The new Vue Challenge (VC) for this month, as decided by Guitta, who won July's challenge, will be: Invite your friends for a nice dinner. This is the first of the NEW VC's. To quote from the Vue manual, "here's how it works...": This is a thematic challenge. The theme is a dinner party of some sort. Guitta's exact words about this: [[[[[ "My idea was "invite your friends for a nice dinner". And I imaginated this could be an inside scene in a kitchen or a dining room, but also a pic-nic or a barbecue in a garden. And I hope not to see everywhere the turkey from 3D cafe, but something elaborated. A dinner is in the evening, anyhow. So we have to play with lights. What I really wanted to see is a nice done "table" (wherever, however) with a nice choice of food on it as you all would do in real life to create a pleasant atmosphere for your guests." ]]]]] NOW, though this is different from what we've been doing, I like this idea. We are not doing away with the idea of having something technical to be "challenged" by, because that's where the second part comes in. For example, if you do not have time for the full dinner scene, or simply want to explore some facet of Vue that maybe this idea has given you, that's where the sub-challenge comes in. Simply put, August's VC is "invite your friends for a nice dinner" That means, obviously, a depiction of some sort of gathering involving food, with as many or as few people in it as you think your scene needs. Please refer back above to what Guitta had originally written, since after all it's her idea. The SUB challenge would be to concentrate your efforts on one technical aspect pertaining to theme. Some possible examples: 1) A glass on an outdoor table, refracting sunlight through it 2) Maybe some wine bottles on a kitchen counter 3) A complete table, all set up and ready to go 4) Your Uncle Bob, passed out in a lawn chair (just joking...) 4) The turkey from 3D Cafe (sorry, had to do that. ;)) You all get the idea! It is the THEME that will be voted on, however, so if you want the opportunity to be the one to set the NEXT Vue Challenge, you must enter with a thematic picture. A "thematic" picture is defined by the author, in this case, Guitta. Clearly, you can't just render a chicken on a barbecue grill and call it finished, until there are people, your friends (remember?) in the scene. I would really prefer that entries to the theme part of it be placed in the Vue gallery, with a link to the image being placed in THIS thread. The reason for that is, say we get 5 or 6 entries that are all over 50 KB... before you know it, this page is taking a full minute to load for some people. :( WE don't want to scare anyone away now, do we? BUT, you can place images here too, if you'd like, but if you chose to do so, please keep the file size reasonable. The SUB challenge entries can be scattered all about, and need not be in this thread, since we won't be voting on those. Why is this changing so drastically? Simple: I thought the VC needed a boost. The "Theme" is for us as artists or aspiring artists. The "Challenge" is for us as Vue technicians. :) Since we are so behind schedule with this, this one will run until September 10, which is 4 Mondays from now. On Tuesday, September 11 and 12, we will vote on the entries. The winner gets to name the following challenge, and will have 2 days to decide, and present it. And so on.... I'm really sorry for any and all confusion that may have come from this past month. It was a difficult one for me. :( Cheers, and HAVE FUN! -Mike