I can't see any arguments why Anuxis items should not be getting in the game.
All the items are top notch and obviously packed and ready to be implemented with some lines of code from Valve. One can assume that time is also a factor when they choose who gets in and who does not. Seems to me like it's all jealousy and that will not get your items in the game. Only hard work will.
I dont think that anyone rumoring seriously about Anuxi & Valve agreement. She is a good. And she worked and work now pretty much to get what she gets. Not saying that i am a big fan of All her items (i am wondering why it took so long to accept her naga set). But most of her items are well made (not only design, but also technical part). Workshop is great thing. It's good real practice platform.
It's understandable how everyone is jealous of Anuxi. She works like a machine and creates really quality items. I personally don't like all of her designs but I can't say a single word about her work quality. I do believe her items have bigger potential getting in the game just because she made them but that may not be the truth. It looks like Valve really has favorites and they add their items with lightning speed, until that favorite artist does something sub-par. Then they say "well, he/she was really good but we must consider his/her work more seriously from now on."
The problem here is, like some of us pointed, lack of feedback. Valve gave us so little direction to begin with and while we are still exploring the borders of our freedom, we don't know when we hit a rock. I'm an architect and designing game stuff required an entirely new perspective, which I didn't have when I was making my first set. You can't listen to people posting at the workshop because (I won't say they are dumb) most of them don't look at the item quality or if it's fitting the hero at all, they will love it and beg Valve to implement that item.
I've been looking at the stuff getting in the game for the past couple of months and there are some vague guidelines that I can give if you want to get your items in game:
1. Choose a hero that has less items and sets. Don't choose Axe.
2. Single weapons have bigger chance to get in game.
3. Stay away from heroes with no default items, they are risky. (like Enigma, Venomancer etc. - Morphling is an exception here)
4. Keeping the color scheme and overall feel is good but it's a double-edged sword. If you don't change much, people wouldn't notice and noone would care. If you change too much, you are taking bigger risks. Sometimes they pay off, if you can show them it was a necessary decision.
There are still very random decisions they make, I can't believe how some of the items got in game or how they became that rare. I wish they become more transparent about their choices, they can at least tell how and why they chose what they chose.
When i see that u guys, who make so good items and sets dont get your items ingame, I as a bigginer in this want to quit modeling. I dont even know how to make good highpoly( or to make highpoly lol ) I am just working on lowpolys and tring to make some good texture. I really think it is pointless to learn modeling when u cant make some money from it. I would like to mby live from this, but i see that school and doing something that u dont really love in life is only way to survive in this world
Thanks man. I believe those tools are in Zbrush. This is the last part I'm currently working with. As a beginner, I only use Sculptris. Mainly for normal mapping and base for textures.
When i see that u guys, who make so good items and sets dont get your items ingame, I as a bigginer in this want to quit modeling. I dont even know how to make good highpoly( or to make highpoly lol ) I am just working on lowpolys and tring to make some good texture. I really think it is pointless to learn modeling when u cant make some money from it. I would like to mby live from this, but i see that school and doing something that u dont really love in life is only way to survive in this world
That's sad, and I believe it's the exact opposite. As I mentioned, I'm an architect but I've been avoiding architecture for as long as I've graduated. Sure, I had to work for 2-3 years but I really hated it and found out I need to find something I can passionately work for. I'm really happy to make items for Dota now, I've been playing it for 10 years and I've been into 3d modeling ever since I finished school. It's the perfect combination for me, plus I can choose my work hours or days
Learning will take time, but Rome wasn't built in one day.
PS: I still don't have any items in the game, maybe tomorrow
When i see that u guys, who make so good items and sets dont get your items ingame, I as a bigginer in this want to quit modeling. I dont even know how to make good highpoly( or to make highpoly lol ) I am just working on lowpolys and tring to make some good texture. I really think it is pointless to learn modeling when u cant make some money from it. I would like to mby live from this, but i see that school and doing something that u dont really love in life is only way to survive in this world
Dude.. There are a lot of information online. At first I also didn't know many things. It's not pointless if you love what you do. Like playing the guitar or drums, going to the gym to work out, etc. Make it a hobby.
When i see that u guys, who make so good items and sets dont get your items ingame, I as a bigginer in this want to quit modeling. I dont even know how to make good highpoly( or to make highpoly lol ) I am just working on lowpolys and tring to make some good texture. I really think it is pointless to learn modeling when u cant make some money from it. I would like to mby live from this, but i see that school and doing something that u dont really love in life is only way to survive in this world
Design process is a fun. Number 1 rule. U must enjoy it. If u seriously want to earn some money, workshop is not the right place to start. Aspecially now.
But here is the truth: When u start do draw, and get something awesome of it, then Zbrush sculpting... Man, thats a great feeling.
That's also a terrible mindset to have. You can't go through life looking at things made by professionals and just say "i can't make the right now so what's the point". I takes time, effort, patience and passion. Eventually if you keep at it you'll become the professional creating work that others look up to.
It's good to look back on your previous work and see the progress you've made, especially when you're still learning and your best work doesn't get the greatest feedback and you may feel down. As many people say, you can't succeed without failing.
That's sad, and I believe it's the exact opposite. As I mentioned, I'm an architect but I've been avoiding architecture for as long as I've graduated. Sure, I had to work for 2-3 years but I really hated it and found out I need to find something I can passionately work for. I'm really happy to make items for Dota now, I've been playing it for 10 years and I've been into 3d modeling ever since I finished school. It's the perfect combination for me, plus I can choose my work hours or days
Learning will take time, but Rome wasn't built in one day.
PS: I still don't have any items in the game, maybe tomorrow
Iam still in highschool (18 years old), and ironically same as u Iam, i hope, future architect. Its an amazing profession, but i found 3d modeling more interesting. U can be your own boss, its so good even to think on that, but accomplishing this seems something impossible for me at this pont.
Thanks man. I believe those tools are in Zbrush. This is the last part I'm currently working with. As a beginner, I only use Sculptris. Mainly for normal mapping and base for textures.
Not good choice actually (i mean software).
