Crazy idea. Monthly community tutorial-workshop.
polycounter lvl 17
This idea probably blows hard buuuut... at least i´m putting it out there for you. I just hope i can make myself understood.
What if we had a workshop every now and then where we get a vehicle / item / concept / whatever and everybody has to follow it.
Wouldn´t this be a perfect chance to see other peoples workflows, gain techniques and generally get alot of help from others that are trying to do the same thing as you are. At least i think so. (And it would be interesting to see the different end results)
Maybe wouldn´t be as fun if a whole community went at it due to the variation issue. Maybe if there was a few characters or vehicles that you could pick from
Eh i dunno.... Sooo.... anyone understand what i´m getting at here?
What if we had a workshop every now and then where we get a vehicle / item / concept / whatever and everybody has to follow it.
Wouldn´t this be a perfect chance to see other peoples workflows, gain techniques and generally get alot of help from others that are trying to do the same thing as you are. At least i think so. (And it would be interesting to see the different end results)
Maybe wouldn´t be as fun if a whole community went at it due to the variation issue. Maybe if there was a few characters or vehicles that you could pick from
Eh i dunno.... Sooo.... anyone understand what i´m getting at here?
Replies
Every month, someone names a prop. the idea here isn't like normal where we just build and submit it, but we actively take note of the steps we took to reproduce said object, then compare and contrast our techniques with each other, with the hope being a greater understanding of different potential methods used to create something
Maybe we all , or whoever would be able to, could use the same recording software and save out videos so others can see our exact workflow. Then just have them run at like 1.5x speed or something so they don't have to suffer through it all.
Or just take a screenshot and post some notes about how you did a certain part of the model or whatever.
Feel free to give some suggestions on format, organization or anything else. Like who decides what to model, what is required, etc.
One thing i would like to propose, is mandatory, or atleast to very much encourage asset sharing(obj etc). This would do two things: give a very easy way for others to offer advice on you work, and give some very good examples for others trying to learn.
Besides arent there a bunch of video recorded concepts on youtube etc? Something simialar would be cool to just see something form
For PC sessions, I'd personally rather it not be a competition with winners or anything like that. Making it monthly rather than weekly is interesting, because it might allow for more in-depth projects. Maybe provide some concept or photos by whomever, just for inspiration, to go along with a prompt or keyword to allow people to make their own thing?
And include in the per-topic "what is required" section vague terms of stuff like, a face, something mechanical, something with wheels, something with wings. Then it can be a focused exercise on a specific sort of thing, and if any participant wants to expand upon their contribution they can just do so at their leisure.
Either way, I'd be more interested in something that isn't necessarily a speed-based competition, and think more people might participate in that..? And as usual for these sort of things, there could be a topic suggestions thread. Maybe for a month-long topic, have a few mini-topics (within the same thread) that can be either treated as individual studies or incorporated into the main theme. Like if the topic was bicycle, the mini-topics might be wheels with spokes, threaded nuts and bolts, muddy inorganics, that sort of thing. Basically, like GA's mini-comps organization wise, but instead of being themed art comps, provide challenge-based deep exploration of a topic.
Yeah i agree, i think we need to focus it to short, simple excersizes, not full on projects. Like model a portion of an engine, or a basketball shoe, or a cool door. Etc, things like that.
First off, i think the format should be not one of a competition at all, but moreso of just general workflow sharing. It will be all about sharing the process, with a focus oh how to create, not what you're creating. So you'de stick with something very specific to model. Now i'm sure this isnt going to be something that interests everyone, but a casuall interest is all that would be needed, even just a few people could provide some good information for the entire forum. I dont think you need to look at this being succesful in terms of how many people participate in it, but moreso the quality of what is being show by those who do(and by quality i dont mean asthetically, i mean in terms of knowledge and information).
Now i see leaving it open to interperation giving up some of that valuable "see how he did it" learning environment, the more loose the subject is, the more abstract everything gets and it could just turns into a contest of who thinks of the craziest thing within the criteria. I think we have enough of those with the various challenges and contests that we/others run.
How i see this in essence is sort of an interactive "how u model dem shapes" where everyone/anyone can do some real hands on participations and share their workflows, and learn new ones as well.
As far as time goes, i think shorter is going to be better, the nature of this being entirely for study, instead of a competition is going to lend itself to people getting bored with a longer more drawn out format. How many people finished dom war, of those who started? And that had prizes and shit.
I think we should go with a weekly, or bi-weekly format to keep things fresh, and try to maximize interest from the entire comunity.
On the other hand we may be able to experiment with doing some in "stages" ie: 1 week for HP, 1 week for low+ uvs, 1 week texturing, etc etc those are some things we could consider, but i would keep it more simple to start.
