Welcome to the MARDINI Daily Art Challenge which gives the Houdini community the chance to compete for cool prizes by creating a new image or animation every day during the month of March 2023.

Each week has a theme which you can see in the graphic on the rules pagewhich is meant to be used to create and inspire the artwork that you submit.

Rules can be found HERE [www.sidefx.com].

Note that if you are missing your prizes from 2022 please fill out this NEW FORM [docs.google.com]:

Let's do it!

Nice! <strike>So no daily requirement this year, only the weekly theme and we can get crazy ?</strike> Obviously there is a daily prompt, it's even mentionned in the rule page ,) Learning to read, people, it starts at school !

Hey Rob, I filled in the form for the 2022 prizes but actually just got my package, so you can remove me from the list of people that didn't get their prize, sorry about that !

Swag pack looks awesome !

Cheers !

WaffleBoyTom68/ Thomas Goffelli

Can't wait!

It says "should be done in COPS". Does that mean it's required or are you allowed to use photoshop to comp your images?

With external textures and models being allowed, are you allowed to texture an asset in substance as part of the process?

HandcraftedMedia
With external textures and models being allowed, are you allowed to texture an asset in substance as part of the process?

You could create textures using substance but then they need to be assigned to the geometry in Houdini via materials/shaders.

Allowing outside models is an experiment with this year's Mardini. If it feels like people are spending more time outside Houdini then inside Houdini then the option may be removed in future contests.

I'm new this year, but do the prompts get released on the day? Are they all released on the first? At the beginning of the week? Was pondering if it would be possible to plan things out to relate to each other.

Last year they released all the prompts a couple of days before the start of the contest iirc

Awesome, THis will be my first year I'll try my level best to complete it.

I tried to to do Mardini 2022 and fell short, this year I AM MAKING THIS HAPPEN. We got this!

Allowing models should hopefully shorten fabrication times. I know it was a huuuuge part of my process last year :o

... Or maybe it will just mean more time spent on other aspects... Oh my poor sleep times...

Do we still need to use COPs for comp or can we do our comp is another software ?

WaffleBoyTom68
Do we still need to use COPs for comp or can we do our comp is another software ?

COPS

Have there ever been discussions about allowing real-time renderers like Unreal or something in these challenges? Game-dev here so I feel like most of my time on these challenges go towards figuring out solaris/usd/karma etc and not modeling/scene generation. Especially with Houdini engine plugin and viewport sync to unreal for example.

So asking for a quick clarification about the Iron Heart Rules.

"Everyone who submits entries for all 31 challenges AND submits them as a contact sheet to the Iron Heart forum by April 4, 2023 at Midnight EST/EDT wins the Iron Heart"

Does that mean we need to submit the contact sheet AS WELL AS post our art before the the Midnight EST/EDT deadline for each day?

MitchRease
So asking for a quick clarification about the Iron Heart Rules.

"Everyone who submits entries for all 31 challenges AND submits them as a contact sheet to the Iron Heart forum by April 4, 2023 at Midnight EST/EDT wins the Iron Heart"

Does that mean we need to submit the contact sheet AS WELL AS post our art before the the Midnight EST/EDT deadline for each day?

The contact sheet must be submitted at the end for the iron heart.

Emomilol1213
Have there ever been discussions about allowing real-time renderers like Unreal or something in these challenges? Game-dev here so I feel like most of my time on these challenges go towards figuring out solaris/usd/karma etc and not modeling/scene generation. Especially with Houdini engine plugin and viewport sync to unreal for example.

Not for this contest.

Hello Rob, I won day 12 in 2021 and waited thinking I would be contacted in some way, it's been a while but is there any chance I can get the lovely t-shirt?