Hi Everyone, my name is Chris Ford from Pixar Animation Studios and I manage Pixar's RenderMan business from our studio in California. I am delighted that Escape has kindly offered me the opportunity to contribute an occasional guest blog post.
Delapost Paris Gives RenderMan Thumbs Up
We love getting a behind the scenes look at productions and we're quite excited to chat to Delapost Paris about their recent ‘Penguins in Heaven’ project. Here we catch up with Emmanuel Koltès who gives us an insight into the making of the commercial, and specifically how Pixar’s RenderMan was used.
Pixar RenderMan User Group Meeting tonight!
We are all looking forward to the UGM tonight with our very technical friends at Pixar! Over 200 people in attendance... should be a great night and plenty of Escape $ behind the bar!
Escape Studios meets Pixar’s Andrew Gordon
Following the Pixar masterclass, we asked Pixar’s Andrew Gordon to share his tips on creating a fantastic animated sequence and tell us how he came to work in the industry and at Pixar.
Pixar release Tractor!
Pixar have just announced the release of it's much anticipated Distributed Processing Solution for RenderMan and Other Applications!
Quick-fire Q&A with Pixar's Story Artist Matthew Luhn
At the Animation and Story Master Class which took place recently, we caught up with Matthew Luhn to get his thoughts on animation. He has worked on some of the biggest animated films produced, including Toy Story and Toy Story 2, Monsters’ Inc., Finding Nemo and Up. Prior to joining Pixar in 1992 Matthew worked on The Simpsons as an animator.
New online courses for next generation of bedroom CG enthusiasts
We’re launching a brand new set of online courses – Self Directed Learning. These low-cost distance learning courses are aimed at students, aspiring 3D artists and computer graphics (CG) hobbyists across the world, and cover CG industry staples Maya, ZBrush and Nuke in detail.
Animation Masterclass with Pixar Artists - places available now!
As some of you may have seen, we've got a fantastic event coming up in March - a two day masterclass with the doyens of CG animation, Pixar.
Disney releases Ptex as open source
Ptex is a technique for per-face, multi-resolution texture mapping without the need to setup your UV's manually. While the paper by Brent Burley (Walt Disney Animation Studios) and Dylan Lacewell (Walt Disney Animation Studios & University of Utah) has been around for a while, last Friday, Disney released the project as open source.
Top Down Animation - Work In Progress - Step 10
Here's the tenth step in my Top Down Animation, Work in Progress series. The following video shows my Left Foot Animation Pass. In which I do the same as the last video and concentrate just on the Left Foot this time to add details to the animation. Step Ten - Left Foot: Again, if you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment or send me a Tweet (@escape_studios)
