Challenge #741 Voting CLOSED

This week’s theme: time

After 2 days of voting, a winner is declared: The voting will close on Wednesday.
The winner picks the theme for next week.

[ If the winner doesn’t supply a theme before Thursday 22:30 GMT, the organizer will select the theme. In this case, the winner’s theme will be used the next time we are lacking a theme on Thursday 22:30 GMT. :slight_smile: ]

Having selected the theme, the winner will not be eligible to enter that week. They may however still submit an image, but it won’t be included in the voting.

Pure Entries

  • LeoBlenderToon
    The sun watch and the sunset
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=496882&stc=1&thumb=1

  • OLG
    Time for SteamPunk
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=496961&stc=1&thumb=1

  • Hiryuusan
    (Re)Birth of Kali
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=496968&stc=1&thumb=1

  • purbosky
    Timepiece
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=496972&stc=1&thumb=1

  • fdo
    Time-01
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497007&stc=1&thumb=1

  • Fulip
    Conversion
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497048&stc=1&thumb=1

  • FlyingBanana
    Quiet Time
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497072&stc=1&thumb=1

  • didierv
    Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. - Henry Ford
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497082&stc=1&thumb=1

  • Millani
    The Golden Hours
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497088&stc=1&thumb=1

  • texasfunk101
    Tick Tock
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497122&stc=1&thumb=1

  • usernew
    Ice3
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497124&stc=1&thumb=1

  • 3DUnlimited
    The Great Clock
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497132&stc=1&thumb=1

  • Photox
    Valley of Epochs
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497125&stc=1&thumb=1

  • caz747
    Time Tunnel.
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497144&stc=1&thumb=1

  • NadirP
    741_time_w
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497149&stc=1&thumb=1

  • appie.123
    DIY timemachie
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497166&stc=1&thumb=1

  • fcharr
    Chains
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497178&stc=1&thumb=1

  • Bunnyhog27
    Hourglass of Time
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497187&stc=1&thumb=1

  • raron
    untitled12
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497188&stc=1&thumb=1

  • g60
    Time Flies
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497209&stc=1&thumb=1

  • RayVelcoro
    10:40
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497225&stc=1&thumb=1

  • joshwinkler3d
    GREAT SCOTT!!
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497227&stc=1&thumb=1

  • robproctor83
    A Pocket Watch Study
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497181&stc=1&thumb=1

  • str11
    Simply Pocket Watch
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497285&stc=1&thumb=1

  • deltaray
    Time In A Bottle
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497289&stc=1&thumb=1

  • pikadrewunivers
    time6
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497299&stc=1&thumb=1

Open Entries

  • Devil_Dog
    The Glory Days
    [Used Gimp to combined two renders]
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497010&stc=1&thumb=1

  • teamfalk
    Lost time
    [open entry all models were cycles made and uv wrapped]
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497087&stc=1&thumb=1

Non-competing Entries

  • RobertT
    TIME MACHINING
    http://www.artofinterpretation.com/images4/wc741-TimeMachining-byrjt2017.jpg

  • Helge
    Woodworm
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497298&stc=1&thumb=1

Great works you all and loved all the entries as usual and the ideas/concepts that you came up with. And welcome to the new faces and first timers. Good luck to you all and many more future entries.

So many great entries, I can see why it’s pretty much tied between robproctor83 and NadirP. I had a hard time to pick my vote.

NadirP: your sand is sooo realistic - both the sand heaps and what’s “smudged” on the glass. Is it too much to ask for how it’s set up?

Helge, is the text in your entry done with grease pencil?

If I had a graphics tablet, I would probably have done that. Since this isn’t the case, some colored pencils and my scanner had to do the job. :wink:


By the way: this is a new ‘2017 competing entries’ record (+2)!

Competing entries: 28 (#741 “time”, theme by Miatpi)

Still standing:
Total entries: 31 (#740 “Castles”, theme by DoriNori)
Non-Competing entries: 7
(#732 “City Lights”, theme by Photox)

It says something that I for a moment thought that photo was an actual render… ('cause it is… right?)

BTW could you explain meaning of the entry somwhat, I can’t really get my head around it :o

@Miatpi The sand is modeled with an displace modifier and a boolean to intercuting with the glass mesh. And the material is the shader of http://real3d.fr/sandshader/ I only remplaced the ubershader with the new Principled BSDF.

For the glass I use the glass shader of CMV mixed by dust textures with a diffuse shader. Also has some sand of a particle system.

That was a lot of entries! Here are some comments to some of them (there are too many for me to comment on every single one).

