Welcome to the Weekend Challenge!
There are two main goals for these contests: Fun and Glory.
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Fun: You get only 4 days to create a cool image/animation, based on the theme for the week.
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Glory: After 2 days of voting, a winner is declared. The winner picks the theme for next week and is very likely to be included in Blenderartist’s feature row.
Forum Rules
As this is a very specialised forum, new threads may only be created by the contest organiser.
There are two threads created each week: one for entries and one for voting.
The entry thread starts each Thursday at 2300 GMT, with an announcement of the new theme, and any other relevant information. Entry messages (described in detail below) are to be posted here, until 2230 GMT on Monday.
The voting thread starts each Monday at 2300 GMT, with a list of all entries and a poll to decide the winner. Voting closes at 2300 GMT on Wednesday, with the winner announced shortly thereafter.
Comments are welcome in both threads.
Entry Creation
An image/animation created for these contests will fall into one of two classes: Pure or Open. A Pure entry is made mostly using Blender, and mostly using new models. If an entry isn’t Pure, then it’s Open. If you can honestly say to yourself, “Yes, I mainly used Blender to make this”, then the entry is Pure.
Where a scene has a recognisable distinction between foreground and background, a Pure entry requires almost all of the foreground models to be new. If you can honestly say to yourself, “Yes, nearly all of the foreground models are new”, then the entry is Pure - it doesn’t matter how much of the background is new or recycled.
Generally speaking: If the entry has a specific focal point (the most important part of the image), a Pure entry requires almost all of the models in this area to be new.
Where a scene has no focal point or foreground/background distinction, a Pure entry requires mostly new models. If you can honestly say to yourself, “Yes, most of the models are new”, then the entry is Pure.
Please Note: For the purposes of this contest, add-ons that are not supplied with Blender by default are considered external software (e.g. MakeHuman, Graswald, BlenderKit). However, add-ons that come with Blender don’t affect the entry’s Pure / Open classification. Also, even for Pure entries, texture images may be created/edited using external image editors (like Gimp,…).
Note that post-processing for slight adjustments or simply to add titles/captions does not affect Pure/Open classification.
Entry Submissions
An entry is submitted by posting a message in the relevant Entry thread before closing time. An entry message contains up to four parts:
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First, a title which will be shown in the list of entries at the start of voting.
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Second, an indication of whether the entry is Pure or Open. If it’s Open a one or two line description of non-Blender processes or heavy model re-use is required. It will also be shown in the entry list at the start of voting. This description may still be given for Pure entries, but isn’t required.
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Third, the actual entry image or animation. The first image/animation within the entry post will added to the entry list for voting.
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Finally, some optional comments. These will not appear in the list for voting.
Only one entry per person is allowed. If multiple images are submitted, only the most recent one will be used for voting. (The other one(s) will be considered Non Competing.)
If (for any reason) you don’t want your entry to be part of the voting list, you can label it Non Competing. Non Competing entries will still be shown in the entry list of the voting thread but cannot be voted for.
Winning
Each week, a voting thread is created. It will include a list of all entries posted before the entry closing time. A poll will be attached, listing all of the eligible entries. Indecisive voters are asked to favour Pure entries over Open ones.
After two days of voting, the entry with the highest number of votes wins. In the event of a tie, a Pure entry will win over an Open entry. In the event of a tie between Pure or Open entries, the earliest submitted entry will win - the submission time is taken as the last edited time of the submission message, or the message creation time if it hasn’t been edited.
Once a winner has been decided, a congratulatory message will be posted in the voting thread. They will be contacted via private message, with a request for the theme for the next week’s contest. If the winner doesn’t supply a theme before Thursday at 2230 GMT, the organiser will select the theme. Having selected the theme, the winner will not be eligible to enter that week. They may however still submit an entry, but it will be considered Non Competing and won’t be included in voting.
When Things Go Wrong
If, due to unforeseen circumstances, a thread isn’t started at the appointed time, entries or voting will still close on time.
Enjoy the challenge!
P.S.
The original rules were written over 20 years ago. So I decided to update them in order to reflect advances in technology, recurring questions and the current interpretation of the original rules. Of course, the original rules are still online and can be found right here: Welcome to the Weekend Challenges