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Poll for November

Announcements and chatter regarding the image of the month competition.

Who's cuisine reigns supreme?

Poll ended at Thu Dec 07, 2006 11:52 am

Desert Scene 1, by DeathTwister.
2
25%
Sunrise, by DeathTwister.
0
No votes
Moon Desert, by BigYak.
0
No votes
Dust bowl, by Tillot.
3
38%
Forest to Desert, by Tillot.
1
13%
DSRT? by Ch3rokee.
0
No votes
Edge of the Oasis, by Tillot.
2
25%
Big and Dark, by Ch3rokee.
0
No votes
 
Total votes : 8

Poll for November

Postby Aaron » Mon Dec 04, 2006 11:52 am

Hi Everyone,

This month we have an excellent and diverse smorgasbord of desolation for your consideration and judgement. Ironically, this desert competition sees a widespread use of vegetation, courtesy of Tillot's Vue renders and DeathTwister's Bryce render. BigYak breaks new ground with our first moon man and moon base, in an uncommon but most welcome in-game render from MoonBaseOne. Finally, we see a moody use of lighting and fog in Ch3rokee's Bryce renders and DeathTwister's Terragen render, variously showing us the desert around dusk and dawn. Of course, many thanks go to these accomplished artists for their contributions.

Okie dokie, with further ado minimised, we have:
  1. Desert Scene 1, by DeathTwister.
  2. Sunrise, by DeathTwister.
  3. Moon Desert, by BigYak.
  4. Dust bowl, by Tillot.
  5. Forest to Desert, by Tillot.
  6. DSRT?, by Ch3rokee.
  7. Edge of the Oasis, by Tillot.
  8. Big and Dark, by Ch3rokee.
The poll will close in three days time, which works out as some time on Thursday arvo GMT. Happy voting!

Cheerio,
Aaron.
Last edited by Aaron on Tue Jan 02, 2007 12:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby DeathTwister » Mon Dec 04, 2006 5:44 pm

Hay All,

WOo HOo I posted my choice, and what a great selection we had in this Months compitition, Grats to all who did enter, WTG dudes.

There is some great talent here with our L3DT people that play at Aaron's place. Was a very hard choice this month for me, they were all so good.

DT :twisted:
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Postby DeathTwister » Tue Dec 05, 2006 8:21 pm

I love your work Tillot,

I am wondering what version you are useing of Vue 5?????? I can get a cheep version for 79.00 and am wondering if that is the one you are using? The software seems awesome and comparable with the soon to be released TG2? The version that is 79.00 is Vue 5 Easel. Is that the one your using or the full version?, it also seems that only Vue 6 is for sale after the little (vue 5 easel_ edition, not sure why??

DT :twisted:
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Postby tillot » Wed Dec 06, 2006 9:48 am

Thanks for the complement. I was surprised to see every one of my submissions get a vote this time.

It's been a while since I've done any 3D work, so it took me a long time getting the camera, lighting, textures, and sky just right, especially on the Dust Bowl scene. Even then I could have spent another 4-5 hours on that scene - but about 1a.m. I decided it was good enough. ;)

I'm using Vue 5 Infinite. I don't know much about the other versions. I wish I had enough money to purchase Vue 6 xStream though...it appears to be extremely powerful when integrated with Maya, Max, or Lightwave.

TNT
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Postby DeathTwister » Wed Dec 06, 2006 12:53 pm

Hay Tillot,


Thanks for the info as I really liked the Vue software and yes it sure does get pricy fast. Was wondering how good the easel version is? Well you deserve to win for your dust bowl, it was my vote /smiles.......as it was exactly in my miond what was asked for this month, so grats brother as I think you won this month. Awesome graphic brother simply awesome...../smiles
Hum, I may get the cheep one as I am curious very much about it, But TG2 coming out in less then 2 weeks so it should keep me happy for a bit /winks.

DT :twisted:
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Postby Aaron » Fri Dec 08, 2006 6:37 am

And the winner is:

Tillot, with Dust Bowl.

Congratulations on an excellent entry and, in my humble opinion, a deserving win. I was particularly impressed by the use of vegetation, although the surface textures, lighting and scene selection were also top-notch.

I would also like to congratulate BigYak, Ch3rokee and DeathTwister on their entries this month. I very much liked the different interpretations of the theme, and I also liked the fact that everyone was using a different renderer. The creativity and diversity in approach is a wonderful thing to behold for a non-artist such as myself. Colour me impressed.

Okay, before I forget, there is some business to attend to:

Tillot, as honorary Supreme Chancellor of the Image Competition, would you like to nominate a theme for the next competition? I doubt you need any inspiration, but I keep an index of recent themes and ideas over here.

Also, given that I imagine many of us may be slightly indisposed at or around the end of December (I certainly will), I propose we make this competition a two-month deal, ending on the 1st of Feb 2007.

