Softimage Trainers

David Abbott - XSI animator

e-mail: david@incubism.com
url: www.incubism.com
XSI experience: 5 years
Location: Australia

An XSI all-‘rounder who specializes in lighting and rendering, David has been working with XSI since version 1.0, primarily in broadcast and film production environments. He is currently with Rising sun Pictures, in Adelaide, Australia, working on “Charlotte’s Web”. Prior to this, David worked with the Pixel Liberation Front on “Superman Returns.” David is willing to travel, and available to provide specialized XSI courses based on your training requirements.

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Nikki Bridgman - freelance animator/trainer/education development manager for XSI

e-mail: nikkibridgman@aol.com
url: www.softimage.com
XSI experience: 7 years
Location: UK

Originally a Softimage demo artist and trainer and now the European Education Development Manager for XSI, Nikki recently returned to Softimage, after four years working worldwide in production as an animator. She is an XSI all-‘rounder with over twelve years experience using Softimage 3D products, and has worked with XSI since version 1.0. Her credits include games, broadcast TV, commercials and film. Nikki is available for hire as a trainer, is willing to travel extensively and will be working hard over the next 12 months to raise the profile of XSI education.

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Martin Cabrera - Softimage Senior Instructor

e-mail: mecabreraus@gmail.com
url: www.xsicolombia.com
XSI experience: 7 years
Location: Germany

Martin Cabrera studied Graphic Design and Multimedia in Bogotá, South America, where he first got introduced to the world of Softimage3D. In 2001 he began studying Animation at Interdec College, in Montreal, specializing with particle systems in 2002. After getting certified as an instructor in 2003 and becoming a reseller, he started his own school in Bogotá Colombia teaching XSI. A senior XSI instructor since 2005, Martin has traveled through South America opening training centers, certifying teachers, and selling the software. He has helped spread the name of Softimage and introduced XSI to audiences in Bogotá, Cali, Bucaramanga, Medellin, as well as Buenos Aires, Argentina. Martin is now looking for new challenges in Germany and Europe. He is fluent in English and Spanish, and willing to travel anywhere in Europe.

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Ronnie Chan - Certified XSI Instructor

e-mail: ronnie@sejaya.com.my, ronnie@bitmap.com.my
url:www.bitmap.com.my, www.softimage.com.my , www.sejaya.com.my
XSI experience: 12 years
Location: Malaysia

Ronnie Chan is a SOFTIMAGE|XSI Certified Instructor at Bitmap Academy SB. He teaches 3D Animation and Visual Effects used for Digital Film, Television and whatever needs it. A Softimage user since 1992, Ronnie is also the founder of Softimage User Group, Malaysia. He has over 20 years experience in film directing, special effects, visual effects, and 3D character animation. Ronnie speaks fluent English, Chinese & Bahasa and is free to travel and arrange custom-courses anywhere.

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Lowely Cheung – freelance/tutor

e-mail: cheung_loli@hotmail.com
url: www.lcheung.com
XSI experience: 5 years
Location: USA

Lowely is currently an XSI tutor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

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Raffael Dickreuter - animator/XSI generalist/trainer

e-mail: raffael3d@gmail.com
url: www.raffael3d.com
XSI experience: 6 years

Raffael is the founder of XSI Base.com, the largest online XSI community, and co-organizer of the Los Angeles and London XSI user groups. He has been teaching XSI for several years at schools such as the SAE Institute. Feature work includes “Superman Returns”, “Flightplan” and “Stay Alive.”

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Antxon Echaniz Pilarte – Softimage authorized trainer/graphic designer

e-mail: sintesys@facilnet.es
url: www.sintesys.net
ATC: SINTESYS
XSI experience: 7 years
Location: Spain

Currently an XSI instructor at the SINTESYS school, Antxon has been using Softimage products since the SOFTIMAGE|3D days. Formerly a modeler and animator for TV cartoon series like “Esquimales in the Caribbean” and “Defensor 5,” Antxon used his transition to XSI to try his hand at video game development, and focus his attention on modeling, texturing and lighting.

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Magic Eslami - 3D Animation Instructor, Vancouver Film School

e-mail: magice@vfs.com
url: www.vfs.com
XSI experience: 7 years
Location: Canada

Currently a senior 3D Animation Instructor at Vancouver Film School, Magic has over 7 experience with XSI. He has 3D and 2D animation production experience and has trained professionals with Softimage XSI at Bardel animation and Mainframe Entertainment in Vancouver Canada.