LeoBlenderToon: Nice play on words. At sunset a sundial does not work, and so it can rest and watch the sunset. The reflection of the sun on the water is cool, but where is the sun? The model of the sundial is nice, and the angle gives me the feeling that it is indeed watching the sunset.

purbosky: Now that really looks like an advertisement for a watch. The colours make it look futuristic, and I liked how the display works. I just think there is not enough contrast between the watch itself and the background. In the darker regions the watch almost blends with the background.

Fulip: Lots of interesting details in this scene. At first I did not understand what the cross was doing there, but then I read the title. So that’s how my computer converts time! I also liked how the cross was turned into a sundial. The circuitry is cool, I’m just not sure what is on the right. Is that grass or moss? It gives an interesting organic vs. electronic feeling, but to my understanding it is not related to the “conversion” theme and is kind of competing with it. Also, I think something went wrong with the UV map of the base of the cross, the texture looks a bit distorted. Getting UVs right can be such a pain! :wink:

FlyingBanana: Interesting interpretation of time, not as the measurement of a machine but what we perceive as time. This looks like a very quiet place, perfect for those who just need some solitude to do their business! Also, nice work on the grass. The only thing that bothers me is the lighting. Judging by the sky I would say it is around noon, but the colour of the sun suggests it is almost setting.

Photox: Breath-taking. The mountains look immense (I still can’t believe there is such a simple trick to create them :D), and the lighting is really good. The small bridge(?) helps making the mountains look huge and also give life to the scene. I’m just not sure what this has to do with time. It’s called “Valley of Epochs”, so I suppose it is a reference to something that I do not know.

NadirP: I’m not sure if I’m over-interpreting things here, but I liked the story behind this one. The hourglass looks not only abandoned, but it was also violently thrown away, as suggested by the sand dust in the lower part. Also, the fact that there is sand on both sides tells me that it was still running, as if somebody gave up in the middle of what they were doing. The black and white colour scheme helps with the sense of loneliness of the poor, forgotten hourglass. The only thing that annoys me is the connecting between the lower and the upper part of the glass. It is very thin, and I think the sand would always get stuck there instead of flowing from one side to the other. But maybe that’s the reason why the hourglass is lying on the floor :wink:

g60: Nice sense of motion on this one. Glass flying everywhere, and it really looks like the clock is getting torn apart. I just think the colours are a bit problematic: There is too much contrast and saturation on the background, driving me away from the important part of the scene.

joshwinkler3d: Ha, nice reference! I was almost getting disappointed that we had so few time machines (and no one made a reference to Bill & Ted :(), so I was glad to see this DeLorean here. The model is pretty nice, and you managed to give it the feeling that it is moving in high speed. I just think it is missing the fire coming from the wheels :wink:

robproctor83: Very nice, detailed and photo-realistic. It amazes me how you modelled all those mechanisms inside the watch. The blur bothers me a bit though: It looks too strong for a object with this size.

str11: Nice pocket watch. In my opinion, from all pocket watches here (and there were plenty of them!), this is the coolest one. It looks very classy. I also liked the black and white colours here. Together with the rain, they give a feeling of calmness and lonelinesss to the picture.

RobertT: This is the kind of picture that makes you go “Wow!”. It looks very dramatic. It reminds me a bit from movies from the 80s, but I’m not sure why. I really like the effect on the borders.

Helge: So cute!. This reminds me of Simon the Sorcerer, which also featured Woodworms with a taste for quality.

@Millani Thanks for the feedback, there were plenty of great results/entries in this challenge. I figured there would be plenty of timepieces so time machine made sense. I did have a go at fire under the wheels but couldn’t get it right, I have also just realised part of the model didn’t render.

31 entries, but here we go:

@LeoBlenderToon:
Another entry showing, that Blender Internals time hasn’t run out yet.
A sun watch sat down to watch the sun set - nice :slight_smile:

OLG:
Having one or two SteamPunk-entries is always a good thing. A thing I just noticed: Is the clock attached to a gun? I was wondering about the bullets. Taking the theme into account this could be a bullet time gun. :slight_smile:

@Hiryuusan:
“Goddess of time, death and deliverance, destructive and creative mother.”
That’s a hell of a job description. There obviously are some gods you don’t want to meet at night at some dark corner of the city.
It is interesting how you arranged the image’s layers. Did you use volumetrics for the light rays? Do you have an editor screenshot of that scene?

@purbosky:
Nice design! It has been years since I used a wristwatch. But I could think about this one.

@fdo:
Time seems to be flying in this one. At least the digits are :slight_smile:
And is that a flying hourglass in front of the window? Just noticed that!

@Fulip:
Ah, electronics! Now that I think about it (and the theme), you could have added an NE555 timer ic. :slight_smile:
Nice Dalí reference btw.

