CityLIFE Begins

The long awaited, third architectural visualization challenge, is here at last on a brand new site with an exciting and challenging theme – CityLIFE!

This time we will explore one of the most complex and vast subject matter in our field, our urban way of living. Cities come in all shapes an sizes across human history, both as real places and as figment of our imagination in various art forms such as paintings, novels, songs, and movies. The City offers many to gather in one place, live and work in it throughout the seasons and create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Your mission is to showcase the life in the city… of your choice.

CityLIFE Duration

September 12, 2011 – December 24, 2011.

Your Mission

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to showcase CityLIFE in two different seasons – Summer, Autumn, Winter or Spring. Other then the main still image category, I’m opening a Real-Time & 2D Concept Art categories too for the first time in this challenge, for those of you who want to explore that way of presenting an architectural idea more.

So what do we do in the city? WE, the many. Even when you focus on the few, don’t forget about the larger context.

We go to work.
We wait in traffic.
We riot (or peacefully protest).
We go out, having fun.
We celebrate our Independence.
We celebrate a holiday.
We host the Olympics.
We host the World Cup.

You are encouraged to think beyond the traditional or conventional interpretations and methods of architectural visualization and I’ll emphasize that photo-realness is not the aim, but certainly might be a mean to an end.

Jump start your imagination and create something original. Try your best to evoke our emotions when viewing your visuals, making us feel what hovering is like!

New Categories & New Prizes

Two new categories are introduced in CityLIFE with some great awards to follow suit.

Still Image

The main category with the biggest prize pool remains the Still Image Creation Category which now has a RenderStream Computer Workstation valued at $3,395 (USD) as part of the Grand Prize package for the best challenge entry as selected by the jury panel.

Concept Art

The first part of each entry of yours starts with a concept and a sketch or a drawing to showcase it to us and get feedback before you move on. I’d like to focus a bit more on that part of the challenge and motivate all of you to explore your 2d concept art skills… I started doing so myself with the CityLIFE Challenge Poster. The best concept art will be awarded with a WACOM Intuos Tablet among others things too.

Real Time

Real Time Visualization is advancing fast, and we can already see some applications in Architectural Visualization too. I think real-time tools have a lot to offer in our field and would like to explore them in CityLIFE. It will not be easy to get some real-time city life action but hey – It is a challenge. Best real-time entry will be awarded with a Twinmotion v2 license & an ATI FirePRO V5900 Video Card among other things too.

Judging

Honorable members of CityLIFE Challenge Jury are :

Benjamin Brosdau – Technical Director at Purerender, Germany / HOVER Grand Prize Winner. (Read Interview)
Gus Capote – Former Studio Manager at Neoscape, Spain.
Alex York – Founder & Creative Director at Ateilier York, United Kingdom. (Read Interview)
Roberto De Rose – Studio Manager at State of Art Studio, Italy. (Read Interview)

And Yours Truly :

Ronen Bekerman – Founder & Creative Director at Polyotwn, Israel.

The entries will be judged according to overall accepted standards of architectural visualization: composition; 3d modeling; lighting; materials and textures, concept (original approach), addressing the architectural interpretation of the city, technical skill, emotive value and participation in WIP threads.

CityLIFE Challenge Site

The CityLIFE challenge is hosted in a sub-site of its own at – CityLIFE Architectural Visualization Challenge III. You’ll need to register to start posting in it. Looking forward to see you all on-board ;)

Sponsors

Procedural, Twinmotion, DesignConnected, Chaosgroup, VBvisual, E-On Software, RenderNation, RenderStream, CGAxis, Exlevel, LAUBlab, XFrog, Next Limit, model+model, iToo Software, Wacom, VizPeople, ATI, ArtVPS, Solid Iris Technologies, MotivaCG, 3DMentor.

Press Resource & Promotion Files

Please use the files in the folder below for promotion and publication of CityLIFE via your own channels.

[Files will back online soon...]

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Charlotte74 73 pts

The competition looks great. Looking forward to seeing the entries.

My latest conversation: The Health Advice Blog

PeterFernandez 5 pts

Hey Ronen can I still enter the challenge? Or is it closed?

ronenbekerman 118 pts moderator

Hey all ;)

I been getting emails about how one can be updated when comments are being made on his entry... well, notice at the same bar at the bottom of this comment box, there is a Follow this conversion option on the left side.

You can choose to follow or not to follow each entry you comment on and you will get updates via email whenever someone replays.

I'll also be sending weekly email updates (first one was sent yesterday) but the number of updates might call for a more frequent interval - What do think about it? would like daily digests, or is weekly enough?

