Dr. Grordbort’s Raygun Shootout Competition
Here’s a real kicker: Win an all-expenses trip to the far off lands of New Zealand to meet the talented Greg Broadmore (creator of Dr. Grordbort’s) and renowned Richard Taylor at Weta Workshop!
I won’t spoil it for you – their website is an EXPERIENCE – I had a few good laughs while learning more about this competition. Well done guys!
Let me just give you one excellent detail: all submissions MUST be done in Blender! How’s that for a change, eh?
Off you go – check out Dr. Grordbort’s Raygun Shootout Competition.
Pure speculation here, but does that mean Weta has some interest in Blender? I know they are heavy linux users. It would be amazing to have a studio like that driving blenders development.
Oh yeah, and aside from my wild extrapolations, to competition looks really cool too.
holy crap I am so entering this, the ImagineFX issuse with the dinosaur that he draw is one of my favourite I love this guys stuff.
Benjy: Note this is weta workshop, the design/physical props oriented division – not weta digital. Still very cool no matter how you look at it though!
Anyone got the python script to work in Blender 2.5 (alpha 2) yet? I keep getting error messages!
me too!!
look: http://img85.imageshack.us/i/pantallazosj.png/
And I’m in Linux…
What could be?
Greetings
now thats some wicked contest…
i’m still not sure if the whole site and challenge is for real but theres really lots of fun rayguns on that page …
that grordborts vids are quite funny indeed, great style and weird worlds and rayguns
i enjoyed this news alot :)
maybe its an mad scientists plan to recruit bender artists for his evil scheme:D
It might be interesting if the judgment is fair.
I’m not spending weeks to tweak a nice and exquisitely crafted raygun to see a craptastic stuff gain the first place just because “omg it’s so lol” or “look there’s only 5 minutes left, we have to chose a winner”. (it happens more often than you think… and I am speaking about contests in general… not only this one)
The website says you win a toy gun, not a trip to New Zealand.
The script also doesn’t work in 2.49b.
Wow, you have to use Blender, was that a deal with Blender Foundation or is it because of their script that could be developded so easily in Python for the very cool open Blender?
That should get Blender some attention.
Coolest thing would be if Weta Digital would promote Blender development in the future. This would be like the dream your brain even wouldn’t dare to come up with would come true. OMG, my brain says this won’t happen (PLEASE GOD, let my brain be wrong! Only this once!)
@JW Check your version of 2.49b is compiled with python 2.6, not an earlier version (see the terminal window output on startup or run the system information script in the help options if you arent sure).
Weta Workshop’s designers are heavy ZBrush users. Relatively recently Scott Spencer (ex-Gentle Giant and author of several Z-Brush books) started working there so I think ZBrush has a pretty serious lock on Weta Workshop at least. He ran a sculpting session on Easter Monday that I couldn’t get to because a major project going live kept me in Auckland.
I believe ex-Weta Digital staff wrote Mudbox so I can’t see them moving from that in a hurry and I know they used Maya during the LOTR. Not sure what they’re playing with now.
And Greg’s cool, I’ve met him once and listened to him on the Weta Podcasts. A fantastically creative guy. Rather quiet actually, but with a twinkle that lets you know that there’s a wicked sense of humour hidden behind that prodigious growth of face fungus. All of the Weta Workshop team are great people. I’ve had more contact with Dave Tremont and Daniel Falconer than the rest and they’re very genuine people. HUGELY talented.
Craig Massey
Auckland, NZ
I modified the code a little to work with python 2.5 (I think.)
I haven’t had a chance to try it out:
http://www.cs.umn.edu/~mein/blender/DrGrordbort_Competition_Blender.py
Give it a try :)
And this is why Blender.
http://www.wetacollectors.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1244564&postcount=4
@sfbgss : http://www.raygunshootout.com/prizes
Im a bit surprised at the scepticism shown in the earlier posts. I think this is a great competition and there are multiple opportunities to win prizes (Grand prize, monthly prize, most popular AND consolation prizes) Ive entered and I know there are far better modelers than me so bring some competition to the competition!
@Inlite: I saw your entry, really excellent, nice materials/rendering, I like how the golden decorative element brings some playfulness and organic feel to the gun.
And funny ironic name!
Can I buy on eBay?
What do you mean ‘far off lands of New Zealand’? :-)
Zuf
Timaru
New Zealand
I think this guy should submit an entry…
http://verydemotivational.com/2009/12/20/i-want-that/
ummmm, How do these guns work, exactly?
Yeah it would be cool to get a free trip home.
I keep getting the same error ” unable to connect to server no JSON object could be decoded”. Any ideas?
Mike.
Mike I had to install json as a python module on my mac to get things to work.
(I also had to change the import json to: import simplejson as json
after that it worked for me( the import change is only I think if your using 2.5
if your using 2.6 it should just be import json I think)
Kent
Same for me. Installed simplejson on my iMac and modified the script by replacing json with simplejson.
Thanks guys, I’ll give it a try,
Mike
@InLite – Love your Raygun design dude! I like the firey glowy stuff in the clear glass barrel.
I took 3 hours to model and texture mine, now I am thinking of making another one.
There should be more competitions like this, so that I can get my lazy ass to make something with Blender!
@Marcus and weeliano – Thanks guys:D Im quite happy with that one but Im expecting to get blown away once more people get on to this comp. Im working on another one though!
I also get the message “unable to connect to server no JSON object could be decoded” on my Windows PC. I upgraded to Python 2.6 (with JSON built in), but I still get the message. I run into problems when I try to install simplejson (probably because JSON is built into Python 2.6?)
Can anybody help?
@ AnyMation
I don’t know whether this will work but can you try disabling the firewall temporarily or try a different internet connection. I had the same problem initially but when I switched to a different Internet connection (different ISP) it worked.
Hope it helps!
Cheers!
Hi all
Thanks for your positive feedback and great designs for the competition. I though I might clarify a couple of things if that helps. We have monthly prizes for the best design (chosen by Greg and the Weta team) and the most votes per category as well as some fun prizes throughout the competition.
There are 2 trips to New Zealand up for grabs, the major prize (selected by Richard and Greg) will be announced at the annual Blender conference in Amsterdam in late October. The 2nd trip will be awarded to the best entry from Hong Kong (again selected by Richard and Greg), this will be announced in early July and is sponsored by Cyberport of Hong Kong who are hosting the competition and Dr Grordbort’s exhibition. I am not sure how many Blender users there are in Hong Kong, it might be worth emigrating….:)
The competition is a partnership with Weta Collectibles, Cyberport and InterGrid so isn’t anything to do with Weta Digital I’m afraid (sorry Marcus).
We are working of 2.5 plugin for the competition and will add new challenges and categories each month. In the meantime have fun and keep the feedback coming.
Scott Houston and the Green Button team
[email protected]
I’m still having troubles, I already had python 2.6 so I updated it to 2.6.5 then down to 2.6.4, I then reinstalled blender, I turned off my firewall. Since I already live in New Zealand there’s probably no point anyway.
Mike.
@mike
I’m using Python 2.6.2 and it worked for me. Try that and see if it works!
Cheers!
Weelian
@weeliano:
Thanks, I used another ISP – and it worked.
AnyMation
The ISP change solved it for me also, however It means I have to use it at work on my laptop.
Mike,
It’s a shame, the site seemed to be down as of this moment, I was working on my 2nd design….
Update: The site is up again! Phew!