Texturing in Zbrush/Sculptris is not a good idea as long as u'll not exporting raw image data with required UV's out of the sculptris.
Normals. There are many quick tools for capturing your HP (High Poly) details to LP mesh. Somebody uses Xnormals, somebody uses Topogun, but there lots more. Thats a big story. )
Also, I'm a bit late to the party, but the first item that I submitted made it into the game (how that happened, I have no idea since it was utter shit) and nothing since Some transparency from Valve would be amazing, I really loved how they commented on each of the Polycount winners, made it clear what they liked/didn't like etc.
I think Valve mentioned in a recent update that all heroes would get their $alphatest set to 1. If you submitted an item with a 32-bit diffuse that was already accepted (and had done a transparency map) then I'd imagine that after this update gets rolled out, some older items should gain their alpha maps. It doesn't seem like Valve has removed the alpha channels from submitted textures (At least this is the case with one of my items that had an alpha map for a hero that did not support it).
Not good choice actually (i mean software).
Texturing in Zbrush/Sculptris is not a good idea as long as u'll not exporting raw image data with required UV's out of the sculptris.
Normals. There are many quick tools for capturing your HP (High Poly) details to LP mesh. Somebody uses Xnormals, somebody uses Topogun, but there lots more. Thats a big story. )
Keep in working, mate.
The way I do it is manually export the high poly from sculptris as obj. Import it in blender and adjust the lowpoly with it or even make a low poly. Then I bake it over the low poly(withUVmaps) to get normals and AO maps in blender. Then do the rest of the textures in GIMP. hehe
In my opinion its best to look at Valve's comments on Polycount winner entries on their blog. Also you can look at items accepted lately and try to guess what made them successful.
For me making items for DOTA is something that I am doing for fun, because I always wanted to have something I created inside game like this. Also hearing opinions of community about my work is also very nice, even if they are sometimes negative.
That doesn't matter, what does is your improvement. In my opinion it will be even harder to get items accepted, so just do it for fun and be positively surprised when it go in instead of be in constant depression when your items aren't accepted.
Workshop should be treated as something additional which provide you some happiness in life, not as a source of income because it's like lottery, and no one should put everything on lottery. It's great for gaining experience, learning workflows, enjoying the game even more. That's all I wanted to say.
I wish you all best of luck in next batch!
Thats how I started, I wanted to build my portfolio and used the workshop as a way to do so. But it's grown into something more, I started making money, real money, enough to pay my student loans, enough here its earning me more then a part time job would. And the fact I'm improving my craft while doing so will just help me down the road. After talking to Mr.Walker yesterday, I gathered that's exactly what he wants people to get out of this, they want to see this grow into another way artist can make a living. Opening more doors in a way. I mean hell, I recommend the workshop to any student learning the craft.
Personally I think that's who it's best for, students that have little work experience in the field that are having a rough time getting their foot in the door. They can come to the workshop, learn techiques, workflows, etc, build a solid portfolio, and potentionally make some money.
Fun is the name of the game, we are all doing what we do because we love to do it. That's what's most important.
I also really like this attitude. There really is something special about making these items, whether or not they go in. Despite having worked in the industry for a few years, it's a thrill to be able to interact and get instant feedback from the community. Industry secrecy has always meant waiting long stretches of time until a batch of screenshots or a trailer was publicly released before having any idea how the public felt about work that was done months or years ago.
I'm getting this vibe from some people that Anuxi is getting preferential treatment from Valve, which is kinda sad to me as I think it's disrespecting the hard work she's put in creating so many high quality items in such a short amount of time.
I agree. I mainly made items that I'd like to have on my character and play with them. If anything the most thing that bothers me that I can't use them in game if Valve doesn't accept them.
I agree. I mainly made items that I'd like to have on my character and play with them. If anything the most thing that bothers me that I can't use them in game if Valve doesn't accept them.
Me too, I normally start making items for a heroe because I just like to play it. Than it start with one item and goes to a complete set, just like brewmaster this time
Some progress on the weapon, the colors aren't final. I might change some metal parts to red.. let me know what you guys think!
Just want to chime in with some more positive vibes~ The workshop is such a great platform for challenging artists and fostering growth-- whether you're a student, hobbyist or a professional. I've worked in the game industry but lacked skills like animation and rigging-- The workshop gave me that kick in the butt to go and learn these things. I also see many others who seem to be specialized in one thing but are taking big leaps to learn/grow other skills, whether it be leveling up their concepting, modeling, or going from environments to characters, etc and vice versa.
Echoing what everyone's said, growing your own skills is only going to benefit you in the long run-- why not be making cool shit for a really cool game while you're at it!?
@Andyk125 Maybe give the chain chunkier links. Similar to that of the Centaur set that was recently added. Otherwise the claw and the dragon ball are looking good. Keep it up. Could be cool if you do a whole set with the dragon theme.
This workshop has pushed me to learn UV mapping, texturing and sculpting. I've been a high poly CG modeler for 2+ years now and never had a reason to deal with those aspects of 3d art since I mostly used UV maps and materials/shaders over UV unwraps and hand painted textures. If I wanted a design carved into my mesh, I would have modeled it by hand... the hard way. It made me a far better modeler, but held me back from diving in to games.
Now I comfortably understand both high and low poly modeling, sculpting, texturing and UV layouts. Thanks, Valve :P
Agreed with that, and with what a lot of people wrote in the last page.
If one is doing the items only with that "hoping for the cash" mindset, that person need to rethink some things.
As Anuxi said, it's more or less like a lottery cash-wise, so you'd better look at it as a very interesting opportunity to practice and become a better artist with the bonus of the possibility of earning cash in the end.
Just wanted to chime in in regards to people's exasperation. I have never seen any official word from Valve on this, but everything I've studied about the workshop as a whole (TF2+Dota), it's absolutely far-fetched to say Valve doesn't pick favorites.
