To clarify for those few people considering using Source, would Source Filmmaker be disqualified for in-engine beauty shots?
ANSWER: I spoke with Valve to confirm, and the SFM outputs a movie file. So while you might be capturing in real-time, the final result would be a rendered movie file. All beauty shots must come from a real-time solution.
I have a thread started prior to this competition but it only contains concept art (as in no 3D modelling/engine work has been started at all). Can this be adapted for this competition?
Answer: No, and thank you for being honest. All work needs to be original for this contest.
Pity we can't use SFM, but it makes sense why it would be disqualified, with the potential of post-production tools and all. So if I wanted to go towards an animation route, could I create a "cutscene" inside of Source or some other engine and capture it in real-time?
The reason I ask is that I am more into rigging/animation, and the contest rules said this is open to as many video game artist types as possible. This theme has a lot of potential for a nice short film, so I'd love to give a try if it will fit within the contest rules!
Answer: Your final submission is in images with specifications on their own. There is no interactive or video aspect to the submission guidelines. That doesn't mean you can't make these things, it just means that when it comes time to submit you will be submitting images.
I have a thread started prior to this competition but it only contains concept art (as in no 3D modelling/engine work has been started at all). Can this be adapted for this competition?
Answer: No, and thank you for being honest. All work needs to be original for this contest.
this should be in the rules
i was already thinking about working on a part of our story that only exists on paper, but would definitely not be done from scratch, party, yeah but most stuff would be already made stock
Answer: The rules should make it clear that the intention of this challenge is to create completely brand new artwork for your depiction of an escape. If you've had ideas in the past that might fit this, where there has been no previous artwork made for it then feel free to use that as a starting point. [Adam note: I would personally love to see a depiction of an Escape happening in the world or aesthetic of Airborne.]
Can we work to next gen spec or will that be seen as wasteful poly distribution/texture resolution etc.? I know it says no polycount/texture limit aslong as its reasonable but theres also a big bit on optimisation and game ready asset creation. A next gen prop is going to look pretty wasteful from a current gen perspective is what Im trying to say.
great competition BTW
Answer: Yes. Mainly we just don't want to see 8k textures on a crate...
to be clear, individual artists will be mixed with teams and judged together or will get separate judging? It looks like a bit unfair to mix them imo.
Answer: The final submission will be judged as a single submission. That is stated in the contest page. There is nothing stopping a single character artist from dominating this contest. Just look around Polycount for some inspiration on how you might do that
A beauty shot is the final artistic submission for this contest and will be where the majority of people form their opinions from when judging your submission. as the team or individual creating your entry from scratch, you have full control over its art direction, style, presentation and design. beauty shots are your chance to show that.
Given that this is the case, I'm going to assume working on an interactive piece is a complete waste of time?
Answer: You can use the interactive piece in your thread and show it there, but for the final submissions we're asking for images. Who knows, people might appreciate the effort and reward you with a vote?
A friend of mine is curious about how the integration into the challenge with concept art works. Is he allowed to submit his concept piece as his final entry? Or can it only be a concept piece in that it then gets made into a 3D in-engine piece?
Answer: The concepts will be included in the final submissions as Tech/Idle shots (see the contest page for information). They will not be submitted or judged separately.
this contest is for any and all areas of video game artenvironment + character + vehicle + weapon + fx + concept are all welcome to enter.
your entry must contain either an environment or a character (or both). weapon, concept and FX artists who want to enter this contest must collaborate with either or both an environment artist or a character artist or create either of those themselves
Awesome! This makes me happy. However what about a solo vehicle entry? It was clear on the weapons and FX that it had to be done collaborative and characters and environments could be solo...
I honestly think if a character could stand alone then a complex enough vehicle could too... maybe more so if there was a little diorama/complex stand?
Answer: Solo vehicle is fine so long as you're depicting an escape. I have updated the contest page to say this.
Can you submit both a group submission, then do a separate single submission for a completely different assest\scene or what have you? Or can you work with multiple teams?
Answer: Multiple submissions is fine so long as they are all original depictions of an escape.
