Epic Games and Digital Extremes, co-creators of the award-winning Unreal game franchise, along with NVIDIA Corp., Atari Inc., AMD and Alias, announced the first-round winners of the $1M NVIDIA Make Something Unreal mod-making contest (www.makesomethingunreal.com).
More than 400 aspiring 3D artists and game developers from around the world entered game and entertainment mods (a new game or add-on created with tools from the original title) into the contest. Mods were entered in various categories, such as Best Mod, Best Level with Original Content, Best Level, Best Mutator, Best Model, Best Tool, Best Voice Pack or Audio Modification and Best Game Type. The winners of the first-of-four contest rounds take home a share of $50,000 in cash and high-end PC equipment. The contest is one-year long and set to conclude in the fall of 2004.
"We have been so impressed with the entries received that we've decided to extend the contest by adding a fourth phase and additional prize money," said Mark Rein, vp of Epic Games.
Winners were selected by an expert panel of judges comprised of programmers, artists and designers from the sponsoring companies. The first-round winners in the Best Mod category made significant changes to the Unreal Tournament 2003 gameplay by creating new game experiences. The winning mods include DEATHBALL (the first place winner), which is a futuristic soccer/lacrosse/football-like sport, and fourth-place winner JUPITER EFFECT: INFLUX, which was created as an art school project and is an anime-inspired battle between giant robots. In the Best Game Type category, winners created a new type of gameplay with the mod RIFTWAR, which incorporates three teams within the structure of the existing UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2003 game.Created by a young man currently serving in the German military, the Best Original Level is ARISTOCRACY, a mod with deathmatch gameplay set in an old European fantasy village map. The winning mods can be viewed and downloaded at www.unrealtournament.com/ut2003/contest_winners.php.
In order to make the contest accessible to the widest audience, Epic Games contracted with Jason Busby at www.3dbuzz.com to create the Website www.masteringunreal.com, which contains more than 100 hours of free downloadable Video Training Modules (VTMs) geared toward educating users on how to program and build content using the Unreal Tournament Game Engine. This fall Busby conducted the $1M NVIDIA Make Something Unreal Buzz Tour, an educational tour conducted at Games game centers nationwide, where Busby lectured on mod making. In addition, in November 2003, Epic Games sponsored Unreal University, a weekend-long event at North Carolina State University, where modders from around the world came to learn about how to create mods to enter into the contest, win cash or possibly jumpstart a career in gaming.
Most recently Busby joined Alias at their annual Dec. 3 event in London, England where he conducted very popular demos of how to use Maya Personal Learning Edition to build a mod for the contest. More than 1,000 artists and computer graphics professionals and games enthusiasts attended the event.
Second-round winners will be announced in early spring 2004. The third phase will conclude on April 30, 2004, with selected entrants from that phase being shown at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) in May 2004. The newly added fourth phase comprises only two mod Categories: Best FPS mod and Best non-FPS mod, with $50,000 in prize money split among those categories. Phase four will conclude on Aug. 20, 2004. Selected entrants from phase four will be shown at ECTS, where the five grand finalists shall be announced. Following ECTS the five grand finalists will be given until Oct. 1, 2004 to make additional changes and improvements to their entries for grand prizes consideration, with the grand prize being announced shortly thereafter. By the end of the contest next fall, winners will have received cash prizes totaling $550,000, and more than $300,000 worth of high-end PCs equipped with NVIDIA GeForce FX graphics, nForce2 platform processing units and Maya software. The overall grand prizewinner will receive a commercial Unreal Tournament engine license (valued at $350,000) in addition to the money prizes and a loaded PC. In order to participate in the $1M NVIDIA Make Something Unreal mod-making contest, contestants will need to ensure that their mods are freely available for download and work with UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2003 (available now at retail stores), or UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2004 (coming in early 2004).
Epic Games Inc (www.epicgames.com), based in Raleigh, NC and established in 1991, is a developer of cutting-edge computer and video games. The company is best known as the creator of hit PC 3D action games Unreal and Unreal Tournament, both award-winning blockbuster hits having each sold more than 1 million units each. Epic is also well known as creator of the Unreal Engine, which it has licensed to several major game developers.
NVIDIA Corp. (www.nvidia.com) is a market leader in visual computing technology dedicated to creating products that enhance the interactive experience on consumer and professional computing platforms. Its graphics and communications processors have broad market reach and are incorporated into a wide variety of computing platforms, including consumer digital-media PCs, enterprise PCs, professional workstations, digital content creation systems, notebook PCs, military navigation systems and video game consoles. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, California and employs more than 1,700 people worldwide.
New York-based Atari Inc. (www.atari.com) develops interactive games for all platforms and is one of the largest third-party publishers of interactive entertainment software in the U.S. The Company's 1,000-plus titles include DRIVER, ENTER THE MATRIX, NEVERWINTER NIGHTS, STUNTMAN, TEST DRIVE, UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2003 and UNREAL CHAMPIONSHIP; and mass-market and children's games such as BACKYARD SPORTS, Nickelodeon's BLUE'S CLUES and DORA THE EXPLORER, CIVILIZATION, DRAGON BALL Z and ROLLERCOASTER TYCOON. Atari is a majority-owned subsidiary of France-based Infogrames Entertainment SA, the largest interactive games publisher in Europe.
As one the world's leading innovator of 3D graphics technology, Alias (www.alias.com) develops award-winning software, custom development and training solutions for the film and video, games, web, interactive media, industrial design, education and visualization markets. In 2003, the company was awarded an Oscar for Technical Achievement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its development of Maya software, the professional 3D animation and effects package. Alias also offers a powerful range of services for new to advanced users in the most demanding environments.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