That's not to discredit the high-quality work that preferred contributors put out, as it still has to exist. But pit a great quality workshop entry against another great quality entry, *BUT* that's also been done by a previously-accepted contributor, you know who's going to get picked. And that's not to mention the increased opportunities that established contributors get - look at Valve going to the top TF2 contributors to make the first sets for Dota, or the same top contributors (this is more pertinent to TF2 until Dota gets something similar) that get exclusive offers to work on promotional material.
Again, the contributors got where they are because of the great work they put out, and newcomers always stand a chance of getting picked, but it all compounds to some very stacked odds at times. Suffice to say, hoping for cash because you know you made a great item is not feasible at the moment, unless you're one of the top 10 contributors (by the amount of items you've gotten accepted, that is).
I am personally very exasperated with the situation, not for me (hell, you could argue I am in that group of 'preferred' people), but for the countless great entries that go seemingly overlooked. I have tried sending Valve suggestions to increase the diversity of its picks (contribution quality being equal), but God knows if anyone reads the gigantic piles of mail they get.
Their communication on what goes into entry acceptance would *really* help everyone, methinks.
God knows if anyone reads the gigantic piles of mail they get.
They do, they read everything, just don't respond most of the time.
Now for everyone who wants more communication, i understand the desire myself, because they at least could hint what stuff you should/can change so the item gets more chances to get in, but imagine going through tons of salvageable submissions or just picking top stuff that's already done, tested and ready for release. It seems only natural to pick only the top stuff (But that method gots lots of flaws as it is, i was trying to discuss that, but it seems that i have some time to think about it because Valve is on a vacation now)
What annoys me the most is the lack of flexible feedback about the item acceptance boundaries. First they tellthat you should keep the hero recognizable in silhouette and feel and then they release Centaur set that completely changes the weapon from that hardly goes with the soundsand abilities and give him hornless helm and armor that feels a bit out of character, not to say that it obscures his whole face and completly drops the horns.
It would've been awesome if they communicated with the community a lot more, but i think we should remember that they've got a game to develop, test and support.
Great posts everyone! Keep the good vibes going and the awesome items flowing in
Andyk125! You have a really nice item going there! The texturing on the claw looks awesome! The only thing i'm missing is some more bamboo feel to the wood. Maybe one or two more lines or something.
I gripes me to hear that "if you do it for the greed, you do it wrong",
if the person who said this is active outside of the money workshop (tf2, dota2)
by doing mods, in the other free workshops or in Gamebanana, its advice is fine,
but when i hear this from people who ONLY contribute in the money workshop,
that's wrong to behave like this. It sounds like "do as i said not as i'm doing"
And i hear it too many times.
They do, they read everything, just don't respond most of the time.
Now for everyone who wants more communication, i understand the desire myself, because they at least could hint what stuff you should/can change so the item gets more chances to get in, but imagine going through tons of salvageable submissions or just picking top stuff that's already done, tested and ready for release. It seems only natural to pick only the top stuff (But that method gots lots of flaws as it is, i was trying to discuss that, but it seems that i have some time to think about it because Valve is on a vacation now)
What annoys me the most is the lack of flexible feedback about the item acceptance boundaries. First they tellthat you should keep the hero recognizable in silhouette and feel and then they release Centaur set that completely changes the weapon from that hardly goes with the soundsand abilities and give him hornless helm and armor that feels a bit out of character, not to say that it obscures his whole face and completly drops the horns.
It would've been awesome if they communicated with the community a lot more, but i think we should remember that they've got a game to develop, test and support.
I've read the Valve employee manual and i thought too taking risks were a good idea,
but experience totally shows the contrary, the best direction is to make conservative items
and avoid "pyroland" level of risk. It only works if you are too big to fail, or lottery lucky.
@Andyk125 Maybe give the chain chunkier links. Similar to that of the Centaur set that was recently added. Otherwise the claw and the dragon ball are looking good. Keep it up. Could be cool if you do a whole set with the dragon theme.
I will try and give it a more bulkyy look, the problem there is that the bones are really close to another so I can't beef them up to much
Well I started with just the offhand weapon, and now the weapon, so I was thinking of doing a hole dragon set. Unfortunatly one set for brewmaster just got added :P
Great posts everyone! Keep the good vibes going and the awesome items flowing in
Andyk125! You have a really nice item going there! The texturing on the claw looks awesome! The only thing i'm missing is some more bamboo feel to the wood. Maybe one or two more lines or something.
*edit. Woohoo! Page 200! Have a beer everyone!
Thx Paskie! Glad you like it. I was thinking the same for the bamboo, but because of the diameter it looks really weird to add another line. Also the idea was to make them smaller in the middle, but that took a lot of poly's what i couldn't affort unfortunatly the trilimit is 350 for the lod_1 and 450 for the lod_0..
Here a small preview of what my current concept looks like. Still having some ideas so it might change.
Moving forward, we want to create an open discussion with the community about the techniques that enhance items to top tier status. To the extent that we can help teach, we will. To the extent that we can improve our tools to make it easier to iterate, we will. Initially this may manifest as blog posts from the art team, but longer term we expect to see Workshop features aimed at making iteration easier and technical feedback more visible to the community.
I was also really looking forward to the proposed blog posts from art people at valve regarding workshop stuff for that month, kinda what they did for the polycount contest (or at least that's what I interpreted it as) But we haven't seen any progress on that front with it as of yet Obviously the tools side has vastly improved since the comp which is great
They have worked with some of us on the tools sections to help make their submission system better, but they never took the time to explain what they did. They just said "We would like you to fix this and send us the files so we can do some testing", and then "ok, it works. thanks!"
I understand the frustration of working hard on a project, or many projects, that never come to fruition. Especially if money is tight and you were counting on them. I've scrapped video game projects I've spent a year on because I had bitten off more than I could chew, lost video projects because I was an idiot and didn't make backups, and yes made a bunch of cosmetics that after all that time and effort only get 60 votes. I truly feel your pain.
I'm also very frustrated with valve's lack of communication and feedback, BUT, I also feel like there are some unfair statements/sentiments in this thread that I need to address.
First of all, I don't think anyone here feels like anuxi doesn't deserve that chest, we all know how talented and hardworking she is, but it does appear to have sparked a discussion about the overall frustration with valve's item selection process, that people appear to have pent up for months if not longer.
