One of my favourite contest on Polycount that i did not participate in (did not know how to modell or texture) Was the Brawl Contest. Is there a possibility any time soon that we will see this coming back?
Brawl tournament would be pretty amazing, so many great options out there to choose from.
@zachagregHere's the thread from 8 years ago, the tl;dr would be that the participants had to choose a fighter (character artists) or a stage (environment artists) from any fighting game and remake it as they saw fit.
I love the Monthlys. But there was something special about Brawl. I mean just seeing one of your moste beloved Levels come to life, in so many different ways were AMAZE-balls!
A couple of pictures from the Brawl competition (environment and character are done by seperate artist. But Jesus, they still hold up very well today. Remember this was in 2011!)
I'd be so down. But please have limitations on the contest. I'm kinda tired of unlimited polycounts and textures... Kinda defeats the purpose in my eyes...
I'd be so down. But please have limitations on the contest. I'm kinda tired of unlimited polycounts and textures... Kinda defeats the purpose in my eyes...
This was limited though. I think they had limitations to textures sizes and how many you could use.
I'd be so down. But please have limitations on the contest. I'm kinda tired of unlimited polycounts and textures... Kinda defeats the purpose in my eyes...
That's a pet peeve I have about the artstation challenges sometimes, you'll see this person with 3-4 4k textures for one prop and its ridiculous
I'd love to see any themed competition -- brawl or otherwise. And i also agree with keeping realistic current production in mind, i.e. limit on textures and tri's.
dunno if it's feasible but would be cool if the challenge went beyond concept and production, but included rigging and animation as well.
I'm not sure what would be needed, but I would be down to help organize another Brawl instead of doing a Character Challenge for a couple of months. Brawl was probably one of my favorite competitions, it would be great to have another. If @kadeschuiis interested in the environment side maybe it could be the start of something.
dunno if it's feasible but would be cool if the challenge went beyond concept and production, but included rigging and animation as well.
+1 to this, the Animators and riggers don't get enough love or a chance to shine in competitions. If you wanted to include them maybe there could be a round 2 like Artstation does where the concept artists go first and the modelers can chose a concept if they wish shortly afterwards.
I'd be so down. But please have limitations on the contest. I'm kinda tired of unlimited polycounts and textures... Kinda defeats the purpose in my eyes...
That's a pet peeve I have about the artstation challenges sometimes, you'll see this person with 3-4 4k textures for one prop and its ridiculous
The game art portion of the Artstation challenge had stricter limitations where the vfx/film section was more open. I agree that the limits on the competitions make these things more fun, creative and inspiring. Game art shines the best when you manage to do a lot within a certain amount of limitations.
The game art portion of the Artstation challenge had stricter limitations where the vfx/film section was more open. I agree that the limits on the competitions make these things more fun, creative and inspiring. Game art shines the best when you manage to do a lot within a certain amount of limitations.
The only limitation I have seen for the game art sections of the Artstation challenges is that they be presented in a realtime engine/viewer. The later polycount challenges didn't actually have any really crazy limitations, I think the last of those style challenges was Escape, after that it went a different route, Riot contest, Chivalry, Polycount Tower etc...
I missed the old style epic contests, as an environment artist there was Unearthly Challenge, Brawl, Mutant, Escape... then Allegorithmic had Throne Room, there are a bunch I'm probably forgetting. Artstation has their challenges every few months, but I don't really get that excitement and sense of community from those, plus there isn't ever really any twist to those, they have the theme announced for the concepting guys, and you might as well start working from then, because there is no twist or anything interesting. There usually aren't any sort of prizes either (not that i think they are necessary), almost feels like you are doing spec work to get people to visit the site. I guess if you need to make a portfolio piece anyway, or are trying to make a name for yourself it works.
Most of the contests/challenges these days seem to be on a smaller scale, where you end up with more people completing the challenge, because some either won't join an large scale challenge, and others might not have the time to see it through, I know I'm guilty of this myself. So it might be hard to get people hyped for a large challenge if it is simply a brawl do over on one of the monthly challenge threads.
The game art portion of the Artstation challenge had stricter limitations where the vfx/film section was more open. I agree that the limits on the competitions make these things more fun, creative and inspiring. Game art shines the best when you manage to do a lot within a certain amount of limitations.
