Evermotion Challenge 2019 Winners Announced!

The jury selected three winning works and three awards. This year all works were judged by:

Lucia Frascerra is an Italian architectural visualizer with a great passion for dogs, good food and CGI. Her career started in 2015 when she moved to London. There she worked for some of the most influent studios in the Industry such as DBOX, Cityscape Digital and Secchi Smith.

Her personal work was nominated in the CGArchitect's 3D Awards 2015, gained a 1st Award in the Evermotion Challenge 2015, a Honorable Mention in the Project Soane Competition 2016 and it was also featured in "Great talks About Photorealism", a book by Bogdan Sasu. Between 2016 and 2019 Lucia had the honour to be speaker at multiple CG and Archviz events like the Architectural Visualization Day 2016 in Goteborg, the UY!CG conference 2018 in Montevideo and D2 Conferences 2019 in Vienna.
Today Lucia works in London for Secchi Smith as Senior Visualisation Artist and she is post-production teacher at the Master in Digital Architecture (MADI) at the University of Venice (IUAV).

András Kaldos (Brick Visual) is a true architectural artist. Having extensive experience as an architect, visualizer, functional supervisor and trainer in technology, and he has received recognition in a number of competitions such as the Junior Prima Primissima award of Hungary. He is the CEO of Brick Visual since its establishment, grew the company from scratch to its current more than 70 professionals, while being active as senior 3D artist as well. His interests cover experimental architecture and fractals. He sees education as one of his missions and he wishes to share his extensive experiences with newcomers of the industry.   

Hrvoje Cop - Polymachine - (commonly known as Chopmeister) is a 3D artist, obsessive tinkerer and the CTO of Polymachine, an archviz studio from Zagreb, Croatia. In the archviz business since the early 2000s, he enjoys discovering new ways to solve technical problems, and is addicted to most things that feature LEDs and buttons.         

Michał Horba (Evermotion) - Degree in architecture and urban planning mixed with passion for 3d - during my university times I discovered the most fun part for me was making the project look great. And so my journey began. Ten years of experience as 3d generalist shows that my main interests are architecture illustrations and material making. I am responsible for some of Evermotion's crazy scenes as well. 

The method of voting

The best works were evaluated in the following way:

1. We sent a complete folder with works (including WIPs) to judges. We also included a file with works descriptions, so they could read about the mindset behind work of an artist.

2. Each judge had to choose 6 works and assign them to 3 places and 3 awards. Points have been assigned to each place:

• 1st place: 10 points
• 2nd place: 8 points
• 3rd place: 6 points
• 1st award: 4 points
• 2nd award: 2 points
• 3rd award: 1 points

Then we added points from each judge and got first results. 

1st place - totoymachine - 1917

totoymachine will receive prizes: 

• NVIDIA: QUADRO RTX 5000 GPU card worth $1199
• Evermotion:  €1000 in cash from Evermotion, 5 Evermotion collections of winner's choice
• Chaos Group: 1 year V-Ray licence (product of choice) &  200 Chaos Cloud credits
• Chaos Group: 1 year Corona Renderer license
• iToo: Forest Pack & RailClone Bundle 3-years license
• iCube R&D Group: MultiScatter, MadCar, CityTraffic, Splineland, VRayPattern
• Allegorithmic / Adobe: Substance one year pro license
• Garagefarm: Render Credits for $600
• Pulze.io: Coupon for Pulze products 500€
• Fox Renderfarm: credits worth €500
• RebusFarm: 500 RenderPoints
• TopoGun single license
• RealDisplacement Textures: A vouchercode for all RD-Textures products 

Lucia Frascerra: Really beautiful image, I especially love the atmosphere and the colour palette. The strong composition and a great use of contrast between highlights and dark areas made it an undisputed winner to me. Congratulations!

Hrvoje Cop: Great image! Very nice color palette, the composition guides the eye nicely between the different plans. I like that it's rendered realistically yet still has that touch of fantasy atmosphere. Every individual element is done well, both technically and artistically, and they combine in a very visually pleasing manner. Some variety in the mountainscape would make it even better, but that's nitpicking. This is a lot of work and good work at that. The architecture is nice, and while it does make sense it's just weird enough not to feel too 'familiar', thus reinforcing the atmosphere of a fantasy world.

