The MUTANT LEAGUE Challenge

Jesse Moody · Nov 2011

Mutant League: A Videogame Art Challenge!

You've been begging for it. The rumors been circling. Hints have been dropped. Finally it is here. Sound the vevezulas, fire up the jumbo trons, hit the pregame tailgate parties and let's make some Mutant League goodness.We're kicking off a new challenge here at Polycount - Mutant League.

The Mutant League challenge is pretty straight forward:

This challenge is for both character and environment artists and will even give you guys the ability to team up (1 Character Artist and 1 Environment Artist).
This is a lower-spec challenge. What that means is this Challenge is for environments & characters you'd see on a mobile device, a browser-based videogame, and so on. These are not Xbox360, PS3, and PC specific environments & characters.
Participants will choose either a MUTANT for their perspective sport (character artists) or STADIUM / ARENA (environment artists) and create their version of Mutant League (SPORT) targeting XBLA/PSN, web or mobile (iOS/Android) platforms.
Entries for this contest will either be a 3D video game character or a 3D video game environment.
Participants will create a thread in our Contest & Challenges forum for the duration of the challenge. When the challenge is over they will submit their entry to the appropriate submission threads and the voting will begin. This voting process - a PUBLIC poll by the Polycount Community will determine who the winners are.
- Voting will be from the Polycount Community via a poll to determine the Top 4 CHARACTERS and Top 4 STADIUMS.
  - NOTE: If we have a large amount of submissions in both categories, we will do the Top 8 CHARACTERS and Top 8 STADIUMS.
- At end of this challenge, once the poll is closed, we will display the results on the Mutant League Challenge over the following days until the winner is revealed!
This contest ends ~5 weeks after the launch date.
- January 7th, 2012 at 11:59PM EST

Character Technical & Guideline Specs

No character teams. Single artist entry only per category.
~2,500 triangles for everything combined. If you go over by a couple hundred triangles that's acceptable. While you do not need to reach 2,500 triangles for your MUTANT please remember this is not an ultra low-poly challenge.
- Your MUTANT, their effects, weapons/items, and so on. Your entire MUTANT pack must weigh in around 2,500 triangles.
- You may use double sided geometry, just remember they're considered towards your final triangle count.
512x512 resolution for your textures, combined, maximum.
- Each texture pass gets this resolution. So your diffuse map(s), combined (if applicable), cannot exceed 512x512 resolution.
- Diffuse, Specular/Specular Color, Reflection, Gloss, Normal, Bump, Opacity, Emissive/Glow
- Each of these passes are optional.
All real-time or render solutions are allowed. However, the more your submission can look 'real-time' ready, the better. That is, the more it is presented in a real-time solution the better. This is a video game art challenge, after all.
- Keep in mind the SUBMISSION requirements below. Some solution may make your submission more difficult to achieve.
- Unreal Tech (UDK, UT3), idTech, Crysis engine, Max, Maya, XSI, and so on.
Lighting your character for your beauty shots (see 'Submitting your Entry' below for more information): Light your character however you'd like. Enhanced or Standard solutions. In-game or baked.
Lighting your character for your 'comp shots' (see 'Submitting your Entry' below for more information): No 'enhanced' lighting solutions. This means software like Brazil or Mental Ray cannot be used. STANDARD LIGHTING & SHADOWS ONLY.
Post-processes must be achieved within your desired method or rendering. What this means: NO PHOTOSHOP for post-process solutions.
Your character will need to be posed. T-poses are boring! (See 'Submission' information below for further details.)

Environment Technical & Guideline Specs

Teams are not allowed on Environments. (BUT you can add a character artist to form a character / enviro team).
You are creating an environment for a sports / arena based game. Your final shots must show the environment as you would normally see a sports game environment. (Read: Including a zoomed out view, field level, birds eye, etc).
Go nuts with your concept. Dig up Mutant League ref. Base it off an existing stadium, a futuristic stadium. Just make it Mutant League worthy!
~85,000 triangles is the goal / limit. Over a few thousand triangles is acceptable. 85,000 is the guideline we're offering but you do not need to use all 85,000 triangles if your scene does not require it. We suggest you check out Jesse Moody's football arenas to get an idea as to what is capable with these spec limits.
2048x1024 of total texture space for each material pass.
Lighting/rendering must be done to as close as a real-time solution as possible. Absolutely no enhanced lighting techniques (VRay, Mental ray, and so on).
- Unreal, idTech, Crysis, Source and so on are acceptable. Max, Maya, XSI are also acceptable so long as you are using Standard lighting solutions.
Lightmaps may be used but are optional.
- They do not count towards your texture budget.
Skyboxes and or painting for your background are allowed and do not count towards your limitations.
Post-processing is allowed so long as it is done in your presentation package (UDK, Max, etc.) and NOT in Photoshop.
- hue/saturation
- brightness/contrast
- DoF, blur, motion blur
- screen effects (vignette, etc) are acceptable but MUST be done within your package
Consider this: If it can be done in todays videogame engines, you can do it yourself.

