I'd love to see a monthly challenge here like the one on the Bryce forum. Renderosity has been kind enough to set aside some space for the entries. Lyrra is working on getting things set up. We would have one month to create our best renders in Poser and the winner gets to pic the topic for the next month. Rules will be similar if not identical to the Bryce forum monthly challenge. Just to kick it off, I'm offering Soft F/X new in shrinkwrap to the first winner. Just so you know, this is an extra copy I have which is for PC only. You can get a downscale version known as Open F/X at the link. http://www.openfx.org/news/index.php There won't be any prizes for the successive challenges. This is about skill building and fun. If you learn something by doing the challenge, then that's the deal. Lyrra and I will pick the first topic. Members vote. Winner picks the next topic and reneder rules and you folks go from there. The Bryce forum is slow enough to post images in the forum and Agent Smith is kind enough there to set up the image page. I'm wondering if we can do the same here on a more fast paced forum? I'm game to donate some time to this. Before this becomes "Official", any thoughts?

" Lyrra is working on getting things set up." WOW she really is overworked :0 . Did you give any thought to 2 catagories of beginner and advanced ?

I'm thinking one category only. Its about learning and beginner and advanced can both learn. Yes, Lyrra is overworked.

posting the images within this forum: depends on how many folks enter...but you could have thousands... But an official contest thread might work...otherwise...perhaps Renderosity could set up a Poser monthly challenge gallery page... The winner each month would have the glorious distinction of having his/her winning image as the backdrop to the gallery opening page....always in the spotlight :) ALSO...the image would of course gain entry into Renderosity mag...more exposure...how's that for a monthly prize ?

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together.
All things connect......Chief Seattle, 1854

Shall we see how long this one works? The blank square at top of the page was the forum challange. Wonder what happened to that. Well I'm in, lets hope it sticks around for awhile. Tashar 59

if you want to see what I envision, go check out what Agent Smith is doing on Bryce forum.

Having been part of the Bryce contest in the past (and a one-time winner), I can only say that such a contest is a GREAT thing. It does push one to learn new stuff and develop one's own creativity. It may be necessary to have another forum simply for the entries due to the potentially high volume of entries. The mods can decide that stuff though. In my mind the success or failure will have a lot to do with the creativeness of the topics. As evidenced by recent long threads there are different ideas around here as to what makes a good image. Not to knock the "portrait" type images in the gallery, but there are many of this type of picture which are done. Hopefully the contest will require more in the way of setting and story than a portrait usually does. Anyway, great idea! Chris

is this going to be an "out of the box" type challenge? meaning no post work, no 3rd party items. most of the other software forums (bryce, rhino, LW, ect) have the ability within the programs to create custom objects, so, I'm wondering, will the entries be limited to things everyone with the program has (their version any way)or are purchased items and post work going to be allowed? Personally, my opinion is if it's a Poser challenge, it should be a no post work default items type of a deal. After all, the key word is challenge :)

DaveSo, I had hoped for a monthly challenge page, but for now, a one time contest page is being set up. Lets see what happens. I hardly think "thousands". The bryce forum is up to 60 entries and that's a world record for that forum. I expect more here, but not that much. As for glorious distinction, winner sets the tone of the next challenge and gets to display a logo on their site, just like the bryce forum. No promises about the backdrop, but that is a good idea. I cannot say anything about the mag cuz there's no connections there. Its just a friendly forum challenge for growth purposes. Beryid, yeah, I know, it was tried before. I'm committed to spending time on this if 'osity is willing to provide the space. I had originally said that I could provide space at my site and might still be able to do that, but I hope for this to be a community challenge all on 'osity. Please understand that I am just a member here and have no special priviliges.

The 4th Party, Since Poser is based heavily on 3rd party models, I suspect that the successive challenges will allow them, but its up to the previous winner. If a winner wants to say Poser Purist, then so be it. If the previous winner says yea or nay to postwork, or limits to portraits, or expands to anything that fits a theme of 'fantasy' then that's the deal. The challenge should be open to all versions of Poser though. I'd recommend that you look at the past and current Bryce challenges to see how I hope this goes.

I really hope this works - I enjoy the Bryce monthly challenges, and was hoping for something similar over here. Thanks Eric (and Lyrra) for your efforts!

I have learnt so much through the Bryce Monthly Challenge and being new to Poser I would love to enter a similar challenge here. Hopefully this will make the learning curve a little less steep.

Love the Idea