Day: August 17, 2017

Linden Lab, by way of Sansar, is one of the sponsors of a 3D printing competition organised by Pinshape. Running through until the end of the August, 2017, inviting people to Design Your Avatar. Hosted on Pinstripe, the competition offers three prize packages, the first of which includes a 1 year Creator Level subscription to Sansar, worth US $9.99 a month.

The competition website gives the best description of the requirements:

Imagine a future in which Virtual Reality is just as commonplace as cellphones and social media are today. In this future, everyone is represented in virtual space by an avatar of their own creation. What would you look like? What would you be wearing? Would you be human? Animal? Something new altogether?

Let your imagination run free … Design an original character that represents your personality and spirit. Feel free to design an avatar in your own image, or take this as an opportunity to design a character that you aspire to be.

Entrants are required to upload their finished design to Pinshape, where a panel of judges will judge all entries, and award points based on design creativity and uniqueness (40 points); technical excellence and ease of 3D printing (30 points); presentation – image quality, print settings, assembly instructions if required (20 points); and background story and design documentation (10 points).

The prize packages comprise:

First Prize	Second Prize	Third Prize
Formlab Form2 3D Printer package worth $3,499 ZBrush 4R8 license worth $795 Mold 3D 3D Character Creation for video games with J Hill worth $699 Oculus Rift headset and hand controllers worth $499 1 year Creator Level subscription to Sansar worth $120	Mold 3D 3D Creating Appealing Heads with B. Jefcoat worth $699 ZBrush core license worth $149 1 year subscription to 3D Artist magazine	3D printing for ZBrush artists worth $200 1 year subscription to 3D Artist magazine

There is also a bonus prize opportunity for entrants to win a free SLA print of their design from Formlabs by posting a link to their design on social media with the tags @pinshape @mold3D.

Full entries rules can be found here, and current entries can also be reviewed on the website.

Whilst primarily aimed at 3D printing, the competition is an interesting way for Sansar to potentially extend its reach into the 3D modelling / VR world, particularly with the obvious synergy between the first prize Oculus Rift headset and Sansar (“you have your shiny headset and somewhere to go with it!”), although obviously, the chance to win a 3D printer is liable to have the far greater appeal among designers and entrants.  It’ll certainly be interesting to see if any of the avatars that are created for the competition eventually find their way into Sansar by way of .FBX and rigging, once the Sansar avatar skeleton is more opened out to developers. It’ll also be interesting to see how else Linden Lab seek to raise Sansar brand awareness through endeavours like this – or through running competitions of their own, similar to the Creator Challenge I wrote about recently.