@FlyingBanana:
Finding a way to visualize time without clocks or watches was harder than I thought. You found a fun way of doing that! (And it is looking really nice at the same time.)
Btw. this is what Wikipedia has to say about Quiet Time:
“Quiet Time is a term used to describe regular individual sessions of Christian spiritual activities, such as prayer, private meditation, worship of God or study of the Bible.”

@didierv:
So true! If only time wasn’t limiting the possible number of iterations…

@Millani:
This looks expensive. Nice combination of lighting (sundown/rise) and materials (gold, copper, …).
Golden hours in every way!

@texasfunk101:
A bullet timer! Or bullet watch? It looks a little dangerous to me (very fitting background btw.) - but I bet there is an very impressive (and possibly lethal) wake up ‘sound’ included in this one!

@usernew:
Ice Age :slight_smile: Nice ice materials. Especially the left block is very convincing.

@3DUnlimited:
I never played Ratchet and Clank. So I’m a little lost on this one. But I’m pretty sure this clock is what is causing this.

@Photox:
As always: great entry! “Yes, the happy little cabins were inspired by Bob Ross.” And you even gave the first one two little friends! Did you clean the ocean modifier in odorless thinner afterwards? (That is the fun part!)
But seriously: This is a great/creative way of using that modifier. And the material! Even Arnold Schwarzenegger would love that! :wink:
You froze a complete ocean for this one!

@caz747:
That is a nice one. Seems like you have been working together with Dalí and Pink Floyd for this one. You would probably need a time machine for this, but that doesn’t seems to be a problem.

@NadirP:
This is quite impressive. No wonder this is currently leading (in terms of voting). You really put a lot of thought and work into the details of this piece.
There is only one question left: If the hour glass is so outworn and dusty - who cleaned the floor? :wink:
(One last thing: lately, cobwebs are popping up everywhere. I think a spider would like to live in you entry:-))

@appie.123:
You could add this to instructables.com. I would certainly try to build one of these. It would help a lot with some of the deadline/auto moderation issues we had lately. :slight_smile:

@fcharr:
I might be mistaken, but this reminds me of Einstein’s theoretical grid of clocks. I’ve never seen anyone doing this with hourglasses. That is a great idea! If you think about this, as a consequence, this means that the unsiverse has to be turned every now and then - or else time will stop. :slight_smile:

@Bunnyhog27:
Welcome to the challeng. Nice entry! You even let the sand bounce of the object at the bottom of the hourglass. Did you use particles/physics simulation for this?

@raron:
Another entry that looks expensive! Fortunately, we don’t have to pay for the objects we build in 3d.
Out of curiosity: Is that a blueprint of the clock in the background?

@g60:
This seems to be a fun way to silence the alarm clock in the morning. Nice entry! Very dynamic - I hope you were wearing safety glasses when rendering this one.

@RayVelcoro:
Nice scratches and dents on this one! And the rain/water drops fill up the empty space nicely.

@joshwinkler3d:
Great entry! That must have been a lot of work. I saw one of these a few weeks ago in a museum. (However, it was the unmodified version.)

@robproctor83:
This is amazing. Based on your previous entry, I expected something great this week - but this is even better! Good job :slight_smile:

@str11:
This may be a simple pocket watch, but if you ask me, it is one of the most athmospheric entries we have this week. Colors, Rain, DOF, … it all fits together very well. This could be from the beginning of a movie. There seems to be a story behind it. Very nice!

@deltaray:
Let me know once you start selling this. This weekends time machines are probably a little expensive, but one or two of these bottles seem to be a good thing to have.

@pikadrewunivers:
I’m not sure how to interpret this entry. But an abstract artists once told me that she didn’t even want me to interpret her art to begin with. :wink:
Be that as it may: Correct me if I’m wrong - I think it is a clock which has been floating in space for too long. But as far as I can tell, this is nothing Herny Ford couldn’t fix. However, he might need Roberts time machine for this.

@Robert:
This is spectacular! This must be the mother of all TARDISes. It even seems to be bigger on the outside than others are on the inside. I’m not sure if I would dare to walk inside but looking at it from a distance has already been a lot of fun.

In the end everything is a render. The world is a blend file and your brain is running cycles. (Have you noticed how nice everything looks since the denoiser update?) :spin:

Regarding my entry:
I was looking for a way to meet the theme without modeling a clock. I thought of (tree) growth rings. Woodworms do the same: they don’t model clocks and they think about wood all the time. And this one found a particulary tasty ring. As luck would have it, it is the 1981 year ring - the year my wife was born - who had her birthday last weekend. :wink:

Thanks! Based on the woodworms I have met - i think they all have a great taste for quality! (And a great hunger as well.)

