| August 11 | NukeX Intermediate and Advanced Courses spherevfx was delighted to have taught more Nuke courses at Teesside University for Skillset. The Intermediate and Advanced courses where attended by lectures from Salford, Teesside and Bradford Universities. The course covered a wide array for techniques including:
For more information on the course, click here... |
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| August 11 | NukeX Course at the NFTS spherevfx was very pleased to have the opportunity to train staff at the National Film and Television School. The first of three courses in Nuke covering:
For more information on the course, click here... |
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| August 11 | NukeX Course Update for 6.3 spherevfx has updated their NukeX courses to include the new features in 6.3 including:
For more information on the course, click here... |
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| July 11 | Maya: Shaders and UV's Course spherevfx was delighted to have run at Maya lighting and UV course at Swansea University for staff from both the University of Glamorgan and Swansea Metropolitan University. The course covered:
For more information on the course, click here... |
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| July 11 | Mari at Bournemouth spherevfx was pleased to have run our first 'Training and Trainers' course in The Foundry's Mari for staff from Bournemouth University and Salford University.
For more information on the course, click here... |
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| July 11 | Maya Lighting, Cameras and Rendering Course spherevfx was delighted to have trained staff at the university of Bournemouth and Teesside University in Maya lighting and rendering.
For more information on the course, click here... |
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| July 11 | An Overview in Visual Effects spherevfx is delighted to have now run our 'VFX: Training the Trainers' - VFX Overview course twice, once at The University of Wales, Newport, a second time in Salford University (Manchester) and a third at Bournemouth University. The courses where attended by numerous lectures from the areas including Bradford, Cardiff, Manchester, Bournemouth and Newport. The course itself covered:
For more information on the course, click here... |
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| June 11 | Nuke Course for Bournemouth and Teeside University Lecturers spherevfx was very pleased to have the opportunity to train staff at the University of Bournemouth. The first of three courses in Nuke covering:
For more information on the course, click here... |
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| June 11 | Mari course updated spherevfx is please to announce we have updated our Mari course to cover the new features of version 1.3, which include:
For more information on the course, click here... |
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| June 11 | New Website Launched for VFX: Training the Trainers Having worked closely with Skillset over the last few months, spherevfx is delighted to announce the release of a unique set of training courses aimed specifically at Skillset Film and Media Academy staff. The aim of the courses is to close the gap between what is being taught to students and what is actually taking place in the industry. We are aware keeping up-to-date with ever-changing industry practices can be extremely hard. To bring these industry practices to the Film and Media Academies, spherevfx under the banner of 'VFX: Training the Trainers' has produced nine courses focusing on the current software tools used throughout the film and television industry. Included are courses on Maya, ZBrush, Mari, PFTrack and Nuke The nine courses will all run multiple times between June and November at key locations across the UK, making it easily accessible for any Media and Film Academies staff to attend. This project has been funded by the Skillset Film Skills Fund as part of ‘A Bigger Future 2’, the UK film skills strategy. The Skillset Film Skills Fund is supported by the National Lottery through the BFI and the film industry through the Skills Investment Fund. Participant fees for courses are therefore subsidised in order to make the training accessible to as many staff as possible. To visit the website, click here...http://www.vfxttt.com |
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| May 11 | Summer 2011 Wall Paper Released A new spherevfx wallpaper has been released with images from Source Code, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, The Smurfs, Cowboys and Aliens, X-Men: First Class, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Zookeeper, Real Steel, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Green Lantern, Conan the Barbarian, Thor, Cars 2, Priest and Shark Night 3D. To download click here... |
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| May 11 | Advanced Nuke Training for Automotive Visualisation Company spherevfx was delighted to have trained artists from one of the worlds leading product design and visualisation companies. With offices across the world including Detroit, Beijing, Munich and Brussels, RRT also produces its own in-house award-winning software RTT Delta. spherevfx was called on to training a number of artist in The Foundry's Nuke covering subjects including:
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| April 11 | Nuke Training in Norway for 'Digital Storytelling' spherevfx was pleased to have trained artist from across Scandinavia in both intermediate and advanced Nuke courses. Artist from Storm Studios, NRK, Gimpville, Dramman, Qvisten, Zurextra, and Bonanza Post Production attended the courses which covered many aspects of Nuke. The courses where part of the Digital Storytelling conference in which Paul Debevec was the keynote speaker. The conference also included presentations from European game industry professionals, from motion capture actor Pascal Langlois (Ethan Mars in “Heavy Rain”), to film director working with motion capture John Dower (Xbox 360 “Milo & Kate”), Matt Woodward from CCP Games (Eve Online), Owen O’Brien from DICE (Mirror’s Edge), and Norwegian character animator Arne Kaupang presented work on the sci-fi movie “Paul” on behalf of Double Negative. |
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| April 11 | Training Trainers in Visual Effects Across the UK spherevfx is absolutely delighted to have won a funding bid from Skillset Sector Skills Council’s (SSC) for a training project known as 'VFX: Trainer the Trainers'. 'VFX: Trainer the Trainers' is a range of 9 visual effects courses which will be delivered to 23 Media Academy's and accredited course tutors equipping them with the skills required to teach industry standard visual effects software and techniques on their courses. This means spherevfx has become the leading UK training company for all the media universities and colleges across the UK for visual effects. Nine courses in total have been designed for the Media Academy training, including:
A website is currently being setup specifically for this project (details to follow) from which Media Academy tutors will be able to book on a course and interact with other tutors via the online forums. |
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| March 11 | New RenderMan Studio Course spherevfx is delighted to announce our new Introduction to RenderMan Studio course. The course covers many aspects of RenderMan for Maya, Slim and It. For more information on the course, click here... |
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| March 11 | New Ocula Course spherevfx is please to announce our new Ocula course, the award winning stereo plugin suite for The Foundry's Nuke. For more information on the course, click here... |
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| March 11 | Customer References We are pleased to be able to share with you a number of new customer references we have recently received. As a company we are very excited about what we do and to receive such great feedback from out customers is fantastic. To read their kind words, click here... |
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| February 11 | Nuke for Ravensbourne spherevfx has worked alongside Ravensbourne to deliver an intermediate NukeX course. The three day course covered many aspects of Nuke including Channel Sets and Channels workflow, Keying, Tracking, Colour Correction, 3D, Cleanup, Roto, Projection, 3D Camera Tracking, Lens Distortion and more. |
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| February 11 | After Effects Training spherevfx is pleased to have provided training on behalf of Digital Media Training, an Apple Authorized Training Centre based in Cardiff. Over the three days we covered many aspects of After Effects including: Creating a Sequence of Media Clips, Animating Layers and Effects, Sequencing Layers Precisely, Creating Transparency, Outputting Video Files, Keyframes, Type Draw, Paint, Animation Assistants, Keying, Time and Tracking, Working with 3D, Format Issues and Rendering, and Basic Expression. |
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| February 11 | Nuke Masterclass Matt Leonard (Head of Training) from spherevfx attended this year's Foundry masterclass in London. The event focused heavily on stereo compositing and speakers included Shervin Shoghian (Digital Domain, Vancouver), John Gajdecki (Freelance VFX Supervisor) and Ran Sariel (Rainmaker). The Foundry also gave a sneak preview of some of the new features coming up in Nuke 6.3 which include:
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| January 11 | Advanced Nuke Training spherevfx is delighted to have trained artist again at Windmill Lane Pictures in Ireland. Training 14 compositors in Nuke covering 3D, Keying, Clean-Up, or more. |
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| January 11 | Beginners Nuke Training in Dublin spherevfx is delighted to have worked again with Windmill Lane Pictures in Ireland. Training over 14 compositors in Nuke with background from the likes of Shake, Flame, After Effects, Fusion and Combustion. The intensive course was aimed at beginners and will be followed up with an advanced course soon. |
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| December 10 | Update of Nuke and NukeX Courses to 6.2 spherevfx has updated it's Nuke courses to take advantage of the new features found in version 6.2 of the software. These include:
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| December 10 | 'NukeX 6.0 and 6.1 New Features' New DVD spherevfx is pleased to announce the release of our new Nuke DVD. This new training disc covers all the new features found in Nuke and NukeX for both 6.0 and 6.1 releases.