The word "favoritism" seems to be being thrown around a lot, and I feel like I need to throw some cold water on people's faces and remind them that this how literally all industries, especially entertainment industries, work. It's a combination of brand recognition increasing sales, and building a business relationship. Out of the 5 high-quality sets that anuxi made when she first started only 2 were accepted initially. She had to work her way up too, there are no free-passes unless you happen to be a valve employee. The good news is that we're still very early in dota 2's life-cycle, the perfect time to work hard and build a brand is right now.
If you only want to do this as a casual hobby in your spare time, that's great! BUT you shouldn't be surprised when your submissions are sometimes passed over for someone whom valve has been building that brand/business relationship with on a regular basis.
If you have already been working hard, creating many submissions that don't get accepted. The best advice I can give you is also hardest: Judge your items completely objectively, as if you have no stake in the outcome. Look at your submissions (the complete submission), and then compare them to the ones that got accepted the past few weeks. Is your item of equal quality on a technical level? What about presentation? Were the set pieces submitted all at once or one-by-one? Was it posted on reddit/marketed elsewhere? How good does it look in the portrait view? Or more importantly, the top-down view? How similar is the design to the defaults? How different? Where is it different? Which one would you be willing to spend $10 on?
If you're comparing to one of anuxi's sets, and you feel that her items do X better than you, go find that segment on her stream and watch how she does it. Or simply use google to find methods/tutorials/tips for how to do X. DO NOT just continue to make items of the same quality, always strive to improve, look up new techniques you've never tried before and practice them, and while you do eventually have to ship a finished submission, never be completely satisfied, always ask yourself what could have been done better and then try to learn and improve upon that with your next submission, do not let yourself get stuck on the "ok plateau" (google it).
Ok, now that that's out of the way, this is the part where I do admit that sometimes there will be things out of our control, maybe somebody at valve simply doesn't like a design or was having a bad day, maybe it turns out china doesn't allow killing pandas to be portrayed in any media and your panda design never could have been accepted (or maybe it's accepted anyway!), maybe they somehow simply didn't see your submission because there were a lot of other good submissions that week. BUT, if you're truly working hard, and making many submissions, but none or almost none are getting accepted then that's a sign that you need to make a change.
There's what, maybe 30 of us that post regularly in this forum? And 3.2 million potential customers, when the game still isn't even out of invite-only beta yet? There's plenty to go around for everyone, and valve appears to be increasing their number of accepted items each week.
EDIT: Wow, wasn't expecting this to be so long.
TLDR version: Buckle down, work hard, always think critically about all aspects of your work and strive to improve = profit.
My contribution to this whole "Valve picks favorites" debacle is this.
Valve picks high quality content, whether it is from the same person or different people.
They balance high quality content with popularity.
I've been on both sides of the argument, when I'm mad at Valve for picking favorites, usually I dig down deep and realize its a personal hate for that person, or just plain jealousy.
For those who have worked hard and gotten nothing in return, just keep pushing. When I asked Brandon in Seattle what increases the chances of getting items in-game, and he said "Make more items!".
'nuff said.
Just want to chime in with some more positive vibes~ The workshop is such a great platform for challenging artists and fostering growth-- whether you're a student, hobbyist or a professional. I've worked in the game industry but lacked skills like animation and rigging-- The workshop gave me that kick in the butt to go and learn these things. I also see many others who seem to be specialized in one thing but are taking big leaps to learn/grow other skills, whether it be leveling up their concepting, modeling, or going from environments to characters, etc and vice versa.
Echoing what everyone's said, growing your own skills is only going to benefit you in the long run-- why not be making cool shit for a really cool game while you're at it!?
If you're comparing to one of anuxi's sets, and you feel that her items do X better than you, go find that segment on her stream and watch how she does it. Or simply use google to find methods/tutorials/tips for how to do X. DO NOT just continue to make items of the same quality, always strive to improve, look up new techniques you've never tried before and practice them, and while you do eventually have to ship a finished submission, never be completely satisfied, always ask yourself what could have been done better and then try to learn and improve upon that with your next submission, do not let yourself get stuck on the "ok plateau" (google it).
you guys added so much to the discussion, great to read that
guys, i know everyone has something to complain, i too that i never got a word from valve on 3 couriers, that was like almost 3 months of work. its a lot of time "wasted"
i said "wasted" because i want to get into a point
all those works even not entering the game, we earn something that have a huge value, the experience and the learning. This forum is amazing for that and all the works people post here can be a good example of things to do and dont
valve, a lot of times, lack feedback to us, but i dont know other company that let us make thing for them. its just so amazing that we can work on something for valve and have the chance to get feedback from the communty. where else you can get that ammount of feedback and examples... on game played by 300k people a day?
is easy for us to think that some people have privileges. i saw that same discussion some months ago about Vlad, that he was getting a lot of items in game and wasnt fair...
Sadies and MrPresident said the most important thing here, that we need to keep trying to improve, is not the number of submtions that will make difference, is the quality you can achieve, sometimes we can get a little upset thinking that is unfar.
i have 3 "wasted" couriers on the workshop. i have 2 options, blame valve or try to improve them...
yeah man. I was pretty disappointed when my PL set just kept getting glossed over, but I kept going anyway. I finished two more sets determined to just keep making each one better and as luck would have it they put it all of them at once. I had no idea if anything was going to work out but I just busted my ass off and did the best I could with my friends because I loved the idea of possibly getting my art in a valve game, while practicing my skills.
The money part is pretty much as gambling, can happen and I imagine it's awesome if so, but the process of creation, even in the worst case scenario, is guaranteed to grant you at least some experience and new skills.
So my bet is that enjoying what you're doing and learning is most important, because probably if you do both you're going to do a really good piece in a place in time that will have a good chance to be accepted.
For people that doesn't come from a design/arts academy background, model for mods and are willing to get professional, this is a gold pot, because more than having the possibility of earning money, they give you the theme, the guidelines and the visibility to your art.
