CG Academy 2006 News

Here you can find news and information on CG Academy related events, new DVD releases, certifications and special events that we may be holding or are involved in. To keep things neat we have devided the news into yearly blocks. Click on the years button bellow to view news from that period.

CG Academy selling at Siggraph 2006 (24/06/2006)

At this years Siggraph CG Academy will be selling DVDs on the Exhibition floor for the first time. There will of course be a show special price for DVDs purchased there, so if you can make it along to Siggraph please make a visit to our store and pick up some of our DVDs at a bargain price. We'll give you more information on where you can go to buy our DVDs in the very near future.

Three CG Academy Instructors holding Autodesk 3dsmax Masterclasses at Siggraph 2006 (21/06/2006)

At this years Siggraph three of our instructors are hosting 3dsmax Masterclasses at Autodesk's behest. Chris Thomas, Paul Neale and Borislav Petrov will be holding classes that focus on their respective specialities. Chris will be holding an advanced level class on Particle Flow, showing how to created a scripted PFlow lightning system, and in the second half of his class an introduction to Orbaz's Dataflow system for Particle Flow via a fully working Tornado system using these new tools.

Paul is holding two classes, a two part set that deals with the rigging of a complex car model. You've seen his character rigs, so why not pop along and see what secrets he has for his technical rigs. Bobo is also holding two classes, the first deals with rapid prototyping of tools via scripting. Whilst the second takes a look at the life of a TD during a typical day in film production. All very interesting stuff, so if you are attending Siggraph why not come and attend these classes and hopefully meet up with us for a chat afterwards.

Chris Thomas and Bobo nominated as Autodesk Masters (11/06/2006)

Very cool news, both Chris Thomas and Borislav "Bobo" Petrov, both regular producers of DVDs here at CG Academy have been nominated for this years Autodesk Masters Awards. This award started its life as the Maya Masters Awards and was initiated by Alias some years ago to recognise the artistic, technical and community contributions of individuals out there to Maya. Now that Autodesk has purchased Alias and Maya, they have decided to open up the programme to users of 3dsmax also. So this year the nominations are in for both 3dsmax and Maya users for the first time.

It looks like there are six winners per year, so fingers crossed that our two nominees make it into this "hall of fame". Please lend your support and place your votes over at the Autodesk voting page. You can check out the full list of nominees on this page, Bobo is three down, Chris is six down the page. The voting closes on the 18th of June and the winners will be announced at the Monday night Autodesk event at this years Siggraph in Boston in the USA.

Advanced MAXScript 1: The Matrix Explained has been released (08/03/2006)

The Matrix Explained, by Borislav Petrov, the first of our Advanced MAXScript DVDs has been released. This title shows our commitment to producing titles that truly expand any users horizons within 3D. Something CG Academy has always aimed to produce are DVDs that cover all levels of ability and this one is aimed at intermediate to advanced level TDs. Here is the DVD info.....

In this first of our Advanced MAXScript DVDs, Bobo introduces us to the world of 3D math, or as he puts it “how the 3D world functions under the hood…”. This DVD progresses through the theory and practical application of vector, trig, matrix and barycentric coordinate math. It will allow you to manipulate objects transforms, particles speed and motion, to easily align one object to another, and builds on all of these topics to culminate in a fully scripted ray-tracing rendering system!!

Intermediate Rigging 4: Facial Rigging Techniques has been released (06/02/2006)

Facial Rigging Techniques is the long anticipated 4th DVD in Paul Neale's Intermediate Rigging Series. This DVD, as you can imagine from the name, focuses on techniques for rigging our Ogre characters face. The cool thing is, Paul shows two totally separate approaches to this problem, each of which can be taken forward to a fully production capable facial animation system. Also, now that the series is complete, we have also released a 4 DVD set which includes all of the DVDs in the series with a 10% discount on the price. Anyway, here is some more info on DVD 4.

In this final DVD in Paul Neale ’s Intermediate Rigging Series, Paul looks at two completely different ways to setup the Ogre’s facial animation rig. In the first half of the DVD we look at the eye rigs dilation and directional controls, and then move on to a morph centric system that only uses a bone for jaw movement. In the second half of the DVD we look at a bone based system that allows for very fine an intuitive control over the Ogre’s features. A six hour plus DVD, jam packed with insights and a must buy for any budding or professional rigging TD.

Intermediate Texturing 1: The Unwrap UVW Tool has been released (02/02/2006)

The Unwrap UVW Tool is an introduction to one of the most important texturing tools in 3dsmax. In our first DVD in this series UV Mapping & Texturing we looked at the basic theory behind UVs, such as what UVs represent and how they can be manipulated on a basic level to aid in your texturing and also to produce special effects. In our Intermediate DVD we explore how we can directly manipulate our UV layout with a practical game style example. And we look at how we can use this extensive tools features to create effective UV layouts for later texturing work. We have also bundled all of our current texturing DVDs into a 3 DVD Boxed Set, and buying this set gets you the usual 10% off of their combined price. Here is some more info about this new DVD....

The second DVD in our texturing series explores the Unwrap UVW modifier tool in 3dsmax 8.0. The DVD opens with an explanation of the fundamental concepts behind UV unwrapping. Then moves on to give a thorough introduction to all of the user interface elements of the tool. And then Chris takes you through a comprehensive real world project that will give you a solid understanding of the techniques and workflows of the unwrapping process.

2006 Starts