Furthermore, I was wondering if we could/should try to have two categories (using the same theme):
  • Best real-time renderer, where the frame rate must be at least 10fps.
  • Best raytrace renderer (e.g. Vue, Bryce, Terragen.)
The justification here is that I would like to find a way to encourage and acknowledge the work of game developers and modders, for whom render times are measured in milliseconds, rather than hours. I think making beautiful scenes in realtime renderers requires a different set of skills, and it's fair that there be a separate category in the competition to demonstrate and recognise those skills. Does anyone have any thoughts or objections to this idea?

As a final, and perhaps insane idea, would anyone be interested in some sort of multimedia competition? (e.g. game demo, movie, etc.) This has been suggested previously, and maybe now is a good time to try it out. Thoughts?

Best regards,
Aaron.
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Postby DeathTwister » Fri Dec 08, 2006 1:02 pm

Hay all,

KK I will put my 2 cents into this /smiles...

Yes, I think 2 competitions is a good idea and your right Aaron it would show a more dynamic range for your software and inspire hopefully all of us into getting our chits together in the gaming end more. I have to admit I would love to see what some people are actually doing in that field other then our posts we do.

I also think the multimedia is a good competition idea as well, but I would suggest maybe a 6 month competition to give peeps a chance to build a simple lever or mission to share with. As many of us are deep into stuff as it is, it would be hard to drop all and make a level just for competitions. So my vote is a yes to that one as well. With at least a 6 month warning hahahaha.
Maybe have 2 a year on the multimedia?

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Postby Ch3rokee » Fri Dec 08, 2006 2:42 pm

Congratulations Tillot, you did very well. I expect to see more of your good entries in the future :wink: , I just hope to, someday, find a good lighting and textures in my pictures :!: .

About having two categories, I think It's a very good Idea and could encourage more people to post realtime rendered pictures without feeling that they can't compete with a raytrace rendered picture. You have my vote about that, and about the multimedia competition, I'm with DeathTwister, people could send their entries during a 6 month period and then be voted all together.
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Postby tillot » Fri Dec 08, 2006 3:39 pm

Thanks for all the kudos. I'm glad all that hardwork payed off. ;)

As for you're proposal Aaron, I like the 2 competitions, especially if they last 2 months.

I've already got some terrain in TSE that I hope to finish.

As for the 6 month thing, I think that is way too long for an Image of the Month competition. I think 2 months is even a little long, especially if you want to encourage more people just starting back into 3D art, like myself, to compete.

I'd also prefer to see progress in a real-time image competition rather than a whole complete level. For me it's much more inspirational to see people's work progress, and what people are adding along the way, than to see a completed level. Completed levels are cool, but what I want to know, is how other people make them.

On the other hand, video's take a lot longer to render if done in ray-trace & radiosity renderers like Vue, Bryce, or Terragen. So a ray-traced video rendered on a single PC would take 1 month to create and 5 months to render.

Video's shouldn't take too much longer to record in a real-time engine if the scene already exists. The real time consumer with real-time video is defining a camera path, object animations, and compressing that down to something viewable over a modem. 8)

I would also like more constant feedback on video production that would help us/me make them even better so that a video of the month competition eventually leads to a video of the year competition. It would also help me meter my progress and how it compared with what others are doing, and help me see what I can do to improve.

Also, if we staggered the Ray-Traced vs. the Real-time engine IOTM competitions, it would still leave an Image of the Month every month, and just change which tools we can use every month.

So to propose a timeline like so:

Jan
----
Real-time Image of the Month

Feb
----
Non-real time Image of the Month
Real-time Video Clip of the Month

March
------
Real-time Image of the Month
Non-real time Video Clip of the Month

April
-----
Non-real time Image of the Month
Real-time Video Clip of the Month

May
----
Real-time Image of the Month
Non-real time Video Clip of the Month

June
-----
Non-real time Image of the Month
Real-time Video Clip of the Month

July
----
Real-time Image of the Month
Real-time Video of the Summer. (Or some other 6-month video winner name - could also be chosen from the Video Clip of the month winners.)
Non-real time Video of the Summer.

....

January
--------
Non-real time Image of the Month
Real-time Video of the Winter. (Or some other 6-month video winner name - could also be chosen from the Video Clip of the month winners.)
Non-real time Video of the Winter.
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Postby tillot » Fri Dec 08, 2006 3:50 pm

As for the next theme, I propose Tropical Beaches. This means they should all have plants, a beach, & water. Cliffs, animals, etc. are optional. 1-2 bonus points for the longest beach (to be awarded by Aaron). So let's see how expansive you can make those tropical beaches with L3DT!
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Postby Aaron » Sat Dec 09, 2006 2:15 am

Thanks Tillot!