The money part is pretty much as gambling, can happen and I imagine it's awesome if so, but the process of creation, even in the worst case scenario, is guaranteed to grant you at least some experience and new skills.
So my bet is that enjoying what you're doing and learning is most important, because probably if you do both you're going to do a really good piece in a place in time that will have a good chance to be accepted.
For people that doesn't come from a design/arts academy background, model for mods and are willing to get professional, this is a gold pot, because more than having the possibility of earning money, they give you the theme, the guidelines and the visibility to your art.
Personally, I feel there is one thing that is being overlooked, or rather, question we haven't asked. I understand if Anuxi doesn't want to answer this, and I don't have a problem if she doesn't. But I am curious, did Anuxi make the conscious decision to go take a risk and make these 11 items without knowing they would be implemented, or was she contacted ahead of time by valve asked to create these items. Maybe not knowing what they would be used for, but that they would eventually be implemented. If the latter is true, then, in my opinion, that whole concept of the workshop being a lottery is incorrect.
Also, if the latter is true, do they plan on doing this with additional big name workshop contributors, for example, a custom Vidotto courier chest.
This whole idea of the workshop being a gamble doesn't register with me, after listening to Gabe talk about the workshop and talking to Robin Walker at GDC it almost feels like their goal with the workshop is to not make it a gamble, but a place where artist, both professional and non professional can put work into their games and earn money for themselves and Valve. "The more items we can get into the game, the better."
I can answer that.
Brandon asked if I was interested in doing any single items. I said;" I dunno I like doing sets." He said it would be cool if you did enough items for a chest.
I was like; "ehhh I dunno."
A month later I was like, "Hey I'm gonna do between 10-14 items, do you think that's enough?" He said something like 'usually we do 8-10 items.' So I planned to do 12-14 just in case some got rejected.
So I made them. I wasn't 100% sure if they would all go in. I was very surprised to see them all listed in the schematic on Thursday.
Basically my motto is go big and go more. Over compensate and something will stick. Amazingly all 12 stuck.
Yes it was an organized chest idea. But all the way through it I felt that all or none of my items may be accepted. I didn't have any guarantee that they would be accepted at all. I just had to submit and see.
Submitting anything to Valve doesn't make you an employee nor give you any guarantees, so yes, if it has chances of not being accepted, it's a gamble.
Obviously the more skilled you are, higher are the chances of your work to be accepted, but it's still a bet, because it's not just a matter of your work being well done, Valve must like it.
About Anuxi, she has item quality and quantity, Valve liked it, they saw potential for a chest and that's it, no further explanations needed.
If you can't see why she earned that chest, I've nothing more to say.
You know if ppl could take the effort into taking as much time at constructive critism istead of these discussion this place would be a lot better for starters and have ppl improve themselves a lot easier!
@Vlad: your "Keratii Guard Heavy Shell" got an awesome texture, although the idea is quite simular as my back armor for Slark Can you texture that one for me as well
Submitting anything to Valve doesn't make you an employee nor give you any guarantees, so yes, if it has chances of not being accepted, it's a gamble.
Obviously the more skilled you are, higher are the chances of your work to be accepted, but it's still a bet, because it's not just a matter of your work being well done, Valve must like it.
About Anuxi, she has item quality and quantity, Valve liked it, they saw potential for a chest and that's it, no further explanations needed.
If you can't see why she earned that chest, I've nothing more to say.
EDIT: Ninja'd.
Whoa whoa whoa! Let me make something very clear. I never once said she didn't deserve that chest, I've always been behind Anuxi since she started working on sets during the polycount contest, she is a very inspiring artist, and I even support her by purchasing most of the sets she makes. I don't think anyone in here will argue that she didn't earn the chest. What I am saying is the workshop isn't as much of a gamble for some people as you would think, and I am also speaking from my own personal experiences dealing with the workshop since day one.
@Vlad: your "Keratii Guard Heavy Shell" got an awesome texture, although the idea is quite simular as my back armor for Slark Can you texture that one for me as well
Oh, idea came from my master-concepteur that resembles bacon sandwich, so i deflect any responsibility in this matter!
If you want me to texture something, hit me up on steam, we'll get to it.
Don't judge people for things that you did't do yourself.
In my opinion some contributor are picked more often only because they produce better items, and can be trusted that those items will look good in game, in menu, on portrait, will have proper skin weights, readable details and so on. Connect that with limited time Valve has to check everything and you will get a simple answer.
Make items and make theme well, so you can be trusted, and you will benefit from them in future, if not on workshop then by finding a good, well paid job.
Happy Easter everyone!!
Great point, Happy Easter to everyone, but that's only in 2 days, at least here
Haha just kidding Vlad, but maybe I need to have a good talk with Mr Bacon sandwich!
To be honost I'm not sure why everyone thinks that it's so hard for Valve to look which items to accept. The time and effort they reduce with other ppl making these items is more then enough to have just 1 or 2 persons looking at the workshop and test out these items. They safe theirselves a lot of money and time this way, and it keeps the community more interested! The problem I'm having is that some items that aren't popular on the workshop or don't look that good, or doesn't use any of the information provided by Valve and still get accepted.
Without a doubt Anuxi has the best quality items around the workshop, I'm really jealous about her items getting accepted all the time, but I rather see all her awesome and great quality items get accepted than some low quality stuff
Let's don't forget ppl where all here for the same reason and let's just help eachother getting better and have some fun!
oh? Who is this hood for? Right now it looks pretty roughed out
I would go in and retop and refine it more to clean it up. Unless the hood is made out of clay
oh? Who is this hood for? Right now it looks pretty roughed out
I would go in and retop and refine it more to clean it up. Unless the hood is made out of clay
Thanks for the advice Anuxi. It's actually for drow. hehe. What do you mean by 'made out of clay'? )
Replies
I dont think that anyone rumoring seriously about Anuxi & Valve agreement. She is a good. And she worked and work now pretty much to get what she gets. Not saying that i am a big fan of All her items (i am wondering why it took so long to accept her naga set). But most of her items are well made (not only design, but also technical part). Workshop is great thing. It's good real practice platform.