There's no limit to the number of beauty (or technical) shots we submit correct? So, could we say create a whole environment, a set of hero characters, and then re-pose them throughout the scene in our beauty shots and literally depict an entire chase through still images? Some elements of the environment may change as well as the chase proceeds.
Since the end product is still images, I was just wondering if this an acceptable interpretation of the rules.
Answer: Creativity is important for this contest and if that idea will show your depiction of an escape the best, then go for it.
Hello everyone.
I have a story made up about an escape from a certain enemy, I'm gonna model and texture few different characters and a simple environment. the question is - can I use some concept character art made by other people, for this challenge if I'm working alone? or must everything be originally made by me? and by "use" I mean not as a reference, but just making a 3d model from what I see in 2d concept. maybe this is clear for everyone but I really wanted to make sure
Answer: This has been stated before in another question: Everything must be made exclusively for this challenge.
I realize one of the above Q&As addressed this but I feel like animation is getting overlooked in the guidelines as I understand them. There should be a separate guideline that states Fraps or something comparable will be used to capture animation in the engine. Animation will not include cinematics but rather gameplay of the playable character and any bosses or cannon fodder that exists. There will not be beautiful, Final Fantasy style renders. Instead it will be game rez art with bone limitations and animtrees and kismet and uscript etc. Unless working with a team, the focus shouldn't be how awesome the environments, textures or lighting is executed. The animation can play out in a Metal Gear style VR missions environment. There is not enough representation for animation on Polycount and there are lots of talented artists that come to these pages everyday. Along with Stephen Vyas and others, animation will be slowly inserted into the community and should be considered for all applicable competitions. With the same restraints, restrictions and artistic considerations as everyone else. Thanks for considering animation for entry. Also, I will be working with a fellow artist/programmer, Justin Gallo, to create an entry for "The Escape" that will include a hero, cannon fodder and a boss fight. It'll be simple with a focus on gameplay animation, not cinematics. Hopefully more animators will join.
Answer: This isn't a challenge that includes animations, unfortunately. It is stated in the opening paragraph for the contest that this is a bit of a test for us, to see how well a more open contest will do. If the test proves successful, then we'll look at opening it up further to broader disciplines that expand outward from 'image based submissions' in the future. If teams have an animator on them, that is fine. But the final submissions will be images only as per the guidelines.
Hey Adam, if we were doing an animated scene, and fraps it all from within the game engine, why is that not allowed? It's still real time, far more than a screen shot would be, would it not? That actually kind of sucks that we can't do a sequence, especially for a contest that would benefit so much from having one. It makes me sad that animators get the shaft again.
What if we submitted the 2 beauty shots as screen shots, then our "tech" shot was the movie?
Answer: The final submissions are images. This, unfortunately, is not an animation challenge and therefor will not use video for its final submissions. You or your team can include videos (however you may like to do so) in your threads, but the final submissions will be in image format.
Can we start as a solo entry, then let someone join you and make a group?
Answer: Sure, so long as they can show significant input with WIP shots and development along the way. (Read: They shouldn't be joining you with 24 hours left to go in the contest.)
Hey Adam, got a question for ya.
Is it ok to create an art piece that fits in a already existing setting? (I.e, I'm creating a character who should fit in the Dead Space universe)
I have a few reasons why:
- Restrictions. There's a lot of guidelines for what works and what doesn't.
- Since it's already a game, it already has a polycount/texture size/etc I can use as reference.
- I like the setting. I'm not gonna lie, I've wanted to do a fan art piece for a long time.
~Pixelpencil
Answer: You are more than welcome to create something brand new for an existing property. So long as the work made is 100% created for this challenge, that is fine.
Answer: Your final submission is in images with specifications on their own. There is no interactive or video aspect to the submission guidelines. That doesn't mean you can't make these things, it just means that when it comes time to submit you will be submitting images.
