NWDA & Planetside Animation Contest Announcement!

[Hannes]

Frank, you nailed it. Making these experiences is priceless. It's not (only ) about winning prices. It is learning and having fun. Besides TG has some kind of calming effect on me. So trying to get the scene right, sitting in front of the monitor, watching the rendering progress, drooling a little bit, made me calm like hell during the last weeks  .

[FrankB]

Only 8 entries  

yeah, only 8, it's a pity that not more of the other, also promising scenes have been finished. But I am very happy about the ones that were submitted.

[jbest]

This absolutely sucks .. I seriously thought that the prizes were enough to convince more than 8 people to enter the contest. Seriously.

[Kadri]

For most users it is hard to render-make 1 image. To make kind of a storyboard -a scene good from 6 different POV's ?
And an animation with a module most of the users don't have. And users like me who use the free version?
Of course it is possible but there are to much things against this.

If you ask me there are maybe more entries then i thought .
But the winners will be the ones we know and are anyhow good  
(because they are good)

If you want that more new users participate in such a contest you should make the rules very basic. Like only one image  
Especially in a software like TG2 where render times are mostly not much encouraging because of its nature(!).

I don't try to be negative. And if you ask why i say this now ; because it is over now .
I didn't want to say anything that could be seen as a damaging comment.

But i think this is kind of an experience-experiment so nothing to be sorry  

[gregsandor]

All you have to do is make a standard scene.  Place the camera at an interesting viewpoint, render, and repeat 5 more times.  It doesn't require the animation module, nor the full version.  I have both and didn't animate at all.  Just make a nice terrain model and walk or fly around in it.  As for render times, each frame image is 720 x 360, far smaller than most of the stuff everyone posts in the galleries regularly.  It took longer for TG to populate my plants than it did to render.

I suggest everyone try the contest as a challenge, even though it is over officially.  It is very simple and doing it will improve your regular scenes by causing you to think about your scene in three dimensions if nothing else.

For most users it is hard to render-make 1 image. To make kind of a storyboard -a scene good from 6 different POV's ?
And an animation with a module most of the users don't have. And users like me who use the free version?
Of course it is possible but there are to much things against this.

If you ask me there are maybe more entries then i thought .
But the winners will be the ones we know and are anyhow good  
(because they are good)

If you want that more new users participate in such a contest you should make the rules very basic. Like only one image  
Especially in a software like TG2 where render times are mostly not much encouraging because of its nature(!).

I don't try to be negative. And if you ask why i say this now ; because it is over now .
I didn't want to say anything that could be seen as a damaging comment.

But i think this is kind of an experience-experiment so nothing to be sorry  

[dandelO]

...causing you to think about your scene in three dimensions...

4 dimensions, gregsandor. Remember time?

[FrankB]

Good points, Greg!

DandelO: time is an illusion. uh, wait, space probably too. 

[gregsandor]

 

[Kadri]

Gregsandor if everyone would feel the same as you there would be many more entries.
There could be other reasons but i really doubt that the not so old-good users think the same way as you .

Make a scene and render from different 6 POV's yeah easy! And we see here all days many many , very very good 1 image posts , do we?   

[gregsandor]

It IS easy, that's my point.  Don't make it harder than it is.  Make a scene, take a picture you like, move the camera, take another picture.

Try it.  If it really is a different way for you to think about TG environments then you'll definitely benefit from the exercise.  And nobody said it has to be "very very good," only that you show some pictures that are interesting to you.

I love road trips, and was curious to see what it is about farmland and old highways that I like.

My entry is not a dramatic terrain:  there is a maximum difference in elevation of less than 8 meters over the entire 12 km square!  Indiana is FLAT.  The most interesting part of the ground for me was painting the displacement maps to elevate the roadway 3 inches above the shoulder, digging half-meter ditches alongside it, making the paved highway have a proper 2 degree slope from center so the rain drains off, carving potholes in it, and making all that fit the real digital elevation model;  I hardly noticed any of these things in the real world before I built this.  

What was fun for me (in part) was taking a real environment, and finding what was interesting about it.  

Gregsandor if everyone would feel the same as you there would be many more entries.
There could be other reasons but i really doubt that the not so old-good users think the same way as you .

Make a scene and render from different 6 POV's yeah easy! And we see here all days many many , very very good 1 image posts , do we?  

[domdib]

I think both Greg and Kadri make reasonable points. I know I didn't participate partly because I have too much work on just now, and the challenge of finding six decent viewpoints in one terrain seemed likely to be quite time-consuming. Also, I notice that there were quite a few German Terrageners who participated last time, probably from over at terragen-masters.de - was the competition promoted to them? And a few of the other participants from last time, including one of the winners, have been quiet of late. I guess it's all food for thought in the event of another contest. Maybe a smaller, simpler contest in the interim before the next "main" one might draw in more beginners?

[Kadri]

The "Animation" part is one of the problem maybe! If it would be named different -i don't know what- there would be less confusion .
Because this isn't animation for me.
These are 6 different images from the same scene. If i can not animate it myself i don't do it. Because i don't know how it will look.
It is easier to do in Lightwave or similar software (animation as camera move of course) .
And if you say again you don't have to animate , then why it is an Animation Contest ?

Do not think that i want to try to make this Contest less enjoyable or so. I am thinking loud only.

The entries are very good. So i am not trying to lesser their worth.

If the other users does say what they think , why they didn't participate this would be good for the next Contest.
So please don't take this what i try to say in the wrong way

[dandelO]

There could easily be an unofficial project here every week or two. Just for fun. It doesn't even have to be a contest, someone start a thread called 'Cows at the beach', or something, and anyone who fancies it just makes the scene their own way. It'd be fun just to see how many different approaches were added to the thread, no pressures or deadlines, just an open community free for all thread. How many different interpretations of 'Sunny Beach' or, 'The Sky At Night' we'd see.

Not quite as exciting as competing for the big prizes on offer in a real contest like this but, fun, motivating and educational, all the same.

I really have no excuse for not entering this one, other than lack of perseverance. I had made starts on several scenes for it and just never followed through. I'm glad I didn't, really! Have you SEEN the entries? Top-notch work, everyone!

[dandelO]

If i can not animate it myself i don't do it. Because i don't know how it will look.

This was also a factor for me, Kadri. Once I'd started, I wanted to have the control of all the animated parameters myself, and this wasn't required for the contest.
Regardless, I learned myself an awful lot just by motivating myself to try and go further with an area of TG I'd really only dabbled in before. I'm glad of that.

[gregsandor]

There could easily be an unofficial project here every week or two. Just for fun.
...
Not quite as exciting as competing for the big prizes on offer in a real contest like this but, fun, motivating and educational, all the same.

I've already suggested the first one:  follow the NWDA TG Animation Contest rules as a personal challenge.  You can see exactly what the people who entered did, read the feedback they got, post your work and get critiques on it as you go.