The problem here is, like some of us pointed, lack of feedback. Valve gave us so little direction to begin with and while we are still exploring the borders of our freedom, we don't know when we hit a rock. I'm an architect and designing game stuff required an entirely new perspective, which I didn't have when I was making my first set. You can't listen to people posting at the workshop because (I won't say they are dumb) most of them don't look at the item quality or if it's fitting the hero at all, they will love it and beg Valve to implement that item.
I've been looking at the stuff getting in the game for the past couple of months and there are some vague guidelines that I can give if you want to get your items in game:
1. Choose a hero that has less items and sets. Don't choose Axe.
2. Single weapons have bigger chance to get in game.
3. Stay away from heroes with no default items, they are risky. (like Enigma, Venomancer etc. - Morphling is an exception here)
4. Keeping the color scheme and overall feel is good but it's a double-edged sword. If you don't change much, people wouldn't notice and noone would care. If you change too much, you are taking bigger risks. Sometimes they pay off, if you can show them it was a necessary decision.
There are still very random decisions they make, I can't believe how some of the items got in game or how they became that rare. I wish they become more transparent about their choices, they can at least tell how and why they chose what they chose.
Thanks man. I believe those tools are in Zbrush. This is the last part I'm currently working with. As a beginner, I only use Sculptris. Mainly for normal mapping and base for textures.
That's sad, and I believe it's the exact opposite. As I mentioned, I'm an architect but I've been avoiding architecture for as long as I've graduated. Sure, I had to work for 2-3 years but I really hated it and found out I need to find something I can passionately work for. I'm really happy to make items for Dota now, I've been playing it for 10 years and I've been into 3d modeling ever since I finished school. It's the perfect combination for me, plus I can choose my work hours or days
Learning will take time, but Rome wasn't built in one day.
PS: I still don't have any items in the game, maybe tomorrow
Dude.. There are a lot of information online. At first I also didn't know many things. It's not pointless if you love what you do. Like playing the guitar or drums, going to the gym to work out, etc. Make it a hobby.
Design process is a fun. Number 1 rule. U must enjoy it. If u seriously want to earn some money, workshop is not the right place to start. Aspecially now.
But here is the truth: When u start do draw, and get something awesome of it, then Zbrush sculpting... Man, thats a great feeling.
It's good to look back on your previous work and see the progress you've made, especially when you're still learning and your best work doesn't get the greatest feedback and you may feel down. As many people say, you can't succeed without failing.
Iam still in highschool (18 years old), and ironically same as u Iam, i hope, future architect. Its an amazing profession, but i found 3d modeling more interesting. U can be your own boss, its so good even to think on that, but accomplishing this seems something impossible for me at this pont.
Not good choice actually (i mean software).
Texturing in Zbrush/Sculptris is not a good idea as long as u'll not exporting raw image data with required UV's out of the sculptris.
Normals. There are many quick tools for capturing your HP (High Poly) details to LP mesh. Somebody uses Xnormals, somebody uses Topogun, but there lots more. Thats a big story.
Keep in working, mate.
I think Valve mentioned in a recent update that all heroes would get their $alphatest set to 1. If you submitted an item with a 32-bit diffuse that was already accepted (and had done a transparency map) then I'd imagine that after this update gets rolled out, some older items should gain their alpha maps. It doesn't seem like Valve has removed the alpha channels from submitted textures (At least this is the case with one of my items that had an alpha map for a hero that did not support it).
The way I do it is manually export the high poly from sculptris as obj. Import it in blender and adjust the lowpoly with it or even make a low poly. Then I bake it over the low poly(withUVmaps) to get normals and AO maps in blender. Then do the rest of the textures in GIMP. hehe
Thats how I started, I wanted to build my portfolio and used the workshop as a way to do so. But it's grown into something more, I started making money, real money, enough to pay my student loans, enough here its earning me more then a part time job would. And the fact I'm improving my craft while doing so will just help me down the road. After talking to Mr.Walker yesterday, I gathered that's exactly what he wants people to get out of this, they want to see this grow into another way artist can make a living. Opening more doors in a way. I mean hell, I recommend the workshop to any student learning the craft.
Personally I think that's who it's best for, students that have little work experience in the field that are having a rough time getting their foot in the door. They can come to the workshop, learn techiques, workflows, etc, build a solid portfolio, and potentionally make some money.
Fun is the name of the game, we are all doing what we do because we love to do it. That's what's most important.
Me too, I normally start making items for a heroe because I just like to play it. Than it start with one item and goes to a complete set, just like brewmaster this time
Some progress on the weapon, the colors aren't final. I might change some metal parts to red.. let me know what you guys think!
Echoing what everyone's said, growing your own skills is only going to benefit you in the long run-- why not be making cool shit for a really cool game while you're at it!?
I'm having a problem, Ive imported my ward but can't submit it, tried different things and searched google
Now I comfortably understand both high and low poly modeling, sculpting, texturing and UV layouts. Thanks, Valve :P
If one is doing the items only with that "hoping for the cash" mindset, that person need to rethink some things.
As Anuxi said, it's more or less like a lottery cash-wise, so you'd better look at it as a very interesting opportunity to practice and become a better artist with the bonus of the possibility of earning cash in the end.
That's not to discredit the high-quality work that preferred contributors put out, as it still has to exist. But pit a great quality workshop entry against another great quality entry, *BUT* that's also been done by a previously-accepted contributor, you know who's going to get picked. And that's not to mention the increased opportunities that established contributors get - look at Valve going to the top TF2 contributors to make the first sets for Dota, or the same top contributors (this is more pertinent to TF2 until Dota gets something similar) that get exclusive offers to work on promotional material.
Again, the contributors got where they are because of the great work they put out, and newcomers always stand a chance of getting picked, but it all compounds to some very stacked odds at times. Suffice to say, hoping for cash because you know you made a great item is not feasible at the moment, unless you're one of the top 10 contributors (by the amount of items you've gotten accepted, that is).
I am personally very exasperated with the situation, not for me (hell, you could argue I am in that group of 'preferred' people), but for the countless great entries that go seemingly overlooked. I have tried sending Valve suggestions to increase the diversity of its picks (contribution quality being equal), but God knows if anyone reads the gigantic piles of mail they get.
