The films directed by the students of the Institute of Animation, Visual Effects and Digital Postproduction at the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg feature animated sequences hilariously exploring what would happen if animals were round. They were created in six months as a final year project at Filmakademie, where students traditionally aim to create trailers for the International Festival of Animated Film.

The animation, rendering, and lighting for the film was created in Maya, with the team using mentalray’s MentalCore plugin for faster render times. Zbrush and Mudbox were also used for detailing in combination with 3D-Coat to clean up topology, while Houdini’s Pyro Solver was used for technical solutions such as creating the dust effects. The project was screened in the Electronic Theatre, the largest and most prestigious cinema venue at SIGGRAPH.

The courses provide students with detailed feedback at the end of each week and allow students to benefit from choosing the schedule at which they can learn. Course ‘after-care’ will also be provided at the end of the courses, which is support to help create a great showreel, a CV and a job application that will be relevant within the industry.

‘The whole course has been immensely informative and has helped me grow as a Digital Artist’ says Andrew Jarvis, Mentored Visual Effects course student. ‘Some tutorials were quite literally ‘Eureka!’ moments for me, getting me over technical humps that I’ve struggled with for years.’

One-day taster courses are also available from Escape Studios for 3D Visual Effects and Compositing, as well as 18-week professional courses. Find out more about the courses and download your copy of  ‘The Benefits of Learning VFX Online’ here.

Thanks go out to José Alves da Silva for this TopoGun tutorial. See more at www.artofjose.com/site

01 Use the SimpleCreate tool

Enable Symmetry (X). Use the SimpleCreate tool to click on the surface and create edges (hold Cmd/Ctrl and click to connect vertexes). Use the SimpleEdit tool to reposition the vertexes, then establish edge loops around the eyes (the interior and exterior of the eyelids) and mouth (outer lips, a large loop below the nose and above the chin). Use the same number of vertexes on the top and bottom of the mouth, as well as the eyes, so that they match when closed. Using the Bridge tool (with Faces on), create polygons connecting the eye and mouth edge loops. Select the Extrude tool (with Crawl active), and pick one of the outer edges of the eye. Press the Loop button to select an edge loop and click-and-drag the green vector on the edge to create new polygons around the eye. Now move vertexes to define a loop that goes below the eyebrow and above the cheekbone. Select edges around the outer loop of the mouth – except the ones below the nose – and drag twice with the Extrude tool to create new polygons. Next, move the vertexes so that the polygons cover the chin and align them around the eye. Now apply the SimpleCreate tool again to connect the mouth and eye areas, and add polygons to build up the bridge of the nose.

02 Extrude & adjust

Extend a strip of polygons along the cheekbone towards the ear and down to shape the jawline. Use the Extrude tool to the extend edges above the eyes to create eyebrows and a forehead, then keep using it to adjust the vertexes, building up the back of the head and moving around the ear area to produce an edge loop. Close the gap between the back of the head and the jawline, then extrude again for the neck.

03 Perfect the nose

To finish the nose, connect its bridge with the top of the lip and add its tip. Produce a polygon loop around the nostril and add more polygons for the wing. Extrude a loop inside the nostril to provide depth and close it with polygons. Now add a loop of polygons inside the eye, stopping at the intersection with the eyeball to give depth to the lid. For the lips, extrude their outer edge to the inside, leaving a gap at the opening.

04 Time for the ears

For the ear, add an extra loop of polygons around the opening, then create a strip of polygons to cover its edge. Fill the back of the ear with polygons, add an edge loop on the front to create the rim and fill the inside with polygons. Topology inside the ear isn’t very important for animation, as ears don’t deform much. If you need more detail, just add loops by changing to Sym Selection, selecting an edge, using the Connect Ring button and adjusting vertexes. You can also add extra loops around the eyes and mouth.

05 Take care of your hands

Disable Visibility under Groups for everything except the arm and one finger. Viewing the finger from above with the Tubes tool (eight divisions), drag to create a section line at its base. Create sections along the finger, marking the knuckles and an extra section on each side of the joint, as well as the tip. Now Ctrl/right-click to generate topology and draw the sections in order, from the base to the tip. Adjust the vertexes on the other side of the finger to match the knuckles and repeat this for the rest. Now create a vertex at the tip of each finger and connect them to the surrounding vertexes to close the tip with four polygons. Select an edge at the base of the fingers, use the Extrude tool to grow fingers towards the hand and add polygons between them.

06 Get those fingers right

To finish, extrude an edge loop near the fingers, then weld the polygons’ vertexes together between the fingers on both sides of the hand. Extrude twice more to produce polygons along the hand and adjust the vertexes so that the side of the index finger’s edges match the side of the thumb. To finish, you can adjust the vertexes to follow the padded areas of the palm, extrude the wrist and weld some vertexes to reduce the poly count along the arm.

