The DefaultCubism Challenge

So two years ago I started this little project involving making renders out of only the default cube.


Basically, you can use particles, modifiers, anything you can think of, and see how far you can go without modifying the cube.

It was insanely fun and really forces you to explore blender in ways you haven’t done before. So I thought I’d try to get everyone involved this time around.

For the next 30 days, I invite you to:

  • Create as many pieces of stills or animations as you want.
  • Share them here or on social media using #defaultCubism.
  • Have fun!

Rules:

Restricted:

  • No modelling of the cube
  • No more than 1 cube object
  • No curves, Surfaces, Metaballs and Texts when used as on-screen geometry
  • No addons or scripts that generates geometry
  • No linking to another Blend file or cache of any time (alembic, mesh sequence, etc)

Allowed:

  • Ulimited number of Empties, Lattices, Lights, Groups, Modifiers, and Particles.
  • Curves and Surfaces when they are not being used directly as visible geometry.
  • Weight and vertex painting is the exception to the ‘No editing of base mesh’ rule and is allowed.
  • Post-processing as long as the modifications do not introduce any significantly new visual element.
  • Everything else

No curves, Surfaces, Metaballs and Texts when used as on-screen geometry

What does that mean ?
Except Curves, none of these types of objects are useable by modifiers or particles without a conversion to mesh type.
Particles can only be emitted by a mesh.
So, other meshes are allowed.
Does that mean that conversion to mesh is allowed ?
Are they just allowed to emit particles ?
Can they be used by modifiers ?
If no, there is no interest to use anythiing else than curves and empties and to use modifiers like mesh deform, surface deform, shrinkwrap, etc…
If yes, as long as the only object to be rendered is the cube, we have no geometry limit ?

Is editing of invisible meshes allowed ?
If it is not, is sculpting of invisible meshes through multires modifier allowed ?

Use of an alembic file or a cache is not link to another blend file.
Can we use secondary objects as fluid and cube as domain of fluid-simulation or smoke simulation ?
Can we use mesh sequence cache modifier ?

Limit to render only one object seems to be quite liberal, nowadays.
Restricted use of mesh would exclude a lot of features from the challenge.

Basically, the idea is you can only have one mesh object in the scene - the cube, other non-polygonal objects (such as metaballs and surfaces etc) is not allowed.

Good question about alembic and mesh sequence, I would say no since that opens up the possibility of basically loading in anything.
Same with sculpting through multires modifier.
I want to say no to vfx domain objects as well, but maybe that’s too limiting. I think ultimately it’s your call, the point is just to have fun.

hi, I think there should be no restrictions. just have fun sounds good.



cube: multi_extrude addon, sphere used for lens distortion (created blocky effect which is distracting but abstract enough)

I also think we should do a Suzanne challenge:



Addons: Auto mirror, multi extrude, select only edges, face inset fillet.
built in: extrude, select similar, modifiers: sub’d & solidify.
Materials from my library, all osl materials, 8 min render.

i have no idea :wink:

OK !
I don’t think avoïding simulations is too limiting.
But to render particles with Cycles, you need to use a mesh.
So, same mesh can’t be particle emitter and particle instance.
IMHO, limit to one mesh is too much limiting. I would allow one grid.
So, people can use particles with Cycles and play with all modifiers.

I made this Image with default Cube, one Curve, 5 empties.
10 modifiers on the Cube.


I forgot how much Remesh modifier is frustrating.
It could be awesome if it was making a check to avoïd to produce vertices used by 6 quads.
The ugly geometry produced by remesh modifier does not really allow tp go far after its use.
It is also limiting to loose vertex group moderation for following modifiers.
We did not need vertex group from basis. A working vertex weight proximity could be sufficient to fully appreciate modifiers after a remesh.

Another one.
Tortured Cube after 19 modifiers.

No displace. No Multires.
Just one cast, one warp, one bend, one twist and hooks+ subsurf + vertex weight modifiers and one smooth.

Attachments


here’s one i did a while ago, i was inspired by the water scene from the default cube challenge
i dont have the .blend at the moment its on my computer that died, but i think i used a vertex group on one corner then a subd modifier, cloth sim, displace with the cloud texture and then remesh or something like that

http://i.imgur.com/HOfI0CZ.jpg


18 modifiers

1 subsurf + 1 mirror + 1 array + 1 wireframe + 2 decimate + 2 remesh + 2 weightproximity + 3 smooth + 5 deformers (warp, cast,simpledeform)


subsurf, hook, skin, smooth, subsurf, wireframe, simpledeform, array plus three empties

Nice work everyone! Here are more that you can see on twitter: https://twitter.com/hashtag/defaultcubism?f=tweets&vertical=default&src=hash


3 subsurf, 3 vertex weight, 3 simple deform, 2 mask, 2 smooth, 1 array, 1 screw, 1 mirror, 1 displace, 1 wave, 1 lattice, 1 solidify