Kunjani'mation Festival

On 14 and 15 October, the Alliance française of Johannesburg will host two projection evenings combining a variety of styles and subjects. Starting with short films by South African directors, including William Kentridge and the The Black Heart Gang; followed by a selection of short subjects from the Annecy International Film Festival; and finishing the evening with some fantastic French feature films. 

On 15 October, Wits Digital Arts will host a series of workshops covering various aspects of animation art and business, as well as an exhibition of animation designs.

Game Development Community Sessions @ rAge

Interested in Game Development?

Game Development Community Sessions - rAge 2011

Come and meet the local Game Development community at rAge 2011, We have people who teach, eat, live and breathe game development in South Africa. We have a couple of talks, a lot of community vibes and a big meet up on Saturday.

Want to know how to get into making games as a career? Want to know who is making what? Find out what you are missing! Find out who the IGDA is and their role in your community and what they offer you.Get the information you need on the Monthly meet ups we have at Microsoft in Johannesburg..

We have developers from Cape Town coming, what is your excuse!?

map / location information at www.rageexpo.co.za

ANIMATION MAJOR 2: Class structure for 13 - 20 September

From 13 - 20 September 2011, all second year animation majors are to submit a capture of their animation at the end of class for crit, as well as lighting and rendering test stills. Animation crits will no longer take place during class time. Students will instead receive a feedback video before the Friday of that week, in which either Stephan or Chris will go through their animation and crit their work. Students will then have a detailed feedback on file to refer back to in order to make changes and fix their work.

Classes will then serve as a "Q&A session" to assist students with technical issues, and will be from 09:30 - 11:30.

SUBMISSION CRITERIA:

Captures are to be submitted 720x576 (widescreen captures must then be letterboxed, ie black bars on top and bottom) and contain Field Guides and FRAME NUMBERS (Very NB) in QuickTime format (.mov) and compressed to UNDER 50MB. Stills to be submitted as JPGs or PNG.

Game Community Meet

Don't forget Monday 15th August 2011,
Microsoft Offices Bryanston,

Game developer IGDA community meetup, We have a packed session this month with 3 game presentations as well as the VP of stategy for Unity3D and General Manager of Union (Brett Seyler) will be speaking about Union and what it means.

Find a map and times here :
http://www.sagamedev.com/events/event/community-night-2011-07-12/

3D Printing Workshop

1 June @ 14:00

The Open Window - LAB (E2)

Autodesk 2012 Launch

Johannesburg: 24th May 2011 at The Arena, William Nicol Drive, Fourways (14:00 - 20:00... but we don't have to stay that late).

Please register here.

Tech Art Presentation

Judd Simantov is giving a presentation on the 14th June at the Microsoft offices on William Nicol on art pipelines and some of the work he's done. He was the Lead Technical Artist at Naughty Dog, and currently works for Naughty Dog and Blizzard Entertainment.

http://juddsim.blogspot.com/

The game dev community meet happens on the second Tuesday of every month at the Microsoft offices at 18:30. Topics range from programming, to art, to game design, and folks often show off indie games that they've been working on.

Squeaky Clean

aka "Kreepy Krauly" project for extra credit.

Students interested in working on the project should please attend the Loerie 2011 Exhibition. Register here!
More details soon...

Concept Art workshop by Riyahd Cassiem

Show-and-tell by industry professional concept artist @ Open Window, Thursday 9th of February, 18:00 - 20:00.
Game Design and Animation Major students should attend the workshop instead of their weekly scheduled class.

Right:
"Dalia" - by Riyahd Cassiem 

You can make it big.

I think that sometimes students in South Africa look at international work and feel overwhelmed by how awesome they are, the mammoth amount of work needed to get there, and the added barrier that we as South Africans have of not being spoilt with great events like SIGGRAPH and GDC. That said, there are people who've managed to stand out internationally despite whatever obstacles we have here.

Martin Sen, one of the awesomely talented guys at Luma, won a CGChallenge Master Award a while back, and was recently featured in this CGSociety article. He also had his short, New Digs, shown at SIGGRAPH Asia 2010. (Some of you may recognise it for a snippet that appeared in the AnimationMentor showreel last year.)

I hope to have an interview with him in the following months. And hey? Maybe with some keen training of your observational skills, a whole bunch of passion, some go-getter attitude and epic work ethic, maybe we'll be asking you for an interview one day! ;D

TOW: Creative Jamboree

Join us @ The Open Window Creative Jamboree , for over sixty free tutorials, activities and  workshops that will be presented on the day.We will be creating a festive atmosphere that will keep all entertained and curious.

This will include music and dance performances in the 1000-seater theatre, art exhibitions, food and beverage stalls, acrobats as well as busking musicians and street performers. 

Read more @openwindow.co.za...