Welcome to the 2025 Game Art Challenge which gives artists the chance to compete for cool prizes by creating Art and Assets for use in realtime game engines.

Please feel free to open WIP threads to show off your progress. Category submission threads will be added at a later date!

Learn more on the Contest Page... [www.sidefx.com]

Can i use the game engines other than Unreal/Unity? I am a Cryengine user

Umang_Raj
Can i use the game engines other than Unreal/Unity? I am a Cryengine user

No. Unreal/Unity are the two engines supported by the Houdini Engine plug-ins and we have those engines in-house to review your scene files to help choose a winner.

Hi, are external textures/assets allowed in the contest? Or everything needs to be created within Houdini? Thanks.
Edit: Are plugins allowed? Like simple tree tools and Modeler?

I was just wondering how I was gonna pivot my personal project this morning and see this announcement! absolutely great news, Thanks once again to yeas at SideFX.
and yes I'd like to know same as johnan about using other apps, in my case substance for generating maps or Zbrush for geo polishing.

cheers!

just a suggestion if it hasnt already been considered, but maybe a topic post specifically for those with an origin/backstory for the environment concept.

Slainte!

AWESOME! More SideFX art Jamming to inspire me!

I was thinking, should there/could there be a special category for entries which end up as playable games/demos?

Like, maybe not a competition as much as just a collection/gallery?

not that i have the time, but is it allowed for one person to join 3 categories? XD

Hi, I was wondering if there is a more detailed description of the theme/topic, as it's pretty open at the moment?

thetavoid
Hi, I was wondering if there is a more detailed description of the theme/topic, as it's pretty open at the moment?[/quote

I'm assuming it's an open brief, which suits the fact that you can submit a tool that has a theme wrapped round it, saves time in a way and a nailed down theme might narrow the scope.
Just my take, I'm sure there will be a wee video soon enough, maybe.

Sláinte

johancc
Hi, are external textures/assets allowed in the contest? Or everything needs to be created within Houdini? Thanks.
Edit: Are plugins allowed? Like simple tree tools and Modeler?

From the Rules: Assets created for these challenges must be created using Houdini products. Winners will be asked to submit .hda and .hip files to verify that Houdini was used for all aspects of the tool. If you do not submit the files then you will be disqualified

You can use SideFX Labs tools such as tree tools or Biome tools - and Natsura can be used for foliage. I will have to get back to you about Modeler because it will make it harder for us to evaluate your scene files if we dont' have it installed.

was thinking about GitHub as a way of allowing access to both WIP and final Project files, Frist time using it so I could be well off the line, if it helps, it would have this in the repo readme:

## SideFx Challenge Note
This project is submitted to the SideFx Houdini Game Art Challenge. As per the rules, Houdini Community Members can use and adapt this asset for non-commercial purposes like games and imagery, but cannot re-distribute or sell it. The CC BY-SA 4.0 license ensures derivatives are shared under the same terms.

Just want to confirm, does only the FX challenge need to suit the world of Elderwood, and are the other two categories open to any theme? Thank you!

Hi,
I have a question regarding the challenge; Are the Gaea 2 nodes via SideFX Labs tools eligible to be used for building procedural terrains/assets, or is there a restriction to only use the default heightfield nodes?

Are participants allowed to use external apps like Substance Painter for texturing and ZBrush for sculpting? I thought I'd ask since these are commonly used in a gaming pipeline. I've both sculpted and textured all in Houdini but it's still lacking compared to the alternative.

galagast
not that i have the time, but is it allowed for one person to join 3 categories? XD

Yes

ChewyPixels
Are participants allowed to use external apps like Substance Painter for texturing and ZBrush for sculpting? I thought I'd ask since these are commonly used in a gaming pipeline. I've both sculpted and textured all in Houdini but it's still lacking compared to the alternative.

you know, i tried sculpting (in houdini) for the first time during mardini, and i gotta say it was better than i thought. It's kind of nice, too that you can make little checkpoints by putting down a new sculpt node, and then you could quad remesh (or instant meshes or whatever) when you need to change the polygon count.

...

Although maybe, i didn't figure out how to sculpt with radial symmetry.

Also, we REEEALLY could use a paint cop (especially if it could use mypaint brushes [github.com], that would be a game changer!)

Seconding the questions about using Gaea nodes and using Substance Painter for textures. Related to that, is it okay if we use Megascans for tree textures and smaller foliage assets like grasses/ferns/bushes?

Can i model everything in houdini and place it in unreal by hand? I dont wanna use houdini Engine for it but just the usual workflow im confortable with

For the FX challenge specifically, do background assets also all need to be made by the entrant in Houdini? Or could I use external assets (f.e. Megascans) to create an environment to showcase the effects in?