NWDA's 2022 Theme Challenge "HORIZONS"

[DannyG]

HORIZONS CONTEST PAGE

Entries must be submitted by July 4, 2022 Midnight EST

Submit Entries HERE

CONTEST RULES & GUIDELINES:

Contestants are to create a "HORIZONS" themed piece of their choosing with the highest level of Photo-realism as their goal. (Open to Artist Interpretation - Real Life, Space, Sci Fiction, Fantasy, Anything Goes)

•     The contest is open to any 3d software package

•     1 entry per contestant to be completed by a single artist (No Teams)

•     The final render must be rendered within a single application.

•     Image Size – 0.6MB Min – 10MB Max

•     Rendering layers and composing in 3rd party application(s) is permitted.

•     Approved Post-Work – Sharpening, color/level adjustments, resizing, and other subtle techniques that simulate 'typical' lens effects, ex. chromatic aberration, DOF, and lens flare. NWDA has the right to reject any image that is deemed overly 'enhanced' by Photoshop or other image editors.

•     Non-Approved Post-Work – Replacing and or adding any element via Photoshop or any image editor. All elements must be rendered within the artist's chosen application.

•     NWDA reserves the right to question any entries construction and may require the artist to submit the Gathered project before approval. NWDA will reject any entries that do not conform to the above guidelines or images that are deemed 'incomplete' by NWDA.

•     Contestants must submit judged entry with raw render output image (Composed layers into a single image, Pre-Postwork).

•     Submitted entries must be submitted by above date and time and include an Image title, Artist name, email, & judged entry with raw output image (ex. Composed layers into a single image, Pre-Postwork)
  

Grand Prizes Totaling Over 6,800 USD

• 1^st Place
  
  • SideFX Houdini, 1 year indie license
  • E-On VUE Enterprise & PlantFactory, 1 year subscription
  • E-On PlantCatalog, 25 render nodes, 1 year subscription
  • Terragen 4 Professional (Transferable), or $600 voucher for upgrades, or multi-year maintenance
  • XFrog Plants Vol 1 & 2, 2900 Plants (tgo, obj, vob, & 3ds)
  • iToo Software Forest Pack & Railclone, 1 perpetual license each, plus 3 years maintenance
• 2^nd Place
  
  • SideFX Houdini, 1 year indie license
  • E-On Vue Professional, 1 Year Subscription
  • E-On PlantCatalog, 1 Year Subscription
  • Terragen 4 Professional (Transferable), or $450 voucher for upgrades, or multi-year maintenance
  • XFrog Plants Vol 1 or 2 (tgo, obj, vob, & 3ds)
  • iToo Software Forest Pack or Railclone, 1 perpetual license, plus 3 years maintenance
• 3^rd Place
  
  • SideFX Houdini, 1 year indie license
  • E-On Vue Creator or PlantCatalog, 1 year subscription
  • Terragen 4 Creative (Transferable), or $350 voucher for upgrades, or multi-year maintenance
  • XFrog Plants Vol 1 or 2 (tgo, obj, vob, & 3ds)
  • iToo Software Forest Pack or Railclone, 1 perpetual license, plus 1 year maintenance

HORIZON'S JUDGES:
Allan Mckay

Award-winning VFX Supervisor, Owner of Catastrophic FX, VFX Artist Industrial Light + Magic, Blur, Prime Focus, Pixomondo (Chalk Warfare 4.0, Bloodshot, The Equalizer, Star Trek Into The Darkness, Transformers Dark Side Of The Moon, 2012, Superman Returns) IMDb Profile

Greg Teegarden
Supervisor of VFX Digital Domain (Black Adam, Terminator Dark Fate, Avengers Infinity War, Thor Ragnarok, Oblivion, X-Men First Class, TRON Legacy, The Fifth Element, Vanilla Sky) IMDb Profile

Alex Jevon
VFX Artist Britannia, The Planets, Teletubbies (Lola Post), Mars (Framestore), The Alienist (Peerless) (The Bible, Atlantis: End Of The World, Birth Of A Legend Earth's Extraordinary Journey, Exodus God and Kings) IMDB Profile

[WAS]

I can't wait to see how people interpret this competition theme. Goodluck everyone!

