Animation Jobs in Games: Webinar Today at 1pm

Into Games is hosting a free live-streamed talk today Wednesday 22nd May at 1pm UK time for animators seeking a career as an animator in the Games Industry. 

The title of the talk is "Animation: Communicating the fundamentals. How to Prove You've Got The Experience".

Today's talk is for animators who are either "pre-games or very early in their games industry career". 

The talk will be delivered by Hannah Kravets a Gameplay Animator currently working with Climax Studios. 

Free Underwater Animation Tutorial

In this super simple tutorial we show how to animate a submarine traveling underwater.  This is a very basic tutorial aimed at beginners in Maya. 

The idea is to do some simple animation of an underwater scene, then add a caustic effect to reproduce the effect of light penetrating water. 

The lighting effect can be achieved with just a few clicks.

How to Animate a Neon Sign in Maya

In this free tutorial we show how to animate a neon sign in Maya. The idea is to create a personal logo for your demo reel, something that has a little more style and invention than a simple title card.  Start by creating a logo for your animation reel, then import the logo into Maya, and use the technique described above to turn your logo into neon letters. From there, you can easily animate the letters, render some images, and create a movie file for your demo reel. 

Lighting in Arnold - Beginner Tutorial

In this simple tutorial, for Autodesk Maya beginners, we explain how to achieve a super basic lighting setup in Arnold using the settings in Physical Sky. This is as simple a setup as it is possible to achieve in Arnold, and gives good results for an outdoor scene with just a few clicks.

Maya Beginner Tutorial - Texture Dice

 

In the free video tutorial above we tackle a super simple modelling and texturing exercise - how to create a die (single of dice), bevel it, texture it, and download a free texture map from the web.  The tutorial is aimed at complete beginners who have never used Autodesk Maya before. In addition, you can follow the steps outlined below, including - for extra sophistication - how to add a bump map (not covered in the video above).

Free Script Toggles Control Curves On and Off

Morpheus curves

Below is a very useful MEL (Maya Embedded Language) script for Maya animators, developed by Justin Barratt, and one which we are recommending for all our students. It's a very useful tool, used to toggle the visibility of your animation rigs' control curves on and off.

All you have to do is paste the lines of script below in your script editor in Maya (under the MEL tab) and then save save it to a shelf in the usual way. 

Once you've done this, it should help to speed up your workflow and make you a faster, and better, animator.

Toonboom Harmony Free Demo 30 Sept at 5pm

Toonboom Harmony with Andy Wyatt and Harry R

Tomorrow Thursday 30 September at 5pm Escape Studios in London is hosting a free Toonboom Harmony Event with Harmony experts Andy Wyatt and Harry Ravelomananstsoa. 

Andy Wyatt is Director of Animation Associates & Toon Boom UK; he will discuss what skills the 2D animation industry is looking for, offer portfolio advice and insights into the Harmony pipeline. 

To sign up, follow this link.

Webinar with Disney Writer Evgenia Golubeva

Evgenia Golubeva

Join me on 13th August at Noon for an animation webinar titled "From Animation Student to Disney - How Evgenia Golubeva became a writer at Disney TV Animation".

In this free webinar I'll be asking my former student Evgenia Golubeva some questions about her remarkable animation career.

Evgenia is an award-winning animator, writer and director who is currently working as a writer at Walt Disney Animation in London.

Evgenia has forged a career as a writer and independent film-maker, entering her animated films in festivals around the world and winning international prizes for her work. You can sign up for the webinar here.

VFX Festival Online Starts Tomorrow

The VFX Festival is back. Hosted by Escape Studios, the VFX festival is a celebration of visual effects, animation, games and motion graphics.

For the last seven years the festival has been hosted in London, most recently at the South Bank Centre, but now, for the first time, the VFX festival is going virtual, with online talks and panel discussions.

This week there are two free events, part of the Virtual Series for Schools and Colleges. First up is We Have Lift-Off!: Your first steps to a career in VFX, Animation and Games, which takes place on Tuesday, 19th May at 2pm.  To sign up for the event, follow this link.

Webinar with Robert Valley Today

Artwork by Robert Valley

Today at 4pm Oscar-nominated Director, Animator and Character Designer Robert Valley will be making a webinar appearance to talk about his work. 

Robert Valley is an animator with a remarkable career that includes hits such as Aeon Flux,Tron: Uprising, Netflix’s Love, Death & Robots and ‘Zima Blue’.