Their communication on what goes into entry acceptance would *really* help everyone, methinks.
Now for everyone who wants more communication, i understand the desire myself, because they at least could hint what stuff you should/can change so the item gets more chances to get in, but imagine going through tons of salvageable submissions or just picking top stuff that's already done, tested and ready for release. It seems only natural to pick only the top stuff (But that method gots lots of flaws as it is, i was trying to discuss that, but it seems that i have some time to think about it because Valve is on a vacation now)
What annoys me the most is the lack of flexible feedback about the item acceptance boundaries. First they tellthat you should keep the hero recognizable in silhouette and feel and then they release Centaur set that completely changes the weapon from that hardly goes with the soundsand abilities and give him hornless helm and armor that feels a bit out of character, not to say that it obscures his whole face and completly drops the horns.
It would've been awesome if they communicated with the community a lot more, but i think we should remember that they've got a game to develop, test and support.
Andyk125! You have a really nice item going there! The texturing on the claw looks awesome! The only thing i'm missing is some more bamboo feel to the wood. Maybe one or two more lines or something.
*edit. Woohoo! Page 200! Have a beer everyone!
if the person who said this is active outside of the money workshop (tf2, dota2)
by doing mods, in the other free workshops or in Gamebanana, its advice is fine,
but when i hear this from people who ONLY contribute in the money workshop,
that's wrong to behave like this. It sounds like "do as i said not as i'm doing"
And i hear it too many times.
I've read the Valve employee manual and i thought too taking risks were a good idea,
but experience totally shows the contrary, the best direction is to make conservative items
and avoid "pyroland" level of risk. It only works if you are too big to fail, or lottery lucky.
I will try and give it a more bulkyy look, the problem there is that the bones are really close to another so I can't beef them up to much
Well I started with just the offhand weapon, and now the weapon, so I was thinking of doing a hole dragon set. Unfortunatly one set for brewmaster just got added :P
Thx Paskie! Glad you like it. I was thinking the same for the bamboo, but because of the diameter it looks really weird to add another line. Also the idea was to make them smaller in the middle, but that took a lot of poly's what i couldn't affort unfortunatly
Here a small preview of what my current concept looks like. Still having some ideas so it might change.
I was also really looking forward to the proposed blog posts from art people at valve regarding workshop stuff for that month, kinda what they did for the polycount contest (or at least that's what I interpreted it as) But we haven't seen any progress on that front with it as of yet
I understand the frustration of working hard on a project, or many projects, that never come to fruition. Especially if money is tight and you were counting on them. I've scrapped video game projects I've spent a year on because I had bitten off more than I could chew, lost video projects because I was an idiot and didn't make backups, and yes made a bunch of cosmetics that after all that time and effort only get 60 votes. I truly feel your pain.
I'm also very frustrated with valve's lack of communication and feedback, BUT, I also feel like there are some unfair statements/sentiments in this thread that I need to address.
First of all, I don't think anyone here feels like anuxi doesn't deserve that chest, we all know how talented and hardworking she is, but it does appear to have sparked a discussion about the overall frustration with valve's item selection process, that people appear to have pent up for months if not longer.
The word "favoritism" seems to be being thrown around a lot, and I feel like I need to throw some cold water on people's faces and remind them that this how literally all industries, especially entertainment industries, work. It's a combination of brand recognition increasing sales, and building a business relationship. Out of the 5 high-quality sets that anuxi made when she first started only 2 were accepted initially. She had to work her way up too, there are no free-passes unless you happen to be a valve employee. The good news is that we're still very early in dota 2's life-cycle, the perfect time to work hard and build a brand is right now.
If you only want to do this as a casual hobby in your spare time, that's great! BUT you shouldn't be surprised when your submissions are sometimes passed over for someone whom valve has been building that brand/business relationship with on a regular basis.
If you have already been working hard, creating many submissions that don't get accepted. The best advice I can give you is also hardest: Judge your items completely objectively, as if you have no stake in the outcome. Look at your submissions (the complete submission), and then compare them to the ones that got accepted the past few weeks. Is your item of equal quality on a technical level? What about presentation? Were the set pieces submitted all at once or one-by-one? Was it posted on reddit/marketed elsewhere? How good does it look in the portrait view? Or more importantly, the top-down view? How similar is the design to the defaults? How different? Where is it different? Which one would you be willing to spend $10 on?
If you're comparing to one of anuxi's sets, and you feel that her items do X better than you, go find that segment on her stream and watch how she does it. Or simply use google to find methods/tutorials/tips for how to do X. DO NOT just continue to make items of the same quality, always strive to improve, look up new techniques you've never tried before and practice them, and while you do eventually have to ship a finished submission, never be completely satisfied, always ask yourself what could have been done better and then try to learn and improve upon that with your next submission, do not let yourself get stuck on the "ok plateau" (google it).
Ok, now that that's out of the way, this is the part where I do admit that sometimes there will be things out of our control, maybe somebody at valve simply doesn't like a design or was having a bad day, maybe it turns out china doesn't allow killing pandas to be portrayed in any media and your panda design never could have been accepted (or maybe it's accepted anyway!), maybe they somehow simply didn't see your submission because there were a lot of other good submissions that week. BUT, if you're truly working hard, and making many submissions, but none or almost none are getting accepted then that's a sign that you need to make a change.
There's what, maybe 30 of us that post regularly in this forum? And 3.2 million potential customers, when the game still isn't even out of invite-only beta yet? There's plenty to go around for everyone, and valve appears to be increasing their number of accepted items each week.
EDIT: Wow, wasn't expecting this to be so long.
TLDR version: Buckle down, work hard, always think critically about all aspects of your work and strive to improve = profit.
Valve picks high quality content, whether it is from the same person or different people.
They balance high quality content with popularity.
I've been on both sides of the argument, when I'm mad at Valve for picking favorites, usually I dig down deep and realize its a personal hate for that person, or just plain jealousy.
