The sixth annual Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge is now underway. Co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the journal SCIENCE, the flagship publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Visualization Challenge is a prestigious competition to find the photographs, illustrations, and digital media that best communicate science, engineering, and technology for education and journalistic purposes. Last year's winning entries were as diverse and imaginative as any yet received. They took us in close to see how nicotine creates cravings, how muscles work, how wires can heal themselves, and even what lies behind our noses. They helped us learn physics, mathematics, and the progression of breast cancer. They took us up 18 kilometers to the top of Hurricane Bonnie and down to the delicate structures of sea moss from Cape Breton Island. They even slowed time to a standstill, revealing the beautiful complexity of a bat's flight. Winning entries will be published in a special section of the Sept. 26, 2008 issue of SCIENCE and Science Online and on NSF's website. The entry deadline is May 31, 2008. For rules, entry forms, and more information, see www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/scivis.

The Art Institute of Pittsburg, Online Division (AiPO) and Alienware are hosting The Concept Art Competition, a contest that celebrates artwork from leading independent game artists around the world. The artwork was created as concept art for videogame applications, such as characters, landscapes, vehicles and other game-art renderings.

The competition will crown and reward two artists for their winning entries. Alienware will provide two Area-51R 7500 computers (MSRP $3,009 each) to the winning entries. Mod DB is hosting the event and provides the ideal staging ground for this competition, given its history and unrivaled platform for mod developers, game designers and artists to collaborate to create game modifications, add-ons and independent games.

The Concept Art Competition is open for public judging on Mod DB through Dec. 7, 2007. The results will be posted on Dec. 15, 2007. To view and vote on your favorite artwork, visit www.moddb.com/features/23851/concept-art-competition.

CGSociety and NVIDIA are hosting the first NVArt competition. The "Amazing Creations" contest for digital artists has a prize pool valued at over $21,000.

Submissions will be reviewed by a distinguished panel of judges, including:

* Pascal Blanche, Concept Artist/Art Director, Ubisoft
* Francisco Cortina, 3D Artist
* Lorne Lanning, Co-Founder and Creative Director, Oddworld Inhabitants
* Stephan Martinere, Concept Artist/Creative Visual Director, Midway Games
* JoAnne Northup, Senior Curator, San Jose Art Museum
* Shelley Page, Head of International Outreach, DreamWorks
* Mark Snoswell, President, CGSociety
* Steven Stahlberg, Lead Artist
* David Wright, Creative Director, NVIDIA

The deadline for contest submissions is Jan. 7, 2008. Winners will be announced at the San Jose Art Museum, in the heart of Silicon Valley, Feb. 1, 2008. For additional details and official rules, go to events.cgsociety.org/NVArt.

Vicon, developer of Academy Award-winning motion capture systems and part of the Oxford Metrics Group, is currently accepting submissions for the Vicon Film Festival online at www.vicon.com/filmfestival/.

With a grand prize of $10,000, the international competition aims to find the most creative and entertaining use of a series of motion capture sequences in an animated short. The competition is open to original short films (between two and five minutes long) using motion capture data made available for download from the Vicon Film Festival website.

The contest launched in August 2007, offering participants a variety of different motion capture clips for download, along with NFR licenses of 3D match-moving software boujou SD, to aid in the creation of their short films. Between now and the submission close date (Jan. 31, 2008), one entrant per day will be selected at random to win an iPod Shuffle.

Film entries will be posted on YouTube and the Vicon Film Festival website for public voting. The top 10 entries will be submitted to an independent judging panel comprised of industry experts including Mike Sanders (Industrial Light & Magic), Eric Furie (USC School of Cinematic Arts), Takashi Fukamoto (Links Digiworks), Gary Roberts (Vicon House of Moves), Chris Mais (writer and director of the award-winning SMILE), Mick Morris (Audiomotion) and Darren Waters (BBC Interactive). The winner will be announced in June 2008. Media sponsors for the competition include VFXWorld.com, Computer Graphics World and Digital Arts Magazine (UK).

Babelgum, the free to view global television network, is hosting the Babelgum Online Film Festival. Submissions will be exposed to public rating on Babelgum before being judged by the festival jury, led by Spike Lee. The other jurors consist of film experts from across the globe, including the directors of established film festivals, film schools and film industry associations. For more information, visit www.babelgum.com.

NVIDIA and CGSociety have teamed up to offer another NVArt competition, this time the focus is on architecture and landscape design. Titled Art Space: Architecture and Landscape, this digital art competition challenges participants to create awe-inspiring architecture and landscape designs. First prize is 2 NVIDIA Quadro FX 5500 cards, and 1 week 'all inclusive' holiday valued at $10,000 (USD). Second prize is NVIDIA Quadro FX 5500, and a $500 (USD) American Express Gift Card. Third prize is NVIDIA Quadro FX 3500, and a $500 (USD) American Express Gift Card. Entrants must be members of CGTalk or CGSociety. The entry process will walk you through a free signup if you are not already registered. For details, visit http://events.cgsociety.org.

The Bristol School of Animation at the University of the West of England and Aardman Animations join forces for the annual storyboarding competition for 2008. Entrants are asked to produce an It can be serious, touching, funny, even a spoof, but it must be thirty seconds long with a three-second pack shot at the end and no longer than 20 frames. First prize is a free place to study either 2D drawn or 3D Stop Motion Pro in Bristol School of Animation's "Three Month Animation Course" running from June until September 2008. The prize includes accommodation. There will also be runners-up prizes on offer. The competition is open to everyone over 18 years of age. For more information, call +44 (0)117 32 848410, email amd.shortcourses@uwe.ac.uk, or visit www.uwe.ac.uk/amd.

