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Polycount Challenge Theme Ideas

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polycounter lvl 8
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TheRedFish polycounter lvl 8
I was having this conversation with a friend about the polycount challenge and I just thought it would be a good idea to post it and get other ideas.

Me: yeah its why I have faith in polycount
Me: they will put some kind of a restriction on what to do so that people just cant submit a model they have worked on for a year.
Friend: make a pair of characters that represent a "yin and yang" relationship ie opposites (fire and ice warriors, slave and master, etc)
Me: theme is flight, a creature that can fly or a person who has a mechanical apparatus that will allow them to.
Me: Go!
Friend: boom
Friend: Steampunk Lord of the Rings, Go
Me: Orc rider and stead, Go

Replies

  • Swizzle
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    Swizzle polycounter lvl 16
    I'm fine with pretty much anything as long as it isn't Warhammer.

    This is not to say I'm actually going to be able to enter because of my wacky freaking schedule, but whatever.
  • ArminChaudhry
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    ArminChaudhry polycounter lvl 7
    whut
    Warhammer would be awesome :D
    I would like something to do with mechanical stuff. But i love Redfishs yingyang idea.
  • Skamberin
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    Skamberin polycounter lvl 14
    Something that isn't almost exclusively "Warmaster Warmonger and his Warfriends in: The Warzone of War, starring Wars" would be neat. As much as I love the results DW gave, the dark/gritty look that nearly everything had was kind of, eh. But that just me.

    Skypirates and floating islands combined with old Greek/Babylonian/Assyrian/Roman/Egyptian/Norse architecture and mythology would be nice
  • InProgress
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    InProgress polycounter lvl 14
    I want Skypirates as a theme. That is just awesome /drool.
  • roosterMAP
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    roosterMAP polycounter lvl 14
    1. Steampunk

    2. Sci-fi shanty city

    3. Marriage between nature and manmade type scene.
  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    I really hope there isn't a 'genre' theme. The nice thing about dom war was you could do fantasy, sci fi, steampunk, gothic - basically whatever the hell you wanted.

    I'd much rather have a vauge brief.
  • Jason Young
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    Jason Young polycounter lvl 14
    fearian wrote: »
    I really hope there isn't a 'genre' theme. The nice thing about dom war was you could do fantasy, sci fi, steampunk, gothic - basically whatever the hell you wanted.

    I'd much rather have a vauge brief.

    I'm the opposite, I like strict themes. Forces every comp. to be completely different.
  • ArminChaudhry
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    ArminChaudhry polycounter lvl 7
    JMYoung wrote: »
    I'm the opposite, I like strict themes. Forces every comp. to be completely different.

    indeed its alot better and nobody could easily cheat by doing the model month before everything starts
  • Grim Tuesday
    Remember in highschool english, you had to learn different types of conflict?

    Man vs Wild

    aka

    Character vs Environment
  • shotgun
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    shotgun polycounter lvl 20
    Not so much theme as in focus: I think that the online community (not just PC) is saturated with technical artists who revolve around the, well, technical aspect of things, while the design is rudimentary and generic. I know many feel the same.

    Perhaps it would be efficacious, then, to put more emphasis on designing a cool, functional, innovative and unique character/world/whatever it is the contest demand.
  • Autocon
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    Autocon polycounter lvl 15
    We can always default back to the tried and true polycount competition theme of penis tanks!
  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    Autocon wrote: »
    We can always default back to the tried and true polycount competition theme of penis tanks!

    should be a mandatory art test at every company imo.
  • JacqueChoi
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    JacqueChoi polycounter
    I just wanna get some practice doing some HSM.

    I like the idea of giving a simple personality theme, then asking for an artists interpretation of it. Similar to the CGchat ones.


    Like:

    "Epic Badass"
    "Girl and her Gun"
    "Military Ghost"



    That way we can make it whatever we want, sci fi, wild west, horror, high fantasy, re-trofuturistic, steampunk.... but maintain the same themes.
  • crazyfingers
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    crazyfingers polycounter lvl 10
    I find the thought of a 1 day "mini" (not sure if that's the right word) challenge for penis tanks for shits and giggles hilarious.
  • ValugaTheLord
    Space!! Because Space is awesome and everyone loves it!
  • Del
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    Del polycounter lvl 9
    JacqueChoi wrote: »
    I just wanna get some practice doing some HSM.

    I like the idea of giving a simple personality theme, then asking for an artists interpretation of it. Similar to the CGchat ones.


    Like:

    "Epic Badass"
    "Girl and her Gun"
    "Military Ghost"



    That way we can make it whatever we want, sci fi, wild west, horror, high fantasy, re-trofuturistic, steampunk.... but maintain the same themes.

    ~ BEST IDEA EVAR
  • Skamberin
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    Skamberin polycounter lvl 14
    I hope the themes are Lensflare, Emissive and Bloom.
  • crazyfingers
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    crazyfingers polycounter lvl 10
    In all seriousness, I hope somehow the theme breaks the community into 2 sides, this way we can somehow maintain some level of "sides" that was so much fun in prior competitions (all in the spirit of fun of course).

