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.

The College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit is accelerating its animation and game design curriculum with the appointment of Eduardo Batres, Gary Schwartz and Ben Ridgway as associate professors in the Department of Animation and Digital Media.

REALVIZ, a leader in image processing software development, is now offering a range of its flagship products at special discounted prices for the "financially challenged" student population. The company is also offering a dedicated "Student Pack," which consists of REALVIZ Stitcher 3.5, for the creation of high-quality panoramas for the Web, film, print and 3D; ImageModeler3.5 to measure and create 3D scenes using photographs; and SceneWe@ver, which brings 3D into panoramas.

Oregon3D Inc., The Center for Visualization Technologies, announced its first road show and online training classes. The road show and online classes, entitled “The New Features of 3ds max 6,” is taught by industry-acclaimed Discreet certified instructor, Gary M. Davis. The two-day courses and four-part series will present an overview of new additions and enhancements to the 3ds max tool kit.

Dates and locations for “The New Features of 3ds max 6” courses are as follows:

Cartoon Network and The Prince of Wales Arts & Kids Foundation announced the launch of ‘cARToon netWORK ARTWORK,’ a partnership designed to get children involved with the arts, and discover connections between all art forms. Workshops will be designed and led by artists from different fields including Richard E. Grant, Siobhan Davis, Quentin Blake and Benjamin Zephaniah.

Epic Games, co-creator of the award-winning UNREAL game franchise, announced the details for their inaugural Unreal University, the first intensive workshop devoted to learning how to create mods using the Unreal Game Engine. The university will take place on Nov. 8-9, 2003 at North Carolina State University. Unreal University is being sponsored by Epic Games, NC State's Center for Digital Entertainment, NVIDIA, AMD, Alias and Atari Inc.

The Gnomon Workshop has released four new training DVDs by concept designer Feng Zhu. Focused on the traditional and digital techniques of the concept design industry, these four titles contain more than eight hours of instruction. Feng's clients include Lucasfilm, Disney, Blur Studio, Electronic Arts, GT Interactive, Origin Systems, Microsoft, Film Roman, Universal, Warner Bros. and Sierra. Feng has been teaching production design at Gnomon for two years.

With the appointment of five high profile industry leaders and four additional department promotions, Vancouver Film School (VFS) has stepped up its strategy for entertainment production training.

The new appointments announced by managing director Marty Hasselbach include:

Larry Bafia, head of 3D Animation & Visual Effects. Bafia previously served as a commercial animation director at PDI/DreamWorks, where he directed for Coca-Cola, Sega, Intel, Kraft, Circle K and Saturn. He also worked as sequence lead animator on ANTZ, BATMAN & ROBIN and A SIMPLE WISH.

Magnet Media Inc., as part of its award-winning Digital Media Training Series, has shipped self-paced training DVDs for Apple’s Final Cut Pro 4 and Adobe’s After Effects 6.