ANSWER: I spoke with Valve to confirm, and the SFM outputs a movie file. So while you might be capturing in real-time, the final result would be a rendered movie file. All beauty shots must come from a real-time solution.
complete and utter horse shit. you should be able to judge on both. by all means disallow post effects to be used in video editors and such, but if a cutscene is recorded in realtime using kismet in udk, or unity with their scripting tools, i really don't understand the issue.
once again you've dicked over the few animators we have left here at polycount, who seem to mostly have left over things like this.
and more importantly, you've placed a pretty huge restriction on something you wanted to remain unrestrictive.
and for what? recording means you're left with a movie file... but it's still recorded from a realtime solution. hell, we can even fraps the thing with the software showing, to prove it's realtime. and to top it all off, this sounds like you truly believe people won't be adding any kind of post work in photoshop to their stills taken from "realtime solutions".
I am doing a solo project I think, however a friend of mine offered me to rig my characters. When I accept this offer will this make us a team, or are there other rules concerned rigging and other technical stuff?
complete and utter horse shit. you should be able to judge on both. by all means disallow post effects to be used in video editors and such, but if a cutscene is recorded in realtime using kismet in udk, or unity with their scripting tools, i really don't understand the issue.
once again you've dicked over the few animators we have left here at polycount, who seem to mostly have left over things like this.
and more importantly, you've placed a pretty huge restriction on something you wanted to remain unrestrictive.
and for what? recording means you're left with a movie file... but it's still recorded from a realtime solution. hell, we can even fraps the thing with the software showing, to prove it's realtime. and to top it all off, this sounds like you truly believe people won't be adding any kind of post work in photoshop to their stills taken from "realtime solutions".
so fucking short sighted man.
This isn't an 'answer' per se so I'll reply directly from my account.
You're right, animators/animation is a demographic at Polycount that is incredibly tiny when compared to the rest of the disciplines we have. This is something I personally want to see grow. Judging by your thoughts on the Escape, that is hard to believe right now I am sure.
Animations require video to really showcase their work so we decided to not allow for 'video/animations' as part of the final submissions. I feel like to be fairly judged we'd need a separate 'animation' category for those submissions and that isn't something we wanted for the Escape. We wanted it to be as simple as possible: 'Top 3 Overall'. A solo character artist has just as much a chance to compete against an entire team of 5 for winning this contest. If we allowed for animations/videos to be included in submissions, we don't think the judging for 'Top 3 Overall' would be fair, so we didn't include it for the Escape.
Going forward, it's been our goal to have more discipline specific challenges that would be on a smaller scale than something like the Escape. The idea being that these discipline-focused challenges would help bring in those types of developers to Polycount.(We weren't going to include 'FX artists' as part of this challenge because of how small a group they are at Polycount, but their work can be shown rather nicely in images so we decided to allow it.)
To the same tune as the FX artists allowance you are, however, allowed to work with a team for posing/rigging/and so on so that the final submissions has as much energy and movement in it as possible. There is no stopping you from working this way.
Hopefully you can see now that we're not being short-sighted, and that we have very specific goals with the types of submissions for this contest. We have been thinking well in to the future for Polycount and the type of developer groups we have here. We'd like to do smaller challenges for those groups so that they become more prevalent around Polycount but starting this initiative for the Escape, and having multiple voting categories, isn't our goal. The goal, quite simply, is beautiful video game imagery depicting an escape.
TL;DR: Animators are welcome to work with a team. We just ask that no videos are submitted for the final submissions so that we can keep to an 'Overall Top 3' single category for the Escape. Otherwise we'd need multiple categories, which isn't the intent of this challenge.
When it comes time for us to start focusing on an animation challenge, almighty_gir, I'd love to work with you on it to make sure its a great one.
that's just it though man. you ARE being short-sighted.
by opening up any form of competition to groups, you should absolutely allow all disciplines involved. you've allowed teams of 5 artists... that's pretty much the perfect amount.
concept artist
character artist
environment artist
vfx artist
animator
you're saying that a solo artist who only provides still shots couldn't compete against movies? i beg to differ. i can think of a million photographs i'd rather sit and look at for two hours, than a Uwe Boll movie. ultimately it comes down to final quality, not quantity of work. so the judging should be absolutely no different.
here's the thing though, i'm not an animator. in fact i'm pretty incompetent at even building my own rigs (max biped 4 life yo!). but the fact remains that you've stifled the creative vision of many people with this absolutely rediculous rule. and more to the point, you've actually created a loophole people can more easily abuse to achieve good results.