There have been stunning photo realistic entries this week. Anyway, for weekend challenge I also consider the image telling a story, and the story I liked this week was “appie.123” entry.

About Non-competing Entries
@RobertT, As always very artistic entry. Lots of details in that time machine. Surrounding clocks and distortion effect achieve the feeling of traveling in time!

@Helge, I know that worm does not exist, but the entry looks very realistic because good materials, I love the DOF you used. Nice story, nice entry.

By the way, graphic tablet makes the difference when you paint and sculpt, even cheap graphic tablets. I have a Genius tablet, not Wacom but still useful :slight_smile:

Millani and Helge thank you very much for the feedback and critiques. @Millani Yeah I wanted to add a bit of sun going down look to it but if I actually lowered the lighting it got too dark on me and fireflies started happening. I should have rendered it on my desktop which can handle high samples better. Thank you again and will keep that in mind for future projects. @Helge yes I didn’t want to go with a literal interpretation of the theme and this setting popped in my mind about a quiet peaceful time and place to relax and do your business. My family likes your Wiki reference to “quiet time” :slight_smile:

I guess I am getting better I got a vote this time :wink: maybe next one I will get two :slight_smile:

Great entries to all of you as usual, I always like looking at what everyone comes up with.

@Helge
Danke schöne!


Actually i have created another one scene for pocket watch,but to me it seemed boring((,and i decided to put the picture with the rain

Str11, I like that scene much better. I thought your original scene was pretty good though. I really like your use of lighting on the new scene, but if I could make one critique it would be that your main object (the watch) seems detached from the scene. Even tough it all looks correct, the lighting, shading and such all fit… But, the actual premise of your scene doesn’t make a lot of sense… For the watch to just be hanging like that? To be honest, I think it would be better if you had put the clock nestled up against one of the books… I’m not sure, but that would be my main critique. I don’t think it’s something most people would notice though, it’s only something I noticed from watching all of the Blender Guru videos, lol.

@NadirP looks like you and I are neck to neck! So intense! I have some cool ideas for themes, hope I win :slight_smile: Cya guys and thanks for the votes/critiques.

@Helge
Did you use volumetrics for the light rays?
Actually i was testing many things here, for the light rays, i tried to use a thin volumetric object moving quicly away from the camera (~100 BU/frame @24fps) with motion blur and different seed values for the samples on each frame.

Do you have an editor screenshot of that scene?
Well it’s a mess of testing nonsense but here it is. :wink:


The result is not good atm because the scene wasn’t particularly good to begin with. I’m sure i can get some great results with this “technic”.

Thanks a lot.

And regarding the tablet: I know you are right. Every now and then I start looking for a tablet. But after going through all sorts of different models and brands I have trouble deciding and loose interest for a while. Maybe next time. :slight_smile: (btw. it is the same with 3d printers…)

Bitteschön, always a pleasure.

Good decision (IMHO). The rainy one really stands out.

@Hiryuusan:
Thanks for explaining the technique. I’m happy I asked. I would never have thought of this being motion blur.
Ocean modifier mountains and animated motion blur volumetrics - this week is full of surprises.

And… the winner of Weekend Challenge 741 with 27.66% of the votes is… NadirP!
Here’s to all the great participators…

LeoBlenderToon : 1 : 2.13%
OLG : 0 : 0%
Hiryuusan : 2 : 4.26%
purbosky : 2 : 4.26%
fdo : 2 : 4.26%
Fulip : 1 : 2.13%
FlyingBanana : 1 : 2.13%
didierv : 0 : 0%
Millani : 0 : 0%
texasfunk101 : 0 : 0%
usernew : 0 : 0%
3DUnlimited : 0 : 0%
Photox : 3 : 6.38%
caz747 : 0 : 0%
NadirP : 13 : 27.66%
appie.123 : 1 : 2.13%
fcharr : 0 : 0%
Bunnyhog27 : 1 : 2.13%
raron : 0 : 0%
g60 : 3 : 6.38%
RayVelcoro : 1 : 2.13%
joshwinkler3d : 0 : 0%
robproctor83 : 12 : 25.53%
str11 : 4 : 8.51%
deltaray : 0 : 0%
pikadrewunivers : 0 : 0%
Devil_Dog : 0 : 0%
teamfalk : 0 : 0%

https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497149&stc=1&thumb=1
741_time_w

Congratulations NadirP! Great job on the render.

@helge
Yes, exactly! some particle physics with motionblur to smooth them out. Had some trouble with the noise inside the glass but I think it came out well ;). Cant wait till next challenge!