Andras Kaldos: (+) Well balanced contrast and colors. Nice details in the foreground. The location and the sphere are definitely reminds me of a movie called "the time machine".   (-)  the atmosphere is really nice in the background but the mountains are a little bit generic and  artificial because of the symmetrical placement

Michal Horba: Congratulations! The mood is interesting as so the main sphere object.The work makes me ask questions ; what is the sphere object? Is this a ufo? Or maybe its like in Prometheus movie? In my opinion this story you tell mixed with the skills you present gives the value of your work. I liked the soil and the foliage in your work, however the recurrence ot the tree houses is a minus for me. Good job!

2nd place - Capellan - Something is changing, something is not

Capellan will receive prizes:

• Evermotion: €750 in cash from Evermotion, 5 Evermotion collections of winner's choice
• Chaos Group: 1 year V-Ray licence (product of choice) &  200 Chaos Cloud credits
• Chaos Group: 1 year Corona Renderer license
• iToo: Forest Pack & RailClone Bundle 1-year license
• iCube R&D Group: MultiScatter, MadCar, Splineland
• Allegorithmic / Adobe: Substance one year indie license
• Garagefarm: Render Credits for $400
• Pulze.io: Coupon for Pulze products 300€
• Fox Renderfarm: credits worth €300
• RebusFarm: 300 RenderPoints
• TopoGun single license
• RealDisplacement Textures: A vouchercode for all RD-Textures products 

Lucia Frascerra: I absolutely love the mood of this image - it almost looks like a painting. The way the red/pink of the sun and the signage is used in contrast with the cold tones of the buildings and the sky is really successful. Well done!   

Hrvoje Cop: A really nice, unique composition. I love the silhouettes in the background plan and the somewhat anime aesthetic the whole piece has. Awesome work with the sky, simple and effective - it says a lot without complicating things. The foreground gives enough context to complete the story and grounds the image well. All the elements are well executed and I adore the almost vector-like shading on the skyscrapers.

Andras Kaldos: (+) Amazing details and mood. The color palette is nicely balanced. The composition - especially the sun- reminds me of the Japanese traditional paintings. A "nice" dystopia. Unfortunately it's a painfully realistic vision of our future. (-) maybe the red neon light is fighting with the red sun in the composition. 

Michal Horba: Congratulations for 2nd place! For me this work is very entertaining-I like the idea you present here and also the political easter egg;) "To brighter future" sems distopic and I really love the mood and the contrast between the modern city and the old wooden hut and also the combination between them. This is good good work! Cheers!

3rd place - Vittorio Bonapace - A Day at the Races

Vittorio Bonapace will receive prizes:

• Evermotion: €500 in cash from Evermotion, 5 Evermotion collections of winner's choice
• Chaos Group: 1 year V-Ray licence (product of choice) & 200 Chaos Cloud credits
• Chaos Group: 6 months Corona Renderer license
• iToo: Forest Pack or RailClone 3-years license
• iCube R&D Group: MultiScatter, MadCar
• Allegorithmic / Adobe: Substance one year indie license
• Garagefarm: Render Credits for $300
• Pulze.io: Coupon for Pulze products 200€
• Fox Renderfarm: credits worth €200
• RebusFarm: 200 RenderPoints
• TopoGun single license
• RealDisplacement Textures: A vouchercode for all RD-Textures products

Lucia Frascerra: Very nice and original story! I like the unusual point of view and the fact that you represented the moment just before the race started. Pretty cool the idea of the "bubbles" on people's heads. it's really impressive that it's all 3D - good work!

Hrvoje Cop: Good story with a very contemporary topic - while perhaps a bit obvious in its naivete, still works really well. Awesome use of a simple bubble prop to completely change the nature of the entourage - good job! A shame the main banner has an unfortunate spelling mistake which really pokes my eyes and detracts (just a bit) from what is otherwise a really good image.

Andras Kaldos: (+) Perfect composition, details with ironic story. I think this image contains a valuable message with a really sophisticated humor.  Humankind is ignorant of the future and living in a bubble (around our head) while we are trying to deny that we are destroying our world.     (-) it would be great to see a little bit stronger contrast between the foreground characters and the background. 

