I’m proud to present to you the winners of the first Architectural Visualization Challenge – The GH House. It was a joy to host this event on my blog & forums and I hope that the next challenge will not take long to arrive. I’ll remind you that the challengers were asked to visualize a given private house and granted full freedom in the creation of the environment. The entries were judged according to overall accepted standards of architectural visualization: composition; lighting; materials and textures, concept (original approach), addressing the architectural nature of the house, technical skill, emotive value and participation in WIP threads.
The Challenge was sponsored by…
E-On Software, Luxology, Next Limit, Chaosgroup, Informatix, ASGVIS, Itoo Software, Exlevel, Epictor, Premium3DModels, LAUBlab and Film Vault Studios.
I take this opportunity to send a warm thank you to all of the sponsors for taking part in this event!
Grand Prize Winner, Bertrand Benoit
GH House Exterior by Bertrand Benoit
Bertrands decision to move the house up north, introducing a traditional Scandinavian treatment to the house actually worked very well on the GH House design. The combination of vertical wood planks cladding and cast in wood concrete played very well together.
The cliffs edge positioning of the house and panoramic exterior view was a very good choice and created a big sense of drama and focus on the house. Seeing the amount of work in the WIP thread it might have been even better if more of the environment was visible in the image both foreground and background allowing more sky above, approach road at the bottom and lake to the left.
The interior image POV choice was most interesting, as well as the interior re-organization choice and winter treatment of the exterior parts in the image.
Both exterior and interior images are a technical masterpiece, showcasing perfect lighting and materials… as a matter of fact we were able to see in Bertrands WIP thread that he handled almost every corner of the house and a vast chunk of landscape to a point of being able to make macro photography. The scope of his work is astounding!
GH House Interior by Bertrand Benoit
Bertrand will get these prizes
- e-on Software Vue 8 xStream
- Luxology Modo 401
- Next Limit Maxwell Render 2
- Informatix Piranesi 2010
- Itoo Software Forest Pack Pro 3
- Exlevel GrowFX 1.3
- Epictor Tourist I Entourage People Pack
- Epictor Travelers I Entourage People Pack
- Premium3DModels office complete collection
- Film Vault Studios 100 credits
Bertrand’s WIP Thread | Bertrand’s Making of tutorial
1st Runner Up, Kostas Anninos
GH House Exterior by Kostas Anninos
Kostas was referencing Castel Meur as an inspiration for his entry. Its a good thing that in the end only one side of the house got that rock siding. Kostas created a superb environment and mood for this house, with great attention to detail overall (apart from a little displacement glitch in the stone cladding).
Though it is clearly a great image, it would have been perfect if flipped so that the enclosed parts of the house faced the rock, as if growing out of it, and the public areas were open to the lake which is missing in the final image.
The interior image was masterfully crafted with great attention to detail, materials and lighting, though the fact Kostas decided to close the view out with curtains works against the concept and would have been better left out to allow us to see the pivotal rock.
GH House Interior by Kostas Anninos
Kostas will get these prizes
- Chaosgroup V-Ray 1.5 (3dsmax or Maya)
- Informatix Piranesi 2010
- Itoo Software Forest Pack Pro 3
- Exlevel GrowFX 1.3
- Epictor Tourist I Entourage People Pack
- Premium3DModels office furniture or office clutter
- Film Vault Studios 75 credits
Kostas’s WIP Thread | Kostas’s Making of tutorial
2nd Runner Up, Ivo Sucur
GH House Exterior by Ivo Sucur
Ivo Sucur delivered a brilliant story backed by an amazing amount of details and props in both his images. In our professional work we are being asked to show the house at its best and it was very refreshing to see Ivos WIP thread showcasing a WIP house.
Ivo comes out as a technical and organizational master (even if organizing a mess) choosing good POVs and laying it all out in a balanced way.
The final images turned out a little too dark and the far background might have deserved more attention but that didnt hurt the overall impression.
GH House Interior by Ivo Sucur
Ivo will get these prizes
- Next Limit Maxwell Render 2
- Informatix Piranesi 2010
- Itoo Software Forest Pack Pro 3
- Exlevel GrowFX 1.3
- Epictor Travelers I Entourage People Pack
- Premium3DModels office furniture or office clutter
- Film Vault Studios 50 credits
Ivo’s WIP Thread | Ivo’s Making of tutorial part 1 | part 2
Honorable Mention, Anton Cherenko
GH House Exterior by Anton Cherenko
Anton was among the few exploring the curved walls part of GH House and the only one among the finalist to showcase that side of the house.
The final exterior is a joy to look at! Anton managed to take an almost fully closed concrete wall façade and tell us a story that works architecturally and also evokes feelings while watching by q very pleasing use of colors and light.
The interior image did not deliver the same impact as the exterior one did. The composition could have been improved but the mood was very good and since both images were judged as one the exterior really pushed it all upwards.
GH House Interior by Anton Cherenko
Anton will get these prizes
Anton’s WIP Thread | Anton’s Making of tutorial
People’s Favorite, Kostas Anninos
Kostas was also selected as you favorite by a public poll among the forum members getting 54 votes out of a total of 179 votes (30.17%)
Kostas will also get these prizes
- ASGVIS V-Ray for SketchUP or Rhino (second pick)
- Film Vault Studios 25 credits
Judges Favorites
I would like to thank all the finalists and entrants for taking part in this challenge, and also point out two more finalists… sort of the judges favorites. Both picks are among the most unique and interesting entries of this challenge that if worked on more might have been one of the winners.
Peter’s favorite, Chris Labrooy’s ‘SWAT Teddy Raid!’
Cool concept, completely out of the Archviz realm and yet, Chris managed to deliver images that do have merits. The interior in particular, though too minimal in structure treatment, has a very good composition and the lighting was very well done. Those teddies deserve a mention for sure!
Chris will also get a prize – LAUBlab VRayForC4D.
Ronen’s favorite, Tom Svilan’s ‘Swamp Thing!’
Weird and very original concept and image treatment, Seems more like a renaissance ‘Chiaroscuro’ painting then rendering as Tom mentioned in his WIP thread. All Tom needed was more time to make this a complete work of art. I would love to see Tom keep working at it and hand in something new on the blog!
