Contests and Prizes...
polycounter lvl 18
I have been thinking about alternative ways to attract high poly modellers to build assets for my Quake 4 project. I've noticed that contests tend to be pretty popular and thought that I might be able to catch more bees with some honey (money)
Our project is a non-profit project so it is impossible to pay a professional what their time is truely worth... after all, if I could do that, I'd just hire one of the many pros looking for freelance work
However, by running a contest or two with a significant prize, I was thinking it might be possible to get participation by the good amateurs (and maybe even a bored pro or two)
So here is what I was kicking around... I need 7 character models for my project. The characters themselves have all been designed and colored... modellers would need only to recreate what they see from concept art so no time would need to be spent on design. An example can be seen here although the full concept packages contain larger and easier to see versions of this:
Engineer Class
The weapons are not part of the contest obviously.
If I made two separate contests where folks could pick one of three or four characters as their entry with an award of $500 to the winner... (or maybe $350 for 1st place $150 for 2nd place?) Do you think that would be enough to spark some interest? I'm just kicking around ideas at this point and thought I'd ask you guys if this is something that is even worth pursuing. If the amount of money being considered is still too low, I'm not out here looking to insult people
The hope here obviously is that my project will end up with 7 usable character models and 2 (or 4?) modellers will end up with some cash.
I'm not even sure what the best way would be to judge something like this... I'm really not qualified to do more than just eyeball a model for obvious proportion problems. I wonder if there would be a way to run the contest with Polycount's blessings and have the models judged by a fair, impartial, and knowledgable group.
Anyone have any comments on something like this? After looking for 3 or 4 months for modellers, I haven't had much luck getting folks willing to stick things through. A bunch of people have offered to make models but after a headshot or half of a chest they poof and I never hear from them again
Our project is a non-profit project so it is impossible to pay a professional what their time is truely worth... after all, if I could do that, I'd just hire one of the many pros looking for freelance work
However, by running a contest or two with a significant prize, I was thinking it might be possible to get participation by the good amateurs (and maybe even a bored pro or two)
So here is what I was kicking around... I need 7 character models for my project. The characters themselves have all been designed and colored... modellers would need only to recreate what they see from concept art so no time would need to be spent on design. An example can be seen here although the full concept packages contain larger and easier to see versions of this:
Engineer Class
The weapons are not part of the contest obviously.
If I made two separate contests where folks could pick one of three or four characters as their entry with an award of $500 to the winner... (or maybe $350 for 1st place $150 for 2nd place?) Do you think that would be enough to spark some interest? I'm just kicking around ideas at this point and thought I'd ask you guys if this is something that is even worth pursuing. If the amount of money being considered is still too low, I'm not out here looking to insult people
The hope here obviously is that my project will end up with 7 usable character models and 2 (or 4?) modellers will end up with some cash.
I'm not even sure what the best way would be to judge something like this... I'm really not qualified to do more than just eyeball a model for obvious proportion problems. I wonder if there would be a way to run the contest with Polycount's blessings and have the models judged by a fair, impartial, and knowledgable group.
Anyone have any comments on something like this? After looking for 3 or 4 months for modellers, I haven't had much luck getting folks willing to stick things through. A bunch of people have offered to make models but after a headshot or half of a chest they poof and I never hear from them again
Replies
This will not change much (people are either interested in your project or not), and if money gets into the 'game', all sorts of other difficulties start to appear.
You may consider the CGchat forum, as it has a very established contest community. I imagine if you were able to present the prizes, setup something with them, and you could get a lot of entries. Nevertheless, the downside of a contest is you get maybe one or two good models, and that's it. Then, you're stuck with maybe one nice piece of art for your mod and down a nice stack of money.
There are three kind of people regarding contests (in my opinion):
1. The one who are not really interested, but might start a piece but never actually finish it (that includes me, and probably also most professionals as they have little time).
2. The ones that are in for the 'fame'/ PR. Those are dedicated folks that want a job in the industry and see high profile contests as their possible way in. See these people over at the big CGTalk contests (and often also the CGchat ones). But as they aren't really working for prizes, your contest will probably not attract them.
3. The others. That includes freelancers that are in for the money (but only if they don't get any better deals at the moment), and people that are generally interested in you mod, and see the money as a nice extra. This third group will probably give you the best results, but it is small and at least the second half would probably work on the mod anyways.
In other words, if you really want to spend money, talk to some freelancers (on this board are a few that are quite skilled and might be interested) and offer them the money directly, or don't bother with it at all.
I don't think I'd be able to make my $1000 go far enough to make it worth paying individual people to make 7 characters as separate "jobs"... it takes too much damn work. That is part of why I was thinking about going the contest route.
Hopefully some of the other folks here will voice an opinion. If it isn't going to work, it isn't going to work and I'll look elsewhere for a solution. I'm just trying to get creative to solve a problem with limited resources
Thanks for the comments though, I appreciate them greatly.
and you NEED so much art for your mod, the contest would just sell you short. Let's say for example you had a fast artist, even making one weapon a week and one character a month, that's still about two years of development with all the content in your mod. Dedicated and/or a lot of people is your best bet, and I understand how hard that is to find. I'm helping out on a free next gen game, and I'm maybe the only artist using normals. :P
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Cholden has a good point there, maybe you should think about a completly different approach to your problem.
What about using only one playermodel with different 'additions', or go an even more radiacal approach and try some abstract graphics, that are easier to do, and that will (maybe) also attract a lot more artists?
As for reusing player models... I will do it if I must but I will strive mightily to avoid it. As far as I know, Quake 4 isn't even shipping with a female model.
This month's challenge was literally make a normal mapped anything, and you can see well that's going.
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I thought this month's challenge was watch you stomp everyone's asses without even trying.
You might also leave it open for people to reinvent the character versus your concept. You know how some people like to control the entire artistic process. So allowing them that freedom might attract them to your competition.