For more detail and to buy now direct from the site click here... |
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| December 10 | Nuke Training at Dreamworks Animation Matt Leonard (Head of Training at spherevfx) was delighted to have helped training over 50 artist at Dreamworks Animation in NukeX. Working along side Nathalie Bergeron, Deke Kincaid and Matt Brealey from The Foundry we trained artist over a number of days covered many of the key functionality of Nuke. |
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| December 10 | Los Angeles Visit Matt Leonard (Head of Training at spherevfx) was delighted to have visited various effects houses in Los Angeles including Digital Domain and Pixomondo. The week long trip arranged by The Foundry was a fantastic opportunity to meet various heads of 2D at Digital Domain to talk about their Nuke pipeline and compositing techniques. Matt was also extremely privileged to sit down with Justin Van Der Lek (Environment Artist) to see the amazing new techniques Digital Domain are utilizing for upcoming features films. He also had the privilege of visiting Pixomondo to see the amazing Stereoscopic work they are currently working on. Matt also had the opportunity to join The Foundry in Hollywood to celebrate the release of Mari 1.1. A special thanks to Nathalie Bergeron for arranging everything perfectly and Deke Kincaid for his amazing hospitality. |
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| December 10 | New Website Design for 2011 We have totally redesigned the spherevfx website ready for 2011. Have a good look round, many areas have been updated including Courses, DVD's, Diary, Web Links, and Future VFX Movies. |
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| November 10 | Nuke at Ghost (Denmark) spherevfx is delighted to have trained artist at Denmark's most prestigious visual effects company, Ghost VFX. Founded in 1999 with an ambition to create high quality visual effects for film and advertising, 11 years on, Ghost VFX has grown to be one of the largest visual effect facilities in Scandinavia with a proven track record in feature films and commercials. Their credit list includes movies such as Hellboy 2, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Harry Potter 5, Drag Me To Hell, Ninja Assassin, and Kick-Ass. spherevfx was pleased to provide a custom 'Fusion to Nuke' course covering the main differences between the two systems plus Nuke's unique features such as it's Layer and Channel system, Camera Tracking, UV and Projection workflow's and much more. |
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| November 10 | Update to Vue Course spherevfx is pleased to announce they have updated the Vue xStream training course to cover the new features found in version 9. For more information on this course, click here. |
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| November 10 | Winter 2010 Wall Paper Released A new spherevfx wallpaper has been released with images from Tron Legacy, Gulliver's Travels, Unstoppable, Paul, The Green Hornet, Season of the Witch, Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Sucker Punch, Day and Night, Rango, Skyline, Yogi Bear, Battle: Los Angeles, Cars 2, Thor, Amphibious 3D, Megamind, and The Warrior's Way. To download click here... |
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| October 10 | New Course in Mari spherevfx is delighted to announce our new MARI course. MARI is a creative texture-painting tool that can handle extreme projects. MARI was developed at Weta Digital to handle the massively complex, highly detailed look development work demanded of the texture department by projects such as District 9, The Lovely Bones, and Avatar. For more information on this course, click here. |
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| October 10 | After Effects Training at DMT spherevfx is pleased to have provided training on behalf of Digital Media Training, an Apple Authorized Training Centre based in Cardiff. Over the three days we covered many aspects of After Effects including: Creating a Sequence of Media Clips, Animating Layers and Effects, Sequencing Layers Precisely, Creating Transparency, Outputting Video Files, Keyframes, Type Draw, Paint, Animation Assistants, Keying, Time and Tracking, Working with 3D, Format Issues and Rendering, and Basic Expressions |
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| September 10 | NukeX Advanced Course for Skillset spherevfx is delighted to have run a Nuke Advanced course for Skillset Academy Plus. The course covered a whole array of topics including: Paint Painting, Stereoscopic Compositing, Environments, 3D Camera Tracking, Image Based Keying, Plate Clean-up, and much more. |
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| September 10 | NukeX at IBC, Amsterdam for The Foundry spherevfx is delighted that Matt Leonard, Head of Training, was asked to demo NukeX at IBC (Amsterdam) for The Foundry over the five day conference. During the event Leonard covered composites from Transformers 2, 2012, The Losers and Avatar. The Foundry also has speakers from Industrial Light and Magic, MPC, Framestore, Jellyfish and RED. |
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| September 10 | NukeX at Windmill Lane, Dublin spherevfx is pleased to have run a second training course for Windmill Lane's Head of 2D and Head of 3D. Windmill Lane is Irelands largest and longest established integrated film and television post production company. The intensive two day covered many aspects of NukeX including its unique multi layer/channel workflow, keying, masks, tracking, colour correction, 3D, camera matchmoving, giizmo creation and much more. For more information about Windmill Lane, click here... |
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| August 10 | NukeX Intermediate Course for Skillset spherevfx is delighted to have run a Nuke Intermediate course for Skillset Academy Plus. The course covered a whole array of topics including: Multi-pass CGI Compositing, Colour Management, Keying using Primatte and Keylight, Stabilization and Corner Pinning, CGI Utility Channels. We also covered an introduction to Nuke’s 3D Environment looking at Camera Tracking, 3D Projection,Cleanup and Rig Removal Techniques, 3D Roto and custom Displacement Mapping. An advances courses to follow soon. See the Skillset Academy Plus website for more details |
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| August 10 | NukeX Training in Ireland spherevfx is delighted to have trained Flame, After Effects and 3D artists from Screen Scene, one of Dublin's premiere post production companies. The week course covers many advanced aspects of Nuke including Keying, Tracking, Camera Matchmoving, Projection, Coverage Maps, Cleanup, 3D Roto, SynthEyes, Boujou and 3DS Max Integration and much more... For more information about Screen Scene, click here... |
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| July 10 | Windmill Lane: NukeX spherevfx is pleased to have trained artists from Windmill Lane Pictures, Irelands largest and longest established integrated film and television post production company. The course covered all aspects of NukeX including its unique multi layer/channel workflow, keying, masks, tracking, colour correction, 3D, camera matchmoving, lens distortion, gizmo creation and much more. For more information about Windmill Lane, click here... |
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| June 10 | NukeX Introduction Course for Skillset spherevfx is delighted to have run a Nuke Introduction course for Skillset Academy Plus. The course was is designed for those artist would had no previous Nuke experience. Intermediate and Advances courses to follow soon. See the Skillset Academy Plus website for more details. |
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| June 10 | Flame to NukeX Course spherevfx is delighted to have trained a senior Autodesk Flame artist in NukeX. Eduardo “Alvin” Cruz has worked at some of the top digital production studio in the UK, USA and Spain including: Golden Square (Soho), Pure (New York), MacGuff (Los Angeles) and Serena Digital (Madrid). The week long course covered many aspects of NukeX and focused on the different tools and techniques found between Flame and Nuke. For more information on Eduardo, click here... |
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| June 10 | New Stereoscopic Course spherevfx is pleased to announce our new 'Introduction to Stereoscopic Post Production' course. The course looks to introduce existing artists working in 3D and Compositing into the world of stereo and covers everything from concepts & theory to hands-on exercises. The 3D software being taught is Autodesk's Maya but with the Compositing side of the course you can choose either The Foundry's Nuke or eyeon's Fusion. A fourth section covers the use of The Foundry's Ocula. For prices and full course information, click here... |
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| June 10 | A Month of Maya and Nuke Training Artists from Lumiere Services (Cyprus) have attended a months training at spherevfx covering both Maya 2011 and NukeX 6.0. The specialist course cover many aspects of both programs including:
Along with software skills we also covered:
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| May 10 | Summer 2010 Wall Paper Released New spherevfx wall paper has been released with images from Toy Story 3, Predators, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Inception, Piranha 3D, The Last Airbender, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Knight and Day, Shrek 4: Forever After, Cats & Dogs: Revenge of Kitty Galore, The A-Team, and Sea Rex 3D. To download click here... |
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| May 10 | New Vue xStream Course spherevfx is delighted to announce our new Vue 8.5 xStream course. Vue 8 is the most efficient and advanced solution for creating, animating and rendering natural 3D environments. It offers a high-end 3D scenery solution for SFX studios, animators, illustrators, architects, matte painters and CG professionals. It is strongly focused on power, productivity and inter-operability with existing toolkits. Vue 8 naturally integrates and extends all major 3D applications to provide a complete, professional natural 3D studio. Specifically designed for professionals, it combines a multitude of cutting-edge features that easily integrate with your workflow. With its intuitive, production-oriented layout, you will quickly enhance your production with rich EcoSystem of wind-swept trees and plants, Spectral atmospheres and detailed terrains in fully animated scenes. Vue has been used on many feature films including: Prince of Persia, G.I. Joe, The Wolfman, 2012, Pirate of the Caribbean, Terminator Salvation, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. |