I'll update the competition page shortly.

I've had a bit more of a thinker about the various competition ideas. I think I've worked out a nice and simple solution:

The competition this month could be Image of the Year, in which any image in the users' gallery from this year is eligible. Voting could be in a separate forum thread (e.g. "I vote for XXX by YYY, because ZZZ"). Would this not be a good way to look back on our achievements for 2006?

Tillot's excellent Tropical Beaches theme would carry over to the January 2007 Competition, which would be back to a 1-month comp, and have the two categories of realtime and non-realtime. I do prefer the idea of the one-month comp, as it appears to give everyone enough time to learn/practice/experiment/render/re-render/etc, and it also is short enough to provide feedback and variety in themes.

Staggering realtime and non-realtime comps month-by-month would, I think, exclude too many people each month. For instance, all those wonderful Spring mappers out there probably aren't interested in using Terragen every second month for the comp. Likewise, many of our brilliant Terragen/Vue/Bryce artists (and I shan't name names) would perhaps prefer to continue to use those programs, rather than find/make a realtime renderer. By running the two categories in parallel, everyone gets to use their preferred tools, and if people want to experiment with "the other side", they can do that too.

Now, the game/video comp is a tricky one. A video a month or a video every two months is too short, I think, for enough people to get everything together. However, I also take Tillot's argument that 6 months feels too long. Here is my idea:

We run 3-month long multimedia competitions (categories: video/game or level), and you get two entries per month. So, if you're doing realtime rendering, you can maximise your chances with 6 entries, and if you're doing a gorgeous raytrace/radiosity movie, you might only get one finished (or if it's going to take 6 months, save it for the next competition.) At the end of the year, we would also a video of the year roundup, as with images. So, if we like that idea, we'd better get rendering, as the Summer* Video Competition is now underway (closing March 1.)

Cheers,
Aaron.

* Or winter, if you're up north. Down here, we're expecting the temperature today to hit 39C (102F), and we've got a wildfire 100km long (60mi). Here's the paper.
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Postby DeathTwister » Sun Dec 10, 2006 1:21 am

Hay all,

Woo what allot to talk about.
Aaron wrote:
The competition this month could be Image of the Year, in which any image in the users' gallery from this year is eligible. Voting could be in a separate forum thread (e.g. "I vote for XXX by YYY, because ZZZ"). Would this not be a good way to look back on our achievements for 2006?


I like that idea, so that means when the next competition is complete we have 2 competitions to vote on right? 1. is the regular month to month competitions and 2. the other one would be after we decide who wins the next monthly comp, then all of the entries would then be voted on as best Image of the year. Did I get that right? sounds great if that is right, I'm game.

Next is:
Tillot's excellent Tropical Beaches theme would carry over to the January 2007 Competition, which would be back to a 1-month comp, and have the two categories of realtime and non-realtime. I do prefer the idea of the one-month comp, as it appears to give everyone enough time to learn/practice/experiment/render/re-render/etc, and it also is short enough to provide feedback and variety in themes.


So to the first part, Tillot's rules apply to the next competition, that will go to the competition of the year, right? then we have this other competition starting this month as well, right about what? So this next month we start a real time art competition as well as the old non-realtime monthly competition's which is video game engine Tech and a monthly competition for that as well now, so now we have 2 ongoing monthly competitions, That sounds great to me, and I am on board.

OK next:
Staggering realtime and non-realtime comps month-by-month would, I think, exclude too many people each month. For instance, all those wonderful Spring mappers out there probably aren't interested in using Terragen every second month for the comp. Likewise, many of our brilliant Terragen/Vue/Bryce artists (and I shan't name names) would perhaps prefer to continue to use those programs, rather than find/make a realtime renderer. By running the two categories in parallel, everyone gets to use their preferred tools, and if people want to experiment with "the other side", they can do that too.


Yup, looks like I got that right pretty much, good, I really like that idea Aaron. I actually like the idea of doing both and it does allow us to share somewhat what we hide maybe to much, and sharing with others and getting their thoughts from our brothers on ideas and ways to make things better is a good thing. I am onboard with this.
I would suggest however though that for video games and maybe even the animations that we do not at this time make any restrictions on how we make them or on subject matter like we do in the monthly competitions? that way we all can express ourselves better and show ongoing projects in a better framework. I like 4 months per level/mission design myself, so every 4 months for video game entries? And how complete should they be? the more complete the better the score? or is concept most important besides content working right?

As above:
Now, the game/video comp is a tricky one. A video a month or a video every two months is too short, I think, for enough people to get everything together. However, I also take Tillot's argument that 6 months feels too long. Here is my idea:


I can see it coming /smiles and in total agreement so far from what I see.

