Friday, September 9th, 2011 Posted by Jim Thacker

Design the new 3ds Max box art and win a 3DBOXX

Autodesk has launched a contest to design the box art and splash screen for the next release of 3ds Max Design in conjunction with CGarchitect.com

The entry conditions are pretty simple – just send in a render of any architectural or design visualisation scene – and the prize is a good one: a 3DBOXX 8550 Extreme workstation (a quick look at the website suggests this model must sell for at least $15,000) and a further $5,000 in cash.

Interestingly, Autodesk is prioritising “ingenuity” above “production quality”, so it’s a chance to break out those designs that were just that bit too left-field to sell to the client. Full details below.

PRESS RELEASE (Excerpts)
Autodesk, Inc. and CGArchitect.com, with support from BOXX and NVIDIA, have kicked off the first Autodesk 3ds Max Design Hero Competition. Artists and visualization specialists have the opportunity to submit a scene or design created using Autodesk 3ds Max 2012 or Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2012 software, for a chance to have it selected as the 3ds Max Design “hero” image featured on an Autodesk 3ds Max Design software box cover and splash screen. The designer of the selected scene or design will also receive a 3DBOXX 8550 XTREME workstation with one NVIDIA Quadro 5000 GPU (graphics processing unit) and three NVIDIA Tesla GPUs, as well as US$5,000 in cash. Designers of the selected second and third place scenes or designs will receive an NVIDIA Quadro 5000 GPU.

Submitted scenes and designs should portray inventive concepts or renderings of architectural, mechanical or industrial product designs — from buildings, bridges and vehicles, to furniture and consumer products. Submissions will be judged on imagination, innovation and ingenuity, rather than on production quality. The designer of the selected scene or design may also have the opportunity to work with the Autodesk production team on the production renderings.

Who: Artists and visualization specialists from most countries around the world may submit a scene or design. Submissions must be created using the 2012 version of 3ds Max or 3ds Max Design software. Submissions can be created using the free* 30-day trial of 3ds Max Design 2012 software. Students can download 3ds Max Design 2012 from the Autodesk Education Community.

When: Submissions will be accepted from Sept. 5 to Oct. 31, 2011.

Visit the contest website