The Gnomon Workshop has released five new training DVDs by Ryan Church, one of the industry's leading concept designers and a conceptual art supervisor for STAR WARS EPISODE III. On each DVD, Church masterfully executes a digital painting, while sharing his insights into his own creative and technical process. The focus of these lectures is not on software, but on the fundamentals of design, composition, lighting, material indication, storytelling and workflow.

The Gnomon Workshop has released three new training DVDs by feature animator Cameron Hood (lead character animator on DreamWorks' SHARKTALE). Focused on both the aesthetic and technical art of digital character animation with Maya, these four titles contain more than six hours of instruction, lecture notes and project scene files. Students new to animation, or artists transitioning from 2D to 3D, will benefit from these titles.

Toonz Animation India (TAI), with its 2D Animation Academy at Technopark in Thiruvanathapuram and the Animation School in Kolkata, will start a state-of-the-art 3D Animation Academy at its Technopark premises, it was reported by the BUSINESS STANDARD. The proposed academy will offer a six-month 3D animation course.

Kaydara and Mexico's EuNoia Animation School announced the successful completion of the facility's first 10-month course specifically dedicated to teaching professional animation software. Driven by MOTIONBUILDER, Kaydara's award-winning character animation software, EuNoia is Mexico's only certified training center to offer artistic and technical courses on the industry's leading animation and effects software.

Alias Systems announced the release of another learning tool in its popular education series. StudioTools Techniques| Exploring StudioTools examines the integrated 2D/3D sketching and modeling features and many other design workflow enhancements found in the latest release of its computer-aided industrial design (CAD) software, Alias StudioTools 11.

The Art Institute of California – San Francisco has expanded its Game Art & Design degree program, hiring Marc Sherrod as its new full-time Academic Director. Sherrod will be involved in curriculum and faculty development, coordination of the school‚s Program Advisory Committee from the game industry, student guidance and other aspects of game education at the school in for its game-related degree programs, designed to provide entry-level talent for the $10.3 billion computer and video game industry.

dvGarage teams up with the Gnomon School of Visual Effects up to make Maya more accessible to new users. THE MAYA LAB: VOLUME 1 provides a visual step-by-step introduction to the powerful but sometimes complicated application.

"We get requests for step-by-step training," explained Gnomon founder Alex Alvarez, "but we wouldn't be able to cover everything that we do if we built this kind of training day to day. It's really a daunting task to get it right."

Video Symphony, a TV, Film and DVD Digital College and Career Center, has launched another in a series of year-long 3D Animation and Visual Effects course programs.

"Today, nearly every movie, TV show and commercial turns to 3D magic and visual effects for everything from dueling spaceships, fiery explosions, and slime-dripping aliens, to animated breakfast cereal, and cars that drive on water,” said Video Symphony's president Mike Flanagan.

Jeff Lew, creator of the popular KILLER BEAN series of 3D animated shorts, released a three-part series of instructional character animation videos in secure, high-quality DivX video on Nov. 11, 2003. Available for download and purchase on www.divx.com and www.jefflew.com. LEARNING 3D CHARACTER ANIMATION WITH JEFF LEW provides step-by-step instruction for creating great-looking animation.

NFB will be hosting its second annual “Animation Hothouse,” designed to help nurture the talents of emerging animators. Six promising filmmakers from across Canada will be given 12 weeks to create extremely short animation, from concept to release, with the full support and assistance of NFB creative experts at the NFB’s English Animation Studio. This year’s Hothousers are Marielle Guyot and Thea Pratt, Montreal; Kevin Langdale, Vancouver; Amy Lockhart, Vancouver; Megann Reid, Calgary; and Howie Shia, Toronto. The project began on Nov. 3, 2003 in Montreal.