I have been thinking a lot about how challenge participation has been declining for the past few months. A big part of that is coming from real life interruptions on my side, but even with additional help, things have been really slow on the challenge side of the forum.

The old challenge page and rules were good when there was a lot of participation. Time to try something else.

So... I decided to take a more relaxed approach to challenges for a while and go back to sharing challenge images in the forum directly. I will think of a way to vote for a winner by the end of the month using a forum Poll.

The Vue challenge theme for October is : Painting with Light.

Create a picture where lighting plays a central role in telling a story. Think about the shadow of a knife behind the shower curtain in Psycho for example.

Share your picture in this forum thread. There is only one size restriction - if your picture is so big it messes up the formatting of the thread, I will reduce it to fix a normal size on the page.

Good luck everybody.

Well, i have never particiated myself...but why not offer prizes !!! INCENTIVE. IMHO, this entire forum is falling apart...but i guess that is just a sign of the times(;

;-)

Bernie

I haven't been around for a while - got REALLY busy at work so my time's very limited. Been that way since before the summer, so I haven't been doing any of the Vue contests.

I don't need prizes - just the time. Sorry this seems to be declining - they're a lot of fun and good practice.

And yeah - when I DO have time to breeze the forums, it feels more and more like the Vue Forum is turning into a complain-fest. I don't get it, I love Vue - so I'm just gonna continue to use it as a finishing app with custom stuff I've made in XSI and C4D.

-Lew

Bernie - thanks for the image. I hope it will be the first of a series of interesting contributions. I may even participate if I find time.

Lew - the challenges are here to provide an occasion to practice Vue and have fun. I know exactly what you mean about time. Complaints come and go.... there are still a lot of people interested in Vue reading the forum :)

Does it have to be a new image or can it be something from our gallery that seems to fit the subject?
Being that the artist will be known anyhow if we are posting the entries to the forum, I dont see any reason why it should be new images only. Might boost participation if we dont have to drop what we're doing to create a special image for the challenge.

ArtPear - New images would be preferable but I am fine with anyone sharing something they already posted as long as it fits the theme. It could be a good occasion to share tips or ideas around the theme anyway.

Attached Link: Fairy tales can come true

Is dreaming wise or is it a vice ?

In this image  the shadows play as big a role as the items/creatures that cast them.
Just to highlight  a few points:

1. The girl seems somewhat startled and about to retreat from the tower, her shadow seems attracted to the tower, with her hand nearly grasping it.
2. The dragon's interest is on the magical book page which it lights, but the shadow of his head is directed to towards one of the bat. The real dragon is fascinated by the good parts, his shadow notices the dangers.
   3.  The real and shadow world nearly merge when you look at the butterflies on the right, hard to tell what is real and what is a shadow.
   (see link for a bigger version)

Attached Link: Hitchiker

Figures I'd forget about this challenge and still manage to come up with something just doodling for variety - my subconscious is much cleverer than I.

Please be gentle :)

The full sized version is in the link.

Wow, that is great! You've already got my voice!

Regards,

Bernie

Here's an old one - will try to do something new as well.
It's a nude, but kinda obscure, so I don't think it's too "revealing"?

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2754340

Don't forget to participate to the selection of the next theme in the attached thread. Two ideas are already there. I will announce the next theme out of the suggested ideas unless there is a theme that agrees with everybody.

That's neat!

I'm wondering how it would look with some subtle caustics on the belly area, slight mottling kind of thing?  It just screams out to me that it's a great wide open area to paint on :)

There is a slight caustic gel on some of the lights but I couldn't get it to look decent so I took most of 'em off (you can see the beams in the volumetrics)

I hit that a lot, especially when working up close - I've never been able to dial caustics in just right for close work - I think my brain manages to lose spatial references and just goes into a corner to whimper :)

I really liked jc's one too, the contrasting blue and red looks sharp!

Quote -
 I will think of a way to vote for a winner by the end of the month using a forum Poll.

I don't know what the vote pages look like as i've never voted on a contest yet but perhaps asking one of the coders for renderosity.com to create us a custom page with the vote options below each picture once you click on the image you want to view?