3D Awards by CGarchitect

The “official rules” for CGarchitect 3D Awards 2021.

No purchase necessary to enter or to win.
The 2021 CGarchitect 3Dawards Contest (the "Contest") is sponsored by CGarchitect Digital Media Corp. (the “Sponsor”).
  • Aug 05 - Sep 17
    Submissions are opened
  • Sep 20 - Oct 03
    Judging round
  • Oct 11
    Tentative nominees announced
  • Oct 29
    Official nominees announced
  • Dec 09
    Winners announced

Submission Deadlines / Important Dates

  • Call for Submissions: August 5 – September 17 (12:00 Mountain Daylight Time / UTC-7)
  • Judging Round: September 20 – October 3
  • Tentative Nominees Announced: October 11
  • Official Nominees Announced: October 29
  • Online Awards Ceremony: December 8-9

    Once again we will be hosting the 3D Awards awards ceremony in partnership with the D2 Conference. This time during the D2 HOLIDAYTIME SPECTACULAR event being broadcast live on YouTube from December 8-10, 2021.

    December 8 / 3D AWARDS Ceremony  - Part 1 (19:45 CET)
    (Image and Interactive Categories)

    December 9 / 3D AWARDS Ceremony  - Part 2 (19:45 CET)
    (Film Categories)

  • Winners Announced Online: December 10

Category Types

The CGarchitect 3Dawards have 4 separate categories: Image, Film/Animation, Interactive and Student. Within the Film/Animation and Image categories, there are also two sub-categories for Commissioned and Non-Commissioned work. It is very important that you submit your work to the correct category to ensure your entry is not disqualified.

Image & Animation/Film Categories

Commissioned Work: This sub-category is meant ONLY for work that has been commissioned by someone who has paid for or otherwise obtained your services to create the piece you are submitting. This type of work is likely to have been created by a professional for some sort of commercial project. This might be in the capacity of a visualization studio, or an in-house visualization artist working on an in-house project. Architectural competitions are considered commissioned work even if payment was not received for the work. If you make significant changes to a commissioned piece that is considered to be complete and those changes are not part of the original project, it must be submitted to the non-commissioned category. (i.e. If you make changes to the piece for a portfolio, you enhance or change the image past what the client originally asked to make it look better etc.)

Non-Commissioned Work: This sub-category is meant ONLY for work that you did for fun, experimental work, practice, pieces you created for a portfolio etc. and you were not paid for the work. If you make significant changes to a commissioned piece that is considered to be complete, and those changes are not part of the original project, it must be submitted to this category. (i.e. If you make changes to the piece for a portfolio, you enhance or change the image past what the client originally asked to make it look better etc.) Anything that does not fit the criteria for Commissioned work should be considered Non-Commissioned.

Interactive/AR/VR/Emerging Technologies

This category is meant for any project that uses interactive technologies to communicate architecture, architectural design or architectural marketing. This category is meant for interactive kiosks, augmented reality, virtual reality, mobile applications, interactive web applications, real-time apps or any new technology (hardware or software) that is used to communicate design and architecture.

Student (Image/Film)

This category is meant for images of film/animation work created by a student as part of their studies or educational program. Even if the work was not specifically required as part of your program, if it was created for a school project, please submit it to this category. If you are a student, but created the work outside of your program and were not specifically for a school project, please submit to the appropriate Non-Commissioned category above.
 
 Works created by students for this category must have been completed entirely by the student. No assistance from school staff or other professionals is allowed other than providing basic general guidance.  Pre-made scenes provided by the school, scenes that are used as part of a teaching plan or curriculum, and scenes that are not an original creation of the student are not allowed. Scenes found to be in violation of these criteria will be disqualified.
 
 In order to submit to the student category, you can not have worked professionally in any field or any capacity where you were being paid to create visualizations, prior to your submission being created. This includes working as an instructor or professor. The sole exception to this rule is paid internships as part of your education. The intent and spirit of this rule are to ensure you have not gained an unfair advantage over other competitors. As a student in this category, you should be a novice to the visualization side of the industry.

General Rules

  1. By submitting you agree that CGarchitect Digital Media Corp. (CGarchitect.com/CGarchitect) and its designated sponsors may use your submission(s), fully credited, for promotional purposes on their websites and/or marketing collateral. You will retain all copyrights to your work.

  2. As a condition of awarding a Prize, winners grant to Sponsor the right to use his/her full name (first and last), image and likeness, voice, and comments for advertising, publicity, and promotional purposes without territorial, time or use limitations, including without limitation online announcements, without additional compensation or notice, unless prohibited by law.

