ROAD TO INFINITY

In the Road to Infinity competition, you can show your skills on a simple template file and be part of the endless (well, actually, a couple of hours, but still awesome)  Road to Infinity montage. This is a really exciting competition; it uses the alpha channel! You can change the template in any way you want.  However, there are some things to remember:

GENERAL THINGS FIRST:

• You can use any software you like. The template is here. (.abc .blend .fbx .mb)
• No NSFW content.
• If the submission is not by the rules mentioned in this document, I reserve the right to disqualify your work. I usually try to solve the issue unless there is an enormous amount of submissions, but it’s not guaranteed.
• The submission period is from the 27th of April to the 11th of June at 23:59 UTC. After that, there will be a live stream on the 19th of June at 14:00 UTC, where two other judges and I will rate the top 100 works and pick three winners. There will be a separate montage video of all submissions and the top 100 as well.

THE PRIZES:

The three legendary winners of this competition will get some legendary prizes as well, provided by some of the best companies in the 3D industry:

THE PORTALS

The size or shape of the square-sized portals (objects called “Start Holdout” and “End Holdout”) can not be changed with a few exceptions. This makes sure all submissions loop. If you’re using different software than Blender, make sure these objects are set to holdout or equivalent. You can do anything with a few exceptions:

• Nothing must come before the first portal (“Start Holdout”). After the portal, your scene starts, and anything is allowed. Make sure nothing sticks over the borders of it.

• For the second portal (“End Holdout”), the rules are not as strict. You can add anything before and after. Just make sure that there is some transparency visible so that the next person’s work can be seen through it. Here’s an example of two different works put on top of each other:

• You can make the end portal smaller but not bigger. Imagine a circle in front of the portal. You can cut off the parts of the portal that stick over. If you look at the previous middle example with the rocks, you can see why. If unsure, always try looping your work to see if it loops well after your modifications.
• Can the portals open up as doors, for example? Yes, this is allowed as long as the camera can go through the portals freely and the last and the first frames are transparent and empty

THE CAMERA

• The camera animation cannot be changed, and it has to move through the scene freely without clipping objects. In the previous image example, the rock blocks the camera.
• The last frame (400) of your animation must be an empty transparent frame.
• Also, the very first frame (001) must be empty and transparent (this is the case anyways, as you cannot add anything before the first holdout).
• You cannot change anything about the camera except for the depth of field.

THE ROAD

• The road is the element that ties all submissions together. It can be anything you want (a bridge, a blood vessel, a trunk with a squirrel running on it). But it must be approximately the same size and start/end in the same locations as the “Road” object.
• The road marks the path. A forest walkway works as well, for example, although it is not a separate object.

OVERALL

• Make sure your scene can be looped! You can test this by exporting your scene in the correct format (see below) and then layering it in DaVinci Resolve like that:
• 

• Make sure you export your final work in the correct format:

The template file has the correct settings, so if in doubt check them out from the file.

HOW TO SEND:

Your work is ready, great!

Make sure all the export requirements are met and that your work loops when you test it.

You can go to badnormals.com/road-to-infinity to submit your work. The submissions are open from the 27th of April to the 11th of June at 23:59 UTC. The submissions form closes automatically after this date, so make sure to submit a bit before for safety. Submissions from other sources (Discord, Gmail, Instagram) will not be used. If you want to verify your submission has been received, you can go to the submissions channel in Discord and search for your artist name in #verify-submission.

Fill in the form, and your work goes automatically to my Google Drive. After the deadline, I will download all the submissions and run a script that converts the PNG files into a 30fps ProRes 4444 video file. The name of your .zip will be the name of the video and will be displayed automatically in the lower left corner of the final montage. But you don’t have to worry about these hundreds of gigabytes of precious data! Just make sure you submit it correctly and leave the rest to me!

WHAT MAKES A WINNING RENDER:

Your work will be judged by me and two other judges. Judging artworks and finding the best one is incredibly hard, but here are some things we will consider:

Story: no need to squeeze a full novel into 15 seconds, but we are more so looking at the idea of your render. Does it feel like it’s telling its own small story, hinting at what might happen before/after?

Attention to detail: Are the character’s clothes moving in the wind? Any bees flying in the air to give atmosphere? Mud tracks behind a vehicle, imperfections on materials? This is of course highly dependent on your style, which brings us to the next point:

Cohesiveness: No matter what you create, is the render a cohesive piece of art? If we see that you went for photorealism and it’s realistic, that’s good! If you went for an NPR render, is the whole animation in that style? Also, this is a short piece of art, so if you add seven main assets in different styles, it probably won’t be easy to understand and judge

because to give our opinion on what you made, we first have to understand what you were going for!

Of course, keep in mind that we are humans and, therefore, a bit biased so we will be asking the live stream viewers as well. This way, it’s more fair.

HOW TO GET HELP:

You can get help on the Bad Normals Discord server. Here’s an invitation too.

The Road to Infinity category has a channel for feedback, questions and submission verification.        

I wish you creativity,

Bad Normals