Gameverse — creation of an online 3D-game!

About the Contest:

We believe that the future is in fast and accessible games that can be built and played together online. That's why we invite everyone to participate in a contest to create a 3D game and get a chance to glimpse into this near future of gaming, to win prizes and valuable experiences.

To make it happen we provide access to our online gaming platform with full functionality and training sessions for participants. The style of the games can be anything, but one of the evaluation criteria will be the uniqueness of the idea and storyline.
We will not consider direct copying of existing games, however, borrowing stylistic direction is acceptable.

TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS CONTEST, YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNOW HOW TO CODE. You can (and we welcome to) use our visual scripting based on a node architecture.

Check out these inspiring examples below:

Ivan, a 3D creator, works on models, videos, and experiences for well-known brands, and then lets his creativity flow on our engine, creating unique games and spaces. He spent 2 weeks creating the space you see here: https://app.8xr.io/s/IvanDurnev/view

MerryHappens' work, https://app.8xr.io/s/MerryHappens/view , is an example from one of our previous contests. The games were put together in just 2 weeks!

And this example of a game mechanic for the Metaverse Fashion Council, https://app.8xr.io/s/game-test/view , shows how a space can be designed and built in just 2 weeks.

Information for Participants:

Competition task:

Participants need to come up with an original idea (on any topic as long as it doesn't violate any Russian laws), develop a gameplay mechanic, and create a game space on the 8XR online engine. To prepare 3D models, participants can use familiar modelling platforms (Blender is recommended) or 3D stock assets.

The game must be able to be opened and played on desktop/laptop computers and mobile devices.

Target platform:

8XR Builder Tool is an online platform for creating 3D spaces and games. The engine's interface will be intuitive for anyone familiar with the interfaces of main 3D modelling platforms. To participate in the competition, it's not necessary to have programming experience as you can use visual scripting on our engine.

The engine allows you to assemble a scene, set up lighting, configure trigger zones, instancing, set up complex interactions, make transitions within the space, and much more. However, creating models within the engine is not possible, so you'll need access to 3D modelling platforms or 3D stock assets.

Sign In and access the platform

To submit your work, you need to:

Create a game using the 8XR engine and share the game link in the Discord channel (for technical evaluation).
Record a screen capture video that demonstrates the gameplay. The video must be at least 10 seconds but no more than 30 seconds. This video should be submitted as your contest entry to the contest gallery by clicking the "Add work" button. Before that, you need to upload the video to YouTube or Vimeo, and you can add the work to the site by inserting the video link. In the work description, please include the link to the game and a brief description of your project.

The terms of participation:

anyone over the age of 18 can enter the competition;
you can join the RENDER.RU group on VKontakte or join the RENDER.RU channel on Telegram, this will give you the opportunity to quickly access news and updates during the competition;
works must contain licensed structural elements that are allowed for commercial use. Otherwise, we will disqualify such works and delete them. Remember, plagiarism is not accepted;
we are not responsible for the illegal use of assets which are not intended for commercial use and copyrighted materials;
you must list all licensed content used in the scene (models, materials, HDRI maps, etc.);
the volume of licensed content should not exceed 40% of the total work, i.e. at least 60% of the work you must do yourself;
the scene must be created from scratch, not exhibited earlier and not currently participate in similar competitions;
the scene and the game should not contain content on the topics of violence, political campaigning, offensive topics on racial, religious, or gender grounds, pornographic materials, as well as materials prohibited by the laws of the Russian Federation and the CIS countries. Such entries will be disqualified and deleted. The 8XR team is free to choose what may fall under this suspicion.

Prizes and places:

1st place:
- $1100,
- commercial cooperation with 8XR
(the winner of one of our previous competitions became part of our team),
- VIP account on RENDER.RU,
- +50 rating points on the site.

2nd place:
- $900,
- VIP account on RENDER.RU,
- +50 rating points on the site.

3rd place:
- $500,
- VIP account on RENDER.RU,
- +50 rating points on the site.

Competition schedule:

6th of February - the official start of the competition, the acceptance of works for the competition is open,

20th of March - the end of the acceptance of competitive works,

31st of March - results.

Technical Requirements and Limitations:

All 3D assets must be in .glb format for use in our engine. GLB is a powerful format that allows you to pack all textures and animations into a single file.
To export one .glb from Blender, please refer to the official documentation https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/addons/i...
Our engine is a web browser native and is supported by all major modern browsers. There are memory and scene size limitations.
We use WebGL 2.0 as the renderer and games should have 300k-500k vertices within the camera frustum for efficient performance.
It is recommended to use up to three dynamic lights in a scene. Point lights are 6 times more expensive than spot and dynamic lights. A basic setup usually involves one ambient/hemisphere light for global lighting and one directional light for sun/shadows. Another two lights can be added for improved visuals. Where possible, light and shadow baking should be utilised. The player avatar must always be lit by at least one dynamic light for a realistic appearance.
Textures are limited to 4K per texture, and it's recommended not to exceed two 4K textures on mobile devices due to limited video memory. Lower-resolution textures such as 2048, 1024, and 512 can be used and combined into atlases, but the atlases must not exceed 4K.
Use as few transparent materials as possible.
It is recommended to use the KTX texture format if you are familiar with it, as it allows saving up to 30% more memory and provides better runtime performance. The engine supports the automatic conversion of all textures to KTX and will provide you with a new model variant once the optimization is finished.
8XR supports LOD and Occlusion Culling optimizations. These two techniques will allow you to enhance your experience by saving on the simplification of model rendering that is far or hidden from the player.
Up to 2 video files or video textures can be used, with similar resolution rules as simple textures.
Up to 3 audio files can be used, which can work in both simple or spatial modes.
The game must work on all modern devices including laptops, mobiles, tablets, and VR devices (Oculus Quest 2 and Pro are primary targets).