With the rapid approach of Summer, we thought a contest with a Summer theme would be appropriate, and help usher in the pleasant weather. Or, more appropriate for our friends on the Southern Hemisphere, the onset of Winter. We would like you to portray the Summer we all long for during the frigid, Winter months, or, the Summer that you'll miss as Winter looms nearer. The smell of fresh cut grass as a mower drones away in the distance. The light breezes that toss the curtains ever so gently through open windows. The comfort of cool shade from a giant oak. Chalk drawn hopscotch squares and lemonade stands. The ice-cream man and softball games in the park. Warm evening Summer rains and rich, earth shaking thunder.

The contest is called Summer Sidewalks, but could just as easily be called Summer Porches, Summer Backyards, or Summer Dashboards. (Melted cassette tapes anyone?) We would like you to choose a location, and display it in all it's Summer glory. We would like you to concentrate on a confined area of the location you choose while using interesting camera angles/points of view. For instance, if you choose to do your backyard, perhaps focus on only the patio area looking up to the picnic table from the deck, or one corner of the back yard viewed from the robins nest in the rickety birch. These are just examples of course, let your imagination run wild while including everything down to the LAST detail. We're looking for a generally urban setting, an area familiar to you, such as a side street, your front steps or your back yard. Country dwellers have no fear, just choose an area near where you live. Try to involve all four senses into your image, put us THERE. We can smell the mowed grass, we can hear the mower, we are warm, we are cool. That lemonade looks awfully inviting!

Though we are not looking for photorealism per se, technical aspects of the image should be considered. Pay special attention to materials and mapping, lighting and shadow and modeling. The scene should be interesting and of course there should be NO QUESTION of what season the images portray.

This contest is meant to be challenging, but is also a learning experiences for us all, and most importantly it is meant to be FUN! So have a great time!

Prize

• $500 dollar gift certificate from Digimation good towards the purchase of any Digimation brand plug-in.

Rules

• One entry per member
• All aspects of the image MUST be done in 3DSMAX. Material elements created with the use of other programs such as Photoshop are acceptable.
• No post work (except MaxVideo Post) will be accepted. This means, no compositing outside of Max, no touch ups, no lens flares after the fact. Do the work in Max, people.
• All models will be modeled by YOU, no exceptions. If you can't model a human, don't use a human in your scene.
• Use of outside images for textures are acceptable (excluding the use of environment maps which show more than just "sky"). No canned (premade by others/bought) PROCEDURALS are allowed,you must fashion all materials yourself.
• All entries must be in .jpg's format between 640x480 and 800x600 and, the top three finalists will be expected to provide their *.max file for judges inspection.
• Contest has ended.

All entries which fall outside these guidelines will be disregarded and future contest entry privileges may be suspended.

*Artists give permission to Renderosity for the use of the images for an undetermined period of time. The Artist will remain the intellectual property holder.