Contest offers prizes to artists who replicate materials from the company’s Mattershots Instagram inspiration channel.
CLERMONT-FERRAND, FRANCE -- Allegorithmic launches “Materialize: The Digital Material Contest,” a competition that challenges artists to digitally reproduce photorealistic materials from real-world references.
Starting with Allegorithmic’s popular Mattershots Instagram account, contestants select from one of the 750-plus materials available and then recreate it in Substance Designer for a chance to win one of several prizes.
The Materialize contest is an opportunity for both artists with experience using Substance Designer, and those new to the tool, to show how closely they can recreate and creatively interpret materials that match their real-world counterparts. Submissions will be accepted through Nov. 24 at 11:59 p.m. PST.
Once contestants have selected an image to model their design on, they'll have the option to either start from scratch or select an existing texture from Allegorithmic’s Substance Source PBR library as a starting point. All entries must be designed in Substance Designer, and contestants must also specify which of the two categories they wish to be judged in, general or MDL.
Once the entry is complete, contestants should send in a copy of the newly created material alongside an image of the original source, one image of the created texture in Iray render mode on Plane HD and their SBS or MDL file to demonstrate the craft behind the design.
Three winners will be selected in each category, with the top entries judged by a jury of industry experts, including:
- Don Arceta – Lead Artist, Playground Games
- Marc Austin – Build Supervisor, Double Negative
- Scott DeWoody – Firmwide Creative Media Manager, Gensler
- Pierre Hulot – Digital Manager, French luxury industry
- Nicolas Paulhac – CMF Designer, Substance Source Project Manager
- Nicolas Wirrman – Substance Designer Product Manager, Allegorithmic
The winning entries will be based on following criteria: reference matching accuracy, material level of details (complexity and technical quality), material tweaks and exposed parameters. Winners will be announced Dec. 6.
Prizes include:
- 1st Place (General) – HP DreamColor Z23x Professional display monitor
- 2nd Place (General) – NVIDIA M5000
- 3rd Place (General) – X-Rite Photo Pro 2 ColorChecker
- 1st Place (MDL) – NVIDIA P6000
- 2nd Place (MDL) – NVIDIA P5000
- 3rd Place (MDL) – NVIDIA M5000
All winners will also receive one year of Substance, and a one-year subscription to ArtStation TBC. For interested parties unfamiliar with Substance Designer, Allegorithmic is currently offering a 30-day free trial.
For a complete set of rules, including how to enter, please visit the Materialize contest page.
Source: Allegorithmic
Tom McLean has been writing for years about animation from a secret base in Los Angeles.
