Community Contest: Lights, Camera, Immersion!

UPDATE: The winner announcement has been pushed back to Thursday, October 27, 2016! We apologize for the delay but the judges need more time to fairly and accurately test out the entries in VR.

What would your favourite movie scene look like if you could explore it from within? Maybe there are hints about the story that we never saw because they were not in the picture, or maybe the new perspective gives an entirely new spin to what’s going on! In our new community contest we’re challenging you to re-think your favourite movie scene and prepare it for viewing in VR.

The task at hand is to recreate an iconic movie scene in any style you like, either animated or not. The only requirement is that your scene needs to be an immersive environment.

Thanks to Oculus we’re able to offer TWO Oculus Rifts as the main prizes – one as the first prize for static scenes and one for animated projects.

What are we looking for?

Check out this collection of movie scenes to get a sense of what we’re looking for:

No need to confine yourself to photorealism! All stylistic choices are encouraged. All that is required is that it is virtual reality compatible, meaning there is a sense of literally being in the environment once viewed through a VR device – don’t submit models that are only an object, character or diorama! We’ve got exciting prizes for you and an amazing group of judges who will help us determine the winners.

Please note that not all scenes in the collection above are fully immersive. While this wouldn’t automatically disqualify you, it would lead to penalty points being detracted from your final score.

Over $2,500 in prizes!

Contestants can choose to participate in the animated or static scenes category. Each category has the following set of prizes:

1st place

• $599 Oculus Rift
• $150 Netflix Credit
• $120 A Year of Sketchfab Pro
• Sketchfab Hoodie
• 3 Sketchfab Cardboard VR Viewers to give to your friends (as you’ll already have an Oculus Rift 😉

2nd place

• $200 LCD Movie projector
• $90 Netflix Gift Card
• $60 Six months of Sketchfab Pro
• 2 Sketchfab Cardboard VR Viewers
• Sketchfab T-Shirt

3rd place

• $40 Movie snack box
• $60 Netflix Gift Card
• $60 Six months of Sketchfab Pro
• 1 Sketchfab Cardboard VR Viewers
• Sketchfab T-Shirt

Judges

As always, we have an awesome group of judges who will help us pick the winners:

• Wesley Allsbrook, artist at Oculus Story Studio.
• Eugene Chung, Founder & CEO at Penrose Studios.
• Will Mason, Co-Founder and Editor in Chief at UploadVR.
• Ghislain Girardot – winner of our World of Warcraft: Legion Fan Art contest.

How to enter

Create a Sketchfab piece that puts the viewer in the middle of an iconic scene from a movie. While we recognize the power of television, for this contest we’re going to keep it closed to feature-film movies only. Movies inspired by television shows are allowed. The emphasis is more on an environment in the movie as opposed to characters, although they are optional.
Decide if you want to participate in the animated or static category.

We’ll post regular contest updates on the Lights, Camera, Immersion! contest forum. Start your own topic in the same forum where you document your work in progress (#WIP). Once you start your forum topic, we’ll give you one month of Pro, which allows you to create up to 200MB per model and use up to 20 annotations per model. Find out more here.

Post regular updates (with images and Sketchfab embeds), and be sure to mark which entry is your final submission. Tag your work in progress with #moviecontest-wip.

Publish your final entry to your account, and tag it with #moviecontest-static-final or #moviecontest-animated-final. For good measure, you should add a movie specific tag too, like #interstellar, but this is optional.

You can submit as many entries as you like, but only submit new work that you created for this contest! Entries close Thursday, October 13, 23:59 New York time.

Need help?

Make sure to read the contest’s Frequently Asked Questions, and feel free to post your questions on the same thread.

Need inspiration?

If you need some inspiration for your scene, check out these excellent resources for ideas: 129 Of The Most Beautiful Shots In Movie History and @OnePerfectShot.

Terms and Conditions

• No purchase necessary.
• By entering this competition, entrants will be deemed to have accepted and agreed to the conditions.
• This is a contest for individuals, no teams.
• No alternative prizes available. The prize draw is not open to Sketchfab employees or their families.
• No ripping of models from anywhere on the Internet, all entries must be original works of art inspired by movies, NOT television shows. Shorts are allowed. Using work that is not your own will immediately disqualify you.
• The judges’ decision are final – in case of dispute, no correspondence will be entered into.
• Winning entries will be documented and may be used for promotional purposes.
• Contestants models must be uploaded to Sketchfab and tagged #moviecontest-static-final or #moviecontest-animated-final to be considered.
• Winners retain all Intellectual Property as per Sketchfab standard Terms and Conditions.
• Winners and winning entries may be required to take part in any publicity resulting from this competition.
• The winners will be contacted by Thursday, October 20.
• Promoter: Sketchfab Inc, 1123 Broadway, Suite 501, New York, NY 10010, USA.

OCULUS and RIFT are trademarks of Oculus VR, LLC