Advice on a 30mins CG Championship

Don Moahskarton

Hi there !

I'm asking you guys on what would you do for a quite unusual challenge.
Here is the deal :

You are in front of the public with your laptop, and your screen is projected for everyone to see. You and your adversary sits at the same time for 20 to 30 minutes and are given a theme and a collection of images to work with. You have to make something more beautiful than your adversary before the match ends.

Rules :
- From start to finish, you have a very short amount of time ( 20min or 30 mins, depending on the match)
- Everything you do is live
- You have to use at least one image provided in the collection
- your work must fit in the theme
- The winner is chosen by the public who saw both you and your adversary work
- You can use any software (Ps, Illustrator, Maya, Zbrush, UE4 etc...)
- You can create anything : video, 3D model, drawing, etc.. as long as it's visual.
- You are offline : no internet.

PS : the public don't have any special knowledge in CG. On average, they just heard of Photoshop, that's it.

_________________


My plan for this challenge is, rather than working hard for something aesthetically impressive, to impress the crowd with top notch software. I shown Maya last year and it worked very well. (because most of other competitors only use Photoshop)

This year, I'm hoping to show the brand new UE4, and a bit of Zbrush.
I can already sculpt a very convincing rock in under 3mins. (like this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tz7na7Y75o)
I may also train to get a very fast way to build custom materials in UE4.


So the question is: How would you work in this situation, given the extreme time constraint ? (one just can't do a Transformer in 20mins)
Do you have any tips to build something real quick ? (last year I massively used CSG to get quick results in maya)

The point is to compress the workflow. For exemple, xNormals slow down the process so much that its use is very risky.

Add3r

I feel the time, audience, and scenario would result in subpar work for nearly every artist involved in the competition. Also could make the argument of art doesnt have obvious benchmarks and is purely subjective, thus making the competition more like that indie game show they tried to make not too long ago.

Plus I would think 2D has a much greater advantage in time (puts on flame suit).

Joost

I could make a really nice smooth cube in 30 minutes

m4dcow

I think the export to UE4 might eat up a bit too much time but something like zBrush could do some cool visual stuff really quickly think fibre mesh and imm brushes etc...

ZacD

Add3r wrote: »

Plus I would think 2D has a much greater advantage in time (puts on flame suit).

Speed painting > speed modeling

Don Moahskarton

Yeah, it just mean no scene setup, just one prop.
and Fx on Ps.

LRoy

If the only point is to impress an audience that doesn't know anything about CG I have no idea why you would bother with anything technical? They're not going to be impressed with your bakes and shaders.

Speed sculpting or painting like a demon would easily win over someone just showing UE4.

ZacD

You could do a quick level design thing with UE4 and existing props, I'd use LPV so you don't have to bake anything. Have some fancy vertex painting and modular buildings would easily impress.