VFX Challenge 01 WINNERS and VFX BREAKDOWNS

[Mark Johnson]

It was a tight race to the very end. Entry 04 (Mark Johnson) eeked out a win by one vote at the last minute over Entry 02 (Raptor365). Entry 01 (Matt Grunau) came in third. For breakdowns from the first three placeholders go here:

http://www.archivisuals.com/VFXBREAKDOWNS/

TO SEE THE FOUR ENTRIES (quicktime clips) go HERE.

[Gord.T]

Congrats Mark. 2nd place to a pro like yourself is just fine with me.
I had fun entering and picked up a few more things along the way.
Glad to be a part of the first ever VFX Fest.

[Simon Höfer]

Congratulations Mark!

[Matt Grunau]

Congrats to everyone. I didn't realize you guys wanted such a detailed explaination or I would have included pics and whatnot.

Great job Rap and Mark. I can't believe how gut stomped I got. But 2D is always harder to match for realism with particle systems than 3D.

And I also had no idea of the calliber of skill I would be up against. That is a mistake I will not make again.

[Jeff Anderson]

Wow all of these looked fantastic! Congrats to Mark and thanks to all for the explanations! I'm hoping I can get some time to enter this next fest, but if nothing else I'm looking forward to reading the explanations from the winners. Definitely learned a good bit as to how this kind of work is done. Thanks again to all those involved!

[Matt Grunau]

I think in addition to showing each artst's methods, if we could have a kind of Q&A thing.

For intance, to Mark specifcally, how did you get the trees even during the close up to look so authentic and snow covered? I had a heck of a time even making it look snowy from afar on the trees, but nothing like the caked on really stuck there look.

If fiddled, and tried, just cant get that look. It just ends up looking like patches of white.

[Mark Johnson]

When I get a chance here in the next day or so I'll put up a little addendum, Matt.

Thanks for the question.

[xyouthx]

am I not seeing where to watch videos of these?

[Gord.T]

Go to post #1. Click 'Here'. Click on the image and allow it to download.
Takes a few moments. Place your mouse over the upper right corner of your page.
If you see an hourglass it's downloading.

//Oh, and the challenge was not to submit the best you could do, it was the best you could do in a week. One guy only had 1-1/2 hr to spend on it. That's not an indication of what he can do, but what he did in an hour and a half.

[Drew Ott]

Great job everybody. I would have competed if only I had some skill at this stuff.