V-Ray 3.3 for Maya is now available – and it’s free to upgrade for existing V-Ray 3 customers.

To celebrate the launch of the popular population tool, Golaem are offering a half price discount on licenses of Golaem 5 and Golaem Layout.

With over 60 new features lined up, RenderMan’s about to get bigger. Pixar are set to release a beta version of RenderMan 21, and it’s set to be the biggest overhaul of this popular programme in years.

There’s a strong community of game development professionals in Dundee, but only one event brings them together. D3 is back in March, supported by Escape Technology and The Foundry.

If you’re a games developer within reach of Leamington Spa, then don’t miss Ukie and Arch Creatives’ event this evening. “Growing your games business” will begin with sessions led by expert speakers in gaming, finance, PR and technology, followed by networking drinks. It promises to be really interesting.

We’re being spoilt for major shows this February. While BVE storms the ExCeL London, a hop away across the river the VFX Festival is taking up residence at the O2. This year’s theme explores the ways in which technologies are converging to produce new possibilities – and we can’t wait.

It’s that time of year again - with the Broadcast Video Expo just a week away, we’re busy getting everything ready for the show. Our CTO Lee Danskin will be chairing a panel discussion about how companies can meet the challenge of scaling up their pipeline to meet the demands of a 4K workflow.

Our congratulations go to Chris Corbauld, Roger Guyett, Neil Scanlan and Paul Kavanagh for their BAFTA win last night. Roger Guyett particularly thanked Ben Morris and Mike Mulholland at ILM’s London office – which we kitted out particularly for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, so we’re feeling a bit proud too.

Last Sunday was cold and damp in central London, but it didn’t stop the popcorn queue curling round the block of the Prince Charles Cinema. We were out in force to see the Visual Effects Society’s presentation of Labyrinth, sponsored by Escape Technology in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support.

Escape Technology is now the exclusive UK reseller of clothing modelling tool, Marvelous Designer.

There’s been the usual debate round the office ahead of this year’s Oscars ceremony, but one gong is beyond contest – and not just because it’s already been awarded.

There’s been a lot of talk about how Star Wars: The Force Awakens returns to the style of the original trilogy, complete with old faces, (actually funny) comic touches and even a souped-up Death Star threatening intergalactic peril.

London is known for many things. And it’s about to become a major game development hub too.

We’re talking about cloud rendering a lot right now. It was a major theme at SIGGRAPH 2015, where Google showcased their Cloud Platform, and we were excited about partnering with them last September.

This offer has now expired

Valid until the end of Jan 2016, you might be interested to learn about Autodesk’s two-year 0% finance offer that includes all Autodesk products as well as perpetual licenses, Autodesk Maintenance Subscription and Autodesk Desktop subscriptions. 

One question we get asked fairly often in the support team is about connecting computers and displays.

We’re in an industry that’s full of exciting innovations, but it’s been a while since we’ve had something that could really be called a game changer.

Good news for those of you currently working with Autodesk Revit - the clever people at Chaos Group have been working tirelessly on a render solution that offers fully integrated access to V-Ray throughout the design process. And better still, the V-Ray for Revit beta is now public.

From 31 January 2016 Autodesk will no longer sell perpetual licenses. Here’s what you need to know if you don’t want your software to go out-of-date very, very quickly.

Last week we welcomed the team from Fabric Software to our office for a series of live demos showing their new VR, AR and visualisation tools with our customer working in Media & Entertainment, ArchViz, Design and Automotive.

By far one of the most frequent calls we get to the support team here at Escape is about the installation of Chaos Group’s V-Ray. In this post I’ll give you a step-by-step guide to installing V-Ray.