Dominance War content up
polycounter lvl 14
I know PC didn't participate this time but still awesome to see all the entries.
http://www.dominancewar.com/2010/en/videos_5.php#Goldo_O
http://www.dominancewar.com/2010/en/videos_5.php#Goldo_O
Replies
...and I also REALLY wish they'd just use Youtube.
i prefer the QT vids IMO so you can scrub it.
We should throw them all in a bundle, reskin the new tribes ascend game, and market it on the my little pony show.
Maratars' Mech is fucking siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick.
maratars didn't make it as a finalist but their entry is under the Game Artisans 3d entries.
Link?
http://wwww.gameartisans.org/contests/domwar/5/finals_leewiart_3d_6824.html
cd C:/Temp/rant/rant.exe
Seriously, this angel with holy powers and chestilcles to high heaven with hidden nipples and vajayjay has to stop from being entered into art tournaments of any kind.
If you want to show skin, fine with me, I like healthy tits as much as the next pervy basement dweller, but for feck's say, don't splat them on a character when the rest of the design doesn't even show a speck of skin or is going into a totally different direction.
Half of them are a sci-fi version of what Louis Royo came up with years ago and the worst part is, a couple of them look exactly like concepts from DA, not to mention all of them have the same silhouette as Spligates model, which while I approve of, I find it disgusting that almost half of them did the same thing, talk about lack of creativity.
There is a reason Spligate influenced many people, and a reason many of these 'winners' won't be influencing anyone else apart from people's penises.
cd C:/Temp/rant/rant.exe -ranttimeout ~90s
Great to see so many killer pieces.
I thought it ended a longass time ago.
While i usually like the concepts entered i can't stop but think "damn this would need a lot of creative interpretation from the 3d artist in order for it to work in 3d"
especially things like this
Not that i dislike the idea of having a lot of personal input towards a 3d model from an existing concept but in a production environment i could see it end up to a " yeah it isn't bad how you made it but it's not what we are looking for so do it different, but i can't tell you what it should look like exactly"
Those models are technically well executed. That said, can we finally drag ourselves away from detailing the hell out of models for no apparent reason, avoid making mecha-angels with steel pasties, and start making stuff that's actually fun and interesting to look at on something beyond a technical level?
And what the hell is going on with the concept stuff? The silhouettes in the one ErichWK linked to all look terrible. They're unreadable and look like a bunch of torn paper slapped on a page next to heads and hands.
The one Ravenslayer linked to is even worse; you can't even begin to guess how all those arms and crap attach to each other, and there's no clear indication of what someone would be modeling, what would be effects, what would need to be animated, or even what it would actually need to look like in a freakin' game. Not only that, but it has an overly-busy silhouette that, if animated and put in a game, would be completely unreadable, busy as hell, and it'd only serve to confuse and frustrate the player.
Great technically, but don't impress me when it comes to overall design.
Detail for the sake of detail is what has always disappointed me when it comes to Dominance War.
Agreed, and I've raised this point before.
If I see a model like that, I actually feel sorry for the guy, instead of focussing how well executed his work is. Instead of spending time sculpting huge tits in ZBrush, go out and get laid for real ffs.
Where is the originality ?
I don't feel like any there's any particular reason to get upset; this is really the result of the fact each years winner is typically the noisiest, most detailed thing that was executed very well.
It'll probably take some momentum from artists doing something totally different, and executed even better, to push the competition away from the weird derivative nature it's picked up.
This one is pretty fucking rad..But it's done by Baj Singh, so of course it's awesome.
The more original work you do, the bigger the risk of not getting any votes.
I don't give half a crap whether or not there are boobs or vag or giant flopping dicks, and I don't care if somebody makes something that's sexually appealing. I just care that people make stuff that isn't derivative, uninteresting crap.
There's nothing wrong with boobs. There's nothing wrong with dicks or asses or whatever the fuck else you want to put in your stuff. It's the execution that matters, and the execution of most of the stuff you see winning comps like DomWar is retarded derivative shit that, while well-executed on a purely technical level, is still retarded derivative shit that shouldn't win. I'd rather see something that wasn't as technically magnificent win if it was a more interesting and/or viable idea for a game character.
As it stands right now, a good portion of the stuff that wins simply shouldn't ever be in a video game because it would look like total ass when moving around on a screen. That should be the litmus test for things that win game art competitions; whether or not it would be a practical, readable design for something in a game.
one of my favs.
It's a great design. Not over detailed, and could totally be in a game.
I lost interest in DW when it became all about the final render.
While I like your idea, the fact still remains that it's the forum users that will be voting on the pieces and not always industry professionals with good knowledge of character design and what not.
From what I can tell, many of the character designs we see in today's games are designs that would appeal to the player/viewer but the player/viewer will not necessarily understand what's making the character look good and appealing. There are many things like color choices, rigging technique and silhouette that eases the mind when it comes to readability. A common user is less likely to recognize a well-made character, he/she will more likely go for something that looks more impressive on a shallow level(i.e very busy with details but you can hardly tell the face apart from the rest).
The good thing is that usually the best designs and executions win in the end as the finalists are judged by more experienced industry professionals.
Edit: It may sound like I'm bashing the pieces linked in this thread but I'm not. I'm just generally talking about the DW contests in all, especially this one. Some of the artists seem to have a certain kind of jargon when it comes to the DW contests, it seems like you need to have a certain level of detail and usually a very fierce and dangerous looking character(which of course isn't a bad thing).
TL;DR It isn't necessarily the artists' fault that they seem unoriginal, it's what's popular.
Another huuge issue for me is for more than half of the entries I couldn't even guess what "God" each entry was supposed to be. Baj's is a great example of readability, God of beasts, totally got that without even reading the name.
Theme seemed almost completely irrelevant for most of these entries. Even when reading the names of the gods, i can't find any discernible relations to their respective "domains".
Looks like the greebly mech-angel girl won
But glad Bogdan won Pre-Dom! And Congrats to JFletcher and Jacque for placing too! But I have no idea how the 2nd place for Pre-Dom got that high all the other entries were much better I feel.
There's some nice stuff in the 2d entries. I wonder why there's always so much more creativity in the 2d section than the 3d. I guess there's more room for noodling if you're knocking out a 2d image, but even so, there doesn't see to be any particular reason why we couldn't get some entries like this guy on the 3d side:
http://wwww.gameartisans.org/contests/domwar/5/finals_leewiart_2d_41078.html
Is it just a matter of the 3d judges gravitating to safe designs?
they are not meant to be movies, just turntables right? Try that in youtube
-edit-
nvm I see it now some kinda lava monster with house on his back
I think its a shame that the results didn't happen sooner. Did we really need a 7 month wait?
My fav that did place got 10th. I like it because I can, you know, read it's design easily.
Detail for the sake of detail is so damn old. The Epic disease...
Yeah I'd say the 2d entries were more creative but that led to so many incoherent designs that wouldn't work in a game no matter what angle you looked at it.
That's where the problem lies.
DW is no longer about game art. It's all about the final render in which you can photoshop to your heart's content.
Haters gona hate but I really dig the mech angle girl, its really well done. And I honestly dont understand the 2nd place finisher. That has to be the most generic/boring entry of them all. Its just a cat dude wearing armor. The only thing that makes this one slightly interesting is the pedestal.
But hey congratz to all the winners and participants!