Tri-Dimensional Studios of Tampa, Florida has launched The Maya Training Center, a state-of-the-art computer animation training facility specializing in intensive training for Alias' Maya. Designed to meet the needs of professionals and enthusiasts alike, The Maya Training Center provides Maya 3D animation training via its Tampa-based state-of-the-art classrooms and remotely through onsite training at their client's location.

The Gnomon Workshop has released a new installment in its Dynamics training for Alias’ Maya DVD series. “Dynamics, 14: Advanced Sprite Rendering” includes 120 minutes of instruction, project files, lecture notes, resource spotlights and bonus materials. The DVD was produced by Andrew Orloff, principal and VFX supervisor at Zoic Studios. The DVD explains the tools, with a focus on workflow, using a wide range of examples including wind-blown seed pods, a sea of microbes, depth-of-field effects, tossed coins and crowd simulations.

Milan International Film Festival (MIFF) has announced that it is providing two students the opportunity to study at Los Angeles Film School (LAFS). Since 2001, MIFF and LAFS have collaborated to award deserving students the tuition necessary to attend the course of their choice. This year, in addition to the one full-year scholarship given in previous years, another scholarship for the six-week digital imaging courses will be offered. The scholarship is open to all high school graduates. The deadline to apply is November 15, 2003. Scholarship winners will be notified by December 15, 2003.

Most people want to go home from work and school and enjoy THE SIMPSONS on television, but some diehard fans and media students have taken it up as a course of study at South Carolina State University, which offers the course, “Postmodernism, Parody, Pastiche: Deconstructing THE SIMPSONS.” According to a report in THE NEW HAVEN REGISTER, 25 SCSU students are enrolled in the college class taught by professor Carlene Dellinger-Pate, who finds deep meaning in cartoons, and plans to explore the question, “What keeps us laughing at this text for so long?”

Video Symphony, a Hollywood TV, film and DVD education center, has received approval to issue between one and 20 visas to enable international students to travel to California to enroll in classes. Located in Burbank, California, Video Symphony is an authorized training center for Avid, Apple, DigiDesign, Sonic Solutions, Adobe, Alias, Boris and Newtek. The center provides professional-level instruction in post-production for feature films, TV, video and DVD.

Softimage's SOFTIMAGE|XSI software is being introduced to two Master of Fine Arts programs at USC's School of Cinema-Television: Interactive Media and Animation and Digital Arts. According to the university, this is to help meet industry demands for professionally educated animators and digital media creators.

The Animation Club at The Art Institute of California --San Francisco (www.aicasf.aii.edu) has made its mark on the computer graphics and animation world by forming California's first student chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH, the world's largest organization of computer graphics professionals.

U.S. high school seniors wanting to pursue a career in the arts can apply to Arts Recognition and Talent Search (ARTS) for the chance to share $900,000. Applicants will also be eligible for $3 million in scholarships by arts colleges across the U.S, which range from $100 to $25,000. The final application deadline is October 1, 2003 with the submission/audition materials deadline being November 1, 2003. Applications may be obtained through high school art teachers, by visiting www.ARTSawards.org or calling 1-800-970-ARTS.

Contrary to the high profile jobs at Pixar, Industrial Light & Magic, PDI/DreamWorks and other prestigious studios, the real growth area for Bay Area animation jobs is coming from other industries looking for people trained in computer graphics, 3D environments, simulation and other animation-related skills.

Fernesh Akademie Mitteldeutschland will host a fifth European Animation Masterclass September 1, 2003 to January 30, 2004 in Halle, Germany. Applications for 10 participants are due by July 31 for the international training program co-funded in equal portions by the MEDIA Plus Program of the European Commission and the regional film promotion entity, Mitteldeutsche Medienforderung GumbH.

Special one-day 3ds max workshops will be sponsored by Discreet throughout the summer in Santa Monica and San Jose, California. Designed for professional animators as well as Maya, XSI, Houdini or LightWave users, the workshops will focus on animation, modeling, texturing and character animation and rendering techniques.

The workshops will focus on:
o Character modeling with cool polygon modeling techniques
o How to create 3D surfaces from patches
o How to create a complex material tree using material types

The Gnomon Workshop has released eight new training DVDs on texturing, lighting and particle rendering in Alias|Wavefront's Maya, as well as two "analog" titles on character sculpture, produced by industry veteran John Brown, a new addition to the Gnomon team. Each title contains two hours of instruction, lecture notes, resource spotlights and bonus materials. They are priced at $69 each and may be purchased at www.thegnomonworkshop.com.

Video Symphony, one of Hollywood's leading TV, film and DVD education centers, has been awarded a two-year, $1.5 million contract by California's Employment Training Panel (ETP) to retrain professionals employed by the state's digital media production companies.

ETP funds are awarded to a select group of training centers, such as Video Symphony, to help keep California's digital technology companies competitive, and to diminish export of production work to other states and nations.

Go to camp, make a short film, is the mission of the upcoming Oregon3DSM Film Camp, August 17-29, 2003 in Portland, Oregon. Oregon3D Inc., The Center for Visualization Technologies, offers a two-week film school-style camp where the students create a short film as a group under the guidance of award-winning director Mike Wellins and Oregon3D's Discreet-certified flame compositor Phil Guzzo (both previously from Vinton Studios).

Discreet, a division of Autodesk, Inc., is offering one-day workshops for professional animators to check out the animation, modeling, texturing, character animation and rendering techniques of 3ds max and receive a free 30-day trail of the 3D software. Classes are being offered throughout North America for $99. Advance registration is required. To register, get locations and times in your area and other information call (800) 869-3504, e-mail events@discreet.com or go to www.discreet.com/events/shiftgears.

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Ex’pression Center for New Media has named one of its state-of-the-art digital media labs in honor of late animation legend Chuck Jones. The Chuck Jones Lab in Emeryville, California will be used by Ex’pression Digital Visual Media students to create 3D animation and modeling using Maya, After Effects, Flash, Vicon Workstation and Kaydara FiLMBOX software, plus Dell precision workstations with 2.2GHz processors and Trinitron monitors.

Lost Pencil Animation Studios Inc. presents a new training series: the 3D Apprenticeship Training Series for Maya. This video training series includes more than 15 hours of video training on 9 CDs covering modeling, UV mapping, texturing, rigging, weight mapping, lighting and animating a realistic elephant. The training material is aimed at the novice and intermediate 3D user.

The training material is available in four individual sets:
1. Modeling (3 CDs)
2. UV Mapping and Texturing (2 CDs)
3. Rigging and Weight Mapping (2 CDs)

Anzovin Studio, a leading publisher of training materials for Hash's Animation:Master 3D animation software, has released a new instructional CD-ROM, SECRETS OF ANIMATION:MASTER 2003. Anzovin's Raf Anzovin and Bill Young take viewers step by step through some of the newest and least understood features of A:M 2003 (version 10/10.5). It features more than two hours of pristine, 800 x 600 QuickTime video and all associated project files, models and rotoscopes.