Evermotion Challenge 2016: The Secret Garden

UPDATE: Winners Announcement! Go, go, go and read it here!

- Yours, Evermotion Team.

UPDATE: THANKS FOR ALL PARTICIPANTS! WINNERS ANNOUCEMENT WILL BE ON 31st of January! 7th of February.

Welcome to Evermotion Challenge 2016 - the annual arch-viz contest! This year we invite you to make a visualization with greenery (but it's up to you how many manmade creations you will put in your scene, we count on your imagination!). We will reward great ideas and creativity among technical quality of the image. “The Secret Garden” means something different for everyone, so we count on various approaches to this theme.

• We will give 3 main prizes + 3 awards
• Prizes total worth: €16 017
  
• Start: 18th of October, 2016
• End: 17th of January, 2017
• Submit your work by posting a new thread in The Secret Garden - Challenge 2016 forum
• Post your work in production images and the final render till 17th of January, 2017
• Add a strip with your name below the final image:

Our jury will choose winners according to aesthetics of the project and its technical quality. Start of submissions is on 18th of October. The contest ends on 17th of January. You should post your work and WIP images no later than on 17th of January.

What's in it for me?
Join Evermotion Challenge 2016, show your work to the CG community, experts and employers from all the world. The prizes worth reaches €16 017! The contest starts on 18th of October 2016.

You must submit your final work and a five "work in progress" screenshots till 17th of January.

Your work will be evaluated by the jury:

• Barbara Witkowska and Robert Filipowicz - two Evermotion artists that stand behind the most acclaimed 3d scenes made for various rendering engines, from V-Ray to Unreal Engine.
• Yavor Stoikov - a 3D Artist with years of experience in 3D modelling and visualization. He holds a Master’s degree in Architecture from the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy in Sofia, Bulgaria. Yavor joined the Chaos Group 3D team in 2010, after working for an architectural practice. Since then he has been one of the main driving forces behind the creation of the V-Ray Training Programs and arch-viz demos. Chaos Group CG specialist.
• Nguyen Manh Hung - Nguyen Manh Hung is Co-founder of the CGRecord.net. He has made a good reputation having numerous CG Awards plus having his work featured in Expose, a collection of the most beautiful cg Imagery published by Autodesk INC. and Ballistic Publishing.

AWARDS:

• €1000 in cash from Evermotion
• 5 EVERMOTION collections of winner's choice
• Chaos Group Annual V-Ray license + vrscans library license: (€680)
• AXYZ Design an(i)ma + 10 compatible human 3d models (€629)
• Bundle (Forest Pack + RailClone) 3 years subscription (€550)
• Rebusfarm render credits worth €650
• Fox RenderFarm Rendering Credits for €600
• GarageFarm render credits worth $600
• 2 years of Corona Renderer - 3ds Max: FairSaaS License (1 Workstation + 3 Nodes) (€579.98)
• Xrender coins worth €500
• Pulldownit Pro single license for 3d Max or Maya (€395)
• R&D MultiScatter and MadCar license (€400)
• RenderBuzz 9000 renderpoints (€180)
• TopoGun Single License ($100)
• Evermotion T-Shirt + paper notebook + cup

• €750 in cash from Evermotion
• 5 EVERMOTION collections of winner's choice
• Chaos Group Annual V-Ray license (€380)
• AXYZ Design an(i)ma + 5 compatible human 3d models (€439)
• 1 year of Corona Renderer - 3ds Max: FairSaaS License (1 Workstation + 3 Nodes) (€289.99)
• iToo Forest Pack or RailClone 3 years subscription (€290)
• Rebusfarm render credits worth €250
• Fox RenderFarm Rendering Credits for €250
• GarageFarm render credits worth $400
• Xrender coins worth €300
• Pulldownit Pro single license for 3d Max or Maya (€395)
• R&D MultiScatter and MadCar license (€400)
• RenderBuzz 6000 renderpoints (€120)
• TopoGun single license ($100)
• Evermotion T-Shirt + paper notebook + cup

What work should I submit?
The theme of the contest is to create a visual representation of a garden - whatever that means to you ;). In the contest will be judged both idea and execution of the project. Unleash your imagination!

I'm in! How to apply?
You need to register or login and make a new thread on this forum: The Secret Garden - Challenge 2016. First you need only to claim your access, but until Evermotion Challenge ends (17th of January, 2017), you will have to post a few "Work in Progress" renders and the final work.

You must post at least 5 (five) WIP renders (Work In Progress) in your forum thread before 17th of January, 2017:

• Concept Sketch or reference photo,
• Modeling,
• Texturing,
• Lighting and Rendering,
• Post Effects and Composting,

What tools can I use?
Work has to be genereted in 3d software. You can use every 3D software and rendering engine you want, post processing inside Photoshop, After Effects or other 2D software is allowed. Don't forget to write about the software you used in your challenge thread.

Oh boy! Can I have two (or more)?
Sorry, multiple entries are not allowed.

And last but not least...
The work you submit to this Challenge must be your own personal work, groups and companies are not allowed. You can use ready-made 3d models or textures, but you have to give credits for people / companies that have made them. Final submission resolution should be not lower than 1200px (the longest edge).

Show Your skill to the world! Good luck!

Evermotion Team

Sponsors:

AXYZ Design, established on 2004, develops state-of-the-art 3D products especially for CG artists, architects and designers, including ANIMA, the fastest crowd animation software for artists, Metropoly, a line of 3D ready posed and animable characters and aXYZHUB, the free 3D assets browser.