Tips for quicker retopology work

• Ctrl/right-click to alternate between the Edit and Create tools
• Split your reference mesh into groups • Use the F key to orbit the camera around a selected area
• Use the Tubes or Draw Sweep tools to retopologise cylindrical forms
• Use the Extrude mode to pull new polygons from existing edges
• Retopologise the main form with a few polygons, then subdivide to add detail
• With the SimpleCreate tool, enable Make Faces to create new polygons
• Use the Bridge tool in Faces mode to create polygons between near edges
• Select Connect Ring to add edge loops perpendicular to a selected edge
• If you get reversed normals, select vertexes and click Force Refresh to realign the normals

Chaos Group has also released their ‘Setting up a V-Ray Shading and Lighting Pipeline’ masterclass, presented by V-Ray Master Trainer Konstantin Gaytandzhiev, which will help when integrating V-Ray into a variety of existing workflows and software.

The winners of the 2013 CG Student Awards Student of the Year have been announced this morning, having been hand picked by industry judges from MPC, Weta Digital, Pixar, The Mill, Ubisoft and Dreamworks amongst others. Congratulations are in order to the very talented winners Pramod LJ and Victor Gaza, runner-ups Cindy Jang and Karen Stanley, and highly commended entrants Yoonhee Jung, Keisuke Itou, Sheryn Lu, Yuuki Morita, Adam Ostridge, Marcel A.F. De Pontes, Xi Wang, and Alessandro Manzani. The judging panel awarded each entrant a score based on their creative skills, technical skills, overall impression, variety of skills, quantity of exceptional assets/shots, raw talent and future potential. Prizes for the winners include a huge range of software such as Houdini, ZBrush 4R5, Nuke, Mari, and Maxwell Render as well as other prizes like an online course of choice from CGWorkshops and a 13 month subscription to 3D Artist!

The VFX/Animation Student of the Year winner is Pramod LJ. He is a recent graduate from Bournemouth University (NCCA) with an MA in Digital Effects and his ultimate aim is to work as an FX TD. He has expertise in compositing, FX/simulations, lighting, matchmove, modeling, shader writing, and as a generalist, as his showreel clearly shows with its impressive effects work and digital assets. View his VFX showreel and shot breakdown here.

For the Next-Gen Gaming category the Student of the Year winner is Victor Gaza, an MA Games Art student at the University of Hertfordshire, where he will be graduating from in September. You can view his extensive body of concept art, modeling, and texture painting for 3D Games in his showreel here.

Runner up for VFX/Animation is Vancouver Film School graduate Cindy Jang. She specializes in modeling, texturing, lighting, and shading. Her Modeling, Texturing, and Shading demo reel ‘Tortiglioni’ showcases her texturing and shading work using the idea of a famous Italian chef’s kitchen. View it here.

Runner up for the Next-Gen Gaming category is Karen Stanley, a second year student studying Games Art at the University of Hertfordshire. She specializes in lighting, modeling, and texture painting, with a particular focus on creating real time environments and props. Watch her Summer 2013 Showreel here.

Visit the CG Student Awards official website for more details.

Imagine Publishing today proudly announced the launch of Brain Dump, a first-of-its kind digital-only science magazine for iPad and iPhone. Brain Dump delivers a flurry of fascinating facts every issue, reducing tough-to-grasp concepts about science, nature, technology and more into bite-size, easy-to-learn articles for the Twitter generation.

In order to celebrate this exciting news we’re running a competition for our Facebook and Twitter followers!

We want you to tell us the most interesting or exciting facts about the 3D world that you know, which we might not. What tips or tricks do you know that makes using a particular piece of software easier? What secrets do you have about the industry that no one else knows? What gems of information do you have about CG or VFX that could massively benefit others, but simply isn’t common knowledge? We want to know!

The top three bite-sized facts that surprise or entertain us the most will win a copy of either The Art of Epic by Tara Bennett and published by Titan Books; Mastering mental ray by Jennifer O’Connor and published by Sybex; or The Digital Matte Painting Handbook by David B. Mattingly and published by Sybex.

To tell us your interesting facts and reveal the unknown, head back to the Twitter or Facebook post that first directed to this blog and reveal to us, in no more than 140 characters, your best bits of hidden knowledge. We’ll pick a winner next Tuesday!

Download the Brain Dump app now: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/id649429083 Subscribe from only 69p/99c per month.

• Name: Brain Dump
• Twitter: @BrainDumpMag
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/BraindumpMag
• Price: From 69p
• Launch: Today!
• Frequency: 13 issues per annum

Imagine Publishing today proudly announced the launch of Brain Dump, a first-of-its kind digital-only science magazine for iPad and iPhone.

Brain Dump delivers a flurry of fascinating facts every issue, reducing tough-to-grasp concepts about science, nature, technology and more into bite-size, easy-to-learn articles for the Twitter generation. Want to know more about the rings of Saturn, how sharks hunt, or the intricacies of string theory? Brain Dump condenses even the most difficult subject matter into clear, understandable chunks of digestible information.