The Rules

What does that above stuff mean exactly? We're happy you've asked!

You must be a member of Polycount to enter. It's silly to even say this 'cause really how else would you show your entry? I know right? Just in case, you can register here.
For your entry to be considered for this challenge, your MUTANT(athlete, character) or ARENA (environment) entry must fit within the Mutant League theme. It's mutants playing professional sports! We can't wait to see what you guys come up with.
All artwork must be original and made specifically for this contest. No artwork previous created before this contest will be considered for final voting & judging.
Environment artists will likely need the majority of this time to create their ARENAS. While 5 weeks is plenty for character artists to bust out a MUTANT. So, you're welcome to submit more than one MUTANT if you wish to do so. And yes, if you have the time and energy you may enter more than one ARENA as well.

Presenting & Submitting Your Entries

Creating your entries will go as follows:

Character artists will create a thread in the Contest & Challenges forum with the prefix of [MUTANT] added to their thread title.
- Your thread title must contain the prefix, Sport and your Polycount user name.. (Example: [MUTANT] Football, Greentooth).
- Inside of this thread you will show your work-in-progress shots as you develop them.
- NOTE: Your entry will NOT be considered if you do not show your development process along the way.

Environment artists will create a thread in the Contest & Challenges forum with the prefix of [STADIUM] added to their thread title.
- Your thread title must contain the prefix, Sport and your Polycount user name (+ your partner's user name if applicable). (Example: [STADIUM] Football, Greentooth + Pen 15 Tank).
- Inside of this thread you will show your work-in-progress shots as you develop them.
- NOTE: Your entry will NOT be considered if you do not show your development process along the way.

Submitting & Presenting your Entry:

When it comes time to submit your entry, there will be 1 single thread for you to post your submission images to per category (One thread for MUTANTS, one thread for STADIUMS). When it's time, you will post your challengesubmission images in that thread. Your submission images will be as follows:

MUTANTS (character artists):

Create a reply in the MUTANTS SUBMISSION thread. State your MUTANT's name and the sport they play. From there, you will include your submission images:
You will submit 2 beauty shots, 1 'comp image', 1 'spec image' and 1 texture image for your texture passes.
- Beauty Shot #1 and #2
  - Must be on an a 1680x1050 image.
  - Your character in their entirety must be visible.
  - Your name, your Polycount Member name, and your characters name.
  - Pose your MUTANTS however you'd like for these two beauty shots. With that said, T-poses are boring. This is a MUTANT LEAGUE game challenge so get creative!
  - Must adhere to the lighting guidelines for Beauty Shots noted above in the Character Spec list.
- Comp image
  - This picture will be used in the winner announcement images. This will NOT be used for final judging.
    - Winner announcement images will be MUTANTS vs. MUTANTS in front of a STADIUM.
    - Think of it as if we're mocking up a sports game using contest MUTANTS on a contest STADIUM.
    - After the contest (or even during) if you'd like to super impose your MUTANTS on another members STADIUM, you're more than welcome to do so. Those images, however, will NOT be used for voting in this contest and is to be considered for your own personal use only.
  - As such, we'd like it to be as high a resolution as possible without exceeding 1920x1080.
  - This image must either be in PSD, PNG or TGA format image where your MUTANT is on a separate layer (or masked in an alpha channel)
  - This image will contain your MUTANT, posed in your chosen stance.
  - No background, text, image filters and so on. Just a clean image of your posed MUTANT separated from the background.
  - The easier you can make it for us to mask your MUTANT from the image, the better!
  - Must adhere to the lighting guidelines for Comp Shots noted above in the Character Spec list. This character may be used with an environment that is being lit and presented entirely in a REAL-TIME engine. If your character is lit with enhanced lighting on a real-time environment, they will look out of place.
- Spec image
  - This spec image will contain a wireframe example of you work.
  - On the same image, please include a front & back view of your MUTANT
  - Your total triangle count for your MUTANT must be legible on this image.
  - Your name, your Polycount Member name, your MUTANTS name, and the sport they play must be legible within this image.
- Texture Example image
  - This will be a single 512x512 image that shows all your texture passes. So if your MUTANT was created with a DIF, SPEC, NORMAL and EMISSIVE, your 512x512 image could be split in to 128x512 vertical columns; one for each pass. We don't need to see the textures in their entirety, just proof/samples of each.