My latest conversation: Basic scene mockup

ronenbekerman 118 pts moderator

Calling all crysis unrealengine unity3d lumion3d twinmotion and any other real-time platforms users to join the CityLIFE challenge. Show us what can be done in real-time that we did not know could be done ;)

My latest conversation: Concept sketch

ronenbekerman 118 pts moderator

Say a big hello to Benjamin Brosdau, who joins the Jury Panel for CityLIFE!

Benjamin is a Technical Director at Purerender, Berlin. and also HOVER Grand Prize Winner.

I'm Honored to have him on-board and I'm sure this will make the judging even better.

My latest conversation: typical footprint / canted structure

ronenbekerman 118 pts moderator

First Screen Cast showing you how to use the new site admin system.

http://t.co/vBbjw5MC

More to follow

My latest conversation: New York City Life

Dollmaker 11 pts

Very complicated new site.. dont know whats going on here.. also the above frame is annoying...Black background is just too bad.. and site structure is even messed up.. I hope you wont mess up main site like this one.. Thanks..

ronenbekerman 118 pts moderator

Dollmaker Thanks for the feedback... Could you take a screen shot and email it to me? I'd like to see what you see.

My latest conversation: Quick Hello

Mark Bart 5 pts

Still waiting for my password :[

ronenbekerman 118 pts moderator

Mark Bart I sent it to you yesterday :(

Sending again now

My latest conversation: Quick Hello

Mark Bart 5 pts

ronenbekerman _got it, thanks a lot :]

ronenbekerman 118 pts moderator

Mark Bart Great. Now nothing stopping you posting the first concept ;) Get Going!

My latest conversation: Kostas Anninos

valwizard 5 pts

Fantastic again! Really enloyable and exiting. Congratulations, Ronen for a new site and great challenge.

ronenbekerman 118 pts moderator

valwizard Thanks ;) Looking forward to see what you have in mind!

My latest conversation: Quick Hello

erickok111 5 pts

Really looking foward to this one iam looking fo sports people cut outs any suggestions

kukas 12 pts

hi Ronen,

you re great man..as your great challenge and your great starting concept..

see you at Academy Day #2 in Venice... :)

Luca

ronenbekerman 118 pts moderator

I sent passwords to all of you who contacted me... please confirm you got them, and if others having issues please contact me too. It seems some do get the confirmation emails with passwords and others do not... still not sure why - but working on this.

Have a great weekend, and stay tuned for an Interview with Roberto De Rose and Gianpiero Monopoli from soastudio Roberto is on the jury panel for this challenge and also hosting Academy Day #2 in Venice.

My latest conversation: FAQ

ronenbekerman 118 pts moderator

May I suggest that as a start , in order to get the feel for the new site - post an introduction of yourself. Create the title like so - [ Introduction / First Name + Last Name ] and let us know a bit about you.

All new posts are pending review for the first few days of the challenge until we all get the hang of it ;)

My latest conversation: The Beautiful, The Sustainable, The Spiritual

ck_1138 11 pts

This competition look great Ronen. Congratulations. I hope to fine the time participate. ;) #citylife

ronenbekerman 118 pts moderator

If for some reason, after registration, you do not get an email with a login password - you can try to login with just your user name and a "forgot my password" option will show up... use it to issue a password reset. If even then an email does not arrive (after checking the spam folder) send me an email and i'll set this up for you manually.

Login page for city life - http://challenge.ronenbekerman.com/citylife/wp-log...

I'll look into the code for possible bugs in any case ;)

My latest conversation: Ronen Bekerman — chriskowal: Some new/old work. A test shot of a...

ronenbekerman 118 pts moderator

I thing that came up during sign ups so far... Get a Gravatar at http://en.gravatar.com/ if haven't already. Use the same email when you register here and that will link the image to your profile. I'm working on adding an "in-house" avatar option but frankly - Gravatar is the best way to go and consistent across multiple sites and services ;)

Added this bit to the FAQ too

My latest conversation: The 3rd Architectural Visualization Challenge Begins

ludnid 6 pts

ronenbekerman Yon never cease to amaze me. I expected something good but not "this good". Good one Ronen. thats all i'm going to say.

alexyork3d 33 pts

ronenbekerman looking good to me, Ronen! Off we go!

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  1. [...] and Ronen Beckerman http://www.ronenbekerman.com are proud to bring you the 3rd third architectural visualization challenge : [...]

  2. [...] Challenge by Ronen Bekerman Hey All, CityLIFE Started! Visit the Announcement Blog Post & Challenge Site to get the full details and join in CityLIFE Duration September 15, 2011 : December 20, 2011 [...]

  3. [...] over to his site to see a full list of prizes and to join up! We know we [...]

  4. [...] the deadline of this challenge was more then a year ago, but while awaiting further advances at Ronen Bekerman’s 3rd Challenge – titled “Citylife” – we thought of looking again at the past winners. [...]