The only limitation I have seen for the game art sections of the Artstation challenges is that they be presented in a realtime engine/viewer. The later polycount challenges didn't actually have any really crazy limitations, I think the last of those style challenges was Escape, after that it went a different route, Riot contest, Chivalry, Polycount Tower etc...
I missed the old style epic contests, as an environment artist there was Unearthly Challenge, Brawl, Mutant, Escape... then Allegorithmic had Throne Room, there are a bunch I'm probably forgetting. Artstation has their challenges every few months, but I don't really get that excitement and sense of community from those, plus there isn't ever really any twist to those, they have the theme announced for the concepting guys, and you might as well start working from then, because there is no twist or anything interesting. There usually aren't any sort of prizes either (not that i think they are necessary), almost feels like you are doing spec work to get people to visit the site. I guess if you need to make a portfolio piece anyway, or are trying to make a name for yourself it works.
Most of the contests/challenges these days seem to be on a smaller scale, where you end up with more people completing the challenge, because some either won't join an large scale challenge, and others might not have the time to see it through, I know I'm guilty of this myself. So it might be hard to get people hyped for a large challenge if it is simply a brawl do over on one of the monthly challenge threads.
If one of you wants to help organize this, I think we'd be all for it.
Writing the announcements, drafting rules, getting graphics together, contacting companies for prizes, etc.
It's a fair amount of time and dedication. Difficult for us to run these days, with jobs and families. But I do see the value, would love to see another big one if y'all are up for it.
There's something big happening on Monday, I can leak you that.
Is it that site rework/ feature update you mentioned somewhere else? Something about a different hosting platform because vanilla doesn't want to give us thread thumbnails.
There's something big happening on Monday, I can leak you that.
Is it that site rework/ feature update you mentioned somewhere else? Something about a different hosting platform because vanilla doesn't want to give us thread thumbnails.
The best contests are the ones with a relatively vague directive, so people can have their own interpretation. So no one is typically doing the same thing unless their idea is the first generic obvious thing that comes to mind.
Artstation has the concept phase for their challenges, which they encourage people to pull from for the latter stages and several people might work on the same concept, but even then the stylistic choices can set entries apart.
If anyone wants a challenge to all work on the same concept there are the monthly art challenges anyway.
Replies
@zachagreg Here's the thread from 8 years ago, the tl;dr would be that the participants had to choose a fighter (character artists) or a stage (environment artists) from any fighting game and remake it as they saw fit.
Anyways, I think the brawl one was around the time I joined polycount. We should have more challenges in general. We rarely have any of them.
https://polycount.com/discussion/208507/the-bi-monthly-character-art-challenge-february-march/p1
https://polycount.com/discussion/209269/monthly-environment-art-challenge-march-april-2019-59/p1
I missed the old style epic contests, as an environment artist there was Unearthly Challenge, Brawl, Mutant, Escape... then Allegorithmic had Throne Room, there are a bunch I'm probably forgetting. Artstation has their challenges every few months, but I don't really get that excitement and sense of community from those, plus there isn't ever really any twist to those, they have the theme announced for the concepting guys, and you might as well start working from then, because there is no twist or anything interesting. There usually aren't any sort of prizes either (not that i think they are necessary), almost feels like you are doing spec work to get people to visit the site. I guess if you need to make a portfolio piece anyway, or are trying to make a name for yourself it works.
Most of the contests/challenges these days seem to be on a smaller scale, where you end up with more people completing the challenge, because some either won't join an large scale challenge, and others might not have the time to see it through, I know I'm guilty of this myself. So it might be hard to get people hyped for a large challenge if it is simply a brawl do over on one of the monthly challenge threads.
Writing the announcements, drafting rules, getting graphics together, contacting companies for prizes, etc.
It's a fair amount of time and dedication. Difficult for us to run these days, with jobs and families. But I do see the value, would love to see another big one if y'all are up for it.
Well, except that I've disabled points for admins. Oops.
https://polycount.com/activity
I do love how Gib is still high up on that leaderboard though
Artstation has the concept phase for their challenges, which they encourage people to pull from for the latter stages and several people might work on the same concept, but even then the stylistic choices can set entries apart.
If anyone wants a challenge to all work on the same concept there are the monthly art challenges anyway.