a character artist who has absolutely zero working knowledge of "proper" topology for animation, or deformation etc. can still achieve some very nice looking still shots... just through brute force and "hacky" techniques like tweaking the posed mesh in zbrush to get everything looking pretty. and you will ABSOLUTELY have those in the finals of this competition, and i'd even wager some of them make it very high in the rankings.
by disallowing animated scenes, you're allowing people to do those things. and really, when you claim the contest is:
IMPORTANT: the Escape is a Polycount Challenge about creating optimized, beautiful, in-engine videogame art. it is not a challenge for sculpting or highpoly abilities specifically
it becomes rather apparent that it's actually the opposite. as some of the best looking pieces will never be game ready in the slightest. and will absolutely be about sculpting abilities.
p.s.
sorry for my colourful language in the previous post, this is something i'm extremely passionate about... i hate when "video game art" competitions turn into "who can hack together the best final shots" competitions.
Myself and the rest of the Polycount team have absolutely no concerns over the favourites that are voted on by the community being shining examples of beautiful 'in-engine' video game art and not, as you put it, hacked-together images.
This is a stills contest, first and foremost. If we were to have a cinematic contest, it would make sense for the final presentation to be in video form. I really have to agree with Adam in that accepting both would really skew the judging. So you would need to have another category entirely, which really runs against the grain of what we're doing here - having a contest that is far more open than any we have ever run before.
We could do a cinematic contest, but then we would really be limiting the amount of people who could participate, as most of polycount's members are not animators.
However, with the current contest as is, a skilled animator/rigger could easily find a place on a team full of artists who are not familiar with the finer points of rigging and posing a character. I think the idea that not allowing videos/animations somehow undermines the legitimacy of the whole thing is grossly overstated.
The entries will be judged by your peers and optimization is an important factor, if you make a model with horrible topology and hack it together for a pretty render, I think most of our users will be able to spot it.
This is the most open and inclusive contest we've ever attempted, if all goes well we will likely consider expanding it to include even more disciplines, however we feel the current format offers a good balance of getting as many people involved as possible while still maintaining a level playing field.
My team partner is an animator.
He's going to rig and animate our stuff and we're going to post it.
The final entry will be a still image, but we'll have enough to back up our work to prove it's in-game and working.
Trust me, there's a message trail where I fought HARD to not let this contest be all about the final image. I want our members to vote for these entries by being smart about it all and know when an entry has messy topology vs great topology.
I was thinking of using Skyrim's Creation Engine if I do an entry. Given all the hoolabalah about post-effects, figured I should ask. There's a 3rd party post-effects plugin that works in realtime (ENBSeries), that can go very heavy on postwork, and I'd hate to cross the line of "too much" effect, edging into bullshot territory and end up disqualified. Is this something I should worry about?
I was thinking of using Skyrim's Creation Engine if I do an entry. Given all the hoolabalah about post-effects, figured I should ask. There's a 3rd party post-effects plugin that works in realtime (ENBSeries), that can go very heavy on postwork, and I'd hate to cross the line of "too much" effect, edging into bullshot territory and end up disqualified. Is this something I should worry about?
Answer: Some questions for you to ask yourself:
-Would the images you show for your beauty renders be of something from a real-time game engine?
-Would all of the post-processing work be created with these tools?
If you answered 'Yes' to both of these then feel free to use the engine. If you answered 'No' to either of them, then you cannot use it.
is it possible to be part of a team submission with multiple characters done by other contributors while putting up your own individual submission using the same assets (environment, props, etc.) but showcasing YOUR original character which was also used in the team submission?
Answer: No. Original artwork will need to be made exclusively for each individual submissions.
Answer: Solo vehicle is fine so long as you're depicting an escape. I have updated the contest page to say this.
Obviously depicting an escape is up to the individual, but could you elaborate a bit on how you would do this without an environment? As a practical example, how would you depict an escape for Alan's Charger model?
