As a core partner to Grads in Games, Autodesk provide huge support to the initiative and our Search for a Star & Rising Star competitions. For our Art competitions, all entrants use Autodesk tools including Maya and 3ds Max, to create stunning artwork or animation with ease. During our Get In The Game tour, we visit 70 universities across the UK ever year speaking to art students on how to increase their opportunities at getting a job in games development. Among these universities, Autodesk is a prominent name across games art departments, with many art students already familiar with the tools and software.

“Autodesk are happy to support an initiative that showcases how good these students are with Autodesk technology.” says Mike Westlake, UK & CEE Manager for Autodesk. “It also allows them to showcase their work to the leading edge of industry. It’s great to see the competition help close the skills gap in the Games industry.”

As a world leader in 3D design software for entertainment, natural resources, manufacturing, engineering, construction and civil infrastructure, Autodesk originally became known for their commercial software application AutoCAD in 1982, but since then they have developed a large range of software.

Their Media and Entertainment division produces software for visual effects, editing, game development and animation. With over 10 million users worldwide and 15 Oscars for the Best Visual Effects to their name, Autodesk are a popular choice of software for many users.

Autodesk’s Maya software offers a creative feature set for 3D computer animation, modelling, simulation and compositing on a highly extensible construction platform. An effective tool for handling complex data, additional features of Maya include tools for character creation, 3D editorial and key-frame, and procedural and scripted animation. This year, Autodesk have released lots of new Maya features, like performance improvements, artist-friendly tools and more computer resources to help accelerate animation performance.

3ds Max is another software provided by Autodesk that offers designers the ability to create professional, high quality 3D animations, renders and models. Just some of the features 3ds Max include are MAXScript, a built-in scripting language to automate repetitive tasks, Character Studio, a plugin which helps users to animate virtual characters, and Skeletons, where characters can be rigged with custom skeletons. And these are just some of the awesome features of 3ds Max, that allow animators to create their 3D work with more speed and confidence!

[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”It’s great to see the competition help close the skills gap in the Games industry.”[/pullquote]

Released in 2015, Autodesk’s Stingray is a game engine and real-time rendering software that helps developers create high quality 3D experiences. Whether you’re an advanced or novice game maker, Stingray can help you make visually stunning games. As the engine is already integrated with Maya, LT, 3ds Max and Maya, Stingray helps artists and developers build their 3D content with ease. Further features include powerful development tools like Autodesk Beast, Autodesk Navigation and Nvidia Physx, and simplified mobile development and testing; allowing developers to test their game-play on different platforms and see how changes will impact their game.

As well as supplying high quality design software like Maya, 3ds Max and Stingray, Autodesk provide a huge service for the education industry. This includes supplying free software for students, teachers and academic institutions and free online learning resources and lesson plans. They’re truly committed to equipping students with the necessary tools and resources to be successful in both academia and future careers.

We’re grateful to have Autodesk on board supporting our award-winning initiative!

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