STADIUMS (environment artists):

Create a reply in the STADIUMS SUBMISSION thread. State your STADIUMS name/description, and the sport that it is used for. From there, you will include your submission images:
You will submit 3 beauty shots, 1 'construction image' and 1 texture image for your texture passes.
- Beauty Shot #1
  - Your STADIUM must be made as visible as possible. Try and not block the view with too many foreground elements, if any.
  - For this shot, try and have a body-level perspective on the environment. (4-5 feet off the ground, perpendicular to your environment).
  - Choose from one of three 16:9 resolutions (the higher the better!):
    - 1920x1080
    - 1600x900
    - 1280x720
- Beauty Shot #2
  - Your STADIUMS must be made as visible as possible. Try and not block the view with too many foreground elements, if any.
  - For this shot, try and have a ground-level perspective on the environment. (0.25-1.5 feet off the ground, perpendicular to your environment).
  - Choose from one of three 16:9 resolutions (the higher the better!):
    - 1920x1080
    - 1600x900
    - 1280x720
- Beauty Shot #3
  - Your STADIUMS must be made as visible as possible. Try and not block the view with too many foreground elements, if any.
  - For this shot, try and have a birds-eye view or aerial perspective on the environment. (off the ground, looking down on your environment).
  - Choose from one of three 16:9 resolutions (the higher the better!):
    - 1920x1080
    - 1600x900
    - 1280x720
- Construction Image
  - This construction image will be a pull-away/angled shot of your environment, or a birds-eye view, so people can see how you layed out your art work to be a sports game STAGE.
  - Your total triangle count for your STADIUM must be legible on this image.
  - Your name, your Polycount Member name, your STADIUM's name/description and the sport it is used for must be legible on this image.
- Texture Image
  - This will be a single 512x512 image that shows all your texture passes. So if your STADIUM was created with DIFs, SPECs, NORMALs and EMISSIVEs, your 512x512 image could be split in to 128x512 vertical columns; one for each pass. We don't need to see all of the textures you made, just proof/samples of each.

TEAMS (environment and character artists): (GUIDELINES FOR COMBINED ENTRIES)

Create a reply in the STADIUMS SUBMISSION thread. State your TEAMS name/description, and the sport that it is used for. From there, you will include your submission images:
Use the above guidelines to submit both the character and environment ALSO
You will submit 3 beauty shots of your MUTANTS inside the STADIUM (or together in a cool way), 1 'construction image' and 1 texture image for your texture passes.
- Beauty Shots
  - Your STADIUM and MUTANTS must be made as visible as possible. Try and not block the view with too many foreground elements, if any.
  - For this shot, try and have a body-level perspective of the scene . (4-5 feet off the ground, perpendicular to your environment and mutants).
  - Choose from one of three 16:9 resolutions (the higher the better!):
    - 1920x1080
    - 1600x900
    - 1280x720

Judging

Judging will be done so by the Polycount Community. (Ed. - You'll likely just vote to indicate which entries you simply really liked, learned from, found to be the best, etc. As oppose to only voting for your "#1 favourite" from the Brawl Contest.

Prizes

Prizes for the Mutant League Challenge are fairly simple: There aren't any. Serious this time. This is a challenge to help build community ties and make some awesome art.

If you entered this challenge for some cash, a gift card, some t-shirts or hardware then you've come to the wrong place. At Polycount we try and push each other as artists and superficial items will not be your motivation this time around. Will we have prizes in the future? Perhaps, but for now Polycount's MUTANT LEAGUE Challenge is for the sake of videogame art alone.

DISCLAIMER

All characters, environments, screenshots and IP's depicted here belong to their respective owners and are shown as examples only.

Any and all 3D characters, 3D environments and images created by Polycount Member's for this contest are owned solely by the artist and are submitted to this contest as fan art. Polycount or Polycount.com does not, and will not take ownership of any submitted materials on or within its domain. This contest is FREE to enter and is not for profit.

We're simply videogame artists who love creating fan art.

And yep, you read that right - this contest is for both character and environment artists!