Motion fx, posing? That's about all I can think. I'd like to attempt an environment too, but due to time restraints doing a solo vehicle is really appealing to me.
hi,
i'd like to participate with a team of coworkers. however, we ask ourselves, if we can use our own inhouse (realtime) engine, that is not public.
it was used for e.g. Risen 2 a 3rd person RPG
this engine is the one of our company, and we would be perhaps allowed to use it (not sure yet, but i first wanted to ask you)
thx!
sascha
Answer: Yes. So long as what your images are showing are captures from a real-time dev engine/environment, that is fine. Also, don't forget to have this approved from your managers before using it for this contest!
I have looked around and really haven't found anything on this, so just looking to see if there is a preference.
Is it preferred if the environment is fully playable? Allowing the player to wander. Or can I focus solely on the assets/areas that are exposed from my 2 beauty shots angles and construct the scene accordingly?
Does one or the other look more favourably for judging/consideration?
Thanks
Answer: Your responsibility is to the beauty shots, so work however you need to ensure they are beautiful.
Q. Can we use scrapped works that have not been implemented in other works for this contest?
Answer: No, and thank you for being honest and asking first.
Q. Can we use the assets created for this contest for other future works? Because I'm planning to make some materials that I haven't made yet for a game that isn't done yet. So I'm wondering if I can make those materials to put it into this contest then put it into my game. Or would I have to do a different variation of the material?
Answer: You will own this work and can do whatever you'd like to do with the art once the contest is over.
how about the textures, i assume, we can incorporate cgtextures and alike pages and teh internets in its full splendor, and do not have to go on photo safari?
though taking own pics would surely be more honorable ;D
Answer: The textures you use are to be created for the Escape. It doesn't matter where you get your photo sources from.
Hello, I'm pretty new to polycount, but I would really love to enter this contest. I wanted to make sure if it was okay if I used an environment I created for a school assignment. It's not textured or anything yet, but I would remove/add a lot to it also.
Answer: This has been stated numerous times in this thread: All work has to be original for this contest. You cannot reuse existing geometry, texturing, FX, concepts and so on for this Challenge.
Solo entries You must create a thread in the contest forum. You will use this thread to show your WIP (work-in-progress) as you go. The polycount community must be able to look back on your progress of this entry for it to be judged.
Collaborative entries You and your team must create a single thread for your teams entry in the contest forum. Your team will use this thread to show your WIP (work-in-progress) as you go. The polycount community must be able to look back on your progress of this entry for it to be judged.
What is needed in work in progress portion in the thread? Please list. Because I'm not really sure if you are suppose to put in reference images as well as vague concepts. What is being looked at?
Answer: Whatever you think is necessary to best show your creative process for your submission. In the past, the majority of threads show everything as it comes.
Reference images / moodboards are great to show off the direction you intend to go, they're mostly optional.
Work-In-Progress images include screeenshots showing your modeling and texturing work as you progress with your project. Everything from your concept sketches, model blockouts, high and low poly construction sequences, etc.
I hope this hasn't been asked yet. Final submissions have to be at least one shot but can be up to several shots right? We want to show our scene in at least 3 shots from different perspectives. Does that mean all shots have to show the exact same compostion of events and depict the same moment in time?
Our theme is a car chase / get away / crash / road block pass. Could one shot show the hero car approach the roadblock, one where it crashes into it and the third how it escapes? It would roughly be the same event but actually 3 close moments in time each telling a little piece of the story.
Can somebody change teams as long as the person doesn't get credited for both of the projects, meaning the persons' name will only be on one submission?
If so, how would the assets get split up, would it just belong to the team for the contest?
THat's fine. You can submit multiple entries as well. The only rule there is that the work has to be exclusive to that entry. Fudging on this and creating grey areas is prone to opening up other grey areas we'd rather not have to deal with.
Is it cool to have a replacement team member? We started with 5 and one is dropping out, and we'd like to bring in another person. We can throw out the work that was done by the member leaving if necessary.
Replies
ANSWER: I spoke with Valve to confirm, and the SFM outputs a movie file. So while you might be capturing in real-time, the final result would be a rendered movie file. All beauty shots must come from a real-time solution.
Answer: No, and thank you for being honest. All work needs to be original for this contest.
