NVIDIA, in partnership with Microsoft, announced the winners of the second edition of its creative design competition, NVIDIA Studio Nights. The regional event, held at twofour54 in Abu Dhabi, highlighted talented content creators who leverage the power of the NVIDIA Studio platform and RTX GPUs and offered them the opportunity to network with other designers and artists. This year, the competition saw winners across five distinct categories – 3D, Videography, Photography, NVIDIA Canvas Art and CGI.

The winners were Nadeem Ashraf for 3D, Mohannad Nasr for Videography, Aziza Kashash for Photography, Joseph John for NVIDIA Canvas Art, and Mosab Sharef for CGI. They each received a Microsoft Laptop Studio 2 powered with NVIDIA RTX GPUs, as well as a Surface Slim Pen 2 which allows for a seamless transition from a canvas for drawing and designing to a versatile touchscreen laptop.

“NVIDIA’s RTX GPU were especially helpful when rendering my video, particularly the encoders and AI capabilities,” said Mohannad Nasr. “Tasks like removing objects with rotoscope and rendering with the RTX card are much faster. With the NVIDIA GPU, you can shoot in 4k, 8k, or even 12k and you don’t have to worry about rendering. When it came to Photoshop, the Firefly feature powered by AI was amazing, as I could remove unwanted details or add new elements to my photographs within seconds.”

“I have an NVIDIA RTX laptop and it is so important for us as designers that our GPUs are fast when we render. Even though I have an older version, the 2060, it is still really efficient. What we suffer from the most is opening multiple applications at the same time and the laptop slowing down. Thanks to NVIDIA, although I had multiple apps running, it still remained fast and my workflow was very smooth,” said Aziza Kashash.

Commenting on his win, Joseph John said, “I used NVIDIA Canvas, an AI tool that generates images based on brushstrokes. There’s a palette of more than 10 materials and different scenarios and variations.  It's all run through the hardware and not through the cloud, and you need to have a very powerful hardware component which NVIDIA provides. The beauty of creative processes is knowing when to stop because creativity is endless. For the details on my frame to be generated from mere brushstrokes is quite impressive.”

John added, “I've got one of the Founder's Edition graphics cards – I’ve been an NVIDIA loyalist for a very long time.”

Attendees got to experience the latest RTX-powered laptops, including the Microsoft Laptop Studio 2 and Surface Slim Pen 2, as well as try several AI-powered apps from NVIDIA, such as Canvas, Omniverse, and Broadcast.

Chantelle Tavid, Head of Marketing at NVIDIA MENAT said, “The remarkable creativity showcased in the entries was truly incredible, underscoring how these creators absolutely harnessed the power of the NVIDIA Studio Platform and RTX GPUs. We look forward to more events where the local content creator community and artists can get together to collaborate, create and celebrate how far technology has come.”