  3. Any submission must have been created in 2020 or 2021 or made public in 2020 or 2021. There are no restrictions on submitting entries that have been submitted to other competitions or previously published in public.

  4. By submitting to the 2021 CGarchitect 3Dawards Contest, you warrant that you have obtained permission to submit the works for public display. If your submissions are selected they will not be displayed publicly until October 11, 2021.

  5. Any award category that does not receive sufficient applicable entries will be removed from the competition or merged with another applicable category at the Sponsor's sole discretion.

  6. By entering this Contest, entrants agree to abide by these Official Rules. The decisions of the Sponsor and its appointed judges with respect to all aspects of the Contest are final and binding.

  7. By entering the Contest, entrants thereby release the Sponsor, their parent and affiliated companies, their advertising and promotional agencies, and their employees, representatives, agents, partners, shareholders, officers and directors (the “Releasees”) from all liability including responsibility for any loss, damage or injury, caused by participating or their attempt to participate in the Contest or resulting from acceptance of the Prize or participation in the Event.

  8. The Releasees assume no responsibility for any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, communications line failure, theft or destruction or unauthorized access to, or alteration of, entries. The Releasees are not responsible for any problems or technical malfunction of any telephone network or telephone lines, computer on-line systems, servers, or providers, computer equipment, software, failure of any entry to be received by the Sponsor on account of technical problems, human error or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any Web site, or any combination thereof, including any damage to participant’s or any other person’s computer and other property relating to or resulting from participation in this Contest or from downloading any materials in this Contest.

  9. CAUTION: ANY ATTEMPT TO UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THIS CONTEST MAY BE A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAWS AND SHOULD SUCH AN ATTEMPT BE MADE, CGARCHITECT DIGITAL MEDIA CORP. RESERVES THE RIGHT TO SEEK DAMAGES OR OTHER REMEDIES FROM ANY SUCH PERSON(S) RESPONSIBLE TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. Any attempt to circumvent any of the competition rules or voting systems will result in you and your company being disqualified and permanently banned from all future awards.

  10. The Sponsor reserves the right at all times at its sole discretion to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Contest, in whole or in part, in the event of any cause beyond the reasonable control of the Sponsor that interferes with the proper conduct of the Contest as contemplated by the Official Rules, including, without limitation, any error, technical problem, computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failure, or any other cause including the cancellation or postponement of the Event.

  11. The Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify any individual who (i) tampers with, or attempts to tamper with, the entry process; (ii) enters the Contest or tries to do so by any means contrary to these Official Rules or which would be unfair to the other entrants; or (iii) violates any of these Official Rules.

  12. By entering this Contest, each entrant consents to the collection, use, and disclosure, by the Sponsor, of the following personal information: full name (first and last), submitted entry information,  and contact information (telephone number, address, and email address) for the administration of this Contest including, but not limited to, the announcement of winners and awarding and delivery of a Prize. No commercial or other communications unrelated to the Contest will be sent to entrants unless they have otherwise agreed to receive such communications.

  13. This Contest is subject to all applicable laws and regulations and void where prohibited. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of the Official Rules or the rights and obligations as between the entrant and the Sponsor in connection with the Contest will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the province of Alberta, including procedural provisions, without giving effect to any choice of law or conflict of law rules or provisions that would cause the application of any other jurisdiction’s laws. If a section of the Official Rules is declared illegal, unenforceable or invalid by a competent court, that section shall be considered invalid, but all unaffected sections will be applied within the limits of the law.

  14. By submitting to the 2021 CGarchitect 3Dawards Contest you agree to create a "Making Of" article for the Sponsor if requested.

How to Enter and be Eligible for a Prize

  1. To enter the Contest and be eligible for a Prize you must have a CGarchitect account and submit an image or film to one of our seven (7) categories or any special categories. Participants may submit up to 5 submissions per category.

  2. Competition judges or their respective companies may submit to the competition, however, they will not be able to vote on their own submissions. In the event that a judge's submission is selected as a category nominee, all of their competition votes for that category will be removed from consideration. In the event that more than three judges' submissions are selected as category nominees, replacement judges may be selected to vote in their place.

  3. All submissions must be received no later than September 17 (12:00 Mountain Daylight Time / UTC-7). In the event of technical issues during the submission process, CGarchitect at its sole discretion may accept submissions up to 24 hours past the submission deadline. Once submissions have been released to the judges, all incomplete submissions are disqualified from consideration.