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| April 10 | NukeX and Maya 2011 at the Film School spherevfx is pleased to have taught students both The Foundry's NukeX and Autodesk's Maya 2011 at the International FIlm School Wales. The three course covered Lighting, Rendering and Animating Techniques in Maya. Basic Nuke compositing tricks where also taught including Layers and Channels, Colour Correction, Keying, Tracking and basic 3D. |
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| April 10 | Matt Leonard Teaches NukeX in Norway Matt Leonard (Head of Training for spherevfx) is delighted to have attended this years Digital Storytelling conference in Oslo, Norway. Following the conference Leonard had the pleasure of teaching NukeX to artist from across Scandinavia during two days of workshops. One unexpected privilege was Matt's opportunity to spend time with Robert Stromberg who has just won the Academy Award for Art Direction for Avatar. He also had the opportunity to meet up with Ben and Vikki from The Foundry, Theo Groeneboom (Lead Compositor on Avatar for Framestore) and Colin Doncaster (Weta Digital, Avatar / The Lovely Bones). |
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| April 10 | Maya Course Updated for 2011 Release spherevfx is pleased to announce we're updated out Maya course to cover the updates found in the newly released 2011 version. For more information on our Maya 2011 courses, click here... |
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| April 10 | fxphd and 'MYA 102: Introduction to Maya 2011' Matt Leonard (Head of Training) is extremely pleased to be working again with Mike, John and all the team at fxphd. This term Matt is running a brand new Maya Introduction course and is aimed at those who have little or no experience in 3D, or post-grads who know another system, such 3DS Max or Softimage but want to expand their software skills. The course is designed to cover all the main areas of Maya's vast toolset including Modeling, Animation, Rigging, Muscles, nParticles, Dynamics, nCloth, Hair, Fur, Fluids, Shaders, UV’s, Lighting, Cameras and Rendering. This course is entirely project focused and throughout the term we’ll be working on a single project. The shot will be created with a final Stereoscopic output in mind and will utilize all areas of Maya mentioned above. An extra bonus class has also been added on to complete the project in Nuke. |
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| June 10 | NukeX Introduction Course for Skillset spherevfx is delighted to have run a Nuke Introduction course for Skillset Academy Plus. The course was is designed for those artist would had no previous Nuke experience. Intermediate and Advances courses to follow soon. See the Skillset Academy Plus website for more details. |
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| June 10 | Flame to NukeX Course spherevfx is delighted to have trained a senior Autodesk Flame artist in NukeX. Eduardo “Alvin” Cruz has worked at some of the top digital production studio in the UK, USA and Spain including: Golden Square (Soho), Pure (New York), MacGuff (Los Angeles) and Serena Digital (Madrid). The week long course covered many aspects of NukeX and focused on the different tools and techniques found between Flame and Nuke. For more information on Eduardo, click here... |
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| June 10 | New Stereoscopic Course spherevfx is pleased to announce our new 'Introduction to Stereoscopic Post Production' course. The course looks to introduce existing artists working in 3D and Compositing into the world of stereo and covers everything from concepts & theory to hands-on exercises. The 3D software being taught is Autodesk's Maya but with the Compositing side of the course you can choose either The Foundry's Nuke or eyeon's Fusion. A fourth section covers the use of The Foundry's Ocula. For prices and full course information, click here... |
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| June 10 | A Month of Maya and Nuke Training Artists from Lumiere Services (Cyprus) have attended a months training at spherevfx covering both Maya 2011 and NukeX 6.0. The specialist course cover many aspects of both programs including:
Along with software skills we also covered:
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| May 10 | Summer 2010 Wall Paper Released New spherevfx wall paper has been released with images from Toy Story 3, Predators, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Inception, Piranha 3D, The Last Airbender, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Knight and Day, Shrek 4: Forever After, Cats & Dogs: Revenge of Kitty Galore, The A-Team, and Sea Rex 3D. To download click here... |
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| May 10 | New Vue xStream Course spherevfx is delighted to announce our new Vue 8.5 xStream course. Vue 8 is the most efficient and advanced solution for creating, animating and rendering natural 3D environments. It offers a high-end 3D scenery solution for SFX studios, animators, illustrators, architects, matte painters and CG professionals. It is strongly focused on power, productivity and inter-operability with existing toolkits. Vue 8 naturally integrates and extends all major 3D applications to provide a complete, professional natural 3D studio. Specifically designed for professionals, it combines a multitude of cutting-edge features that easily integrate with your workflow. With its intuitive, production-oriented layout, you will quickly enhance your production with rich EcoSystem of wind-swept trees and plants, Spectral atmospheres and detailed terrains in fully animated scenes. Vue has been used on many feature films including: Prince of Persia, G.I. Joe, The Wolfman, 2012, Pirate of the Caribbean, Terminator Salvation, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. |
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| April 10 | NukeX and Maya 2011 at the Film School spherevfx is pleased to have taught students both The Foundry's NukeX and Autodesk's Maya 2011 at the International FIlm School Wales. The three course covered Lighting, Rendering and Animating Techniques in Maya. Basic Nuke compositing tricks where also taught including Layers and Channels, Colour Correction, Keying, Tracking and basic 3D. |
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| April 10 | Matt Leonard Teaches NukeX in Norway Matt Leonard (Head of Training for spherevfx) is delighted to have attended this years Digital Storytelling conference in Oslo, Norway. Following the conference Leonard had the pleasure of teaching NukeX to artist from across Scandinavia during two days of workshops. One unexpected privilege was Matt's opportunity to spend time with Robert Stromberg who has just won the Academy Award for Art Direction for Avatar. He also had the opportunity to meet up with Ben and Vikki from The Foundry, Theo Groeneboom (Lead Compositor on Avatar for Framestore) and Colin Doncaster (Weta Digital, Avatar / The Lovely Bones). |
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| April 10 | Maya Course Updated for 2011 Release spherevfx is pleased to announce we're updated out Maya course to cover the updates found in the newly released 2011 version. For more information on our Maya 2011 courses, click here... |
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| April 10 | fxphd and 'MYA 102: Introduction to Maya 2011' Matt Leonard (Head of Training) is extremely pleased to be working again with Mike, John and all the team at fxphd. This term Matt is running a brand new Maya Introduction course and is aimed at those who have little or no experience in 3D, or post-grads who know another system, such 3DS Max or Softimage but want to expand their software skills. The course is designed to cover all the main areas of Maya's vast toolset including Modeling, Animation, Rigging, Muscles, nParticles, Dynamics, nCloth, Hair, Fur, Fluids, Shaders, UV’s, Lighting, Cameras and Rendering. This course is entirely project focused and throughout the term we’ll be working on a single project. The shot will be created with a final Stereoscopic output in mind and will utilize all areas of Maya mentioned above. An extra bonus class has also been added on to complete the project in Nuke. |
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| March 10 | Nuke Course at SMU spherevfx is pleased to have trained students and staff members for five days in Nuke. The beginners course covered the basics of Nuke's multipass workflow, colour correction, tracking, keying and then progressed onto more advanced topics such as pan and tile setup and cleanup through use of projection techniques. |
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| March 10 | Nuke for VFX Supervisor/Senior Flame Artist spherevfx is delighted to have trained VFX Supervisor and Senior Flame Artist Toby Brockhurst. The custom course covered many aspects of Nuke including 3D, Stereoscopic compositing, Keying, Tracking, Matchmoving and Nukes unique Layers/Channels system. Brockhurst has worked at some of the top VFX companies around the world including Framestore, Glassworks, R!ot, The Mill and MPC. Along with countless Commercials Brockhurst has worked on feature films such as Pearl Harbor, The Devils Advocate, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Moulin Rouge! |
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| February 10 | Nuke Course for the French and English spherevfx is extremely pleased to have taught Nuke to artists from both France and England. The three day course covered many aspects of Nuke including it's Multipass Workflow, Stereoscopic Compositing, 3D, Keying, Tracking, Roto and Paint, Camera Tracking, Lens Distortion and more. We also briefly looked a custom shader creation in Maya. |
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| February 10 | Custom Nuke London Course spherevfx is delighted to a have run a custom Nuke 6.0 course of a visual effects artist based in London. The coursed covered Nuke's Multipass Workflow, 3D, Stereoscopic, Keying, Tracking, Roto and Paint, Camera Tracking and more. |
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| January 10 | Updated Nuke Course spherevfx is pleased to announce the update of our Nuke courses to cover the new features found in version 6.0 of both Nuke and NukeX.