LinkedIn Webinar on Thursday 7th May

Steve Vasco

LinkedIn is an important resource for animation graduates; in recent years it has become one of the principal ways in which aspiring animators can get their work notice and - crucially - land that elusive first job in the industry.

Tomorrow Thursday 7 May at 5pm Steve Vasko from LinkedIn is giving a free webinar on personal branding.

Steve Vasko is the Manager of Customer Success at Linkedin and has over 20 years of experience in high tech industries. In this webinar Steve will explain how to build your personal brand at Linkedin - something we recommend all our students do.

Free Animation Taster on Wed 6 May

Lee Caller

Animation interested in learning the art of 3D animation should sign up for this free online Animation Taster on Wednesday 6 May at Noon.

The class is taught by veteran animator Lee Caller, who is also taking the MA in 3D Animation at Bucks New Uni.

Taster Classes are a great chance to learn about character and creature animation, and find out what an animator's job is all about.  No prior knowledge of Maya - or any software - is required.

Webinar with VFX Legend Scott Ross 30 April

Scott Ross

VFX Legend Scott Ross is taking part in a free webinar on Thursday 30th April at 5pm; this is a great opportunity to hear the insights of one of the legendary pioneers of digital media and entertainment.

With a career spanning three decades, Ross was involved in the birth of the compositing software NUKE, was part of leading George Lucas’ ILM, and helped to found the digital production company Digital Domain along with James Cameron and Stan Winston. In addition, Scott Ross has worked on a number of Academy Award winning films.

Free Sound Effects for Film-Makers from the BBC

For our student film-makers at Bucks, one excellent (and free) resource for sound design and sound effects is the BBC Free Sound Effects for Film-Makers.

Around 16,000 BBC Sound Effects have been made available by the BBC in WAV format for free download for use under the terms of the RemArc Licence. The Sound Effects are BBC copyright, but they may be used for personal, educational or research purposes, as detailed in the license. We're recommending this for all our students.

Webinar with Kevin McDowell on April 16th

Kevin McDowell

For our students at Bucks interested in entering the games industry, there are still many online ways of connecting with the industry.

On April 16th, London-based Escape Studios is hosting an "Evening With... " the leading games designer Kevin McDowell.

Kevin McDowell has been the Art Director for SEGA’s Massive PC strategy game series “Total War” for the past 20 years and has been working in video games for 23 years.

Kevin's games have sold over 27 million copies, and in 2012 he won a BAFTA for Total War: Shogun 2.

Maya Educational License

For newcomers to the animation industry, it's important to remember that Autodesk, who make the software Maya, offer an education copy of Maya for free, which can be downloaded from the official Autodesk site.

Autodesk Maya has been the dominant software package in 3D animation for over 20 years. I first used Maya 1.0 on "The Iron Giant", back in 1998. And today it remains the most powerful package for the creation of 3D animation, widely used in industry.

Storyboarder - Free Storyboarding Software

Now more than ever, animators need to be able to source the best (and cheapest) animation software for home use. 

We're recommending this free Storyboard Software from developers WonderUnit. Titled simply "Storyboarder", it works on both a Mac and a PC and is free to download for everyone.

How to Use Studio Library for Maya

Now that all our animation students at BNU are working remotely, it's more important than ever for our students to be aware of the many free plugins that are available to help them work from home in Autodesk Maya.

One of the weaknesses of Maya is the difficulty of copying and pasting your animation from one character rig to another, and Maya also lacks a user friendly interface for saving out and re-using your character poses.  To solve this problem, the free Studio Library tool offers Maya animators a Python script for managing poses and transferring animation in Maya.

Free Motion Graphics Webinar on April 1st

Learn to animate client storyboards

Now that our students are studying and learning from home, it's important to take advantage of all the opportunities available for online study.

Next week, Escape Studios is hosting a free Motion Graphics Webinar on April 1st.  In this free webinar, students will learn how to animate client-approved storyboards; Adam will explain how to import storyboards into Adobe After Effects and create a rough animatic, before moving onto final animation.

Dream On, Silly Dreamer

Dream On Silly Dreamer is a film that should be watched by anyone interested in the history of the Disney Studio. Like "Waking Sleeping Beauty", the film that closed out this year's CTN Expo, it chronicles the rise - and eventual fall - of 2D animation in the 1980s and 1990s.  The story is told through interviews with the artists involved, including Disney legends such as Andreas Deja, the creator of Disney characters such as Scar (Lion King) and Jafar (Aladdin).