[Dune]

That's out of the blue, interesting. I wouldn't enter for the prizes, but I might just for the fun of it.
I wish all other contestants very much artistic and technical depth! May TERRAGEN WIN!

[WAS]

That's out of the blue, interesting. I wouldn't enter for the prizes, but I might just for the fun of it.
I wish all other contestants very much artistic and technical depth! May TERRAGEN WIN!

Wish I could enter, cause I really do want PlantFactory. Also would like maintenance for TG. This theme gives me a lot of ideas, so I hope there is a cool variety from contestants.

[Dune]

How do you mean, wish you could enter? You can, can't you?

[WAS]

How do you mean, wish you could enter? You can, can't you?

Since I help desing promotional stuff, web design, etc it wouldn't be appropriate.

[Dune]

I don't think that is really a problem. Doing promotion and web design has nothing to do with making a photoreal render, and having it judged by the named judges. In that respect you can also exclude members of NWDA (to which I still could count myself), which once or twice was the case in the past.
I would like to see you do something spectacular 

[WAS]

I don't think that is really a problem. Doing promotion and web design has nothing to do with making a photoreal render, and having it judged by the named judges. In that respect you can also exclude members of NWDA (to which I still could count myself), which once or twice was the case in the past.
I would like to see you do something spectacular 

I guess you do have a logical point. I can't argue with that. I'll have to ask about that.

[DannyG]

I don't think that is really a problem. Doing promotion and web design has nothing to do with making a photoreal render, and having it judged by the named judges. In that respect you can also exclude members of NWDA (to which I still could count myself), which once or twice was the case in the past.
I would like to see you do something spectacular 

Correct, there is no conflict with any NWDA members entering. That includes you & me WAS ... So get to work

[cyphyr]

GREAT NEWS !!! HURRAR AND HURRAY

Looking forward to getting into this (although as usual I seem to be somewhat overwhelmed with work at the moment).

One comment I do have is that I am disappointed with rule three.

•     The final render must be rendered within a single application.

An absolute mainstay of all professional VFX and CGI work is the ability to use different packages together in a seamless and unified way.  I would hope that competitions like this would encourage (bit in no means require) participants to use multiple packages if that is their desire if only because any practice and knowledge gained will only benefit the participants and the industry.  Also it's not a competition about which is the best software but who is the best artist.

Anyway ranty ramble asside best of luck to everyone

[DannyG]

GREAT NEWS !!! HURRAR AND HURRAY

Looking forward to getting into this (although as usual I seem to be somewhat overwhelmed with work at the moment).

One comment I do have is that I am disappointed with rule three.

•     The final render must be rendered within a single application.

An absolute mainstay of all professional VFX and CGI work is the ability to use different packages together in a seamless and unified way.  I would hope that competitions like this would encourage (bit in no means require) participants to use multiple packages if that is their desire if only because any practice and knowledge gained will only benefit the participants and the industry.  Also it's not a competition about which is the best software but who is the best artist.

Anyway ranty ramble asside best of luck to everyone


Its a valid rant. This one I struggled with for the reasons you mentioned. My fear is without this rule some users will take it to far and before you know it its going to be a full on matte painting challenge. You can certainly create all your assets / effects in other software just get them into your tool of choice for the final render. Quick example: You can project pre-rendered effects on billboards and rendered them in a single piece of software. Like I mentioned I struggled with this one, to me its the only way to keep things from getting out of control. So the guideline is as is. 
Good luck guys

[zaxxon]

I guess it's time to dust off my TG license and see what happens.  Thanks for putting another contest together Danny! The prizes are outstanding as always and the theme is very open-ended. 

[WAS]

I guess it's time to dust off my TG license and see what happens.  Thanks for putting another contest together Danny! The prizes are outstanding as always and the theme is very open-ended.

Danny works hard on these contests. I hope we get more contestants this year.

[Dune]

So do I. Already working on something

[Hannes]

Cool!!!!

_{Absolutely no idea so far...}