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| January 10 | fxphd Courses in Maya and Fusion Matt Leonard (Head of Training) is delighted that fxphd is re-running a number of his classes including:
Matt has been working with fxphd for nearly 3 years and we can't recommend their excellent online training enough. For more information and to sign up for this term visit fxphd.com Please also note their sister site fxguide.com, the definitive place for visual effects news, podcasts, videos and more. |
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| January 10 | Updated Generation Course spherevfx is pleased to announce the update of our eyeon Generation course to cover the new features found in version 2, including:
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| December 09 | Bespoke Nuke Training Matt Leonard (Head of Training) is pleased to have taught Nuke again at 01zero-one for a bespoke London company. The course, joint taught with Ian Murphy, was designed for artist coming from other compositing packages and covers all aspects of Nuke. including colour correction, tracking, 3D, channels, keying and more. |
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| December 09 | Leonard Joins Screen Academy Wales Matt Leonard (Head of Training) is delighted to have been asked onto the membership of the Industry Panel of Animation for Skillset Screen Academy Wales. The Skillset Screen Academy Wales is one of the UK’s 7 recognised centres of high level film, animation and screen acting industry-focused training and education, providing masters level and undergraduate programme in eight core areas. The (SSAW) partnership is between University of Wales Newport (International Film School of Wales, The University of Glamorgan (Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries) and associate partners Swansea Metropolitan University, The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and Cyfle, as an industry training partner. They provide masterclasses, mentoring opportunities, intensive residencies and film labs, curriculum development, short courses and direct contact with the industry in Wales and across the UK for our students and graduates, as well as offering bursaries for students to attend our courses. |
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| December 09 | Maya and Nuke Consultancy at Munky spherevfx was delighted to have provided consultancy work for 'Munky' on their new HD project. The consultancy was mainly focused on their Maya and Nuke pipeline and requirement. Munky is a VFX boutique based in London, their work includes Commercials, Feature Film, and TV. They have a core team of artist with a fantastic reputation for getting productions and people out of jail, and fast. |
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| December 09 | Free Tutorial on Nuke's Layer and Channel system We are pleased to announce out new free Nuke tutorial covering Nuke's Unique Layer and Channel system. This in-depth tutorial also coves the Shuffle and ShuffleCopy nodes and the use of openEXR files. Tutorial is available Training Articles in the top menu. |
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| November 09 | Free Custom Render Pass Tutorials We are pleased to announce three new tutorials for Maya. Firstly a custom UV render pass setup, secondly a custom Fresnel render pass used to realistically remove reflections based on light angles, and lastly a custom Point Pass which works in conjunction with a Normal pass for relighting. All tutorials are available Training Articles in the top menu. |
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| November 09 | Maya Training for The Foundry Having a long standing relationship with The Foundry spherevfx was delighted to be able to provide two days of Maya training to a number of key staff. The training covered the UI, modelling, animation, shader building, rendering along with other areas along the way. |
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| November 09 | Nuke 3D at 01zero-one Matt Leonard (Head of Training) was please to have taught two evening of Nuke to professional students from companies including MPC and Framestore. The course run by 01zero-one and headed up by Ian Murphy consisted of an introduction to Nuke's 3D system, pan and tile setup, lens correction, materials and lighting, 3D roto and Projection based cleanup. |
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| October 09 | fxphd and 'Maya in Production', plus Nuke, PFTrack and more... Matt Leonard (Head of Training) is extremely pleased to be working again with Mike, John and all the team at fxphd. This term Matt is running a 300 level Maya/Nuke course which will cover some of the visual effects work on Jason Wingrove's new fill 'Moving Day'. For more information on this and all the fxphd new October 09 courses, click here... |
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| September 09 | New spherevfx Wallpaper Available Our new winter wallpaper is available to download featuring images from The Wolfman, Dorian Gray, Surrogates, Where the Wild Things Are, Shutter Island, District 9, Splice, Avatar, A Christmas Carol, 2012, The Box, The Lovely Bones, Cirque de Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, Sherlock Holmes, and Alice in Wonderland. |
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| September 09 | Nuke 5.2 Course for The University of Greenwich spherevfx is please to have provided a Nuke 5.2 course for staff at The University of Greenwich. The course covered all area's of The Foundry's newest version of this award winning compositing software including:
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| September 09 | IBC 2009 spherevfx was pleased to attend IBC in Amsterdam this year. Among the many interesting exhibitors where eyeon Software showing Generation 2, Autodesk showing Maya and Maya Composite (Toxik) 2010 and The Pixel Farm showing PF Track and PF Pipe. Probably our most favorite stand was The Foundry which was always packed. Artist from Mikros Image, Digital Domain, Image Engine, Framestore and Rise FX showed their visual effects work from District 9, G. I. Joe, Quantum of Solace and more. |
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| September 09 | Fusion Course Customer Testimony Derek Ebeling took a Fusion course held by spherevfx in London. Here is his feedback about the course, the content, and how he benefited from the experience with authorized eyeon SWAT trainer, Matt Leonard. |
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| September 09 | spherevfx Soon To Teach Vue xStream Vue 7.5 xStream offers professional CG artists a complete toolset for creating and rendering exceptionally rich and realistic natural environments. Access all the power of the world's leading 3D scenery program directly from within your favorite application. Create and edit beautifully detailed natural environments using your application's standard manipulators. Render everything together inside Maya, and other 3D applications, with full interaction between Vue and native elements, including 2-way mutual shadow casting, reflection, refraction and GI. Companies using Vue xStream include: Industrial Light and Magic, Animal Logic, Whiskytree, to name a few and has been used of feature films such as Terminator Salvation, Australia, The Spiderwick Chronicles and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. |
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| September 09 | New Maya Composite 2010 Training Course Coming Soon. spherevfx will soon be releasing a Maya Composite 2010 course aimed at Maya artist. Maya Composite formally known as Toxik features:
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| September 09 | Upgraded Nuke Training Courses to 5.2 spherevfx has upgraded its Nuke training courses to cover the new features found in the 5.2 releases. The courses now covers:
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| September 09 | Upgraded Mudbox 2010 Training Courses. spherevfx has upgraded its Mudbox training courses to cover the new features found in the 2010 releases. The courses now covers:
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| September 09 | Upgraded Maya 2010 Training Courses spherevfx has upgraded its Maya training courses to cover the new features found in the 2010 releases. The courses now includes:
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| August 09 | PFTrack course at Dinamo. spherevfx has delighted to have provided both a beginners refresher course along with a more advanced / consultancy based PFTrack course for artist at Dinamo. |
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| August 09 | Nuke Course for Italian 3D / VFX Company spherevfx is delighted to have trained two artist from the Italian post production company 'Pixel Cartoon' in The Foundry's Nuke. The four day Nuke: Complete course covered all aspects of Nuke including:
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| August 09 | Announcing our next Nuke DVD spherevfx is pleased to announce our next Nuke DVD which will be available in the next few months. Currently being developed under the title of 'Nuke: Defined' this new DVD will be a comprehensive guide to the 150 plus tools currently found in Nuke. It will also be covering the UI, Editors and Preferences. The great thing about this training package is that it's built with expansion in mind, so as new versions of Nuke come out existing spherevfx customers can buy or receive free (if they've taken the year subscription option) an update DVD. The training package is going to be available as a single licence or as a site licence (giving companies the flexibility to copy the content onto their internal intranet). Also, as mentioned above, a year subscription can also be taken out giving free upgrades for all versions of Nuke brought out by The Foundry in a 12 month period. More information coming soon... |
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| July 09 | After Effects Course at The ATRiuM Matt Leonard of spherevfx was pleased to have run a two day After Effects CS4 course on behalf of Cryptic Peach. The course given at the ATRiuM for staff members of Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries covered a multitude of disciplines including: The UI, Compositing Window, Layers, Text, Colour Correction, Masks and Mattes, Keying, Tracking / Stabilization, Effects and Filters, Distortion Tools, Animation and Keyframes, Path Animations, The Graph Editor, 3D, Expressions |
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| July 09 | Fusion Course at Framestore spherevfx is delighted to have run a Fusion 6 course at Framestore in Soho. Nine people attended the course, which was joint event with Focus FX, including a number of Senior Compositors. The course covered a number of areas including Tracking, Keying, Colour Correction, Macros and the new 3D system heavily updated in Version 6. |
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| July 09 | After Effects Masterclass at The ATRiuM Matt Leonard of spherevfx was pleased to have given an Adobe After Effects masterclass at The ATRiuM on behalf of Cryptic Peach. The masterclass was attended by over 50 people from industry and various universities and covered a mixer of advanced After Effects techniques including Keying, Lightwrap and Edge Blur tools, 3D Projection, Tracking and Colour Correction. |
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| July 09 | New 'Fusion 6 Foundations' DVD spherevfx is pleased to announce the release of our new 'Fusion 6: Foundations' DVD. This is the must have training resource of anyone updating to the newest release of eyeon's flagship compositing system. Covering all the new features including:
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| June 09 | Nuke Course at SMU spherevfx is pleased to have trained students and staff members for two days in Nuke. The beginners course covered the basics of Nuke's multipass workflow, colour correction, tracking, keying and then progressed onto more advanced topics such as pan and tile setup and cleanup through use of projection techniques. |
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| June 09 | Fusion 6 Article on fxguide.com eyeon Software began life in 1987 as New York Production and Design. They were based in Sydney, Australia and primarily produced 3D and Visual Effects for feature films and commercials. As more and more challenging effects were being called for, NYPD began developing its own in-house proprietary toolset. As time went on these separate tools were combined into a single system know today as Fusion. Now based in the Beaches District of Toronto (Canada) and with 21 years of development behind them, eyeon Software has just released the 16th major version of its flagship compositing software Fusion. This year alone, Fusion is being used on the likes of Terminator Salvation, G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra and Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian... For the full article visit www.fxguide.com |
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| June 09 | Maya and Fusion Course at SMU spherevfx is pleased to have again work alongside students at Swansea Metropolitan University. |
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| June 09 | Updated Fusion Training Course, Now Version 6 spherevfx is delighted to announce we have updated our Fusion courses to cover the new features found in the much anticipated release of version 6. These changes include the User Interface and Display Views, the RoI & DoD, changes and new 2D Tools, enhancements to Polylines, Paths, the Timeline and Spline Editor. Also updated to whole 3D section, plus added a section on Stereoscopic compositing. For more information, click here or visit the 'Training Course' section via the top menu. |
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| June 09 | Nuke Course for Lead Soho Artist spherevfx is delighted to have run a custom In-Depth course for Maryam Sharifi, a lead artist and supervisor. The course focused on the more advanced functionality of Nuke and covered keying, tracking, colour correction and 3D in detail. Particular focus was given to real world compositing task including Pan and Tile, Camera Projections, 3D Roto and Multipass CG compositing. |
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| May 09 | Fusion, Maya and PFTrack Training spherevfx is pleased to have again work alongside students at Swansea Metropolitan University. Specifically focused towards professional production techniques the students worked primarily on a new project entitled 'The Blitz' which will be showcased later in the year. |
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| May 09 | eyeon SWAT Training Partner spherevfx is delighted to have become one of eyeon's SWAT training partners. With the 'SoftWare Artist Training' program, eyeon has expanded an international network of trainers to ensure that every eyeon artist is up-to-speed on the latest versions of Fusion, Generation, Vision and Rotation. |
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| April 09 | Maya at UWIC Matt Leonard Head of Training at spherevfx is delighted to have work with UWIC, Cardiff Metropolitan University, teaching Maya 2009. The short introductory course was designed to teach the basic of Maya and covered a mixture of areas including Modeling, Animation, Shading, Lighting and Rendering. |
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| April 09 | In-Depth Course Covers Maya, PFTrack & Nuke spherevfx is delighted to have run a custom In-Depth course for Jim Solan, a Director/Editor/Compositor working in London and Manchester. The course utilized a mix of Maya 2009, PFTrack 5.0 and Nuke 5.1v4 and covered a multitude of disciplines including tracking and data export. Maya multipass rendering and working with imported tracked data, and a detailed look at Nuke's 3D system, it's powerful IBK Keyer, Layers/Channels and more. |
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| April 09 | spherevfx Updates PFTrack Course to 5.0 spherevfx has updated it PFTrack course to cover the new features found in version 5.0. |
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| April 09 | Nuke: Complete Course for MPC Artist spherevfx is pleased to have trained a visual effect artist from MPC (Moving Picture Company) in The Foundry's Nuke. The four day Nuke: Complete course covered all aspects of this award winning compositing and effects application including 3D compositing, multi-channel high dynamic range workflow, keying, colour correction, image control, camera effects, paint, roto, time manipulation and much more. |
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| April 09 | Red Dwarf Course at fxphd.com Matt Leonard, (Head of Training) dives into production with his new fxphd course covering the work he did for 'Red Dwarf: Back to Earth'. For this course, he'll be walking through the entire production process of his work on the show, from pre-production, to on-set, to the final composite. He'll cover all the angles of delivering great animation and a realistic composite in this hard core hands-on course. |
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| July 09 | After Effects Course at The ATRiuM Matt Leonard of spherevfx was pleased to have run a two day After Effects CS4 course on behalf of Cryptic Peach. The course given at the ATRiuM for staff members of Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries covered a multitude of disciplines including: The UI, Compositing Window, Layers, Text, Colour Correction, Masks and Mattes, Keying, Tracking / Stabilization, Effects and Filters, Distortion Tools, Animation and Keyframes, Path Animations, The Graph Editor, 3D, Expressions |
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| July 09 | Fusion Course at Framestore spherevfx is delighted to have run a Fusion 6 course at Framestore in Soho. Nine people attended the course, which was joint event with Focus FX, including a number of Senior Compositors. The course covered a number of areas including Tracking, Keying, Colour Correction, Macros and the new 3D system heavily updated in Version 6. |
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| July 09 | After Effects Masterclass at The ATRiuM Matt Leonard of spherevfx was pleased to have given an Adobe After Effects masterclass at The ATRiuM on behalf of Cryptic Peach. The masterclass was attended by over 50 people from industry and various universities and covered a mixer of advanced After Effects techniques including Keying, Lightwrap and Edge Blur tools, 3D Projection, Tracking and Colour Correction. |
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| July 09 | New 'Fusion 6 Foundations' DVD spherevfx is pleased to announce the release of our new 'Fusion 6: Foundations' DVD. This is the must have training resource of anyone updating to the newest release of eyeon's flagship compositing system. Covering all the new features including:
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| June 09 | Nuke Course at SMU spherevfx is pleased to have trained students and staff members for two days in Nuke. The beginners course covered the basics of Nuke's multipass workflow, colour correction, tracking, keying and then progressed onto more advanced topics such as pan and tile setup and cleanup through use of projection techniques. |
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| June 09 | Fusion 6 Article on fxguide.com eyeon Software began life in 1987 as New York Production and Design. They were based in Sydney, Australia and primarily produced 3D and Visual Effects for feature films and commercials. As more and more challenging effects were being called for, NYPD began developing its own in-house proprietary toolset. As time went on these separate tools were combined into a single system know today as Fusion. Now based in the Beaches District of Toronto (Canada) and with 21 years of development behind them, eyeon Software has just released the 16th major version of its flagship compositing software Fusion. This year alone, Fusion is being used on the likes of Terminator Salvation, G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra and Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian... For the full article visit www.fxguide.com |
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| June 09 | Maya and Fusion Course at SMU spherevfx is pleased to have again work alongside students at Swansea Metropolitan University. |
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| June 09 | Updated Fusion Training Course, Now Version 6 spherevfx is delighted to announce we have updated our Fusion courses to cover the new features found in the much anticipated release of version 6. These changes include the User Interface and Display Views, the RoI & DoD, changes and new 2D Tools, enhancements to Polylines, Paths, the Timeline and Spline Editor. Also updated to whole 3D section, plus added a section on Stereoscopic compositing. For more information, click here or visit the 'Training Course' section via the top menu. |
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| June 09 | Nuke Course for Lead Soho Artist spherevfx is delighted to have run a custom In-Depth course for Maryam Sharifi, a lead artist and supervisor. The course focused on the more advanced functionality of Nuke and covered keying, tracking, colour correction and 3D in detail. Particular focus was given to real world compositing task including Pan and Tile, Camera Projections, 3D Roto and Multipass CG compositing. |
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| May 09 | Fusion, Maya and PFTrack Training spherevfx is pleased to have again work alongside students at Swansea Metropolitan University. Specifically focused towards professional production techniques the students worked primarily on a new project entitled 'The Blitz' which will be showcased later in the year. |
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| May 09 | eyeon SWAT Training Partner spherevfx is delighted to have become one of eyeon's SWAT training partners. With the 'SoftWare Artist Training' program, eyeon has expanded an international network of trainers to ensure that every eyeon artist is up-to-speed on the latest versions of Fusion, Generation, Vision and Rotation. |
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| April 09 | Maya at UWIC Matt Leonard Head of Training at spherevfx is delighted to have work with UWIC, Cardiff Metropolitan University, teaching Maya 2009. The short introductory course was designed to teach the basic of Maya and covered a mixture of areas including Modeling, Animation, Shading, Lighting and Rendering. |
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| April 09 | In-Depth Course Covers Maya, PFTrack & Nuke spherevfx is delighted to have run a custom In-Depth course for Jim Solan, a Director/Editor/Compositor working in London and Manchester. The course utilized a mix of Maya 2009, PFTrack 5.0 and Nuke 5.1v4 and covered a multitude of disciplines including tracking and data export. Maya multipass rendering and working with imported tracked data, and a detailed look at Nuke's 3D system, it's powerful IBK Keyer, Layers/Channels and more. |
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| April 09 | spherevfx Updates PFTrack Course to 5.0 spherevfx has updated it PFTrack course to cover the new features found in version 5.0. |
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| April 09 | Nuke: Complete Course for MPC Artist spherevfx is pleased to have trained a visual effect artist from MPC (Moving Picture Company) in The Foundry's Nuke. The four day Nuke: Complete course covered all aspects of this award winning compositing and effects application including 3D compositing, multi-channel high dynamic range workflow, keying, colour correction, image control, camera effects, paint, roto, time manipulation and much more. |
