Enter the Omniverse – Marvelous Machines Contest Brings Design and Physics to a Whole New Level

Creators around the world can explore NVIDIA Omniverse’s intuitive physics capabilities in the latest design challenge, #CreateWithMarbles: Marvelous Machines.

Based on the popular Marbles RTX demo, the second edition of the Marbles RTX contests gives artists, designers, and creators of any skill level a chance to experience the creative platform and win big RTX-accelerated prizes.

In this challenge, participants must build their own mini-marbles machine — a racetrack-like contraption based on a pack of pre-made Marbles RTX assets, then dress and light their scene. Finally, with a few clicks to enable Omniverse Physics, the users roll a flurry of marbles from start to finish. A noteworthy panel of VFX, physics, simulation, technical artistry, and creative design experts will judge the final rendered video submissions.

NVIDIA Omniverse is a powerful, real-time collaboration and simulation platform for 3D production pipelines. Omniverse allows creators to connect and collaborate across their favorite industry applications like Epic Games Unreal Engine, Substance by Adobe, Autodesk 3ds Max or Maya, and more.

For this contest, participants need to download Omniverse – available in open beta for free – install Omniverse Create and compose their scene using the exclusive new assets designed by the original Marbles RTX artist team.

Contestants must build their epic contraption, add lighting, enable physics, then render their final scene in Omniverse Create, using either path-traced or ray-traced mode. Then finally, submit a video to show how the marble moves throughout their USD scene.

Deadline for submissions is July 30, 2021. The challenge winners will be announced on the contest winners page in August, and will receive grand prizes:

  • First Place: NVIDIA RTX A6000, the world’s most powerful professional visual computing GPU for desktop workstations.
  • Second Place: GeForce RTX 3090, the big, ferocious GPU (BFGPU) with TITAN class performance powering ultra-accelerated creative workflows.
  • Third Place: GeForce RTX 3080, delivering extreme performance that designers and creators crave.

How to Enter

  1. Download Omniverse and install Omniverse Create
  2. Load your Marbles RTX assets
  3. Build a fun marbles machine in Omniverse Create and enable Omniverse Physics to roll your marbles throughout the scene
  4. Submit a 1-min. max video and your full USD scene on the contest page and share your submission on Twitter and Instagram by tagging @NVIDIAOmniverse with #CreateWithMarbles

*Note: Omniverse Create requires the use of any GeForce RTX or NVIDIA/Quadro RTX GPU.

Support and Getting Started

Watch this simple tutorial to see how to get rolling
Connect with Omniverse experts on the contest forum and Discord server

Evaluation Criteria

  • Overall originality
  • Creative use of the assets and how your marbles move through your machine
  • Creativity of the entire scene and set dressing
  • Quality of the Final Render
  • Adherence to the submission guidelines

Judges

  • Dennis Gustafsson (Founder and Indie Game Developer at Tuxedo Labs)
  • Fred Hooper (Senior Visual Effects Artist at NVIDIA)
  • Gavriil Klimov (Senior Art Director at NVIDIA)
  • Liila Torabi (Senior Product Manager, Isaac Sim at NVIDIA)
  • Masha Shugrina (Senior Research Scientist at NVIDIA)
  • Michelle Lu (Director of Simulation Technology at NVIDIA)
  • Sergiy Migdalskiy (Lead Software Engineer at Valve Corporation)
  • Wendy Pham (Animator/Compositor at DreamWorks)

Join the #CreateWithMarbles: Marvelous Machines competition and submit your final video here.

Learn more about NVIDIA Omniverse. Feeling marble-ous? Check out the results of the first #CreateWithMarbles contest.


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