Chaos Group is a worldwide leader in computer graphics technology that helps artists and designers create photoreal imagery and animation for design, television, and feature films. Chaos Group’s physically based lighting and rendering software V-Ray is used daily by top design studios, architectural firms, advertising agencies, and visual effects companies around the globe. Recently, VRscans was released - the world’s most photorealistic scanning technology, where 5,600 images are used to create a single scan.  Today, the company's research and development in cloud rendering, material scanning, and virtual reality is shaping the future of creative storytelling and digital design. Founded in 1997, Chaos Group is privately owned with offices in Sofia, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Seoul, and Tokyo. For more information, visit chaosgroup.com.

iCube R&D Group brings together leading  Russian 3d visualisation companies to develop and provide cutting edge and affordable tools for 3D visualisation industry. Our team is made up of highly qualified programmers and 3d artists who work together to bring 3d visualization into a new level. Our recent developments include VRayScatter for Maya, AutoWrinkles, MultiScatter, MadCar, CityTraffic, VRayPattern and SplineLand.

Itoo Software, founded in 1999 in Spain, is a 3D software developing company, and creators of Forest Pack and RailClone, plugins for Autodesk 3ds Max. Our main objective is customers´ satisfaction with our product, providing a high quality software and personalized support.

Corona Renderer is a new high-performance (un)biased photorealistic renderer, available for Autodesk 3ds Max. We at Corona believe that artists at every level should get top-class tools which are powerful, intuitive, and affordable. Corona Renderer delivers predictable, reliable, and physically plausible results with no compromises in quality, while the the fully-featured Interactive Rendering revolutionizes the 3D workflow. The Interactive LightMix feature allows changing the color and intensity of lights before or after rendering, without the need to re-render - get day, night and other versions of a scene, all from one render. Features like bloom & glare, LUTs, and filmic tone mapping reduce or remove the need to rely on third-party software. Our mission with Corona Renderer is to liberate users from the technical, unnatural process that rendering was in the past and let them focus on their vision.

Thinkinetic Pulldownit plugin started in 2009 as a project to demolish digitally the “Acueducto of Segovia (
Spain)” in a realistic and credible way without using real models at all. This was a great challenge
at that moment, after a few months the shot was fisnished and published to the internet, having an
unexpected impact among social networks. Thinkinetic brand was created after that to offer digitals tools and simulation services to the motion graphics industry. Pulldownit plugin is now available for 3D Max and Maya in Windows, Macos and Linux systems and has been used in many productions all around the world.

RAYVISION Inc. (Fox Renderfarm), founded in 2007, is one of the world's largest cloud computing and rendering solution providers for both the motion picture and animation industries. With its proprietary multiple patent cloud computing technology, RAYVISION has become one of the leading rendering solution providers with thousands of super powerful computing nodes. The company provides customized platform and infrastructure level services specifically tailored for motion picture and animation companies, with clients in over 50 countries and thousands of projects per year, our Academy Award (Oscar) winning support and great customer experience has earned RAYVISION a great reputation in the industry. In 2015, RAYVISION formed a global strategic partnership with Aliyun (Alibaba Cloud Computing) to provide global visual cloud computing services.

GarageFarm.NET is a fully automated render farm based in the cloud. It combines all the traditional on-site render farm components such as hardware management and network setup with the new cloud technology. It enables any user to integrate their software of choice with our back-end all through the cloud without any time consuming or complicated setups. Our software that seamlessly integrates into your application's interface connects you with the farm through a simple plugin. It does everything for you behind the scenes so that you can send and render your project with an ease of a single click. GarageFarm.NET has a ten people team working 24/7 to ensure full support and responsiveness for our clients. We offer unbeatable prices coupled with new technology that has made thousands of customers from over 40 countries happy. Read the Google Business reviews, Facebook reviews, and Case Studies to see what our clients say. Visit http://garagefarm.net for more info and get free credits to test us out to see if you like our service. Supported software: Max | MentalRay | V-ray; Maya | Mental Ray | V-ray | Arnold; Modo | V-ray; LightWave | Native | Kray; Blender | Cycles | Internal | V-ray; Octane.

The Rebus Render Farm 

The Rebus Render Farm instantly provides you with 5000 XEON CPUs to render your animations and still-images. No matter which 3D-application you're using: Our Render Farm supports them all! We're the only Render Farm that utilizes a system which seamlessly integrates into your 3D software.

Renderbuzz.com is an easy-to-use rendering service, available 24/7! We support the most popular 3D environments along with the most commonly used plugins! Just create an account, log in and send scene using our wizard available for registered users or by the exporter dedicated to your 3D application. 3D scene is automatically verified and rendering progress can be watched on your own profile or through a mobile application on your phone/tablet (available on GooglePlay)! Don’t hesitate and find us on social media for newest updates!

Xrender, as a cloud rendering service platform, can help to improve users’ rendering computing capacity without regional restrictions. By the way of cloud computing, Xrender provides fabulous service for animation companies and interior visualization teams. Meanwhile, it takes the responsibility to coordinate resources and accelerate interaction among people in this industry by organizing interior visualization competitions every year. Nowadays, Xrender has formed a group of people with professional background who are willing to share their passion in rendering. So far, Xrender has already served more than 50,000 clients and won a great reputation. Not only because of the professional R&D team, but also the extraordinary service for customers. Massive nodes supported by Amazon allow Xrender to be capable of offering users unlimited render nodes and storage space. Advanced transmission technology and customized render speeds for users make Xrender the one and only.

TopoGun is a stand-alone resurfacing, and maps baking application. The resurfacing functions in TopoGun will help you modify and/or recreate the edgeflow of your digital 3D models. The maps baking functions, will help you bake various types of texture maps from your high resolution 3D models and then allow you to apply them to your newly created optimized meshes. These texture maps contain information that will help you recover the appearance and features of the original high resolution mesh.

Media coverage:

CG Record - Coputer Graphics online Newspaper