UK-based distributor and training company bluegfx has announced the line-up for its second 3D expo day, to be held at London’s Ravensbourne college on 3 November. The one-day event will gather experts from all sectors of the media and entertainment industry to debate and discuss hot industry trends and issues. Entry to the event is free, and provides access to sessions from staff at some of the UK’s leading VFX, games and visualisation firms, including Framestore, MPC, Saddington Baynes, Burrows and doublesix games.
CGArena released the first version of a collection of procedural shaders for 3ds max. The release r|shaders 1.0 got the codename "Core Zero" and will feature 8 different shaders to give the possibility to create many kinds of natural surfaces. The initial release contains following shaders; Ice, Ocean, Sand, Snow, Ice Land, Snow Land, Magma and Ground. With r|shaders, users can simulate a lot of natural surfaces using single shader or mixing more of it to create, for example, some snow area at cold temperature that can seems like ice. Rendering time, even at high resolutions, are generally very low.
Escape Studios like last year started CG Whiz 2011 competition for CG artists featuring prizes for over 30,000$. The prizes are very interesting and of the most interesting is a 12-week VFX course at Escape Studios in Los Angeles or London worth $15,000. Last year joined the CG Whiz 2010 over 200 artists from around the world. This year they added new categories for submission including a “Young Professionals” category an “Amateurs” category and one that we are most excited about, “Users Choice“.