The reason I ask is that I am more into rigging/animation, and the contest rules said this is open to as many video game artist types as possible. This theme has a lot of potential for a nice short film, so I'd love to give a try if it will fit within the contest rules!
Answer: Your final submission is in images with specifications on their own. There is no interactive or video aspect to the submission guidelines. That doesn't mean you can't make these things, it just means that when it comes time to submit you will be submitting images.
this should be in the rules
i was already thinking about working on a part of our story that only exists on paper, but would definitely not be done from scratch, party, yeah but most stuff would be already made stock
Answer: The rules should make it clear that the intention of this challenge is to create completely brand new artwork for your depiction of an escape. If you've had ideas in the past that might fit this, where there has been no previous artwork made for it then feel free to use that as a starting point. [Adam note: I would personally love to see a depiction of an Escape happening in the world or aesthetic of Airborne.]
great competition BTW
Answer: Yes. Mainly we just don't want to see 8k textures on a crate...
Answer: The final submission will be judged as a single submission. That is stated in the contest page. There is nothing stopping a single character artist from dominating this contest. Just look around Polycount for some inspiration on how you might do that
Given that this is the case, I'm going to assume working on an interactive piece is a complete waste of time?
Answer: You can use the interactive piece in your thread and show it there, but for the final submissions we're asking for images. Who knows, people might appreciate the effort and reward you with a vote?
Answer: The concepts will be included in the final submissions as Tech/Idle shots (see the contest page for information). They will not be submitted or judged separately.
Awesome! This makes me happy. However what about a solo vehicle entry? It was clear on the weapons and FX that it had to be done collaborative and characters and environments could be solo...
I honestly think if a character could stand alone then a complex enough vehicle could too... maybe more so if there was a little diorama/complex stand?
Answer: Solo vehicle is fine so long as you're depicting an escape. I have updated the contest page to say this.
Answer: Multiple submissions is fine so long as they are all original depictions of an escape.
Since the end product is still images, I was just wondering if this an acceptable interpretation of the rules.
Answer: Creativity is important for this contest and if that idea will show your depiction of an escape the best, then go for it.
Answer: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/17188/pc_escape_logo.psd
I have a story made up about an escape from a certain enemy, I'm gonna model and texture few different characters and a simple environment. the question is - can I use some concept character art made by other people, for this challenge if I'm working alone? or must everything be originally made by me? and by "use" I mean not as a reference, but just making a 3d model from what I see in 2d concept. maybe this is clear for everyone but I really wanted to make sure
Answer: This has been stated before in another question: Everything must be made exclusively for this challenge.
Answer: This isn't a challenge that includes animations, unfortunately. It is stated in the opening paragraph for the contest that this is a bit of a test for us, to see how well a more open contest will do. If the test proves successful, then we'll look at opening it up further to broader disciplines that expand outward from 'image based submissions' in the future. If teams have an animator on them, that is fine. But the final submissions will be images only as per the guidelines.
Answer: No. Everything must be made exclusively for this contest.
What if we submitted the 2 beauty shots as screen shots, then our "tech" shot was the movie?
Answer: The final submissions are images. This, unfortunately, is not an animation challenge and therefor will not use video for its final submissions. You or your team can include videos (however you may like to do so) in your threads, but the final submissions will be in image format.
Answer: Sure, so long as they can show significant input with WIP shots and development along the way. (Read: They shouldn't be joining you with 24 hours left to go in the contest.)
Is it ok to create an art piece that fits in a already existing setting? (I.e, I'm creating a character who should fit in the Dead Space universe)
I have a few reasons why:
- Restrictions. There's a lot of guidelines for what works and what doesn't.
- Since it's already a game, it already has a polycount/texture size/etc I can use as reference.
- I like the setting. I'm not gonna lie, I've wanted to do a fan art piece for a long time.
