My Experience with SideFX’s Mardini Challenge
SideFX, the creators of Houdini software held a daily challenge for a month called Mardini. The challenge was in March combined with Houdini hence the name Mardini. (SideFX Website)
What is the Mardini Challenge
The challenge had different subjects/topics for each day of March. There was not a single goal but multiple ones. You either can make renders of images or videos everyday to earn a reward or a smaller reward by being chosen the best of a day. In addition there was the best artwork reward at the end of the challenge. However, Mardini Challenge is not actually a competition but a way to get the community to interact with each other, get to know one another, see what people come up with. There was a similar challenges like this before which I couldn’t participate because of work loads but this time I wanted to engage with similar artists.
What happened, what did I do?
Again because of some current works at hand, I missed the first one and a half week of the challenge. My goal was not to deliver the best artwork or send a render each day. I merely wanted to participate in some of the days I liked the topics of.
I tried to make renders for Day 12 “Valley”, Day 14 “Ancient” and Day 15 “Medieval” but wasn’t satisfied with what I came up with so decided to move on. My first submission was for Day 17, the topic being “Sci-fi”.
Then I tried some ideas for the daily topic “Hidden” (Day 20) but was not happy with the results.
After I gave up on “Hidden”, I got ready for Day 21 “Run” which was in week “Creatures”. Creatures week was a struggle since I am not experienced with rigging and character animation. So like most people I used one of the readily animated human models inside Houdini for “Run”. I submitted my render and got the third place for that day.
Next up, my parents gave me some ideas about “Burrow” which was the last topic of “Creatures” week.
After that, the week that actually made me participate in the Mardini Challenge came up, which was “Elements”. I especially excel at liquid, fluid, particles and rigid body dynamics simulations which work great with elements so was ready to do as much as I can for that week. Thus participated on Earth, Wind, Water and Fire where I again got third place for Day 31 Fire .
What I learned and observed?
- Finding an idea is much harder than creating what you’re told to do.
When you work for a client/customer, let it be a freelance or an inhouse job, you are always told what to do. This challenge pushed me to find ideas that have high quality, can tell a story and be interesting, as well as fun to watch, at the same time can be done in a short time. To find a good idea you need to know how much you can deliver in the time you have available. It is basically like telling a client how long the desired work will take before starting it and therefore coming up with a price.
- Finding an idea with just one word.
Another thing that pushed me out of my comfort zone was to decide to work on a render with just one word. I never had to do something like that before and it was not as easy as I thought it would be. I sometimes found myself imagining very complex scenes and other times couldn’t even think of anything. For instance, since the beginning of the challenge I wanted to participate for the day “Medieval” but couldn’t find any ideas. However, after other artists submitted their creations, I was surprised at how simple but amazing ideas some had. (Check them out HERE.) Day 25 “Buzz” was also like that, all I could think of was just bugs with wings, but there were some renders showing a buzz cut hair simulation or a phone vibrating and falling down. I think those are extremely creative and attractive to watch works. (“Buzz” renders HERE.)
- Limiting myself to only one software
Since the challenge is SideFX’s challenge, participants were only allowed to use Houdini as you might expect. Normally, I spend most of my time with Houdini but have never used it’s compositing tools before. It was a bit tricky at first because even though most nodes had the same names and functionality as in most compositing applications there were some different preferences that I had to spend time to figure out. That showed me that an artist can and should be flexible and find his/her way around the tools if he/she does not have the luxury to move between/change tools.
- Time constraints/deadlines with no exceptions
Deadlines are always in an artists life and can make things stressful. But still there is always a chance a job might not end on the day of the deadline. Plans might change, the client might change their mind, there might be big revisions that can push the deadline at a later date, even the project might be cancelled or you might also ask for extra time. In this challenge there is no tolerance for extra time, not even a second. By the time the day is over you’re done, your render will not be considered if you are late. Therefore that was the most strict deadlines I’ve ever had, but of course the down side of not being able to deliver was nothing. The good thing about those deadlines were that it pushed me to work extremely efficient and at the same time fast. (I used some of the tips I wrote on my previous post HERE)
- Every person has different opinions and preferences for art
For some of the challenge days I struggled to figure out how the voters managed to choose some renders. There were times that I thought the winners of some days shouldn’t even be in the top 10. But then I made an experiment on my friends and family. There were times where what I loved was not liked by my parents at all or what my friends voted the best, looked horrible for my brother. Thus, I learned that views and conceptions on art tend to change a lot from person to person.
What I wish changed
- From my point of view the challenge would yield much better artworks from artists if it was weekly instead of daily. Daily seems to limit the artists from showing their true potential because of time issues.
- Even though having just one keyword is forcing the participants to push their imaginations, at least having a few words might give the artists more freedom which would result in even better works.
- I wish there were some criteria that were required to be seen in renders. To name a few; duration of video, color choices, resolution requirements (especially for still renders), artistic and technical details, relevance to the topic of the day and week.
- The voters committee should consist of the SideFX voters and also the participants. Because the “reactions” (likes, dislikes) in the forums -where each render is submitted- are given by participants and what I observed there is that those reactions and the final results sometimes differ a lot. Therefore the evaluation of both parties may lead to more realistic/accurate results.
