Arms & Armor - Chivalry: Medieval Warfare contest

r13 · Aug 2014

Welcome one and all to the Chivalry: Medieval Warfare Contest. Torn Banner and Polycount have drawn up some battle plans and we'd like to invite you all to the fight.

To do battle in this contest, you won't be crossing swords or banging heads on the field of battle. At least not right away. We will needing your blacksmith skills to provide the swords and maces for the battles to come. Helmets are needed as well to keep some of the axes from finding a home in a skull or two. Strong irons and stout woods will be used to craft the items that can survive the killing fields and the judging.

Below you will find all the information you need to get yourself started. Torn Banner has made sure that any and all can participate, even if you don't own the game. So bring us your best blades and you may just find yourself with a sack of gold for your troubles.

This is a 3D modeling & texturing contest for the Steam Workshop of Torn Banner’s Chivalry: Medieval Warfare; a first person melee game built on the Unreal 3 engine.
The contest starts on Monday, August 25th, 2014 and the deadline is Monday, October 6th 2014 @ 00:01AM EST (GMT - 4)
The "Arms & Armor" Chivalry: Medieval Warfare Polycount Contest winners will be announced October 16th; the 2 year anniversary of the release of Chivalry: Medieval Warfare!
For the "Arms & Armor" Chivalry: Medieval Warfare Polycount Contest, participants will create fully modeled & textured, completely original items. You may create a helmet, a weapon, or a set of both. However, it is highly encouraged that you make a set, as they are typically more popular. You are allowed to submit as many sets or items as you can build in the time allotted.
If you submit an item set, the weapon must be usable by same class as the helmet.
You must make your item/item set for the contest, and not re-use assets you may have previously created.
All submissions must be original and cannot contain elements from copyrighted works, reference to other IP’s, or use of any images or material you do not own. So please, be original & creative. Do not copy & paste your way to a submission!
You may team up with as many artists/concept artists as you like for this contest. If you do team up with others please pay special attention to the Submitting guideline noted below! Prizes will be given to the person who submitted it to the workshop, and it will be their responsibility to divide the prizes amongst contributors.
You must register on Steam and Polycount to enter this contest.
You must create and maintain a Work-In-Progress (WIP) thread at Polycount for your entry in our Arms & Armor Contest forum. If you make make multiple sets or items, you must have multiple threads for each. You will also submit each set or item to the Workshop separately.
You will need to own Chivalry: Medieval Warfare to upload and submit your entry to the "Arms & Armor" Chivalry: Medieval Warfare Workshop. The game is available for purchase here.

If you do not own a copy of Chivalry, you can still participate. You will need to first create and have an active WIP thread as described before. Then you will request a temporary key by sending an email with a link to your thread to: polycountcontest@Tornbanner.com. Be nice. This key will be deactivated at the end of the contest.
All submissions to the Steam Workshop for this contest must be final. Use your WIP thread on Polycount to show your work-in-progress.

Every Item / item set has a general set of requirements that will need to be met. These are standard for all Chivalry: Medieval Warfare Workshop submissions. Below is a quick list of those requirements, but make sure you read the entire Chivalry: Medieval Warfare Workshop page. It outlines the requirements in detail, as well as has individual specification pages for the item[s] you choose for this contest.

Each item in the set should follow geometry and texture requirements for the item type. The allowable triangle counts and texture sizes vary per item. These are hard limits, so please check your work before submitting.
Your final workshop upload must include your final unreal .UPK, along with the final FBX for models and .TGA for textures.They can be uploaded as either .zip or .7z.
Each item must have a diffuse, normal, and specular map. A blood mask is required for weapons, and a gloss map is required for helmets. Alpha transparency is not supported.

The range of potential items and themes available for the contest is deep. Please review the specific pages for each item type before you start. Below is the list of acceptable items in each of the helmet and weapons types. The text colors below are not a part of the game and are only used to help clarify the different options available to you.

The helmets must be designed for one of the two factions; Agatha and Mason and then matched to one of the 4 classes; Archer, Man-At-Arms,Vanguard or Knight. This gives you 8 different variations to pick from. You will find more relevant information that explains the styles in detail on the Helmet Specifications Page.

Agatha Archer Helmet
Agatha Man-At-Arms Helmet
Agatha Vanguard Helmet
Agatha Knight Helmet

Mason Archer Helmet
Mason Man-At Arms Helmet
Mason Vanguard Helmet
Mason Knight Helmet

Each class in the game has a unique list of weapon types they are able to use. Below is a list of the classes with the corresponding primary weapons. The weapons can be team agnostic, but if you are submitting a weapon bundled with a helmet, it should match the style of the team the helmet is for. As an example: a Mason Knight's Flail should not look like an Agatha Knight's Flail. Please review the requirements page for more details and directions on the styles.

Archer	Man-At-Arms	Vanguard	Knight
Longbow	Broadsword	Greatsword	Longsword
Shortbow	Norse Sword	Claymore	Sword Of War
Warbow	Falchion	Zweihander	Messer
Light Crossbow	War Axe	Spear	Double Axe
Heavy Crossbow	Dane Axe	Fork	Bearded Axe
Javelin	Mace	Brandistock	Warhammer
Heavy Javelin	Morning Star	Bardiche	Maul
Short Spears	Holy Water Sprinkler	Billhook	Grand Mace
Sling Crossbow (Medium)	Quarterstaff	Halberd Polehammer	Flail Heavy Flail Pole Axe

It is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT you read the page linked above (here it is again). Right below the list of items are the specific ‘general’ requirements for all items. Within each character page is not only the character specific specifications but a download for the model & texture files for each Item.