[edit] On the idea of stages, something cool that will add a bit of competition for those who seek it, could to have a few stages, and pick a winner of each stage.
So you have everyone do a HP/low/bake
And the best model goes onto texture stage(by public vote)
Then everyone gets to texture the winning model
This would actually be a much bigger pain, and probabbly not nearly as good as it sounds in practice, even just considering different software. But its something to think about. If anyone has any more ideas along these lines i'de be really interested in hearing them.
Yes bi-monthly, not bi-weekly is what i meant. TWO WEEKS IS WHAT I MEANT =D
this isnt suposed to be a competition. THis is suposed to be knowledge sharing.
its like EQ said. its like a how you model dem shapes kinda thing... but you dont post questions. you do shit.. and learn from others how to model the same thing. you kow.. ending loops, terminating edges. all that jazz.
i sometimes recorded my modeling sessions and share it to some friensd, and its interesting to see their approach, sometimes diferent than mine.
For the first stage, everyone is welcome, and showing their workflow. The best result moves on to the next stage, and the obj is given out. Everyone works off of that and once again best result moves on to the next, and everyone works off of that, etc.
Interesting or dumb?
That's kinda what i was thinking to begin with. A full on project would be a bit too much.
Yeah its a good idea, but i think it falls apart in software usage. Sub-d principals pretty much can translate from app to app, but once you get down to baking and texturing you get some major problems. Tangent space isssues, stuff rendering differently in other packages etc etc there would be no way to make sure everyone was really on the same page. I still think its something to consider tho.
The idea of making each session a stage in the entire process was the first thing that popped into my head when I started reading this. Good call!
Totally agree that it should be more of an advanced "how u model dem shapes" than any form of a competition.
now we just need a sexy name for this thing.................
Not sure how to go about splitting that up or whatever. (Max, Maya, Zbrush, Mudbox, ect)
So basically every month everybody makes a tutorial on the same object ? Sounds like a plan.
especially the non competition part. We have enough of those.
Rock hard admin-boys and hook us up! hehe. My job here is done. P.I.G awaaaay!
I think videos, screenshots, pdf and anything else you wish would be good enough... as long as it´s understood what you do. I wouldn´t want to record and edit a bunch of footage for example. Don´t have the harddrive for it *shame*
Thinking for a texture type workflow, you'd need to show progress of the starting point, goals of the piece, reference material, and then progress. To wrap it all up, having that psd available to thumb through, that had all the layers labeled, etc could be useful.
the one thing i think the idea of this should stray away from however are videos. Video tutorials are nice, but seem to be a bit much.
i'd say keep the projects rather small. if this requires too much time to do, i would honestly prefer spending that time working on personal stuff.
videos are nice, let people do videos if they want and i will gladly watch them, but i'd say it's not a must. one thing i am personally worried about is hosting. my webspace and traffic is very limited. this is a bit different than posting just a few wip and final shots of a project. but then again there is always services like rapidshare.
could be set-up like the concept tag, eg
highpoly(?)-texture(?)-render(?)-finishedpeice (by ?,?,?)
highpoly(?)-texture(?)-render(?)-finishedpeice (by ?,?,?)
lowpoly(?)-texture(?)-render(?)-finishedpeice (by ?,?,?)
concept (?)- blockout(?)- highpoly(?)- lowpoly(?)-texture(?)-render(?)-finishedpeice (by ?,?,?,? and?)
blockout(?)- highpoly(?)- lowpoly(?)-texture(?)-render(?)-finishedpeice (by ?,?,?,? and?)
highpoly(?)- lowpoly(?)-texture(?)-render(?)-finishedpeice (by ?,?,?,? and?)
lowpoly(?)-texture(?)-render(?)-finishedpeice (by ?,?,?,? and?)
texture(?)-render(?)-finishedpeice (by ?,?,?,? and?)
of cause natural selection would mean that most assets would be dropped along the way, but i imagine it would be a good way to help noobs and pros alike, and maybe a good way of un-learning those bad habits.
Prop/Assets>Weapons>Characters>Enviroments... This is going to be ace
I think this would be a great idea though. There's a lot of people here with tons of knowledge that I'm sure is just waiting to be shared haha
i kind of want to see what people do with this kind of source
(its danny)
http://www.blitzforum.de/upload/file.php?id=5776
I´d think a door / gate / entryway of some sort as a first would be cool but it´s down to the mods. I´d also be interested in learning how to make heads and hands. I have zero knowledge of characters.
I´m a prop/enviro artist proffesionally so some organic stuff would be nice (the more you know). How about one organic topic and one other hardsurface/prop topic? I know most of you are character junkies but it´s important to not shun us enviro people.
ps: do not underestimate the power of rocks.