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| April 09 | Red Dwarf Course at fxphd.com Matt Leonard, (Head of Training) dives into production with his new fxphd course covering the work he did for 'Red Dwarf: Back to Earth'. For this course, he'll be walking through the entire production process of his work on the show, from pre-production, to on-set, to the final composite. He'll cover all the angles of delivering great animation and a realistic composite in this hard core hands-on course. |
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| March 09 | Red Dwarf Production in Sydney Matt Leonard, (Head of Training) works with fxphd in Sydney Australia on Red Dwarf: Back to Earth producing 16 digital 'Bob the Skutter' shots utilizing PFTrack, Maya and Nuke. |
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| February 09 | Matt Leonard talks Nuke 3D In the second of two evening at 01zero-one, Matt Leonard, head of training was please to have taught once again on The Foundry's Nuke. The evening covered UV Projections, Camera Projections, Background Plate Cleanup, working with zDepth and Motion Vectors, and techniques for Rotoscoping in 3D. The course was attended by artists working at such companies as Double Negative and Framestore. |
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| February 09 | Matt Leonard talks Nuke 3D In the second of two evening at 01zero-one, Matt Leonard, head of training was please to have taught once again on The Foundry's Nuke. The evening covered UV Projections, Camera Projections, Background Plate Cleanup, working with zDepth and Motion Vectors, and techniques for Rotoscoping in 3D. The course was attended by artists working at such companies as Double Negative and Framestore. |
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| February 09 | Nuke 3D at 01zero-one In the first of two evening at 01zero-one, Matt Leonard, head of training was please to have taught professional students The Foundry's Nuke. The evening consisted of an introduction to Nuke's 3D system, Pan and Tile setup (including lens correction), Shaders, Camera Projection. The course was attended by artists working at such companies as Double Negative and Framestore. |
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| February 09 | Maya nDynamics course at Dinamo. spherevfx is delighted to have run a Maya nParticles and nCloth course for artists at Dinamo Productions. During the course we also looked at various other areas of Maya including expressions, working with set driven keys, multi-layer shader setups and mental ray's Final Gathering. Dinamo was founded in 2004 and produces high quality 2D and 3D animation and visual effects for TV, Film and the Web. Included in their credits are the 'Mutant Chronicles', 'Grandpa in my Pocket', 'Fun with Claude' and 'Telly Tales'. |
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| January 09 | spherevfx talks Nuke at The Foundry's Master Class. January 29th saw the first Nuke Master Class run by The Foundry and Matt Leonard (head of training at spherevfx) was among the six speakers who contributed to the event at The Curzon cinema in Soho. The whole event was attended by over 200 artist from across Europe. The outline for the day consisted of:
The videos, filmed by fxguide / fxphd are now available online from The Foundry's website. To download the master-class videos and accompanying scripts, click here. |
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| January 09 | Custom Nuke course for Greek VFX artist. spherevfx is delighted to have trained a visual effect artist from Greece. The custom course covered a wide range of Nuke techniques and tools including:
along with the tools, 'PointsTo3D' and 'Reconcile3D' |
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| January 09 | 3ds Max to Maya course at Dinamo. spherevfx is pleased to have trained five artists at Dinamo Productions in a custom '3ds Max to Maya' course. Covered in the course where general UI differences, modelling (subdiv, polygonal and surfaces), animation (keyframe, path and Trax), shaders, lighting, cameras, and rendering (including multipass render layers). We also touched on Fusion, PFTrack and Mudbox. |
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| January 09 | Winter update now available. spherevfx's Winter 2009 Update/News Letter is now available. This issue covers new and updated courses, our new Nuke DVD, spotlight on PFTrack and mental ray courses, plus Houdini and Generation courses coming soon. For a html version, click here... If you would like to join our mailing list, click here... |
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| January 09 | Framestore adopts Nuke 3D training. spherevfx is delighted that Framestore has adopted a section of it's Nuke course as part of their in house training program. Framestore has been creating world-beating visual effects for film and television for over twenty years. Their work has won numerous international awards, including the 2008 Academy & BAFTA Awards for their VFX work on The Golden Compass. Other work includes Australia, Quantum of Solace, The Dark Knight, Children of Men, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and most recently their first Animated Feature The Tale of Despereaux. |
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| January 09 | fxphd announces it's January 09 Term. fxphd have just announced their new fantastic term. 39 courses. 15 new courses including Houdini, Massive, Paint & Roto, Matte Painting, and so much more. For all the information on fxphd and their world class online courses, click here... Matt Leonard, Head of Training, is delighted that fxphd is re-running his Maya 101 & 210 courses, along with Fusion 101 & 201. |
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| January 09 | New RSS feed added to the site. spherevfx had added a RSS feed covering news and updates to the site. Access via logo at the top right of each page. |
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| December 08 | SphereVFX Closed for the Holidays spherevfx will be closed from 23rd December through to 5th January. We will be checking eMail intermittently over the holiday period but all quotes, DVD sales, etc will be dealt with when the office reopens on Monday 5th January 2009. As 2008 draws to a close we would like to thank all out clients, suppliers and friends for make 2008 a fantastic year for spherevfx. |
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| December 08 | New eyeon Vision and Rotation training courses. spherevfx announces our new 2 day training course for eyeon's Vision and our 1 day course for Rotation. eyeon’s Vision is an indispensable suite that fits into any broadcast production facility, providing production values that make onscreen videos shine. Vision’s versatile toolset and workflow will give you the big Hollywood finish on a broadcast budget and deadline. Rotation is designed specifically to team up with eyeon Fusion for film production pipelines. This suite of tools has been defined for the exacting demands of Rotoscoping, Keying and Retouching. For more information on both products click here. |
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| December 08 | VAT reduced on Nuke and Fusion training DVD's down to 15%. spherevfx has reduced its VAT amount on DVD sales to 15% in-line with HM Revenue & Customs requirements. VAT on all classroom based training has also been reduced. For more information visit HMRC. |
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| December 08 | 10 day Maya and Nuke course taught in Cardiff Sphere VFX is delighted to be working alongside Cyfle to supply training in both Autodesk's Maya and The Foundry's Nuke for their new LAB02 training scheme. During the 10 days of training the students will cover lessons in Maya 2009 including:
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| November 08 | Spherevfx upgrades Mudbox training course to 2009 release. spherevfx has upgraded its Mudbox training course to cover the new features found in the 2009 version released in October. The courses now includes an Overview of the UI, Preferences, Primitives and Importing, Topological Symmetrical Modeling, Cameras, Display Settings, Layers, Brushes, Stamps and Stencils, Lights, Shader and Materials, Object List and Property Manager, Model and Texture Output. For more information click here. |
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| November 08 | Maya and Fusion at Swansea Metropolitan University We are delighted to have had the opportunity to work again with Swansea Metropolitan University teaching PFTrack 5.0, Maya 2009 and Fusion 5.3. We covered 3D tracking, Maya integration and changes to the multipass compositing workflow in 2009, and plate cleanup using Fusions 3D system. |
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| October 08 | Matt Leonard talks Nuke 3D again, at 01zero-one In the second of two evening at 01zero-one, Matt Leonard, head of training was please to have taught once again on The Foundry's Nuke. During the evening Matt covered UV's texturing, Motion Vectors, Manipulation and Deformation of Geometry, working with Sequential .obj files and Multi-Channel Compositing. Other speakers on the course have included Ian Murphy (also overseeing the course) and Roy Stelzer from Double Negative, along with Ben Minall from The Foundry and Justin Van Der Lek, Digital Domain. |
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| October 08 | 3D, Multipass and State of the Art VFX in Nuke spherevfx head of training Matt Leonard was invited to speak at amperSAND a digital media event held at Dynevor Centre for Art, Design and Media in Swansea. During his two hour presentation Matt spoke on the two schools of thought relating into 3D multipass rendering and whether its best to finalize a shot in 3D or in the composite. He then when on to look at multipass setup inside of Nuke, and how Nuke's 3D system can be used to create virtual environments and plate cleanup. The event hosted by Swansea Metropolitan University gather over 30 delegates from across the area. |
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| October 08 | Matt Leonard talks Nuke 3D at 01zero-one Matt Leonard, head of training at spherevfx is delighted to have been asked to teach on behalf of 01zero-one, located at Westminster Kingsway College, London. The course entitled 'The Nuke 3D Artist', is designed to help existing Shake and After Effects compositors get to grips with Nuke's unique channel system and 3D environment. The students come from diverse but professional compositing backgrounds and hold positions at companies across Soho. The first of two evenings being taken by Matt Leonard looked at introducing the students to Nuke's 3D system. During the evening he covered Pan and Tile setups and the use of Camera Projection for object removal purposes and Set Extensions. |
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| October 08 | Spherevfx upgrades Maya Training Courses for 2009 Release. spherevfx has upgraded its Maya training courses to cover the new features found in the 2009 version released in October. The courses now have the addition of the new Selection Paradigm, Improved Modeling Workflow, Maya Assets, Animation Layering, Maya Particles, Maya Muscle, UV Layout Enhancements, Render Proxy, and Render Pass Enhancements. |
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| September 08 | Nuke Training in London spherevfx is delighted to have run our Nuke 5.1: Complete training course in London. Concepts and tools covered included general compositing, colour correction, tracking, keying and 3D. We also had the opportunity to look at Maya and PFTrack integration with Nuke, and touch on a live project currently being undertaken by our client. |
