem frequently encountered by our students at Escape Studios.

Remember that every technical problem, no matter how infuriating, has a solution. One of the key skills our students learn at Escape is how to solve problems - and find solutions, so that production work can continue. Digital artists face an endless stream of technical hiccups.

Laptop Specifications for 3D Animation

What kind of laptop?

"What kind of laptop should I buy?" is a question that is often asked at Escape Studios, especially since the Global Pandemic has made home working essential. 

Computer specifications change regularly and much depends on exactly what you want to use your laptop for.  But let's say you want to buy a laptop capable of running Autodesk Maya, for computer animation and to render out your shots.

What sort of laptop should you buy, and how much do you need to spend? Our animation tutor Amedeo Beretta offers some advice to our students.

What is the Fifteen Minute Rule?

Fifteen Minute Rule

What is The Fifteen Minute Rule? It's something I encountered for the first time while working at Sony Pictures Animation, on Open Season. It's a simple rule, and a good way to keep production moving ahead.

The rule is this: if you get stuck on a problem, spend 15 minutes trying to figure out the solution. Google it, Read The Manual, check out online forums - whatever works.

But, if you still can't figure it out after 15 minutes, ask for help. Someone next to you might be able to solve the problem quickly and simply, and you don't want to spend a lot of time trying to fix a problem that most likely has a simple solution.

Introducing The Eleven Rig

Meet the Eleven Rig, available for free download at the Resources page of the Eleven Second Club.  Eleven is one of the most popular rigs used by our students, and can be used to create some great character animation.

Eleven is also very good for lipsync, body poses, and facial expressions, and is also relatively easy to learn.

Eleven does, however, have a few quirks. So, what are they and how can we navigate around them?

Back Up Your Data!

Hard Drive - delicate moving parts

There are few things more depressing than being told by a student that their hard drive has died, and they have lost all their work.

This means essentially starting afresh, going back to the beginning to start again the long, slow slog of building up a demo reel.  It's hard to over-stress the importance of backing up your data. It's a pain in the neck, and it takes time, but never forget that a hard drive is a delicate piece of technology filled with vulnerable moving parts.

Hard drives don't last for ever and, like all tech, will (eventually) let you down. The secret is to back up your data. But how best to do this? We take a quick look at some of the options.

KeyFrame MP - Video Playback for Animators

Keyframe MP Overview from Chris Zurbrigg on Vimeo.

KeyFrame MP - Video Playback for Animators - is an excellent video playback tool that does the job that QuickTime Pro used to do - only even better.  Most free video players, such as Media Player, won't give you frame-by-frame playback, making them of limited use to animators.  KeyFrame PM is a video player specially made for animators, with super useful features like scrubbing (with audio), single frame advance - all the stuff you need as an animator to play your work back frame by frame and trouble shoot the mistakes. At $79, KeyFrame MP isn't free, but it's much, much better than most of the free stuff out there. And, since Apple has stopped supporting the cheap and cheerful Quick Time Pro, KeyFrame MP now fills a big gap in the animator's tool kit.

How To Re-Set Your Preferences in Maya

Sometimes Maya behaves badly and the solution isn't always obvious. You've tried closing and opening the software, you've tried a reboot, you've tried a shutdown and re-start.

It may be that the solution to persistent technical problems is reset your preferences, and start Maya from scratch with a clean version of the software.

So how do you reset your preferences in Maya?

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?

Why Does Maya's Batch Render Light Too Dark?

Utah Teapot

Lighting your scene using Autodesk Maya can be a tricky process. You finish your shot, light your scene, you get your lights to look just the way you want them to. And when you render out a single frame, everything looks fine. But then, when you come to do a batch render of your frames, Maya gives you something quite different - and much darker. And it's not what you wanted at all.

Why does Maya do this - and what is the solution?

IT Spec for Escape Studios Classrooms

HP Z640

One question we get asked a lot by prospective students is "what is the current spec of the Lab Computers for students at Escape Studios"? In other words, "how good is your tech?".

Fortunately, we bought all our machines brand new in September 2016 and they are excellent workstations. The main workhorse in all our classrooms is the HP Z640 Workstation, which has more than enough capacity to do the job. It's a high-end HP Z series workstation with dual Xeon processors and Nvidia Quadro series graphics cards

The full spec is as follows:
Dual Intel Xeon E5-2630v3 2.4 GHz 8 Core
32 GB DDR4 RAM
2 x 256 GB SSD
Nvidia M4000 Graphics Card

Meet Redshift - Our New GPU Renderer

Here at Escape we're delighted to be installing an Educational License for Redshift, a new GPU rendering tool to help our students get super fast results when creating their film projects.

Go to any animation or vfx festival and you will hear hair-raising tales of very long render times, waiting for days on end for a single frame or batch of frames to render. But CG artists need render times to be as quick and efficient as possible. So, how can Redshift help our students?

How To Find Your Crashed Maya Scene File

Autodesk Maya may be the leading 3D animation software package but it can also be a tricky beast, with a nasty tendency to crash when you least expect it, usually just before the client comes in to check your work.

But fear not, even when Maya crashes, all is not lost. It is (sometimes) possible to find your scene file, even when Maya goes down. Below is a short video put together by Escape Studios VFX undergraduate student Jack Wright, which explains how to hunt down and (hopefully) find your recovered scene file.

When Should Maya Animators Use File Referencing?

What is referencing, and when should animators use it? File referencing ("referencing", for short) is the process in Autodesk Maya which allows the animator to make changes to an animation rig in the course of production and have the new rig automatically update itself to all your existing animation files. It's pretty much what most studios use to manage their animation pipeline, one way or another, as most production rigs are a work in progress.

The question for animators working and studying from home is, should you import the rig directly into your shot, or should you use referencing? Here are the pros and cons.

Introducing Maya 2017 - and Arnold!

Autodesk has just released a new version of Maya, titled Maya 2017 (I know, we're only half way through 2016) - which now features an entirely new system for rendering your images. 

The old ray trace renderer, Mental Ray, has been dropped, and Autodesk have chosen Arnold instead.  For those of you have have never used Arnold before, and might have some catching up to do, animator Lee Caller has helpfully put together a YouTube playlist of videos that will walk you through the basics of the Arnold renderer. 

Arnold is a great renderer, and no doubt a significant improvement on Mental Ray. However, there is a catch, and it's a pretty big one.

What Kind of Sound Files Can You Use in Maya?

Maya has long been the leading 3D animation software, but it does have its limitations. In particular, Maya's audio tools are relatively unsophisticated. You only get one audio track, and it will only accept certain kinds of audio files.

So, how exactly should an animator approach the use of audio files in Maya? In theory the process is quite straightforward, but in practice there are quite a few pitfalls.

Below is a guide to many of the common problems - with some helpful solutions.