    Really liked the polycount "civil war" theme. Green or black sorta deal. Choose a side, go to war.
  • Stinger88
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    Stinger88 polycounter
    I'd like to see something that contrasts against the usual Dom War brief. Which is basically "make a high ranking sci fi/demon/cyborg bad ass character" so i'm not sure what the opposite of that would be.

    maybe making a caveman grunt...oooh... Neanderthal warriors or something tribal. I like that. Might start working up an idea (in secret of course...so dont tell). Designs can always be bent to a brief.

    EDIT: btw, I would place money on the fact that the brief is already finalised and what ever we want to see is matterless.
  • Skamberin
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    Skamberin polycounter lvl 14
    ^What Crazy fingers said is great.

    Character artists could be "Warrior Trainers" and env folk be "Arena Builders" or something like that.
    Each side with their colours and "home turf"
  • Segreto
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    Segreto polycount sponsor
    Autocon wrote: »
    We can always default back to the tried and true polycount competition theme of penis tanks!

    If I can make one of these I'm game.

    tanksilencer.jpg
  • XenoKratios
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    XenoKratios polycounter lvl 12
    Stinger88 wrote: »
    EDIT: btw, I would place money on the fact that the brief is already finalised and what ever we want to see is matterless.

    I don't doubt it, but it's going to be epic none the less.

    That being said I would like to contribute by saying:

    Lavapunk!
  • Valandar
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    Valandar polycounter lvl 18
    As long as it's a theme that can support peoples' differing talents, I'm game.

    Wanna do hard surface modelling? Go for it.

    Organics? Sure.

    Suck at hair? No problem.

    Never can get the hang of clothing? Nekkid all the way! :D
  • adam
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    adam polycounter lvl 20
    So many adjective+noun theme ideas. I guess you could say we're trying to put the videogame back in to '3D videogame art' with one ;)
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    The theme should be sex.
  • roosterMAP
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    roosterMAP polycounter lvl 14
    lol.

    Seriously tho. Maybe have scenes be a 3d replica of a famous painting? that would be interesting.
  • bbob
    thats an awesome idea
  • UrbanMaws
    personally like the whole Dom War idea cuz its so broad and is able to attract multiple styles...
    and then the mini challenges that they do are when they get specific into already made themes and such.

    but now i was thinking about this and i would like it if they did more category's for example:
    3D Character, 3D Enviorment, 3D Animation, 2D Concepts <
    basicly just opening the competion to more people in the industry not just focusing on those who know all the ins n outs of character modeling.
  • slipgatecentral
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    slipgatecentral polycounter lvl 13
    while I believe PC team already got their contest idea rolling, I'd love to see something like that:
    Kc3gy.jpg

    Coolest thing about 2 latest DWs was the fact we could compete with asian artists, and see the way they're thinking and designing their shit. Good opportunity to see them working on the same topic, something rare you don't get to witness each day.

    upd. with dicks and boobs.
  • XenoKratios
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    XenoKratios polycounter lvl 12
    It's so wrong, it's right.

    I can't look away.
  • adam
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    adam polycounter lvl 20
    roosterMAP wrote: »
    lol.

    Seriously tho. Maybe have scenes be a 3d replica of a famous painting? that would be interesting.

    iseewhatyoudidthere
  • katana
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    katana polycounter lvl 14
    It can't be diluted down to "Just another comp"..It has to stand on it's own. It has to be truly special as if there is no place in the universe that it can exist. That's what DW brought to the table.

    Were I to design something epic, I would start at the amoeba and work out from there.

    Confused?

    Most of a truly great idea is never seen. The "Elvish chick getting 'tagged' by a big mean minigun", is just a start, but what led the universe to spin in that out of control vortex, where such an act was allowed, even socially accepted?

    So from there, you've attached an idea to a social interaction, but then how do the actions of a society effect the world they live on and then the universe and ultimately the multi-verse?

    That's what made DW so special, each segment seemed connected as the participants added their work to it.

    Each piece has to connect to another piece, each annual comp has to seamlessly connect to the next.

    And in that same light, here, the admins lay the foundation...

    but we build the world.
  • amblin
    If you need a theme, I'd go for Sci-Fi. Something like Tron or Ghost in the Shell or Futurama's Interweb, basically Virtual Space.

    Or Death of a God
    The Betrayer
    Bounty Hunter
  • Lennyagony
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    Lennyagony polycounter lvl 15
    What i would love to see in a game art competition is less smoke and mirrors, more real meat and potatoes in game running artwork.

    Not to diminish previous Dominance/unearthly participants, but a nice posed screenshot is an entirely different ballgame to in level play tests.
  • NoctyQ
    Cats and dogs are cool.

    Off topic:
    What happened to the "StolenWork? Or biased thoughts" thread? Why delete whole thread?
  • DR01D
    As much as I love DW, there was always more I wanted from it... There was en excitement with creating a universe and the battle to rule it.. We never really saw any huge scale battles or any conflict for that matter. All we got was damn good characters...