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Georg Finch - Senior Lecturer, Bournemouth University

e-mail: gfinch@bournemouth.ac.uk
url: ncca.bournemouth.ac.uk
XSI experience: 7 years
Location: UK

Georg is the Program Leader for the Masters in 3D Computer Animation at Bournemouth University. He teaches the hands-on use of XSI, as well as the theory necessary to get the best out of the software. He has been teaching XSI for the last 7 years and, prior to that, taught SOFTIMAGE|3D and SOFTIMAGE|EDDIE. Georg is available for consultancy work or in-house training, and has considerable experience helping artists transition to XSI from other 3D software packages.

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Antonio Govela - XSI Instructor

e-mail: mail@agovela.com
url: http://www.agovela.com
XSI experience: 5 years
Location: USA

Antonio Govela, an avid gamer and award winning 3D modeler and animator, opened the Fiction Lab Animation School in 2003. There he developed a ten-month master’s course curriculum consisting of extensive 3D modeling, animation, shading, lighting and game art/design classes, including instruction in other areas of visual effects, stop-motion and classical animation techniques. A certified SOFTIMAGE|XSI instructor, Antonio has managed dozens of 2D and 3D film and television projects, and has spent much of his time abroad learning new skills. He recently co-founded Noesis Interactive to share his knowledge with the gaming community.

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Tom Greuelsberg - XSI All-'rounder

e-mail: Tom.Greuelsberg@gmail.com
XSI experience: 12 years
Location: Germany

Tom is a SOFTIMAGE|XSI certified instructor, who has been working with Softimage products since 1993. He was a product manager, trainer and supporter from 1995 to 2004, and has been a certified XSI trainer since the first version. Tom is a regular XSI trainer at different SAE Institutes and the XSI teacher at the German Film School. Over the years he has published several articles , run workshops, managed a user group, worked on several commercials for film and TV, technical animations and the feature film Sumuru. His experience as a demo artist, teacher and as technical support makes him a seasoned Softimage all-'rounder.

Tom lives close to Munich and is available for hire as a trainer and production support.

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Enea Le Fons - Senior Certified Softimage Instructor

e-mail: enealefons@gmail.com
url: http://www.XSIitalia.com
XSI experience: 9 years
Location: Italy

Enea owns and operates PURE Computer Graphics, Italian Softimage Distributor and Advanced Solution Provider. Up to 2007 he accumulated more than 1850 hours of certified teaching activity and has extensive experience in in post production, special effects, architecture, design, video games, and sensor-driven 3D applications. Enea is also the founder and maintainer of XSIitalia.com, Italy's biggest Softimage community and XSImilano.com, Softimage User Group in Milan. He speaks fluent English, Italian, French and Spanish and is free to travel and arrange custom-courses anywhere.

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Nikolaus Logothetis - freelance XSI-Operator

e-mail: nikolaus@logothetis.eu
XSI experience: 7 years
Location: Germany

Best described as a "project troubleshooter," Nikolaus is an XSI all-'rounder, specializing in modeling and animation, who has over 12 years experience working with SOFTIMAGE|3D and then SOFTIMAGE|XSI. His credits include architectural visualization, broadcast TV, and music videos. In addition to XSI, Nikolaus is proficient with (among others) Autodesk Maya, Adobe After Effects, 3D Equalizer, vizRT, and Scenarist. He has extensive training experience, and has conducted workshops covering XSI modeling and Animation, DVD authoring, and working with MPEG2. Currently based in Berlin, Nikolaus is available for hire as a trainer and is willing to travel.

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Michael Lucas - Digital Trainer, Sony Pictures Imageworks

e-mail: mlucas@imageworks.com
XSI experience: 7 years
Location: USA

Michael Lucas was the first game design instructor in the California state college system, and has been teaching game design and digital animation since 1999 using Softimage|XSI, Autodesk Maya, and Autodesk 3DS Max, among other applications. Before that Michael worked in the games industry developing game engines and movement models. He was also, at various times, a National Master of Chess, a graduate student in physics, and a Kriya Yogi. He has a BS in Computer Science from Duke University where he was a National Merit Scholar. Michael currently is a Digital Trainer at Sony Pictures Imageworks in the areas of programming languages, stereoscopic 3D pipeline processes, and hair and cloth simulations.

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Nicolas Poteet – SOFTIMAGE|XSI Certified Instructor

e-mail: nicolas@centrenad.com
url: www.nadcentre.com/
ATC: Centre NAD
XSI experience: 7 years
Location: Canada

A SOFTIMAGE|XSI Certified Instructor, Nicolas Poteet is the 3D Animation Training Manager of the 3D Animation and Visual Effects in Film and Television program at the NAD Center in Montréal. A university Graduate in Painting and other Fine Arts, he chose to pursue his interest Computer Graphics after obtaining his NAD Center diploma in Film and Television in 1994. In addition to teaching and providing technical expertise at the NAD Center, Nicolas has also worked as consultant for IceStorm Digital Studios, Media Principia and Groupe Image Buzz on productions such as "Extreme Ops," "The Baroness and the Pig," "Inside the Space Station" and "The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne".

