si-community is proud to announce the first ever "emContest"
(with actual prizes )




the rules of the first emContest
plug-in to use: emFluid2 (demo version only)

Important: we've extended the deadline ever so slightly.
The (new and improved) submission deadline is set to the 30th of December 2009 (Central European Time)

Main rules:
Anybody can participate, except for members of the jury (Owei and Mootzoid himself) and me (Hirazi Blue) .
The goal of this contest is to make an animation using the demo version of emFluid2 v.2.25.
It can be downloaded here.
Only one animation / XSI scene per participant is allowed.

The animation must fulfil the following criteria:

• The "heart" of the animation should be emFluid2 (demo version only!) or, on other words, emFluid2 must be the essential tool for the creation of the animation.
• The x-resolution of the animation must be 512 pixels and the y-resolution may not exceed 384 pixels.
• The length of the animation may not exceed 20 seconds.
• Maximum allowed frame rate is 30fps.
• The ICE Tree(s) should be commented.
• You can render the animation in any desired way: MR, Vray, OGL capture, emRenderPointCloud, etc.

What must be submitted?

• The animation (mpg, mov or wmv).
• The XSI scene (+images, if any).

The jury will look at the following aspects of the submitted animation and XSI scene:

• Originality ( = "Now that's a cool idea!" ).
• Technique ( = "Wow, how did he do that? Clever!" ).
• Aesthetic ( = "Looks pretty!" ).

So an ugly animation with great technique has as much chances to win as a pretty animation with lousy technique…

The prizes:

• 1st prize: full version of emFluid2 + emRenderPointCloud + emPolygonizer (one license each).
• 2nd prize: full version of emFluid2 + emRenderPointCloud (one license each).
• 3rd prize: one license of emFluid2 (or emRenderPointCloud).

(The three prizes are worth 280, 132 and 88 US Dollar respectively).

Complaints:
any complaints (i.e. "why didn't I win, it's not fair, blah blah blah...") will be ignored.

The demo version of emFluid2 has of course some restrictions (check the online doc), so here are some tips and tricks:

• emFluid2 (demo) only works between frame 1 and frame 250, so you might want to set your scenes frame range to something like [-125; 375] (assuming 25 fps).
• emFluid2 (demo) only allows you to have 10.000 particles per point cloud... but nothing is preventing you from having several point clouds in your scene.
• check out the demo and tutorial scenes of emFluid2.

What happens after the contest?
Some of the XSI scenes will be added to the emFluid2 demo or tutorial scenes (Mootzoid's choice).
The animations will be presented here in the si-community (all the winners and some of the non-winners).
Some animations may be used on the emFluid2 web site.

So when is the submission deadline?
All entries should be submitted on (or before) the 30th of December 2009 (Central European Time).
Winners will be announced in January 2010.


So where do I send my entry to?
Submit your entry to the following email-adress: upload [at] si-community.com

"Quick’n’dirty" legal stuff:

The judges' decision is final
By entering this competition every contestant grants Eric Mootz (“Mootzoid”) non-exclusive usage rights of the material for possible inclusion in the emFluid2 demo, a tutorial scene and/or the emFluid2 website.
Any recourse to courts of law is excluded.

Hoping many people will participate, I can only add: have fun & good luck...

woohoo!
i really hope i have time to get somthing done for this.....now all i need to do is learn how to use ice!

Great Idea.
Will see if I find the time to Join.

So if i already own licenses for the "prizes", can i use them rather than the demo versions? And if i win, can i gift the prize to a friend?

The finer details of that kind of questions are for "Mootzoid" to decide, I guess.
I'll send him a PM to draw his attention to your question specifically...
(I'm just the announcer/messenger)

Hi Bryan, how is everything going?

Okay, those are some damn good questions, thanks for asking them. Here come the answers:

• 1st question: you can of course use your full emFluid2 version to make your animation (= you need not install the demo version),
  but the final XSI scene must also work fine with the demo version!
  That's part of the challenge: getting the most out of emFluid2 while being limited by the annoying demo version restrictions

• 2nd question: if you win the 1st, 2nd or 3rd prize but already own a license of the prize plug-in you are of course free to make it a gift, no problem.

If you or anybody else has further questions concerning the contest, please ask!

Have fun
Eric

awesome idea... good luck everyone

s

Hey everybody!
I've been playing around with the thought of buying emfluid for a while now, so I have no experience at all, and I don't even know If I enter in this contest, but I want to say how GREAT I find this contest and the Idea behind it.
A bit more promotion on the mailing list and other forums might be good though
Good luck everyone!

I'd say, just enter!
It doesn't really matter, if you win:
if you plan to learn using emfluid2 in the foreseeable future, it's definitively worth the effort.
And you might even win a prize!


Well, we've posted an announcement on the XSIBase, but that didn't seem to provoke much reaction.
The Mailing List is a different story. I was hoping the illustrious folk at the Mailing List would
at least check here or (sadly but admittedly more obvious) at the XSIBase,
as I am not an active member of said Mailing List...

edit: to be fair: I took your advise serious enough to post a belated announcement on the Area...
edit 2: I now took a moment to announce it on "CGTalk - Softimage" as well.

Ultimate edit: Eric Thivierge was kind enough to notify the XSI Mailing List. Thanks, Eric!

Important: we've extended the deadline ever so slightly (as reflected in the first post).
The (new and improved) submission deadline is set to the 30th of December 2009 (Central European Time)