competitions

It's finally time for me to announce the first Renderfarm.fi rendering competition simply titled "Alien Life". Largely inspired by our BOINC heritage and the recent NASA sponsored research findings at Lake Mono, this animation competition is open between the 6th of December 2010 and the 31st of January 2011 (closing time at 11PM CET+1).

In order to take part in the competition, a session must have the tag "Alien Life" written clearly somewhere in its description field. All animations of at least 25 frames or more that are uploaded before the deadline, meet the normal terms of use / policy for rendering on Renderfarm.fi and have a minimum of ten votes are applicable for prizes. A special competition and gallery page has been set up to display all the relevant information and competition entries.

As has been proven with the recent scientific findings, we need to keep a very open mind as to what "Alien Life" is. It's now up to the animators to convince us the volunteers what the term actually implies. Now with these words I wish all participants happy Blendering! :)

Super news: Renderfarm.fi has won the Finnish representation for the World Summit Award in the category of "e-Entertainment & Games". We officially received the nomination at the Mindtrek digital media and business conference in Tampere, Finland on thursday the 7th of October 2010. Winning the Finnish nomination means that we will be entering to the UN supported WSA competition in 2011. Let's hope the WSA jury also appreciates our agenda of "democratizing" the realization of complex 3D imagery.

The week ends on a very high note. I'm more than excited to announce that we've been chosen as one of the six finalists for this year's MindTrek Launchpad competition. This is a huge thing for us as the event is probably the most well-known IT/multimedia competition in Finland. The MindTrek webpages say:

Have you invented the next big thing? Do you have a transforming media service or technology innovation that can change the way we live? Or just a too good digital content business concept?

The MindTrek LaunchPad competition awards innovative new Finnish digital media products or demos – and the people behind it, who have the urge to make it big.

Competition Prizes and a Big Promise

The total prize sum in the competition is 20 000 €. The main jury of industry experts will award the most promising business case (15 000 €), the press jury is going to emphasize the innovativeness of the product (4 000 €), and also the audience will choose its own favorite (1 000 €). Apart from the sizable prize money, Mindtrek is probably the best venue in Finland for promoting the service and the open values it advocates.

So what is our business case? I can tell you what it is not - we will never sell your volunteer computing time for cash. Renderfarm.fi is and always will be free and open for everybody to use. We'll reveal the plan once we work out the details and you'll be among the first to know about it. Meanwhile, I hope you all wish us the best of luck - we're going to need it! This money would go a long way in helping us in making Renderfarm.fi the most accessible free renderfarm of all time. As always: thank you all for your continued support. :)