~Pixelpencil
Answer: You are more than welcome to create something brand new for an existing property. So long as the work made is 100% created for this challenge, that is fine.
complete and utter horse shit. you should be able to judge on both. by all means disallow post effects to be used in video editors and such, but if a cutscene is recorded in realtime using kismet in udk, or unity with their scripting tools, i really don't understand the issue.
once again you've dicked over the few animators we have left here at polycount, who seem to mostly have left over things like this.
and more importantly, you've placed a pretty huge restriction on something you wanted to remain unrestrictive.
and for what? recording means you're left with a movie file... but it's still recorded from a realtime solution. hell, we can even fraps the thing with the software showing, to prove it's realtime. and to top it all off, this sounds like you truly believe people won't be adding any kind of post work in photoshop to their stills taken from "realtime solutions".
so fucking short sighted man.
This isn't an 'answer' per se so I'll reply directly from my account.
You're right, animators/animation is a demographic at Polycount that is incredibly tiny when compared to the rest of the disciplines we have. This is something I personally want to see grow. Judging by your thoughts on the Escape, that is hard to believe right now I am sure.
Animations require video to really showcase their work so we decided to not allow for 'video/animations' as part of the final submissions. I feel like to be fairly judged we'd need a separate 'animation' category for those submissions and that isn't something we wanted for the Escape. We wanted it to be as simple as possible: 'Top 3 Overall'. A solo character artist has just as much a chance to compete against an entire team of 5 for winning this contest. If we allowed for animations/videos to be included in submissions, we don't think the judging for 'Top 3 Overall' would be fair, so we didn't include it for the Escape.
Going forward, it's been our goal to have more discipline specific challenges that would be on a smaller scale than something like the Escape. The idea being that these discipline-focused challenges would help bring in those types of developers to Polycount.(We weren't going to include 'FX artists' as part of this challenge because of how small a group they are at Polycount, but their work can be shown rather nicely in images so we decided to allow it.)
To the same tune as the FX artists allowance you are, however, allowed to work with a team for posing/rigging/and so on so that the final submissions has as much energy and movement in it as possible. There is no stopping you from working this way.
Hopefully you can see now that we're not being short-sighted, and that we have very specific goals with the types of submissions for this contest. We have been thinking well in to the future for Polycount and the type of developer groups we have here. We'd like to do smaller challenges for those groups so that they become more prevalent around Polycount but starting this initiative for the Escape, and having multiple voting categories, isn't our goal. The goal, quite simply, is beautiful video game imagery depicting an escape.
TL;DR: Animators are welcome to work with a team. We just ask that no videos are submitted for the final submissions so that we can keep to an 'Overall Top 3' single category for the Escape. Otherwise we'd need multiple categories, which isn't the intent of this challenge.
When it comes time for us to start focusing on an animation challenge, almighty_gir, I'd love to work with you on it to make sure its a great one.
by opening up any form of competition to groups, you should absolutely allow all disciplines involved. you've allowed teams of 5 artists... that's pretty much the perfect amount.
concept artist
character artist
environment artist
vfx artist
animator
you're saying that a solo artist who only provides still shots couldn't compete against movies? i beg to differ. i can think of a million photographs i'd rather sit and look at for two hours, than a Uwe Boll movie. ultimately it comes down to final quality, not quantity of work. so the judging should be absolutely no different.
here's the thing though, i'm not an animator. in fact i'm pretty incompetent at even building my own rigs (max biped 4 life yo!). but the fact remains that you've stifled the creative vision of many people with this absolutely rediculous rule. and more to the point, you've actually created a loophole people can more easily abuse to achieve good results.
a character artist who has absolutely zero working knowledge of "proper" topology for animation, or deformation etc. can still achieve some very nice looking still shots... just through brute force and "hacky" techniques like tweaking the posed mesh in zbrush to get everything looking pretty. and you will ABSOLUTELY have those in the finals of this competition, and i'd even wager some of them make it very high in the rankings.
by disallowing animated scenes, you're allowing people to do those things. and really, when you claim the contest is:
it becomes rather apparent that it's actually the opposite. as some of the best looking pieces will never be game ready in the slightest. and will absolutely be about sculpting abilities.
p.s.
sorry for my colourful language in the previous post, this is something i'm extremely passionate about... i hate when "video game art" competitions turn into "who can hack together the best final shots" competitions.
We could do a cinematic contest, but then we would really be limiting the amount of people who could participate, as most of polycount's members are not animators.