For those who have worked hard and gotten nothing in return, just keep pushing. When I asked Brandon in Seattle what increases the chances of getting items in-game, and he said "Make more items!".
'nuff said.
this constant spam cleaning is getting to me
you guys added so much to the discussion, great to read that
guys, i know everyone has something to complain, i too that i never got a word from valve on 3 couriers, that was like almost 3 months of work. its a lot of time "wasted"
i said "wasted" because i want to get into a point
all those works even not entering the game, we earn something that have a huge value, the experience and the learning. This forum is amazing for that and all the works people post here can be a good example of things to do and dont
valve, a lot of times, lack feedback to us, but i dont know other company that let us make thing for them. its just so amazing that we can work on something for valve and have the chance to get feedback from the communty. where else you can get that ammount of feedback and examples... on game played by 300k people a day?
is easy for us to think that some people have privileges. i saw that same discussion some months ago about Vlad, that he was getting a lot of items in game and wasnt fair...
Sadies and MrPresident said the most important thing here, that we need to keep trying to improve, is not the number of submtions that will make difference, is the quality you can achieve, sometimes we can get a little upset thinking that is unfar.
i have 3 "wasted" couriers on the workshop. i have 2 options, blame valve or try to improve them...
Man, because of what you said. I am now using Lazy brush a lot. At first I didn't know what it treally was for. LOL. XD
The money part is pretty much as gambling, can happen and I imagine it's awesome if so, but the process of creation, even in the worst case scenario, is guaranteed to grant you at least some experience and new skills.
So my bet is that enjoying what you're doing and learning is most important, because probably if you do both you're going to do a really good piece in a place in time that will have a good chance to be accepted.
For people that doesn't come from a design/arts academy background, model for mods and are willing to get professional, this is a gold pot, because more than having the possibility of earning money, they give you the theme, the guidelines and the visibility to your art.
That not a must have tool. But sometimes it works pretty well.
Congratulations to all with your accepted submissions. Friday is always a good day )
Personally, I feel there is one thing that is being overlooked, or rather, question we haven't asked. I understand if Anuxi doesn't want to answer this, and I don't have a problem if she doesn't. But I am curious, did Anuxi make the conscious decision to go take a risk and make these 11 items without knowing they would be implemented, or was she contacted ahead of time by valve asked to create these items. Maybe not knowing what they would be used for, but that they would eventually be implemented. If the latter is true, then, in my opinion, that whole concept of the workshop being a lottery is incorrect.
Also, if the latter is true, do they plan on doing this with additional big name workshop contributors, for example, a custom Vidotto courier chest.
This whole idea of the workshop being a gamble doesn't register with me, after listening to Gabe talk about the workshop and talking to Robin Walker at GDC it almost feels like their goal with the workshop is to not make it a gamble, but a place where artist, both professional and non professional can put work into their games and earn money for themselves and Valve. "The more items we can get into the game, the better."
Brandon asked if I was interested in doing any single items. I said;" I dunno I like doing sets." He said it would be cool if you did enough items for a chest.
I was like; "ehhh I dunno."
A month later I was like, "Hey I'm gonna do between 10-14 items, do you think that's enough?" He said something like 'usually we do 8-10 items.' So I planned to do 12-14 just in case some got rejected.
So I made them. I wasn't 100% sure if they would all go in. I was very surprised to see them all listed in the schematic on Thursday.
Basically my motto is go big and go more. Over compensate and something will stick. Amazingly all 12 stuck.
Yes it was an organized chest idea. But all the way through it I felt that all or none of my items may be accepted. I didn't have any guarantee that they would be accepted at all. I just had to submit and see.
Hope that clears things up.
Obviously the more skilled you are, higher are the chances of your work to be accepted, but it's still a bet, because it's not just a matter of your work being well done, Valve must like it.
About Anuxi, she has item quality and quantity, Valve liked it, they saw potential for a chest and that's it, no further explanations needed.
If you can't see why she earned that chest, I've nothing more to say.
EDIT: Ninja'd.
@Vlad: your "Keratii Guard Heavy Shell" got an awesome texture, although the idea is quite simular as my back armor for Slark
Whoa whoa whoa! Let me make something very clear. I never once said she didn't deserve that chest, I've always been behind Anuxi since she started working on sets during the polycount contest, she is a very inspiring artist, and I even support her by purchasing most of the sets she makes. I don't think anyone in here will argue that she didn't earn the chest. What I am saying is the workshop isn't as much of a gamble for some people as you would think, and I am also speaking from my own personal experiences dealing with the workshop since day one.
If you want me to texture something, hit me up on steam, we'll get to it.
In my opinion some contributor are picked more often only because they produce better items, and can be trusted that those items will look good in game, in menu, on portrait, will have proper skin weights, readable details and so on. Connect that with limited time Valve has to check everything and you will get a simple answer.
Make items and make theme well, so you can be trusted, and you will benefit from them in future, if not on workshop then by finding a good, well paid job.
Happy Easter everyone!!
Haha just kidding Vlad, but maybe I need to have a good talk with Mr Bacon sandwich!
To be honost I'm not sure why everyone thinks that it's so hard for Valve to look which items to accept. The time and effort they reduce with other ppl making these items is more then enough to have just 1 or 2 persons looking at the workshop and test out these items. They safe theirselves a lot of money and time this way, and it keeps the community more interested! The problem I'm having is that some items that aren't popular on the workshop or don't look that good, or doesn't use any of the information provided by Valve and still get accepted.
Without a doubt Anuxi has the best quality items around the workshop, I'm really jealous about her items getting accepted all the time, but I rather see all her awesome and great quality items get accepted than some low quality stuff
Let's don't forget ppl where all here for the same reason and let's just help eachother getting better and have some fun!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=135045635
*edit - well jeepers i posted in the middle of a huge conversation... you'll have to pardon my intrusion.
I mean about the item, not the texturing!
I got the 5000th reply, do I win anything?
I would go in and retop and refine it more to clean it up. Unless the hood is made out of clay
Thanks for the advice Anuxi. It's actually for drow. hehe. What do you mean by 'made out of clay'?