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Sebastian Read - freelance animator/animation supervisor

e-mail: Sebastian.read@gmail.com
XSI experience: 7 years
Location: UK

An XSI all-‘rounder who has been using the software since version 1.0, Sebastian has considerable experience supervising and managing medium sized projects. He is currently working for Skaramoosh, leading their 3D and 2D teams. Prior to this, Sebastian worked in higher education, games and most recently in animation and VFX in post production. He has experience with a wide range of production types, including long form animation, promos, commercials, branding and animated series. Sebastian’s work has been featured on the Softimage website and in avid promotional releases. He is a comfortable public speaker who has presented at a number of industry conferences: Broadcast HD (London 2006), Science congress (Tokyo 2005) and History Congress (Toronto 2005).

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Anthony Rossano - SOFTIMAGE|XSI Certified Instructor

e-mail: anthor@mesmer.com
XSI experience: 12 years
Location: Seattle, Washington, USA

Anthony has been teaching 3D animation and rendering tools to users in business, entertainment and education since 1994. He is the author of Inside Softimage 3D, published by New Riders; XSI Illuminated: Character, published by Mesmer Press; and most recently, Softimage XSI 5 The Official Guide, published by Thomson Courseware Technology. Anthony worked recently as a Technical Director (TD) at Omation on the all-XSI CG feature, Barnyard: Party Animals, where he did a lot of rendering work and trained all the incoming artists. Anthony has taught all over the world, including in India, France, England and Egypt, though he prefers to stay closer to home these days.

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Christoph Schinko - Character Animator / XSI Trainer / Independent Filmmaker

e-mail: stoph@christoph-schinko.com
url: www.christoph-schinko.com
XSI experience: 8 years
Location: UK / Austria / Germany

Coming from Softimage 3D, Christoph has worked with XSI ever since it was released. As a certified trainer since XSI version 1.5, he has taught numerous courses, published tutorials and articles, and given presentations at conventions like CeBit, FMX and Comic-Con.

Although he is a character animator and rigger at heart, nearly 10 years of production experience (commercials, TV- and feature film work) have made Christoph a strong all-'rounder. He is an award-winning independent filmmaker, and is currently freelancing in the UK and abroad. His feature film credits include Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, King Arthur and Alien vs. Predator.

Christoph is available to teach custom XSI Character Animation and Rigging courses.

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Andreas Schulz - Certified XSI Instructor

e-mail: info@andialias.de
url: www.andialias.de
XSI experience: 7 years
Location: Germany

Andi is an SOFTIMAGE|XSI Certified Instructor, who has been working with Softimage products since the good old days of Softimage 3D. He is also experienced with Motionbuilder, Endorphin and 3D-Equalizer, and has done 3D tracking and motion capture for a variety of productions. Working as both a demo artist and a technical support person for 3D artists has made Andi a mixture of TD and Firefighter, and he has a knack for solving complicated 3D problems. His current specialty is production-based training. Currently based in Cologne, Germany, Andi is available for hire as a trainer / freelance artist. He is willing to travel.

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Luciano Davis Dudus Spacov - Certified XSI Instructor

e-mail: contato@digitalartes.com.br
url: www.digitalartes.com.br
Training Center: Digital Artes
XSI experience: 5 years
Location: São Bernardo do Campo - São Paulo - Brasil

Luciano Davis Dudus Spacov teaches 3D animation, modeling, texturing and rendering tools to users in business, entertainment and education, at DIGITAL ARTES in São Bernardo do Campo -São Paulo (Brasil). His focus is modeling, texturing and lighting, and has considerable experience helping artists transition to XSI from other 3D software packages.

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Fabio Ticca - freelance product specialist XSI, Maya & Toxik

e-mail: 3d@dreamwalks.com
url: www.dreamwalks.com
XSI experience: 5 years
Location: Germany

A computer scientist and XSI all-‘rounder based in Munich, Fabio has been working with XSI since version 1.0. He is currently working for an IFF reseller, and is responsible for all major 3D applications on the market, as well as the Autodesk Toxik compositing system. His credits include games, commercials and film. Fabio is available to work remotely as an Animation or technical director on long term projects.

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Are you an XSI trainer?

If you would like to be added to this list, please contact Nikki Bridgman.