    Taking this thought it would be cool if the character and environment art was done in a first stage and then the animation stage following up using the winning characters and environments. The competition itself almost becomes a production with the final result being a short movie/promo from the animation winner/team...???? there are a whole heap of issues but i just thought it would be cool to see the characters in action and give a lot more depth and background to the universe...
  • [Deleted User]
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    [Deleted User] polycounter lvl 18
    I hope we get the option to include vehicles for our guys. Vehicles are where it's at. There's sort of a design parallel between video games and toys. Great action figure characters tend to make great video game characters (and vice versa). Cool environments tend to make neat playsets. What would action figure battles be without the awesome vehicles?

    I'd love to see people come up with all kinds of gnarly vehicles for their dudes to cruise around the scene in. That would be exciting.
  • Stinger88
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    Stinger88 polycounter
    yeah. I really hope we see some vehicles in this comp at some point. It is a major part of games after all.

    Also. Another theme i'd like to see in a major comp is Sports having watched some awesome Rugger this weekend (Swing Low, Sweet Chariot....etc). Bad ass warriors are great but its all we see these days.

    Could be realistic sports today. Rudgy, Football, F1, Dakar, Tennis, or even Blood bowl or speedball style thing.
  • whipSwitch
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    whipSwitch polycounter lvl 8
    I think the theme should be "Meat + Potatoes"
  • Marine
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    Marine polycounter lvl 19
    i'd like something along the lines of what the new deus ex game is doing, take an old style and apply it to a modern/near future setting, like they did with the renaissance and a near future world
  • Uly
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    Uly polycounter lvl 17
    im not too picky, as long as there's some flexibility in execution and a fighting chance for entries that aren't littered with extraneous detail. that and being able to team up with a character artist would make this all pretty fun.
  • McGreed
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    McGreed polycounter lvl 15
    I hope as well that we can have two teams pitting against each another, with themes as:
    - Sci. Fi vs Fantasy (robots and spacemen vs paladins and magic)
    - Ice vs Fire (Crystal-like vs cracky lava)
    - Sweet vs Sour (Puppies in tanks vs bitter old men in modified wheelchairs)
    ...you get my drift. :)
  • dregoloth
    "An epic encounter"
    shadow_of_the_colossus2b.jpg
    24q61du.png
    Now that theme would be epic.

    But I'm open to anything. A challenge which started when it was supposed to is enough for me.
  • leilei
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    leilei polycounter lvl 14
    Stinger88 wrote: »
    Could be realistic sports today.

    Does it have to be realistic? What happened to monster sports teams?

    MUTANT LEAGUE FOOTBALL AND SPACE JAM FTW
  • Andreas
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    Andreas polycounter lvl 11
    Actually leilei, I don't really like many sports, but Stingers idea is pretty good. You could take a real life sportsman and make a real time character out of him. Gav has some motherlovin' amazing examples in his portfolio. Alot of people on here are football or hockey fans. This should be a mini. Dunno why PC doesn't do minis like GA. I've tried getting Don to have minis that encompass characters, weapons, environments etc for a long time but they always stick to characters.
  • TortillaChips
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    TortillaChips polycounter lvl 10
    Andreas wrote: »
    Actually leilei, I don't really like many sports, but Stingers idea is pretty good. You could take a real life sportsman and make a real time character out of him. Gav has some motherlovin' amazing examples in his portfolio. Alot of people on here are football or hockey fans. This should be a mini. Dunno why PC doesn't do minis like GA. I've tried getting Don to have minis that encompass characters, weapons, environments etc for a long time but they always stick to characters.

    Cool, whose gonna do Goldust?

    zzzza3_GoldustPromo_L.gif
  • amblin
    Andreas wrote: »
    Actually leilei, I don't really like many sports, but Stingers idea is pretty good. You could take a real life sportsman and make a real time character out of him. Gav has some motherlovin' amazing examples in his portfolio. Alot of people on here are football or hockey fans. This should be a mini. Dunno why PC doesn't do minis like GA. I've tried getting Don to have minis that encompass characters, weapons, environments etc for a long time but they always stick to characters.

    if you make it a virtual environment or maybe blood bowl inspired, i'm in!:poly142:
  • amblin
    F*ck I got it, Cowboys vs Aliens! =)
  • Stinger88
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    Stinger88 polycounter
    leilei wrote: »
    Does it have to be realistic? What happened to monster sports teams?

    MUTANT LEAGUE FOOTBALL AND SPACE JAM FTW

    Of course. Thats why I added Blood bowl. I myself would actually be doing a fantasy style sports character if something like this did happen. I know sports characters might sound a bit boring to some people but I think its something thats overlooked. A well executed character in simple clothing is something I need in my portfolio. Instead i'm always trying to do bloody trolls or assassins armed to the hilt, etc.
  • greevar
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    greevar polycounter lvl 6
    Here's your theme:

    Cyborg-Pirate-Ninja-Jesus.jpg

    GO!
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