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I’m happy to announce the winners of the VFX and Motion Design Elements contest! With the help of my Pixel Lab team, plus guest judges E.J. Hassenfratz, Jonathan Winbush and Adam Schmisek we chose the three winners. I’ve already supplied them their prizes. To everyone else, thank you so much for entering. Your work is inspiring and I loved all the entries. Thanks for joining, and keep your eyes open for a new contest soon. Click the images below to see higher resolution and give these incredible artists a follow on their Instagram pages. Cheers! P.S. If you want to check out the assets used you can find them all here: www.thepixellab.net/products

#1: instagram.com/lauktien_and_friends

#2: instagram.com/bournevfx

#3: instagram.com/caioltalves

Click to See More Top Contest Entries

The Contest is Closed and the Results can be found here: thepixellab.net/vfx-and-motion-design-elements-contest-results

The Prizes are:

First Place: NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4080 Graphics Card (Roughly $1,200)
Second Place: Complete VDB Bundle: www.thepixellab.net/vdb-bundle ($644)
Third Place: VFX Element Bundle: www.thepixellab.net/vfx-elements-bundle-pl ($595)

Pixel Lab VFX Elements #4 Contest Rules:

1. Take the included 6 types of VFX Assets: Cloth, Atmospherics, Nebula, Portal, Smoke Burst and Smoke Trails.
FYI, The full product on our site has complete VDB animation sequences, but for this contest I’m giving you one of the frames from the animations for free.

2. Create a still render using at least 3 out of the 6 assets. At least 3 of the 6 types must be in your render. You can use all six if you want though, it’s up to you!

3. Post your photo to instagram, and include the hashtag #pixellabvfx4 and mention which elements you used.

4. Follow www.instagram.com/the.pixel.lab/

5. The deadline will be the end of February, 2023.

Our internal team of judges will look at all of the entries based on the hashtag #pixellabvfx4 We will pick the top three entries based on creativity/originality/design and we will announce the winners in early March, 2023. We will fulfill the prizes shortly after, although the graphics card will be determined by when we can get our hands on one if they are out of stock. If we can’t get one, we will offer a cash equivalent replacement.

Note 1: This artwork must be created for the contest. It cannot be a previous piece you have already created. No AI is allowed.

Note 2: If you want to purchase any of our products, and you end up winning, we will refund your purchase, so don’t worry about buying them if you want to.

Here are the included elements in the contest download:

Ready to roll? Download the free asset pack I prepared for this contest and let’s go!

Download 3D VFX Elements for Contest

Download official contest rules

I have another new freebie for you today! In the download are 10 beautifully sculpted rock or boulder models. They’re for Cinema 4D and can be used for whatever you want! The texture isn’t included with the model, fyi.

This is by Hakim Graphics and you can find them here: www.instagram.com/hakimgraphiks Huge thanks to them for sharing this freebie!

Click to Download Free Rock Models

Btw, if you want more rocks, we also have the above 12 pack for free. You can get that by signing up for out e-mail newsletter here: https://www.subscribepage.com/pixellabsignup

We have an awesome new freebie for you today! We have 3 beautiful hair/fur textures for Octane and Cinema 4D. These were created by Oscar Creativo and you can follow him at Behance or his website. Check out his stuff and give him some love. Huge thanks to Oscar!!

Included are 3 hair textures as well as the Cinema 4D file with them all set up to render properly. Enjoy!

Btw, if you want more fur/hair textures, we have a bunch in our Octane Texture Pack 5 you could check out.

Click to Download Free Hair/Fur Octane Textures

We have a fun little gift for you today! It’s a whole fleet of free 3D models of interior radiator/heaters. Each one has an xpresso rig for changing the type/size and a few parameters etc.

These are perfect for interior designs and for filling out your scenes. The creator of these is Peter Holweg, a longtime friend of the Pixel Lab and also the creator of our Pipes Rig and Air Duct Rig. Thanks Peter!

Click to Download Free Radiator 3D Models

If you have ever brought in a .obj file of a 3D model and find that it’s importing as a single polygon object which would make it really hard to texture, then this tool is for you. It’s called Polygon Islands to Objects and it’s a way to break up your .obj file into pieces that will help you texture and animate faster. It’s a great C4D feature to be aware of, and it’s kind of hidden!

Want to bake to Alembic when using a huge Cloner particle animation? This Cinema 4D tip will show you how to do it in a way that gives you them “speed gainz.” Hope it helps! Btw, if you want to learn more about Alembics and why you should use there, here’s a great primer: https://youtu.be/30f9u0jMGxY

We have a beautiful free 3d model today which was created by Vladimir Radetzki. You can find him at his website: https://rvdesign.art

Make sure to head over, follow him on social for more great stuff and shoot him a thank you! The freebie is a 3D model of a kitchen interior scene. This comes untextured, but many of the texture maps are included, so it’s a great way to practice your texturing skills!Huge thanks again to Vladimir!!

This will be the last freebie from him that I will post, but he does have a bunch more on his site if you’re interested.

Click to Download free Kitchen Interior Scene

In this C4D tut I’ll show you how to use the brand new Pyro in Cinema 4D! It’s a super fun plugin for making fire and smoke. I’ll show you how to use it for creating a smoke burst text transition/reveal. Enjoy!

We have a beautiful free 3d model today which was created by Vladimir Radetzki. You can find him at his website: https://rvdesign.art
Make sure to head over, follow him on social for more great stuff and shoot him a thank you! The freebie is a 3D model of candlesticks and their holders. There are four different holders with unique designs. Feel free to use for whatever you want. Huge thanks again to Vladimir!!