Image Courtesy of Rohan Dalvi

SideFX Contest

Machines permeate through nearly every aspect of our daily lives. They are tiny and they are colossal. They work silently on the macro scale and they can screech and klang to move the earth. They can blast through the stratosphere and they can drill into the earth's core under thousands of pounds of pressure. What kind of machine exists in your mind? How does it move? What does it sound like? Show us the machine of your mind.

UPLOAD YOUR CONTEST ENTRY

In order to upload your entry, you need to have an account on SideFX.com and be logged in.

Submissions are now closed. Please come back for future contests!

PRIZES

Best Overall

Dell UltraSharp 30 PremierColor Monitor

30" monitor with PremierColor that delivers every creative professional their ideal color space. With 1.07 billion colors, you can see more details in higher clarity, even across an ultrawide viewing angle. Read More..

Animation

AMD FirePro™ W7100

Professional graphics card deliver exceptional performance and special features designed to accelerate high-end workflows for design, engineering, and media and entertainment professionals.

Image

Intel® SSD Pro 5400s Series

The Intel® Solid State Drive Pro 5400s Series is designed to meet business needs by enabling blazing fast performance and simultaneously upgrading a system’s security and manageability profile.

Splashscreen

Houdini Swag Pack

Entry to be used as Houdini Splashscreen, with artist credit - and you win a Houdini Swag Pack! Tshirts, giant Houdini beachball, and some other mystery fun stuff!

OUR PARTNERS

CONTEST PROCESS

Create your marvelous machine using Houdini and Mantra! It can be a still frame, or an animated sequence of infinite moving machine parts. There are no restrictions on file type or image/movie resolution - and yes, you can import external file formats (though the more you do in Houdini, the more we take that into consideration). As for Mantra, sure you can use just texture maps - but the Principled Shader and VOPS can be your better friend.

As for compositing - you can use Photoshop or After Effects or any application you like; but the less you rely on them, the more the Jury will take that into consideration. Bonus if you use just COPs instead! You can work in teams, but it may be difficult to split the prizes up amongst yourselves, so we recommend solo entries.

Upload your work

Artwork upload tool goes live on December 1, 2016. Submit your entry no later than 11:59 pm (EST) on January 31st, 2017. Zip up your final image/video (please name it "yourname_final" so we know that it's yours)!

Judges evaluation

Judging will occur between Feb 1st to Feb 14th, 2017. The judging panel will select entries based on aesthetics and originality!

Results announcement

Results will be announced on Feb 15th - we'll post the winning entries, runner-ups and some of our other favourites here at SideFX.com

Prizes enroute!

All winners will be contacted to arrange for the delivery of their prizes - post a selfie when it arrives!

CONTEST RULES

RULES

• Your work must be created in Houdini and rendered using Mantra. This means that everything other than texture maps must be created in Houdini.
• Winners must submit their .hip/.hiplc/.hipnc file along with any referenced files.
• Contest prizes awarded by SideFX must go directly to the winners and cannot be transferred to a third party.
• All content must be the property of the submitter. If you are running Houdini on an employer or school computer, please ensure that this does not compromise your ownership rights.
• Entries that clearly infringe on the copyrights of another artist or company will be disqualified.
• You retain ownership of your design but your entry in the contest constitutes an agreement to allow Side Effects Software unrestricted use and distribution of the file or files submitted.
• Your entry in the contest also constitutes an agreement to allow Side Effects Software to modify or tweak your design to create the final splash screen.

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

By entering this Contest, all entrants agree to release, discharge, and hold harmless Side Effects Software and its partners, affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising agencies, agents and their employees, officers, directors, and representatives from any claims, losses, and damages arising out of their participation in this Contest or any Contest-related activities and the acceptance and use, misuse, or possession of any prize awarded hereunder. Side Effects Software assumes no responsibility for any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, or delay in operation or transmission; communications line failure; theft or destruction of or unauthorized access to Contest entries or entry forms; or alteration of entries or entry forms. Side Effects Software is not responsible for any problems with or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer online systems, servers or providers, computer equipment, software, failure of any email entry to be received on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any website, human errors of any kind, or any combination thereof, including any injury or damage to entrants’ or any other persons’ computers related to or resulting from participation, uploading or downloading of any materials related to in this Contest.

RIGHT TO CANCEL OR SUSPEND CONTEST

If for any reason the Contest is not capable of running as planned, due to infection by computer virus, bugs, worms, trojan horses, denial of service attacks, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures, or any other causes beyond the control of Side Effects Software that corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of this Contest, Side Effects Software reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to disqualify any individual(s) who tamper with the entry process, and/or to cancel, terminate, modify, or suspend the Contest. If Sponsor elects to cancel or terminate the Contest, Sponsor will not retain any rights in the submitted images.