The Idea:
We run 3-month long multimedia competitions (categories: video/game or level), and you get two entries per month. So, if you're doing realtime rendering, you can maximize your chances with 6 entries, and if you're doing a gorgeous raytrace/radiosity movie, you might only get one finished (or if it's going to take 6 months, save it for the next competition.) At the end of the year, we would also a video of the year roundup, as with images. So, if we like that idea, we'd better get rendering, as the Summer* Video Competition is now underway (closing March 1.)


I would make it every 4 months, but I am game to try every 3 if people think they can work that fast, It's allot to do besides all our other work, but hell, the fame, the glory what the hell, I am in, and maybe can even enter 2 if I am lucky ROTFL hahaha lololol.

But I am also thinking that every 3 months we should have a animation category also separate from the video game engine competition, as animation is way different from gaming. I need to dust my Animay skills back off since I got out of it 2 years ago, so this should be very interesting as I need to make sure I keep a computer running then 24/7 rendering files hahahahahaha, yes yes please lets do that one also. I have a copy of Vue 5 coming and with Terragen 2 coming out next week, hell we should be pigs in shit and happy as clams now.

So count me in on all the competitions as I am such a slut at heart and love my art being appreciated by other people and even more by my pears. so animations every 3 months as well and we say the theme at the beginning of the competitions? and use screen shots in some of the monthly competitions? Making sure I understand this all, it has been a long hard day, and a very good one, but my brain is a bit tender now after I used it so hard today.

Maybe go play some GuildWars tonight and take a break.

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Postby Aaron » Sun Dec 10, 2006 3:19 pm

Hi DT,

DeathTwister wrote:I like that idea, so that means when the next competition is complete we have 2 competitions to vote on right? 1. is the regular month to month competitions and 2. the other one would be after we decide who wins the next monthly comp, then all of the entries would then be voted on as best Image of the year. Did I get that right? sounds great if that is right, I'm game.


I was thinking for this month only, we would skip the regular image of the month comp (I don't want people slaving over there computers on new year's eve), and instead have the image of the year. You can however still contribute images to the users' gallery to go into IoTY, but it won't be a good idea to leave it too late, as we'll be voting all through this month.

So to the first part, Tillot's rules apply to the next competition, that will go to the competition of the year, right?


Yup.

So this next month we start a real time art competition as well as the old non-realtime monthly competition's which is video game engine Tech and a monthly competition for that as well now, so now we have 2 ongoing monthly competitions, That sounds great to me, and I am on board.


That's it; starting January, we'll run parallel realtime and non-realtime competitions every month. Since we'll have two winners and only one theme, we may have to alternate the right to choose the next theme from the winner of the realtime to non-realtime competition, month to month.

I would suggest however though that for video games and maybe even the animations that we do not at this time make any restrictions on how we make them or on subject matter like we do in the monthly competitions?


I totally agree. The video and game competitions should be free-for-alls.

...so every 4 months for video game entries? And how complete should they be? the more complete the better the score? or is concept most important besides content working right?


I'd say the best bet would be to balance concept and execution. A game with a great concept but a crap user interface is a crap game (and vice versa). That's my opinion though, and I'm sure the people will vote for whatever they like, based on their personal preferences.

I would make it every 4 months, but I am game to try every 3 if people think they can work that fast, It's allot to do besides all our other work, but hell, the fame, the glory what the hell, I am in, and maybe can even enter 2 if I am lucky ROTFL hahaha lololol.


Why don't we try three, and if no-one has anything finished, we go for four (or six). I think for people currently working on their games, three months is not an unreasonable timeframe to make a new level. For those rendering movies in Vue, it might be too short, but they can enter (and probably win) every 6 months, or 9, or however long it takes.

But I am also thinking that every 3 months we should have a animation category also separate from the video game engine competition, as animation is way different from gaming.


I agree, just like realtime/non-realtime in the image competition, there would be video/game categories in the multimedia competition. Indeed, we can probably add yet more categories if desired.

So animations every 3 months as well and we say the theme at the beginning of the competitions? and use screen shots in some of the monthly competitions?


I was thinking theme-less, at least initially, so that everyone can enter whatever they're working on. We did the same for the first IoTM competition, and we got a lot of entries.

Anyway, thanks very much for your feedback DeathTwister. It looks like we're pretty much in agreement here, so I'll move ahead an announce the image of the year competition and the video/game competitions some time in the next few days. I very much look forward to seeing your awesome entries.

Best regards,
Aaron.
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Postby tillot » Mon Dec 11, 2006 8:20 am

I'm in agreement as well Aaron.

To summarize:
Image of the month: 2 winners - Real Time and Non Real Time
Quarterly Video Competition: 1 winner - anything goes
Quarterly Game Competition: 1 winner - anything goes
Image of the Year competition: 1 winner - selected from any image in the gallery. Likely to be selected from previous Image of the Month winners.
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