Winter competition Rules, Guidelines & Ideas

[Jelmer]

Finally it's time for another competition. Since winter is coming it's the theme this time, Winter Survival in specific. Your goal is to create a piece of 3d artwork related to Winter Survival, try to come up with something creative, it may be historical but a futuristic approach is allowed too. If you have no idea where to start look below for some inspiration. Before you start make sure you have a look at the rules and guidelines.


Rules & Guidelines

• Stick to the theme, especially winter needs to be obvious, not that hard right?
  
• Late entries will be disqualified, so try to get your entry in on time!
  
• Two or more final renders are required, but more is better. One should be the finished, textured and lit scene, the other render should be a (clay) wireframe.
  
• The minimum resolution for the shortest side of your final render(s) should be at least 1000 pixels, of course, more is better!
• One entry per artist, teams are not allowed.
  
• No pre made objects or models may be used.
  
• One concept sketch of your work is required.
  
• Work In Progress renders are required, at least a few to proof that you made the scene yourself showing progress along the way.
  
• It's compulsory to help other members who joined the competition by posting critique and ideas in their respective thread.
  
• staff members are allowed to enter but cannot win any of the prizes.
• Editing your image after rendering (eg. photoshop filters) is allowed, but try to keep most of your image 3d.
• The deadline is on the 14th of January, which gives you about 6 weeks from now.
  
• Use your own username and possibly your real name as the thread title of your entry.
  

Prizes

First of all, everyone wins! All valid, finished entries will receive a single copy of 3dcreative magazine worth $4,50 for free. Furthermore you will definitely be able to learn a lot from competing in the challenge. Of course you there's a chance you will win as well, so here are the prizes:

Grand Prize winner

• Craft Animations Director bundle!!
• One year subscription to 3dcreative magazine ($40)
  
• Ambient Light multibuy bundle ($215)
  
• Render Rocket Advanced subscription ($899)
  

1st runner up

• 10 Craft Animation plugins of your own choice
  
• Ambient Light Plants and Trees textures bundle ($100)
  
• Render Rocket Standard subscription ($299)

2nd runner up

• 3 Craft Animation plugins of your own choice
  
• Ambient Light Brick and Stone textures bundle ($60)
  
• Render Rocket Starter subscription ($149)

Sponsors

Craft Animations
Craft animations provides quality 3ds max plugins, related to real-time realistic vehicle animation, camera animation and other various plugins which can be controlled within 3ds max in real time with your mouse, keyboard and even a joystick!

3d Creative magazine
3DCreative is a downloadable PDF Magazine for CG creatives around the globe. 3DCreative Magazine focuses on techniques, tutorials, interviews, articles, project overviews and galleries. We have news and reviews too, but we find that these topics are best covered by the online news and CG sites that thrive on daily updates. 3DCreative magazine focuses on becoming more of a “timeless resource” for artists to turn to again and again, whether they view it from their screens or choose to print it.
You can subscribe here

Ambient Light
ambientLight has been providing Textures and Digital assets to CG artists, Game Developers and Architectural Illustrators since 2001.

Render Rocket
Render Rocket is a 3D render farm supporting Maya, Mental Ray, and Maxwell Render. Use our high speed servers for one shot or an entire animatedfeature. Flexible pricing options and quick setup let's you start rendering now. Custom options also available.

Inspiration

Winter and survival are two themes, obviously closely connected since surviving in a harsh, cold environment is a huge challenge. Mankind has always used ingenious techniques to live through the winter cold and a lot of art and stories about the subject exist already, so to get you inspired we've listed a few examples below.

Resources/information:
Ray Mears - arctic survival
US air force - arctic survival guide WWII
Arctic website
Outdoor survival

Artwork:
Alpine Village
Ice base
Snowhut


Of course, you might want to design your own, new technology especially adapted for the winter environment, we can't wait for the results .

Tips & Tutorials

Some of the effects needed to achieve a realistic winter feeling can be difficult to pull off, take a look at the tips and tutorial links if you need any help. Of course you can always ask on the forums and in your competition thread.

[ykje]

When is the deadline?

[chickentech]

last sentence of the rules and guidelines, "The deadline is on the 14th of January, which gives you about 6 weeks from now."

[DAKLOL]

I think that was posted after the question waiting to see some peoples concept sketches!

[Doofus]

What an amazing set of prizes. Really going to have to try and find the time to get in on this one. Good work Enjoy CG Team & Even if I dont get the time to enter. Really interesting concept. Looking forward to seeing everyone elses work.

[veyron]

I can't figure out what AmbientLight does exactly, and their website is really vague. They seem like a movie production company?? I'm just curious as to how this might prove useful to a solo CG artist.

[CU441ES]

I think they do textures, because if you look at the prizes it says "Ambient Light Plants and Trees textures bundle" etc. so i think they do textures, but the website is quite vague.

[geldslaw]

Excellent competition,this should stretch the imagination

[DAKLOL]

Originally Posted by veyron

I can't figure out what AmbientLight does exactly, and their website is really vague. They seem like a movie production company?? I'm just curious as to how this might prove useful to a solo CG artist.

I have figured out why its so vague, the website was different from their main one, maybe they have two parts of their company. this should be a good like to look at their products ambientLight - Texture Bundles. I also changed the link on the first post.

[robinmitra1]

just the right competetion for this winter.count me in....