Voting Ends: August 31, 2008

No cinemas, no queues, no tickets, no e-scalpers, no timetables. The third annual Portable Film Festival is an online film festival presenting the very best in international film and video culture.

With former featured shorts going on to be nominated for Oscars in each consecutive year, the Portable Film Festival has become the place to hit the big-time online. Renowned directors will be battling it out against budding bedroom philosophers, across six categories including Short Film, Music Video, Animation, Online Serials, Films Caught on Mobile Devices and this year for the first time ever, Feature Films.

The Portable Film Festival will award prizes in six categories, as voted by the users. The main award -- the Grand Hopper -- will be awarded in the flagship category Short Film.

Visit www.portablefilmfestival.com to vote.

The world's only exhibition that brings together experts from both the fine art establishment and the interactive entertainment industry to explore the art of the video game, Into the Pixel is now accepting submissions for the 2008 collection at www.IntoThePixel.com. Now in its fifth year, Into the Pixel is the one annual opportunity for published video and computer game artists to be recognized by renowned fine art experts, the art-loving public and by their peers in the video game industry. Artists must submit their work by May 21, 2008, for consideration by the ITP jury. Each year Into the Pixel convenes a jury of world-renowned museum curators, gallerists, educators, artists and interactive entertainment art veterans to review the art submitted by video game artists from all over the world. Only 16 pieces are ultimately selected by the jury to be printed by a master printer, framed and hung in the ITP gallery, which then travels around the U.S. and abroad. The highly anticipated 2008 art exhibition will be unveiled to the game industry at the E3 Media & Business Summit, July 15-17, and will open to the public at "Entertainment for All Expo" (E for All), October 3-5, 2008 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Into the Pixel was created by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) and the Prints and Drawings Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The newly appointed 2008 Into the Pixel Jury: --Louis Marchesano, Curator of Collections, Prints & Drawings, Getty Research Institute --Kevin Salatino, Curator of Prints & Drawings, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) --Daniel Dociu, Chief Art Director, NCsoft North America --Richard Duardo, Managing Director and Master Printer, Modern Multiples Fine Art Studio --Tracy Fullerton, Assistant Professor, USC School of Cinematic Arts, and Co-Director, Interactive Media Division/Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab --Lorne Lanning, Co-Founder and President, Oddworld Inhabitants --Glenn Phillips, Consulting Curator, Getty Research Institute --Kiki Wolfkill, Executive Producer, Microsoft Game Studios Submissions must be art from published or soon-to-be-published computer and video games, or art that was used in the creation of the games. Artists may submit up to three original works. Deadline is May 21, 2008 at Midnight (PT). Interested artists should visit www.IntoThePixel.com for more detailed information or to submit artwork.

From December 1-5 Autodesk will host a series of 3December events to celebrate 3D artists and their work. For the tenth consecutive year, these events provide Autodesk 3D software users with the opportunity to share their art, learn and network with their peers. 3December 2008 will include 3D art contests, live events in numerous cities around the world, and a virtual celebration on Autodesk's online user community -- the AREA. Autodesk will host live events on December 3 in London, Paris, Seoul, and Tokyo. Live events will also be hosted in New York City and Las Vegas on December 2 and Melbourne on December 5. In New York, free MasterClass Tips & Tricks sessions for Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Mudbox software will be offered by Derald Hunt and Erik Paynter from Turner Studios, renowned 3ds Max VFX artist Allan McKay, and Bill Harper from The Dreamhive. At the New York evening event, Harper will also offer a demonstration of Mudbox modeling techniques, while other high-profile artists will present tips and tricks for Maya and 3ds Max. The program line-up for the London event includes presentations by artists from Double Negative and The Mill. Registration is required for these events. For more information, or to register, visit: http://area.autodesk.com/3dec. Approximately ten Autodesk Animation User Group Association chapters will hold meetings in conjunction with 3December, including Los Angeles, New Jersey, and Oklahoma City. This year's Los Angeles meeting, at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects, features Blur Studio discussing the cinematic pipeline used to create Warhammer Online. The user group chapter in Oklahoma, based at Digital Tutors, also promises a stellar line up of guests for its meeting, including Greg Punchatz, senior creative director at Janimation. Autodesk's AREA community website will serve as an online venue for the weeklong celebration. The site will offer free content including, tutorials, demonstrations and show reels. With the support of HP, Intel, and Wacom, Autodesk will also offer videos and images of 3December events online. Artists can register to become a member of the AREA community free-of-charge year-round at http://area.autodesk.com. During 3December, Autodesk will launch two contests, which will run until the end of January 2009. The "Alien Landscapes" contest invites artists to use Maya, 3ds Max, Mudbox and/or Softimage|XSI software to design an alien landscape. The grand prize winner will receive an HP DreamColor LP2480zx Display, courtesy of HP and a Dual Quad Core Intel Xeon based HP xw8600 workstation, courtesy of Intel. The winner will also receive one license of Mudbox 2009 software, as well as his or her choice of one license of Maya Complete 2009, 3ds Max 2009 or Softimage|XSI software. To celebrate the event's tenth anniversary, the "3December Logo Design Challenge" requires artists to design a logo for 3December using Autodesk SketchBook Pro software. Among other requirements, the 2D design submitted must be transferrable to 3D and easily animated. The grand prize winner will receive a Wacom Cintiq 12 tablet, provided by Wacom. On December 1, more information, including contest terms and conditions, are to be available at http://area.autodesk.com/3dec.