Out with the old and in with the new! In Converted, I’m asking you to take an in-depth look at existing architecture near you or one you love worldwide and introduce something new.
Today, I’m very happy to launch “The Vineyard” Challenge in partnership with Epic Games and Nvidia as main sponsors, aimed at leading the architectural visualisation field into an exciting new chapter of realtime visualisation and interactivity exploration. Building on top of previous architectural visualisation challenges held on my blog, this time I’m calling upon challenges to join and let your creative minds run wild while using Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 to create your entries. You can join as a solo artist or a team. Great prizes are dedicated to both!
The HOVER Architectural Visualization Rendering Challenge is coming to an end and the final images submission forms are now open. If you are one of the challengers please follow the links below to get to the upload and feedback forms. All others are invited to visit the challenge threads and check out the great work done by the artists participating and also add your feedback as a visitor… it is valuable to me and will help improve the next challenge!
HOVER is starting! I’ve added the information pages to the blog under the Challenges menu option in the navigation above. You can also visit the forum and register right now if you haven’t yet. The model kit for the Challenge is online, so please download and start exploring it as well as review all the information and ask me anything you like by commenting below…
2010 CGarchitect Architectural 3D Awards winners were announced and big congratulations to Bertrand Benoit for winning the best overall architectural image category for 2010 with his previously won GH House Interior Image! Bertrand will co-judge HOVER, my second Architectural Visualization Challenge that will be announced very soon.
I’m very proud to present the images created by the 23 finalists of the first Architectural Visualization Challenge – The GH House. The public vote by the forums members is also open and you are all invited to take part in voting for your favorite! Don’t forget to submit your feedback if you participated in the challenge or even just visited the forums during this event.
The second architectural visualization challenge is here as promised! This time with focus on two aspects of architectural design that caught my fancy. First one is the state of HOVER representing all types of cantilevered, bridged and by any other means floating spaces in architecture also giving the name to this Challenge. Second is prefabricated architectural design, known in short as PREFAB. I hope this will be a great experience to all participants and visitors of this blog and the forums and give a warm welcome to your new judges – Bertrand Benoit & Zoran Gorski (Kizo).
In HOVER you will be given a set of premade model parts from which you will be able to derive your design base and visualize it. Serving as a visual set of rules the kit will allow you to start your design and later adding your own elements to it. There will be no limit of size or function, and much like in the previous challenge, the context is totally up to you.
You can create a small house hovering over an ocean facing cliff, suspended from trees deep into the jungle or smack in middle Manhattan protruding from one of the skyscrapers…
You are encouraged to think beyond the traditional or conventional interpretations and methods of architectural visualization. I would like to emphasize this time that photo-realness is not the aim, but certainly might be a mean to an end. One more important thing is that the design part of this challenge is second to the actual visualization process and and result.
Jump start your imagination and create something original. Try your best to evoke our emotions when viewing your visuals, making us feel what hovering is like!
HOVER Model Kit
The HOVER Model kit is made with SketchUP and includes a set of structure building blocks based on 3m x 3m x 3.3m size. You will find floor slab parts, windows, sidings, shade system, stairs & more. This is not a definitive set, but a base to build upon and one that will dictate a general look & feel. You will have to add your own elements that will also make it unique to you. You can either do it all inside SketchUP and export out – or just use the kit for the main structure and do all the rest in your native application.
Please visit the Inspiration page were you will find several examples that I’ve gathered during the past weeks.
Judging
On the Judging panel for this Challenge you will find yours truly as well as:
Photographer and 3D Artist Bertrand Benoit. Bertrand is truly a source of Inspiration for me and has a masterful touch in any image he turns out. He is the Grand Prize Winner of my first Architectural Visualization Challenge – The GH House and also won CGArchitect’s 2010 Architectural 3D Awards in the Best Overall Architectural Image category with that same GH House interior image.
Head of ARSCOM Studio, Zoran Gorski (Kizo) is no stranger to challenges and was among the winners of challenges by Evermotion, 3DAllusions and Vizdepot in the past year. With 10 years of professional experience and master skills, I’m honored to have Zoran as a judge for HOVER.
3 Months are almost over and final image submission for the GH House Challenge is set to Monday, March 15th 23:55 UTC / GMT. The level of participation and quality of work showcased during this first challenge has surpassed my expectations and I have to thank you, the Challengers, for doing the hard work and sharing your great art with us all. And also send a big thanks to all of the sponsors for their great support allowing this event to take place.
A few things before you upload…
Your final two images dimensions should be in print resolution (as large as you can possibly render). As a guideline the minimum size of final images should be 3636×2657 or 2657×3636 depending on the proportions of your image (Portrait or Landscape). Try to avoid resizing to achieve this minimum. Even so, do not render larger then the minimum with low settings. It’s best to keep the minimum but rendering it with higher quality.
After you upload your images, please take the time to update the first post of your thread attaching those images to it so that they are visible upon first page open. If your thread name is still missing your full name please update it too.
Brodie Geers was kind to set us up with a Fixed Time World Clock showing the times in major cities around the world for the 15th March 23:55 UTC/GMT deadline.
Please use the following form to submit the two mandatory images (1 Interior + 1 Exterior). Please note that the upload process may take more then just a few minutes depending on your connection speed and there will be no progress bar visible… so just wait for it to end and then you will be redirected to the feedback page. The upload limit is 24MB total for both images.
