3D World issue 97 (December 2007) just went on sale, and I am delighted to have my The Pod Bay image published in this issue.

The Pod Bay was my contribution for the Vue 3D Environment Competition 2007 and ended up in the 3rd place. 3D World Magazine runs a print of the winning images in the current issue. So if you get your hands on the latest issue you’ll find my image there together with the two other winning images by Julien Chabot and Dimitar Tzvetanov. Great work by you guys and congrats in the competition!

3D World is a great magazine for any 3D Artist, so it’s well worth a read for more reasons just than looking at our Vue images. :)

A few days ago I posted an entry that my image, The Pod Bay, was selected as one of the twelve finalists in the Vue 3D Environment Competition 2007. Today, at Siggraph 2007 the final winners was announced. I was happy and surprised to see that my submission was selected as one of the three winners in the competition as second runner up.

The judges consisted of leading experts in the 3D entertainment industry coming from the companies - Industrial Light & Magic, LucasFilm Animation, Polygon Pictures, Electronic Arts, Psyop, Whiskytree, 3D World magazine and Softimage - motivated the choice of The Pod Bay as one of the winners with the following comments:

“A great work. Very interesting design and a great composition.”
“I like the fact that I’m wondering what they are. I keep feeling like they’re a part of a much bigger (science fiction) story that I’m not quite clued in to yet.”
“All parts are well-arranged to produce the impressive colors.”
“It vaguely reminds me of the Myst series of games!”

I needed to get up to speed with Vue and thought this competition was an excellent opportunity to spend some time with the software. This image was the result of some of my experimentation and it took me around one day to complete from start to finish. It was a very pleasant experience for me to get to know Vue better. It’s a very capable application and amazing in many ways, and I will for sure make it an integral part of my pipeline for upcoming work.

I didn’t want to make just a plain landscape render, so I came up with this idea of some Alien Pods populating my environment to bring some interest and excitement into the image. Postwork wasn’t allowed, which created a challenge for me to get as good render as possible straight out of Vue. I usually do a lot of post processing on my images after they have left the renderer like color correction, adjusting balance between elements, combining render passes and many other things. The Pods are modeled in LightWave 3D and then imported into Vue where I sculpted the landscape and the other assets. The texturing, vegetation as well as the lighting and final render is Vue all the way.

See the image in my portfolio in a higher resolution: The Pod Bay

e-on software, the maker’s of Vue, has together with Electronic Arts, Industrial Light & Magic and Lucasfilm Animation held a competition this summer called Vue 3D Environment Competition 2007.

I have had Vue in my toolbox since I got it bundled with my LightWave 9 upgrade about two years ago, but never really started using it, but well, when I got the announcement of this competition, I thought it was a nice and fun opportunity to learn this application properly.

As usual I waited until the last week of the competition before starting to dig into Vue and learn all the bells and whistles, and I came up with an image in about a day which I submitted. I didn’t really think it would be noticed by the jury, but that was okay, I had learned a new powerful application to use in my work.

Today they announced the 12 finalists from the 339 entries, and my submission was among the finalists. I got pretty surprised and pleased at the same time. I hadn’t expected this for my first Vue image that I had made in such a short time while learning the application.

My entry is called “The Pod Bay” and is available for viewing at the competition finalists showcase here, http://www.e-onsoftware.com/showcase/competition/2007/

Siggraph 2007 in San Diego is next week and the three winners out of the 12 finalists will be announced there. I wasn’t really interested in the competition before, but now I am a bit curious to see how it turns out next week. I have already set my mind to which 3 images in the competiton that will take the first, second and third place. 1. Snapshot, 2. Last Refuge and 3. White Ducks under the Bridge. But well, we’ll see if I am correct.

Oh well, back to sculpting my Destrachan creature now.

CG Society just announced CG Challenge XXI - Strange Behavior.

Excerpt from the challenge website:

“The CG Challenges are the largest online art contests of their kind, with huge amounts of sponsorship and publicity for each challenge. Working within guidelines and software limitations, artists are challenged to create outstanding artworks based upon set themes while showing their work-in-progress to the community.”

Strange Behavior.
25 June 2007 - 29 October 2007

The unexpected can delight or shock. It can be exciting or frightening.
It’s often funny. It’s never boring!

This challenge draws on one of the most popular artistic themes – unusual behaviors and relationships. Whether it’s a giant robot admiring a fluffy teddy or a sheep in wolf’s clothing; a cow that thinks it’s a helicopter or a warrior going into battle dressed as a giant pink bunny – they all make you stop and think. They also stimulate discussion – what one person finds funny another thinks is demented. Unusual juxtapositions and humor allow us an unprecedented freedom of expression. They can also bring us closer as we laugh together and at ourselves.

Entrants are required to bring to life Strange Behaviors in the most entertaining, humorous and emotive way.

—–

My thoughts:

I have always wanted to participate in one of these challenges, to see what I can come up with. This time around I actually think I have the time available until 29th of October to be able to submit an entry to one of the categories that’s appropriate for me. Illustration or animation, I think I’ll have to pass on short film.

I’ll go on vacation in 8 days from now, so I have tons of things to complete before then, so I will let this challenge rest for a few days, but on my vacation I’ll have plenty of time to brainstorm together a concept for my entry, and then I might actually be on my way completing a piece for this one. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

A very interesting site surfaced the other week, dedicated to the sphere. Check out the site over at CGSphere.

“Sphere: [sfeer, noun] a space or solid enclosed by a surface, all points of which are equidistant from the center. - The Penguin Concise English Dictionary

The sphere is arguably one of the most basic and fundamental primitives in computer graphics. Its uniformly curved structure allows for wide field of view coverage, as well as full diffuse tonal range shading. When reflective, its convex shape can reveal more of it’s surrounding environment than any other primitive, and when refractive it can bend surrounding light into a single concentrated caustic point. The sphere is an inherent form chaotically evident in nature and continually apparent in man-made designs. From the smallest atomic structures to the largest planetary globes, the sphere continues to be perhaps the most common geometric form in existence.

The Sphere Project is a website dedicated to the evolution of technical and creative 3D sphere design. The purpose is simple; to create the most captivating and visually appealing sphere from our provided scene using your 3D program and renderer of choice. We encourage everyone to submit his or her renders regardless of their skill level so long as they adhere to the rules. However, those with the best renders will receive the highest ratings and possibly make the front page. Your goal is to rise to the top, through the use of clever ideas, thoughtful execution, technical expertise, and dazzling presentation.”

Above is the basic 3D scene provided to create something imaginary out of. I think I will take a few hours to give it a shot and see what I can come up with. I love the idea behind this project. So simple, so intriguing.

CG Challenge XVI: Grand Space Opera
CG Networks just announced this competition, and of course I couldn’t resist, so I signed up for it.

Could turn out quite interesting. The deadline isn’t until January 15, 2005, so plenty of time. I’ll work with it now and then and post progress images as I make them.

Been in a fighting mood for a while. Made a contribution to todays 3D Fight Club daily challenge which were to create a bucket in 10 minutes. This is the image I came up with within the time limit.

(Ended up as Winner)

Another day, another fight. Todays challenge were the 15 minute lollipop.

Entered with this 15 minute piece as my contribution.

(Ended up as Winner)

Haven’t done any fighting for awhile so I was in the mood for accepting a 3D Fight Club challenge today.

Todays challenge was “10 minute Battery”.

This is my 10 minute contribution to the subject. No time for painting surfaces in such a time limit.

(Ended up at 2nd place)