Prizes

  1. The prizes awarded to each winner, nominee and participant are detailed on our prizes page.  In some cases, prize values are listed as the cumulative total and not the individual prize total for any given category or winner. Prize values are approximate.

  2. Prizes must be accepted as awarded, are not transferable or convertible to cash. The Sponsor reserves the right at any time to substitute a Prize or a component thereof for any reason with a Prize or a prize component of equal or greater value, or the value of the Prize in cash as indicated in these Official Rules.

  3. Due to embargoes and import rules, some prizes may not be shipped to the winner's country of residence. You will be notified if you reside in an embargoed country. In such an event, there will be no cash or alternate prize awarded.

  4. Some physically shipped prizes may incur taxes or import duties depending upon the winner's country of residence. The winner is responsible for all such fees and duties.  Should the winner elect not to pay those fees, the prize will not be shipped and no cash or equivalent prize will be awarded.

  5. Some prizes are awarded randomly as indicated on the prizes page.

Winner Selection

Winners are selected based on scoring and shortlisting performed by the panel of expert judges and the Sponsor. Their decision is final and binding.  Shortlisted submissions will be scored on the following criteria:

  • The image category has two scoring criteria: “Originality” and “Overall Impression”. Originality reflects the artist's originality in approaching the composition, lighting, mood, and overall approach to the presentation of the subject matter The Overall Impression takes into consideration composition, lighting, mood, modelling, texturing, technical difficulty and overall impression and impact of the work.

  • This film categories have three scoring criteria: “Originality”, “Editing” and “Overall Impression”. Originality reflects the artist's originality in approaching the cinematography, theme, lighting, story, music, editing and overall approach to the presentation of the subject matter. Editing is a score reflecting the editing quality of the film including but not limited to: cuts, music, timing and how the editing contributes to the overall story and film. The Overall Impression takes into consideration cinematography, lighting, mood, modelling, texturing, technical difficulty, editing and overall impression and impact of the work.

  • The Interactive category is scored on three criteria: "Originality", "Overall Impression" and "User Interface/User Experience (UI/UX)".  Originality reflects the artist's originality in approaching the overall user experience, communication of important project information, user interaction and user interface. The Overall Impression takes into consideration the overall impact of the project as a whole including the use of technology in the execution and delivery of the project. User Interface/User Experience takes into consideration the design of an intuitive and appropriate UI and the logical, intuitive and informative design of the user experience.

NEW! - Originality Scoring & Nominee/Winner Selections

Originality is scored on all submissions in all categories and counts for 33-50% of the overall score. The CGarchitect 3D Awards have been designed from inception to reward works that elevate and inspire the industry through originality, which is why it heavily contributes to the overall score.  

New to the 2021 awards is the requirement to document all sources of inspiration and influence (including links to the sources being referenced) if your submission is substantively similar to other artistic works regardless of their origin or medium. The following is a non-exclusive list of examples where you must document your sources of inspiration or influence:

  • Replication, duplication or copying of an existing photo, film or CGI in its entirety or in a way that would be interpreted as having been copied.
  • Substantive copying of colour grading, composition, editing, or content of existing artistic work. 
  • Borrowing unique and recognizable elements of existing artistic works.
  • Submitting non-original works that were provided as part of a school project are not allowed to be submitted. For example: you were provided all or parts of the scene being submitted or most or all of the settings/setups/materials/shaders were provided to you. YOU must create your scene.
If you are unsure, it is better to document influences and references, with links, so our judges can establish the originality of your submission.

If any submission is determined to have substantively borrowed from another artistic work and it has not been documented, all of your submissions will be disqualified from the competition in all categories.

Winner Notification

Sponsors will attempt to contact each selected winner, nominee, entrant by email in December 2021/January 2022.
 
Any winner found not in compliance with these Official Rules; will be disqualified and will forfeit the Prize and, at the Sponsor’s sole discretion, an alternate entrant may be selected until the selected entrant meets all the qualifications outlined in these Official Rules and can be declared a winner. The Sponsors will not be responsible for failed attempts to contact a selected entrant. Any prize not collected by March 2022, will be considered forfeited.

Image (including Student) Submissions Rules

  1. You may submit no more than 5 images per company, person or group.

  2. Your images must have been created in 2020 or 2021 or made public in 2020 or 2021. Any images determined to have been created before this will be disqualified.

