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CAVE Studio Learning and Development Support
How we Got Here
Founded by Jahirul Amin, CAVE Academy officially launched in March 2020. Before launching CAVE Academy, Jahirul Amin worked as a VFX Trainer for the multi Oscar-winning VFX studio, DNEG, London, published and co-authored a number of books for 3D Total, and created training content for 3D Total, 3D Artist and CG Circuit.
His role at DNEG included designing and delivering training on all stages of the DNEG VFX pipeline from onset data acquisition, to assets and shots, and creating and maintaining the in-house documentation covering pipeline, workflows and best practices.
Since its launch, CAVE Academy has launched over 10 on-demand courses, and run numerous online, in-person and remote training courses for companies such as Framestore, Rebellion Film and TV Studios, Blue Bolt, Union VFX, Clear Angle Studios, BBC Media (Tunisia), Lumine Studios (Indonesia), Bournemouth University, Filmakademie, NFTS and Creative Media Skills.
Our relationships with industry has also allowed us to work directly on production projects. Currently, we are supporting studios such as Clear Angle Studios with their Asset team, Bentley/Paramex on their car configurator, and have supported numerous other companies on pipeline design and workflow support.
Our Studio Partners
CAVE Academy are proud to partner with the following companies for both internal and external training:
Over the past few years, CAVE Academy has helped a number of studios with CG and VFX Training. This has been in the form of one-off Masterclasses, and speaking to numerous studios, we are looking to push this further.
Whether a standalone session or a longer body of training, we always teach students the ‘CAVE‘ way, that is by pushing our naming conventions, how we deal with projects and data, our asset and shot workflows, and so on. All of this we are gradually documenting on our Wiki, so the backbone of our training is freely available. The overall aim is that we standardise much of the foundational training content in the field of Computer Graphics.
A Global Change
When the COVID pandemic struck, many studios found themselves needing to support remote teams and new starters virtually, and since then, the change to hybrid working conditions has continued resulted in studios needing to support both in-person and online learning and development.
To do this, studios are relying on their internal documentation, videos and datasets with many studios finding that much of their internal documentation is out-of-date and not as artist-friendly (especially for new starters) as they would like. This is causing issues getting new artists production ready and keeping existing artists up-to-date on the latest changes and future developments. In these situations, CAVE Learning and Development Support described below, will be of direct relevance.
CAVE Learning and Development Support
Our L&D support includes:
- Helping to design onboarding courses per department to get new starters up and running efficiently.
- Deliver new starter pipeline training courses which are department-specific.
- Help studios re-work their online wiki documentation (a pre-assessment of the existing studio wiki would be required).
- Deliver bespoke training courses for studios.
- Run internship training programmes (including the marketing and recruitment of such programmes).
- Design and support artist progression paths.
- Teach the existing team to deliver effective training.
- To ensure cross-department collaboration and understating, we are also able to design and deliver studio relevant courses that illustrate how one department flows into the next.
For examples of our technical writing, you can visit the CAVE Academy Wiki. Here are some examples of our technical writing:
…and here are some recent examples of training created for Clear Angle Studios (used with permission).
Online Course Subscription
CAVE has a growing library of online pre-recorded courses to help support your teams by allowing them to expand their knowledge in their chosen area of expertise, or if they are looking to further their understanding of other departments. Much of the training is connected to our Wiki and general teaching philosophy, so their is no disconnect between our online and in-person training.
Dailies Training
This service includes supporting artists who are looking to move into positions that require strong communication and observation skills (Leads and Supervisors, for example). We do this by running live Dailies sessions. This can also be very useful for those in production looking to learn more about the creative process as this allows them to develop their skills to inform the wider team of the client and supervisor requests.
Pipeline Design Support
Working with your team, we provide services to help you build upon your existing pipeline* and consider new workflows for a more efficient working practice. This can include services such as:
- Shoot pipeline workflows
- Asset pipeline workflows
- Shot pipeline workflows
- Data management
- Department best practices
- Artist documentation (How To guides)
*Please note, we would not implement the pipeline and workflow suggestions as this would need to be implemented by your internal team or via other vendors. This service is more to provide you with an assessment of your current pipeline and ideas on how to go about improving workflows.
Costs and Questions
The cost for studio support varies on your specific requirements as each case is bespoke. If you would like to catch up and have a discussion about your learning and development needs, please do get in touch.
We look forward to continuing our Partnerships.