First Place - 12 - Dennis Kelley

Second Place - 07 - Phil Adams Third Place - 06 - Don Hillenbrand

01 - Kathy LaFollett 02 - Maurizio Caimi 03 - James Donnell

04 - Steven Richards 05 - Tjø van Zuijlen 08 - Derek Wolfe

09 - Sachiko Kaga 10 - Peter Caday 11 - Mex Sara

13 - Benjamin Davidson 14 - Ezra Reynolds 15 - Howard Prince

April 14th Challenge "Myst Opportunity" - Outline

I had mentioned a compositing challenge to a few folks. Hopefully that's coming up. Need some prep for that, so we'll do this for now.

Way back in the day, you used to hear about Strata almost daily on the net, In large part because Strata's software was used to do the graphics for one of the largest video games of all time: Myst.

That's why I bought StrataVision: to create the next big game and become a legend. Well, that didn't happen, but it was so cool to think about at the time. I imagine a few other folks bought Strata at the same time for the same reason. Then there was Sinkha, but that was a whole other thing =)

So, this is your challenge. To design some fiendish adventure game puzzle that "could" have been in Myst. You don't really need to know much about Myst, or try to recreate any of the locales. As long as you have played an adventure/puzzle game like Myst, Riven, Exile, Starship Titanic, Obsidian, 7th Guest, or any number of similar games over the years, you should be fine.

What we're looking for is a "puzzle". Sometimes it's a series of levers that move wheels, or rings that form shapes when they are rotated, or coloured gems that control ramps where a stone needs to traverse to push a lever inside a... make sense yet? If you are really stumped, there are numerous sites out there with screenshots of puzzle games, and heck, the genre has fallen out of favour and you can get some pretty good ones fairly cheap second hand.

You won't be required to animate it, or explain how it works, but imagination is always key =)

I'm on vacation from April 7th to 14th. The 7th is too early to have all the entries in and judged, so you have about 3 weeks to craft your nefarious puzzle this time. Use it wisely =)

Rules and Conditions

As always, the entry must be entirely done in Strata, and all effects must be done "in-camera" (no post-render Photoshop trickery). No models from other programs may be used (this includes Poser) no photos may be used as backgrounds (no composites) although the use of altered photos as textures is fine, of course.

No Poser models.

If you have any questions regarding challenge rules or theme guidelines, please email me at michael@stratacafe.com

Entries must be JPG files, but they can be any size. Just try to keep it reasonable. If it doesn't fit on anyone's screen, it doesn't leave a good impression.

Entries will be accepted until midnight on Monday April 14^th 2003. The judges will be considering the quality and creativity of the modelling, texturing and rendering.

It does have to be fully modeled, textured and rendered in Strata3D (any flavour).

Entries will consist of a JPG file, and a screenshot of your model in Strata3D. The image cannot contain your name or email address anywhere on it, as the judging will be anonymous.

Judging will be done by a panel of 7 or more judges, preselected as part of our resident judging group. The judges will not know the names of the contestants.

These rules may be subject to change without notice before the close of the contest.

Please, if you have any questions or suggestions regarding the contest, please email me at: michael@stratacafe.com

The benefits of the contest:

1) Winners will receive a charming banner to place on their website.

2) There will also be a smaller graphic, that looks a lot like the larger graphic, that will reside on the winners profile page on StrataCafe, forever and ever.

3) People can come to this page to get information on up and coming contests and view past winners (That would be you!)

4) You will receive the adoration of your friends and family, as well as most of the people who visit StrataCafe. (Note: Adoration not a guarantee.)