Primary weapons are the more common used items in the game. There is also the concept of secondary weapons. You are free to submit secondary weapons, however they are not a requirement for this contest. Making secondary weapons will not necessarily better your chances in the contest, but it will not disqualify you either. You will still be held to the posted requirements for secondary items and you can find the relevant details at the workshop. If you only enter a secondary weapon, you will not be eligible for the contest.

If you have any questions regarding this information feel free to ask about it in our Q&A Thread.

The process you will go through for submitting your entry to this contest is in 3 parts: Creating your submission, presenting it, and submitting it for final judging.

When you begin to work on your Item there are some things you will need to do.

If you haven't already, sign up for a Steam account. This will be required when it comes time to submit as you’ll be submitting to the Steam Workshop via Chivalry: Medieval Warfare Frontend.

Sign up at Polycount. If you're in to 3D modeling or texturing for video games, you'll like it here at Polycount – promise! We have 75k+ members with virtually every video game studio’s talent represented in some way shape or form within our forum.

Create a work-in-progress (WIP) thread in our "Arms & Armor" Chivalry: Medieval Warfare Polycount Contest forum. But please, use the following layout for your thread title:

For individual items: [Chivalry] – Original Item Type – Your Item Name
Example: [Chivalry] – Grand Mace – Malric's Destroyer

For item sets: [Chivalry] – Team + Class – Your Set Name
Example: [Chivalry] – Mason Vanguard – Malric's Armaments

Update your WIP thread as much as you can! Showing your progress is very important. You cannot simply sign up today and then post your final submission 6 weeks from now. Weekly progress updates should be considered a minimum. Showing your progress will not only motivate you to finish, but it will allow the community to offer words of wisdom. That, and it will show the guys & gals at Torn Banner that you truly did make your entry for this contest and didn't have it tucked away on your hard-drive somewhere collecting dust waiting for the opportune time to cash in. Any and all decisions on this matter will be decided by Torn Banner.

1 thread per item/item set. Any submissions being worked on by multiple artists must be posted to 1 WIP thread only. Do not create 1 thread per artist on a team.

Since these are assets for a game, what better way to present these than on a character in the game they are made for? All presentation shots of helmets and weapons must be taken from within the Chivalry SDK. All presentation shots must be 16:9 ratio, maximum 1920x1080.

Your presentation materials as detailed below should be posted to the Final Submissions thread.

Presentation Shot

This image must contain at least 2 angles of your item(s). Post effects from 3d software or 2d programs like Photoshop are NOT allowed in this image. The only adjustments allowed are: Brightness/Contrast, Levels, Sharpness, and Hue/Saturation.

Construction Shot

This image should contain your high poly model, along with a low poly wireframe.

Texture Sheet

It is mandatory to squeeze your diffuse, normal, and specular maps onto this image. Showing gloss or blood mask texture is optional.

Concept/Reference Sheet

Any concept art, preliminary sketches, reference images, etc.

Submission guidelines & instructions are straightforward and found on the Chivalry: Medieval Warfare Workshop website:

Download and install Chivalry: Medieval Warfare from the Chivalry: Medieval Warfare steam page. You will use it to upload & submit your entry to the Contest as outlined in the Workshop page.
Your submission through the Workshop will include the tag ‘Polycount Contest’. If this is absent your entry will not be considered for the Chivalry: Medieval Warfare Polycount contest. There will also be a Polycount check-box during the submission process, via Chivalry: Medieval Warfare front-end.
Your submission includes the link to your Polycount Forum thread for this contest. Please add this to the box where you supply a description of your item/item set.
Your final workshop upload must include your final unreal .UPK, along with the final FBX for models and .TGA for textures.They can be uploaded as either .zip or .7z.

Via the Workshop Steam page, you elect the Steam accounts of the people you teamed up with for your entry and will apportion them the appropriate % of royalty they will receive from your winning entries earnings. This is not changeable afterwards. Make sure all involved knows what they are potentially receiving ahead of time.

Torn Banner will decide the ‘Top 3’ winners in 4 categories: Archer, Knight, Man-At-Arms, and Vanguard, for a total of 12 winners! Items will chosen by Items will be chosen by both visual and technical quality, and how well they fit into the Chivalry aesthetic (try not to go too high fantasy with these). Helmets will also be judged based on class/team readability.

Each winner will have their items placed in the Chivalry: Medieval Warfare store and will receive royalty payments from their items.
- As an example on how well that works, here is an interview on Gamasutra with Valve and the winners of the Polycount Pack TF2 Contest.
Quixel Suite keys for all winners of the contest
Grand Prize Winner will receive a 3d print from Moddler of your winning entry totaling $500 in value!

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare is a multiplayer FPS: a First Person Slasher with a focus on multiplayer. Featuring competitive online combat that seeks to capture the experience of truly being on a medieval battlefield. Inspired from the intensity and epicness of sword fighting movies such as 300, Gladiator and Braveheart, Chivalry: Medieval Warfare aims to bring that experience to the hands of a gamer.