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| September 08 | IBC 2008 Matt Leonard, head of training at spherevfx recently returned from Amsterdam's IBC show where he had the chance to catch up with a number of our friends from The Foundry, Autodesk, eyeon Software, The Pixel Farm and many other top visual effects software suppliers. Of particular interest was the new 2009 versions of Maya and Mudbox (both due out early October), Nuke 5.1 (released at the start of September), Fusion 6 (due out by Christmas) and PFTrack 5 (shipping any day). He also had the privilege to meet up with John Montgomery and Jeff Heusser the founders* of fxguide / fxphd plus many of the post grads from across Europe. For more IBC news check out the podcast and articles over at fxguide.com * Mike Seymour is also a co-founder of fxguide and fxphd. |
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| September 08 | Nuke 'In-Depth 3D' DVD Release spherevfx is delighted to announce the release of our new Nuke 5.1v2 In-Depth 3D training DVD. This new 6 hour 30 minute DVD covers all aspects of the 3D system with Nuke 5.1, including:
Also on the disk are lessons covering:
For more information and to order click here or visit our Training DVD section via the top menu. |
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| August 08 | spherevfx recently had the opportunity to work again with hga creative an award-winning agency. They required a number of fluid dynamic test which we ran using Next Limit's RealFlow 4 a ground breaking simulation tool for fluids, water surfaces, rigid bodies, soft bodies and fibers. The results of the test where exported out of RealFlow into Autodesk's Maya 2008 where they where rendered using mental ray and composited in eyeon's Fusion. |
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| August 08 | spherevfx was delighted to have worked again with ahd Imaging. An award winning visual effects studio based in Manchester. The company produces animations using a combination of off the shelf software including eyeon's Fusion, Autodesk Maya and 3ds Max along with proprietary software written in-house. For this project spherevfx was involved in helping composite a number of shots which involved keying, roto, colour correction and integration techniques to merge live action and 3D animation together. During the compositing process, which was done using eyeon's Fusion, we also has the opportunity to help various artist in different processes used during the project. |
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| August 08 | spherevfx was pleased to have provided PFTrack training for one of Cardiff's top animation studios, Dinamo Productions. The course covered many aspects of The Pixel Farms award winning software including:
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| August 08 | For all the latest news from Siggraph 2008 click here... | ||||
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| July 08 | spherevfx was delighted to have run a ZBrush training course in Nottingham. The course covered a wide range of zBrush features including zSphere modelling, importing / exporting from Autodesk's Maya, sculpting, brushes and alphas, transposing, and much more... Pixologic's award winning ZBrush software is currently used by such companies as Industrial Light and Magic, Weta Digital and Sony Picture Imageworks. |
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| June 08 | fxphd is re-running Maya 101 and Fusion 101 by 'Professor' Matt Leonard (Head of Training at spherevfx). On top of these two classes fxphd has a fantastic selection of over two dozen other online visual effects courses. For more information click here... |
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| June 08 | spherevfx provided a custom course in Maya and Fusion Integration. The course included mental ray rendering, custom render passes, multipass compositing, and a basic understanding of 3D set extensions. |
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| June 08 | spherevfx is featured in Computer Graphics World, 3D Total, Post Magazine, VFX World, VFX Talk and CG Channel with regards to their Press Release on Nuke 5 Training. |
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| June 08 | spherevfx's latest update is out, if you haven't seen it yet click here... To be added to our mailing list please click here... |
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| May 08 | spherevfx was delighted to have provided ZBrush training for one of Cardiff's top animation studios, Dinamo Productions. The modelling course covered many aspects of Pixologic's award winning software which is currently used by such companies as Industrial Light and Magic, Weta Digital and Sony Picture Imageworks. For more information on our ZBrush modelling course click here... |
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| May 08 | spherevfx
is pleased to announce our new Autodesk Mudbox course. An
innovative 3D modeling software features an intuitive
user interface and a creative toolset with the capacity
to handle high-resolution 3D meshes. Mudbox empowers artists
and modelers to quickly create highly detailed organic
and inorganic assets that can easily be used with popular
3D animation software. |
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| April 08 | Head of training, Matt Leonard was delighted to have attended this years Bafta awards held in Cardiff. DR Who was the biggest winner taking home six prizes, while a further 10 awards were scooped by other BBC shows. S4C projects won 11 awards and ITV Wales’ The History of Mr Polly received two prizes. |
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| April 08 | Head
of Training Matt Leonard, is delighted to be working again
with fxphd. Along with repeats of
past courses
for both Maya and Fusion,
Matt is working alongside Sébastien Jacob, a renowned
Toxik compositor, on a new Toxik and Maya Integration course. This term, as always, is packed with excellent
production and post-production courses including: Cinema
4D, Scratch, Syntheyes, Smoke, Flame, RED, and Digital
Cinematography. |
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| April 08 | spherevfx
updates its Fusion course to cater for
the new features in 5.3. These include new underlay and
sticky note tools, new ranges mask tool, new variblur
tool, multi-threaded calculation of particle, changes
in the image sampling in concatenated transformation tools,
many new Mask tool size options and much more. |
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| March 08 | spherevfx is delighted to be working with Cyfle, a training company for the Welsh Television, Film and Interactive Media Industry. This new three month course is designed to teach trainees both 2D and 3D animation through the creation of a two minute animated short. We will be teaching Autodesk's Maya 2008, Adobe After Effects CS3, and some Apple Shake. |
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| March 08 | spherevfx course, '3D and Live Action Integration' run at Lime Pictures, Liverpool. Lime Pictures are one of the UK’s largest independent producers, employing over 500, and are responsible for some of the best-known and popular drama on British television including Hollyoaks and Grange Hill. The '3D and Live Action Integration' course covered 3D tracking, model integration, lighting, shader building, multipass rendering, compositing, colour correction, image integration and manipulation, keying, tracking and effects. Software we looked at during the course included PF Track, Maya, Softimage XSI, After Effects, Nuke and Fusion. |
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| March 08 | spherevfx updates it's Maya 2008 classes to accommodate the new and exciting Extension 2 update release in March. |
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| February 08 | spherevfx
was delighted to have trained artist from one of the countries
top architectural studios, AHD-Imaging. Based in the heart
of Manchester the company was established 3 years ago
by award-winning team of 3D artists and architects. |
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| February 08 | spherevfx
is delighted to be working with the International
Film School Wales teaching a 101 Maya course between January and March 2008. |
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| January 08 | Returning again to teach Autodesk's Maya, Matt Leonard (Head of Training) is delighted to be working again with the team at fxphd, headed up by John Montgomery and Mike Seymour. The new January 08 term is packed with courses including a Production stream (including RED, Photography, etc) and Graphic Design stream (including Fontography) and the usual visual effects classes including Maya, zBrush, Fusion, Nuke, Shake, After Effects, Photoshop, PFTrack, to name a few. Click here for more details... |
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| January 08 | spherevfx continues to provide teaching and support of the University of Wales, Newport. Classes includes Autodesk Maya, Pixologic zBrush, Abobe After Effects and eyeon Fusion. |
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| December 07 | spherevfx has invested in Apple's Shake. Shake delivers the most efficient compositing operations for handling large images with pristine quality. From full 32-bit float Keylight and Primatte keyers to OpenGL-accelerated 3D multi-plane compositing, no other visual effects software delivers as complete a toolset for individual artists and full visual effects facilities. |
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| December 07 | spherevfx was delighted to have provided training for one of Manchester's top agencies HGA Creative Communications. The course covered both rendering techniques using Autodesk's Maya 2008 and in-depth compositing techniques in Keying, Tracking and 3D using Adobe's After Effects. |
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| December 07 | spherevfx continues to provide teaching and support of the University of Wales, Newport. Classes includes Autodesk Maya, Pixologic zBrush, Abobe After Effects and eyeon Fusion. |
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| November 07 | spherevfx provided training on eyeon Fusion 5.2 for BSkyB. The course was held at Ealing Studios in London and was a joint event between Sphere VFX and Focus FX. |
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| November 07 | spherevfx has invested in Side Effects Houdini. The most complete visual effects and animation solution available. This award-winning and production-proven product handles the most challenging shots. Film production facilities can rely on Houdini to help them create stunning feature film effects and character animation. Used on countless feature films including: Beowulf, The Golden Compass, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Spider-Man 3 and Transformers. |
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| November 07 | Matt Leonard of spherevfx will be speaking at the eyeon World Tour, London. The event is taking place at the at 'The Slug and Lettuce' in Soho on Wednesday 15th November. The World Tour then moves on to Manchester for another event on Thursday 16th. |
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| October 07 | spherevfx provided two weeks of training on eyeon Fusion 5.2 for some freelance Shake compositors along with artist from BSkyB. The course was held at DigiGuys who are based at Ealing Studios, London. The course again was a joint event between Sphere VFX and Focus FX. |
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| October 07 | spherevfx has recently updated the following courses in line with software upgrades...