Michal Horba: I really love the the point your work makes. It gave me some thoughts about ecology and fact that people take fresh air for granted. The idea itself is very neat done but I think the mood could use some improvement.Maybe some light fixing?Furthermore I think you did very well! Congratulations!

1st award - anderalencar - Runaway Home

anderalencar will receive prizes:

• Evermotion: 1 Evermotion collection
• iToo: Forest Pack or RailClone 1-year license
• Allegorithmic / Adobe: Substance one year indie license
• Garagefarm: Render Credits for $200
• Pulze.io: Coupon for Pulze products 100€
• Fox Renderfarm: credits worth €100
• RebusFarm: 100 RenderPoints
• TopoGun single license

Lucia Frascerra: Really cool idea and composition - I like the story very much. Just a minor adjustment could help to elevate this image to the next level: the black/white point of the spaceship is very similar to the one of the two characters and the vegetation in the very foreground. In theory, it would be better to keep the strongest black point in the foreground and decrease the contrast on objects far away from the camera, I believe this could help to read better the different levels of depth in the image. Awesome work!

Hrvoje Cop: Despite the cool interaction between the two characters on the day shot, in my opinion, the night shot is better of the two - the framing, character pose and blurred foreground elements work together to put the viewer in a position of a lurker from the shadows which is a really cool effect. I appreciate the effort put into the massive amount of details all around. Only the central flare fights with the character a bit, being a bit too close, which confuses the eye. On the day shot, the sheer amount of details with mostly equal values and color schemes makes it quite an effort to read into the composition so elements get a bit lost.

Andras Kaldos: (+) Interesting setup. Nicely detailed environment. My favorite part of the picture is the kid which is a cool unique character. This character makes a strong connection with the viewer as he looks at "us" A really like the unusual lighting on the cropped version.(-) the composition is a little bit off on the daylight version.  It's hard to find the focus point in this version

Michal Horba: This is a very strong post-apo thing! I really like it; the mood is great, and the fact its all 3d is impressive. Good work!

2nd award - Abdallah Mostafa - The Last Wish

Abdallah Mostafa will receive prizes:

• Evermotion: 1 Evermotion collection
• iToo: Forest Pack or RailClone 1-year license
• Allegorithmic / Adobe: Substance one year indie license
• Garagefarm: Render Credits for $200
• Pulze.io: Coupon for Pulze products 100€
• Fox Renderfarm: credits worth €100
• RebusFarm: 100 RenderPoints
• TopoGun single license

Lucia Frascerra: The idea of the tree and the lanterns is very powerful and evocative, nice work! it would have been interesting to see a bit more activation at the base of the tree to better understand the story - one or more characters perhaps?

Hrvoje Cop: A simple and strong composition. The glowing tree is great and the reflection in the water only reinforces the effect. However, I cannot escape the feeling there is a story here that is left untold. Visually the lanterns work great with the tree, but I'm missing a bit more context.

Andras Kaldos: (+) i like the different mood setups. Simple and nice composition. Using tree, the  symbol of life as the main element is a good idea (-) ..but probably it would be good to see story on the picture to create stonger engagement with the viewer. 

Michal Horba: Congratulations! I like your work mainly for the mood and composition.It is strong and contrast! I wish there was more story telling image- that would be perfect.

3rd award - morphwork - the Catch

morphwork will receive prizes:

• Evermotion: 1 Evermotion collection
• iToo: Forest Pack or RailClone 1-year license
• Allegorithmic / Adobe: Substance one year indie license
• Garagefarm: Render Credits for $200
• Pulze.io: Coupon for Pulze products 100€
• Fox Renderfarm: credits worth €100
• RebusFarm: 100 RenderPoints
• TopoGun single license

Lucia Frascerra: I love the colours of this image and I really like the two kids fishing in the foreground - the story is great and very well executed. The only thing I would say is that maybe the architecture on the left hand side feels a bit too 3D - but apart from that, amazing work!

Hrvoje Cop: The image has a really good color scheme and tells its story well. The foreground plan with the characters seems a bit too dark to me, which makes it blend with the surroundings too much, but the biggest problem is the overly shiny architecture which looks a bit technically outdated - both in its modelling and materials. Still a really good effort but just missing that final touch.

