Epic Games, the leading developer of cutting-edge 3D technology and games, today announced the winners from both the fourth round and educational category competitions of the “$1,000,000 NVIDIA Make Something Unreal” mod-making contest.   The multi-round competition which challenges teams of aspiring 3D programmers and artists to put their artistic affinity to work to create game modifications (mods) and game levels using the Unreal game engine and editor - a free tool included with Epic’s best-selling Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Tournament 2004 PC games.  The contest has attracted hundreds of entries, including works created by student teams from leading universities around the globe. 

Sponsored by NVIDIA Corporation, Atari Inc, AMD, Alias, CoolerMaster and Digital Extremes, the contest has already paid out more than $600,000 in cash and prizes and will come to a close later this year when the winners of the Grand Finals are announced.

The winning entries across the five featured categories in the fourth round include:

Best first-person shooter (FPS) – “Red Orchestra”
Best non-FPS – “Alien Swarm”
Best Assault Level – “AS-Thrust”
Best Onslaught Level – “ONS-Dinora”
Best Real-time Non-Interactive Movie – “botmovie”

In addition to individual round competitions, student teams from universities from around the world were also eligible to submit their creations for the contest’s educational category.   The special category, designed to reward game design in the classroom, is set to pay out prizes of PC equipment to five universities as a result of its student’s efforts.   The Art Institute of Burnaby in Vancouver, Canada took top honors with six individual mod projects placing among the finalists in all four rounds of the contest.  Other university winners include the University of Oulu in Finland, The Animation Arts Centre of Seneca College in Ontario, Canada, The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University in Texas, and Pennsylvania’s University of Pittsburgh. 

“All of the teams competing in the $1,000,000 NVIDIA Make Something Unreal contest have learned very quickly what it takes to produce a commercial game.  The entries have been creative, innovative and technically sound,” said Mark Rein, vice president at Epic Games.  “All of us at Epic Games, along with the contest sponsors, would like to extend our congratulations to all of the participants around the world on a job well-done.”

The winner of the Grand Finals will be selected from among the fourth round entries, with one lucky team winning an additional $50,000 in cash plus a coveted Unreal Engine commercial license worth $350,000.  The prize money, however, is a secondary motivation to the overall opportunity afforded by the contest as the winning team will be able to take their creations to market and realize their goals of becoming professional game developers.

A complete list of winners and winning entries from all four rounds of the $1,000,000 Make Something Unreal Contest” can be accessed from the official contest website located at www.makesomethingunreal.com.