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| October 07 | spherevfx provided a week of training on Adobe After Effects CS3 for trainees at Cyfle in Cardiff, Wales. The five day course was aimed at beginners and covered the workflow, text, shape layers, animating layers, masks,the Puppet tools, keying, colour Correction, 3D Object, rendering and outputting. |
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| October 07 | Matt Leonard (Head of Training) is delighted to be working with fxphd on their October term teaching Maya 2008 and Fusion 5.2. For a complete list of classes available click here. |
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| September 07 | Head of Training, Matt Leonard, has published an extensive article on The Foundry's Nuke 4.7 in Showreel Magazine, the independent magazine for Film and TV Production. The article was published in the IBC Conference edition and is available to read by clicking here. |
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| September 07 | spherevfx was delighted to have attended this years IBC conference in Amsterdam. Head of training, Matt Leonard was demoing Fusion 5.2 for eyeon Software and also had the opportunity to talk with The Foundry about Nuke 5.0, Autodesk about Maya 2008 / Toxik 2008 and various other software manufactures. |
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| September 07 | Sphere VFX chooses Frantic Films render farm software Deadline which offers a world of flexibility and a wide-range of management options for render farms. |
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| August 07 | Matt Leonard (Head of Training) was delighted to have helped fxphd on the opening shot to the short film "I Love Sarah Jane". |
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| August 07 | Sphere VFX is providing a week of training on Autodesk's Maya for trainees at Cyfle in Cardiff, Wales. The five day course was aimed at beginners to the software and covered modeling, animation, character animation, dynamics, shaders and rendering. |
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| August 07 | Sphere VFX and Focus Fx ran a free training day on eyeon Fusion. The course was held at Ealing Studios on Monday 13th August and covered all the major ares of the software. Attending the course where 16 people from Framestore, HooHah, Pineapple Squared and Motion FX. |
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| August 07 | Sphere VFX provides another eyeon Fusion course for artist at DigiGuys based at Ealing Studios, London. Attending the course were compositors from Django Films, Sporting Presence (South Africa), and DigiGuys. The course again was a joint event between Sphere VFX and Focus FX. |
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| July 07 | Head of Training Matt Leonard is again working with Cyfle helping to oversee their 12 month animation scheme. Six trainees will be covering such diverse disciplines as 3D animation, compositing,2D animation and video editing. The scheme will also teach key industry skills such as script writing, pre-production, client management and project organisation. During the course the students will have the opportunity to work with Flash, Maya, Toon Boom and After Effects. |
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| July 07 | Head of Training Matt Leonard is again working with Cyfle helping to oversee their 12 month animation scheme. Six trainees will be covering such diverse disciplines as 3D animation, compositing,2D animation and video editing. The scheme will also teach key industry skills such as script writing, pre-production, client management and project organisation. During the course the students will have the opportunity to work with Flash, Maya, Toon Boom and After Effects. |
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| July 07 | Sphere VFX is please to announce they have updated their Renderman for Maya course to cover the new features found in version 2.0. For more details click here... |
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| June 07 | Sphere VFX provides another eyeon Fusion course for artist at The Club in London. Attending the three day training class were compositors from MTV, Pablo Post, and Clear. The course again was a joint event between Sphere VFX and Focus FX. |
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| June 07 | Sphere VFX was involved with eyeon Software and Focus FX in showing off Fusion 5.1 at a special event held at 'The Slug and Lettuce' in Soho, London. Along with Fusion, eyeon Creative Director Tim Doidge and Eric Westphal also showed eyeon's new roto package, Rotation |
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| June 07 | Sphere VFX was pleased to have been at Broadcast Live this year. |
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| June 07 | Sphere VFX is at Broadcast Live this year. The conference featuring a 3-day exhibition, with free training session program, and provides you with all the essential knowledge and technology you need for your business to succeed in the multi-platform future. |
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| June 07 | Sphere VFX is featured on 3dtotal.com. |
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| May 07 | Sphere VFX is delighted to launch it's first eyeon Fusion training DVD - 'In-Depth 3D' For more details see out Training DVD section. |
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| May 07 | Sphere VFX is delighted to have opened a Student area on our site. Here we show off students work who have been taught in some capacity by Sphere. All work can be viewed via the 'Student Work' menu option. | ||||
| May 07 | Head of Training, Matt Leonard, has published an extensive article on Skymatter's Mudbox in Showreel Magazine, the independent magazine for Film and TV Production. The article was published in the NAB Conference edition and is available to read by clicking here. | ||||
| May 07 | Sphere VFX is about to release it's first batch of training DVD for Maya, Fusion and After Effects with more are due over the coming months. For more details see out Training DVD section. |
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| May 07 | Sphere VFX works with Glamorgan Centre for Art & Design Technology. They are currently teaching Autodesk 3ds Max and Combustion along with Adobe After Effects to a group of 40 students. | ||||
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| April 07 | Head of Training, Matt Leonard, is delighted to be working with John Montgomery and Mike Seymour at fxphd.com. For more information on fxphd.com click here... |
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| April 07 | Head of Training Matt Leonard works with fxphd.com on a Autodesk Maya Character Animation Course | ||||
| April 07 | Sphere
VFX was delighted to be asked by eyeon to produce some new demo material for Fusion 5.1. The composite
incorporates multipass openEXR render layers, 3D geometry
imports, camera data imports, particles systems and lighting.
It will be used by eyeon at this years NAB
conference held in Las Vegas. |
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| March 07 | Head of Training, Matt Leonard, is delighted to be working with Swansea Metropolitan University. He is currently teaching Eyeon Fusion to a group of their students. |
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| March 07 | Head of Training, Matt Leonard, has just completed an extensive article on Skymatter's Mudbox for Showreel Magazine, the independent magazine for Film and TV Production. The article should be published in their NAB conference issue. |
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| March 07 | Sphere VFX continues to provide Autodesk's Maya training for the University of Wales, Newport. |
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| February 07 | Sphere VFX provides Autodesk's Maya training to HGA Creative Communications. Once of Manchester's top design agencies. |
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| February 07 | NEW
TRAINING COURSE |
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| February 07 | Head of Training, Matt Leonard, is delighted to be working with the University of Wales, Newport. He is teaching Autodesk's Maya on the university's Animation BA course. |
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| January 07 | Sphere VFX provides another week of training on Eyeon Fusion for artist at The Club in London. Attending the five day course where people from Alston Elliot, MTV and Oasis Television. The course again was a joint event between Sphere VFX and Focus FX. |
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| January 07 | The computer graphics magazine, 'Computer Arts' has published a review of eyeon's Fusion 5 written by Head of Training, Matt Leonard in its January 2007 issue. | ||||
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December
06 |
Sphere
VFX provides training on Eyeon Fusion for
various artist at The Club in London. Attending the course
where people from Smoke and Mirrors, BOXmedia, Hugo Designs, Telegenic and Alston Elliot. The
course was a joint event between Sphere VFX and Focus FX. |
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December
06 |
Head of Training, Matt Leonard, was delighted to have worked with Big Squid to produce a morph sequence from the BBC's Christmas special of Casualty. |
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December
06 |
Head of Training, Matt Leonard, again was delighted to have worked with Big Squid to produce a visual effects sequence from The Jesus Film Project. |
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November
06 |
Sphere
VFX provided training on Eyeon Fusion for visual effects
artists at BSkyB. The course which was
run in conjunction with Focus FX covered all aspects of
Eyeon’s flagship digital compositing system Fusion
5. |
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November
06 |
Sphere
VFX as been invited to beta test Imagineer Systems new state-of-the-art rotoscoping software 'motor'. |
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October
06 |
Head of Training, Matt Leonard, worked with Dimension 10 to provide training on Autodesk's high-end animation system Maya. The course was designed for those with no prior 3D computer graphics experience and covered techniques in modelling, animation, dynamics, shader building, lighting and rendering. | ||||
October
06 |
Sphere VFX is delighted to be working with Nigel Richards and Focus FX which is the UK’s leading Eyeon Fusion reseller and works closely with Eyeon who are based in Toronto, Canada. | ||||
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| September 06 | Sphere VFX Ltd opens for business ! | ||||