It’s a great accompaniment to the arsenal of any on-the-go 3D Artist. Simply open up the app and start browsing this exciting magazine for all manner of information on natural phenomena; feats of astounding engineering; or facts about space and the beyond. Not only do you get to enhance your understanding of the world, but the incredible illustrations that accompany these informative articles are bursting with inspiration for your next project. Flick through Brain Dump’s pages and you’ll be taken on a journey that encompasses everything from the delicate tendrils of a neuron to the swirling arms of a far-flung galaxy. Brain Dump is positively packed with ideas and inspiration that are sure to influence any imaginative artist’s next 3D project.

Not only this, but Brain Dump is also a genuinely new and exciting product, tailored directly to today’s world of online entertainment. “Brain Dump is a brand-new digital publishing initiative that will make everyone sit up and take notice – from its cutting-edge subscription model to the bespoke design and shape of the content,” says Aaron Asadi, Imagine’s Head of Publishing.

Brain Dump stands alongside Imagine Publishing’s incredible selection of knowledge and technology magazines – including How It Works and 3D Artist – as an educational resource filled with breathtaking photography and incredible illustrations. “Brain Dump is a dynamic, exciting product that represents the very best of Imagine Publishing: our commitment to the Content Is Kind strategy; our love of style and quality, accessible editorial; and our immense dedication to leading the knowledge/science sector.”

A groundbreaking product available to subscribe to on Apple’s Newsstand from only £0.69p/$0.99, Brain Dump marks the dawn of a new publishing category. So what are you waiting for? Head to the Brain Dump Facebook page or Twitter page and get involved today!

Download the Brain Dump app now: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/id649429083 Subscribe from only 69p/99c per month.

• Name: Brain Dump
• Twitter: @BrainDumpMag
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/BraindumpMag
• Price: From 69p
• Launch: Today!
• Frequency: 13 issues per annum

Google Summer of Code is a yearly global program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source software projects over a three month period, with the accepted student applicants paired with mentors to ultimately create and release more source code for the use and benefit of all.

Blender’s projects include the anticipated ‘Sketch Mesh Editing’ by Alexander Pinzon Fernandez, which aims to develop a method for the user to sketch lines to edit their mesh while preserving the geometric details of the surface. Another project, ‘Texturing for Volume Rendering in Cycles’ by Rafael Campos, will aim to implement part of the texturing required for Volume Rendering in the Cycles rendering engine.With Volume Rendering fully implemented, users will be able to render Smoke simulations as well as other participating media with Cycles.

Other projects include additions such as deformation motion blur, new shader nodes, and improvements in the motion tracker, rigid body simulator, paint tools, dependency graph, and the BGE.

Click here to learn more about Google Summer of Code.

Click here for more information about Blender’s accepted projects.

Collider’s exciting schedule includes master classes such as ‘Pushing Your Animation Skills to the Next Level’ by Ken Huling from Blue Sky Studios, ‘Volumetric Fluid FX in Feature Films and Beyond’ by Kevin Romon and Weta Digital, Stephen Mann from CHARLX with ‘Fast and Flexible 3D Rigging Techniques’, and Adam Holmes from Lucasfilm Animation’s ‘The Art  and Vis-ness of Pre-visualization’.

For Maxon, guest talent Joe Herman and Dave Glanz will be sharing tips and techniques highlighting the popular Cinema 4D software, with Dave Glanz giving his master class ‘Integrating 3D Dynamics into a Motion Graphics Workflow’ and Joe Herman giving a special morning session entitled ‘Effective Visual Effects on a Budget with Maxon’s Cinema 4D’.  Herman will be demonstrating very interesting techniques for attendees who want to create visual effects cost effectively, and during the course of the presentation will be tracking a live action city street to build an alien invasion sequence. The presentation will show how to import 3D tracking data from After Effects into Cinema 4D, use dynamics, shatter objects with plugins, emit particles, and highlight the essential Xpresso scripting system.

“While many turn to Cinema 4D daily for motion graphics work, many others also appreciate its sophisticated tools for visual effects and character animation.” Herman says. “This talk is for those who are looking to create visual effects that incorporate live action and 3D imagery for independent films, television or commercials, easily and cost effectively without a tremendously complicated pipeline.”

A Conference Pass (including the Job Fair) is priced at $349, a Master Classes ticket at $99, and a Job Fair Ticket at $45.

Click here to visit the official Collider website for more information.

For CGTrader’s printing competition artists have until the 30^th of June to start uploading their original print-ready 3D models to the CGTrader marketplace in .STL format. The prizes for the winners are two Ultimaker 3D printers and both the winners and the runnerups will have the chance to sell and showcase their 3D printed models at the iMakr store in London.

For cartridgesave.co.uk’s 3D Print Cup, individual artists as well as teams are asked to design a superhero (as well as equip it with a set of fighting skills to defeat the competition) to be printed out in 3D for the deadline on the 27^th of June. At the world’s first 3D-printed character ‘fight night’ wrap party in July, all participants will then take part in a Top Trumps style battle using their 3D models, and the top designs will be awarded as well as have a chance at winning a Makerbot 2X Replicator desktop 3D printer, worth over £2000.

For more information on the competitions, visit the CGTrader’s official competition website and cartridgesave.co.uk’s official website for the 3D Print Cup, and be sure to enter!