  3. Do not submit multiple views of the same project unless they are significantly different from one another.

  4. Images must be a minimum of 1500 pixels in the smallest dimension.

  5. Images must not be watermarked with recognizable company logos or names. If the creator is discernible in a watermark, the image will be disqualified.

  6. If multiple images from the same company, person or group are scored in the top 5 nominees for the image category, only the highest scoring image will be selected.

  7. There are two sub-categories for the Image Category: Commissioned and Non-Commissioned work. If an image is submitted to the incorrect category, it will be disqualified. Please see the category description at the top of this page for more detailed information.

  8. Any work created by a student for a school project (regardless if it was required as part of the educational curriculum) should be submitted to the student Image category. You can not be paid or compensated for any work submitted to the student category.

  9. If you are a student, but you were commissioned or paid to create the Image, you must submit it to the regular Image Commissioned category.

  10. In order to qualify for the student category you can not be working professionally in the visualization industry, or have worked professionally at any time in the past within the field.

  11. Each submission must consist of only a single image. Collages will be disqualified.

  12. Works created by students for the student category must have been completed entirely by the student. No assistance from school staff or other professionals is allowed other than providing basic general guidance.  Pre-made scenes provided by the school, scenes that are used as part of a teaching plan or curriculum, and scenes that are not an original creation of the student are not allowed. Scenes found to be in violation of these criteria will be disqualified.

    In order to submit to the student category, you can not have worked professionally in any field or any capacity where you were being paid to create visualizations, prior to your submission being created. This includes working as an instructor or professor. The sole exception to this rule is paid internships as part of your education. The intent and spirit of this rule are to ensure you have not gained an unfair advantage over other competitors. As a student in this category, you should be a novice to the visualization side of the industry.

Animation/Film (including Student) Submission Rules

  1.  You may submit no more than 5 film/animations per company, person or group.

  2. Your film/animation must have been created in 2020 or 2021 or made public in 2020 or 2021. Any films/animations determined to have been created before this will be disqualified.

  3. All submissions must be submitted in QuickTime MOV or MP4 format. The minimum resolution should be Full HD format (1920 x 1080). If your footage was not rendered in HD, we will accept it, however during the judging HD resolution entries may be given preference.

  4. Demo reels or compilations of multiple projects will not be accepted. Only one project or animation project can be included per submission.

  5. Submissions must not be watermarked with company logos or names. (Credits/Logos at the beginning or end are accepted but discouraged)

  6. If multiple images from the same company, person or group are scored in the top 5 nominees for the Animation/Film category, only the highest scoring Film/Animation will be selected.

  7. There are two sub-categories for the Animation/Film Category: Commissioned and Non-Commissioned work. If a film is submitted to the incorrect category, it will be disqualified. Please see the category description at the top of this page for more detailed information.

  8. Any work created by a student for a school project (regardless if it was required as part of the educational curriculum) should be submitted to the student Animation/Film category. You can not be paid or compensated for any work submitted to the student category.

  9. If you are a student, but you were commissioned or paid to create the Film/Animation, you must submit to the regular Film/Animation Commissioned category.

  10. In order to qualify for the student category you can not be working professionally in the visualization industry, or have worked professionally at any time in the past within the field.

  11. Works created by students for the student category must have been completed entirely by the student. No assistance from school staff or other professionals is allowed other than providing basic general guidance.  Pre-made scenes provided by the school, scenes that are used as part of a teaching plan or curriculum, and scenes that are not an original creation of the student are not allowed. Scenes found to be in violation of these criteria will be disqualified.

    In order to submit to the student category, you can not have worked professionally in any field or any capacity where you were being paid to create visualizations, prior to your submission being created. This includes working as an instructor or professor. The sole exception to this rule is paid internships as part of your education. The intent and spirit of this rule are to ensure you have not gained an unfair advantage over other competitors. As a student in this category, you should be a novice to the visualization side of the industry.

Interactive/AR/VR/Emerging Technologies Submission Rules

  1.  You may submit no more than 5 projects per company, person or group.

  2.  Your project must have been created in 2020 or 2021 or made public in 2020 or 2021. Any projects determined to have been created before this will be disqualified.

  3. Submissions must be sent as QuickTime MOV or MP4 Videos. You should use software like Camtasia or other screen recording software to record the interface and navigation of any real-time scenes, VR/AR experiences or installations. All projects must use video to showcase the use of the technology in use.

  4. If multiple Interactive projects from the same company, person or group are scored in the top 5 nominees for the Interactive category, only the highest scoring image will be selected.