Andras Kaldos: (+) the color and the composition is like old romantic painting.  I really like the story as well..(-) but it's not really visible because of the unbalanced contrasts. ​​​​​​​

Michal Horba: The mood and the story behind your work is great! I like this idea very much but overall I think your work is little poor in detail. I wish it was more complex and not so blurry at some point. Despite my babble the work is great! Keep it up!​​​​​​​

Honorable mentions: 

little3d - I Wish

Juan Carlos Saldivar - Flowers of Ignorance

bartosz.domiczek - Scorn of Men

amerfarah - Behind the Wall

Noise - Machines

FINAL NOTE FROM EVERMOTION TEAM:

Thanks for all participants - we really love your imagination. This topic was not an easy task, so really, we are impressed by your works  :) We want to also thank our sponsors - without you this challenge would not be possible. And finally we want to thank our jury that spent a lot of time revealing Evermotion Challenge 2018 winners. Congratulations to all and see you in the next Challenge!

OUR SPONSORS: 

DIAMOND SPONSORS

Allegorithmic has been reimagining the process of texture creation since 2003. Today, over 95% of AAA game studios use Substance in their production pipelines, making Substance the industry standard for PBR material authoring. With a community of over 150,000 users, Substance is quickly spreading to the fields of architecture, design, VFX, and animation, allowing a growing number of artists and designers to harness the power of rapid, efficient texturing and material authoring.

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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.

NVIDIA® Quadro RTX™ combines real-time ray tracing, advanced shading, and AI-based capabilities to fundamentally transform how architects, designers, and artists tackle today’s most demanding workloads. Users now have intuitive workflows for bringing their vision to life with imagery that rivals photographs in a fraction of the time of traditional workflows. To learn more, visit www.nvidia.com/aec

REAL-DISPLACEMENT-TEXTURES was the first shop for scanbased, tileable pbr-materials worldwide. Since 2015 we are constantly growing and trying to push the boundaries of what is possible. Our defined goal: Developing the best texture-sets available without making compromises.

GOLDEN SPONSORS

Chaos Group creates physically-based rendering and simulation software for artists and designers. Founded in 1997 in Bulgaria, Chaos Group has devoted the last 21 years to helping artists advance the speed and quality of one of their most important tools. Today, Chaos Group’s photorealistic rendering software, V-Ray®, has become the rendering engine of choice for many high-profile companies and innovators in the visual effects and design industries. Thanks to the great work of the V-Ray community, V-Ray-created designs have become nearly inescapable for everyone with access to a TV, computer, or movie ticket. For more information, please visit www.chaosgroup.com and www.v-ray.com.

Founded in 2007, RAYVISION Inc. (Fox Renderfarm) 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 40 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.

Pulze plugins are designed for Architectural Visualization professionals by Brick Visual’s dedicated R&D team. These next generation tools are easily accessible and provides an intuitive interface and design for an efficient and more enjoyable workflow. Pulze is the perfect replacement for complicated VFX based solutions and offers consciously redesigned tools to fulfill the specific needs of a new generation of users, including: Architects, 3D Artists and Visual Artists.

The Pulze products are:

Render Manager: Manage your inhouse render capacity in a convenient way.
Scene Manager: Streamline your scene setups and outputs in 3ds Max.
Post Manager: Maintain your PSD files throughout the life-cycle of a project.

Your CPU & GPU render farm with an easy-to-use interface, supporting a wide range of 3D applications and plugins. We continuously develop and research new technologies to improve your experience. Thanks to our massive cloud computing power you'll receive your render jobs within a remarkably short time for only 1.2 cents/GHzh and with discounts of up to 60%.

SILVER SPONSORS

Corona Renderer - Corona Renderer is a new high-performance (un)biased photorealistic renderer, available for Autodesk 3ds Max. It features an intuitive user interface and unmatched state-of-the-art, fully featured interactive rendering. Corona Renderer delivers predictable, reliable, and physically plausible results with no compromises in quality. Our mission with Corona Renderer is to liberate users from the technical, unnatural process that rendering was in the past. We are constantly trying to simplify the creative process by removing or hiding any unnecessary technical settings, so artists can focus on their vision.

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.