However, with the current contest as is, a skilled animator/rigger could easily find a place on a team full of artists who are not familiar with the finer points of rigging and posing a character. I think the idea that not allowing videos/animations somehow undermines the legitimacy of the whole thing is grossly overstated.
The entries will be judged by your peers and optimization is an important factor, if you make a model with horrible topology and hack it together for a pretty render, I think most of our users will be able to spot it.
This is the most open and inclusive contest we've ever attempted, if all goes well we will likely consider expanding it to include even more disciplines, however we feel the current format offers a good balance of getting as many people involved as possible while still maintaining a level playing field.
He's going to rig and animate our stuff and we're going to post it.
The final entry will be a still image, but we'll have enough to back up our work to prove it's in-game and working.
Trust me, there's a message trail where I fought HARD to not let this contest be all about the final image. I want our members to vote for these entries by being smart about it all and know when an entry has messy topology vs great topology.
Answer: There isn't, but you need to be prepared to show your work as it gets developed in your own Polycount thread.
Answer: Some questions for you to ask yourself:
-Would the images you show for your beauty renders be of something from a real-time game engine?
-Would all of the post-processing work be created with these tools?
If you answered 'Yes' to both of these then feel free to use the engine. If you answered 'No' to either of them, then you cannot use it.
Answer: No. Original artwork will need to be made exclusively for each individual submissions.
Motion fx, posing? That's about all I can think. I'd like to attempt an environment too, but due to time restraints doing a solo vehicle is really appealing to me.
i'd like to participate with a team of coworkers. however, we ask ourselves, if we can use our own inhouse (realtime) engine, that is not public.
it was used for e.g. Risen 2 a 3rd person RPG
this engine is the one of our company, and we would be perhaps allowed to use it (not sure yet, but i first wanted to ask you)
thx!
sascha
Answer: Yes. So long as what your images are showing are captures from a real-time dev engine/environment, that is fine. Also, don't forget to have this approved from your managers before using it for this contest!
ie. only lowpoly with diffuse texture at full bright and no lighting.
Answer: Yes.
Is it preferred if the environment is fully playable? Allowing the player to wander. Or can I focus solely on the assets/areas that are exposed from my 2 beauty shots angles and construct the scene accordingly?
Does one or the other look more favourably for judging/consideration?
Thanks
Answer: Your responsibility is to the beauty shots, so work however you need to ensure they are beautiful.
Answer: No, and thank you for being honest and asking first.
Q. Can we use the assets created for this contest for other future works? Because I'm planning to make some materials that I haven't made yet for a game that isn't done yet. So I'm wondering if I can make those materials to put it into this contest then put it into my game. Or would I have to do a different variation of the material?
Answer: You will own this work and can do whatever you'd like to do with the art once the contest is over.
though taking own pics would surely be more honorable ;D
Answer: The textures you use are to be created for the Escape. It doesn't matter where you get your photo sources from.
Answer: This has been stated numerous times in this thread: All work has to be original for this contest. You cannot reuse existing geometry, texturing, FX, concepts and so on for this Challenge.
Collaborative entries You and your team must create a single thread for your teams entry in the contest forum. Your team will use this thread to show your WIP (work-in-progress) as you go. The polycount community must be able to look back on your progress of this entry for it to be judged.
What is needed in work in progress portion in the thread? Please list. Because I'm not really sure if you are suppose to put in reference images as well as vague concepts. What is being looked at?
Answer: Whatever you think is necessary to best show your creative process for your submission. In the past, the majority of threads show everything as it comes.
Work-In-Progress images include screeenshots showing your modeling and texturing work as you progress with your project. Everything from your concept sketches, model blockouts, high and low poly construction sequences, etc.
No?... Fine, fine, I'll buy it.
Answer: There should be a 30 day trial at least of dDo if you sign up. -Moody
Our theme is a car chase / get away / crash / road block pass. Could one shot show the hero car approach the roadblock, one where it crashes into it and the third how it escapes? It would roughly be the same event but actually 3 close moments in time each telling a little piece of the story.
Answer: It all sounds great.
If so, how would the assets get split up, would it just belong to the team for the contest?
Answer: Sure.