what's next ? An image or animation competition ? Tweet

[Proupin]

Roual as you say it's an individual choice whether to use or not library stuff and/or camera mapping... As long as it is stated in the render description I think it's fine. Another thing would be trying to scam the audience by using library stuff or a crazy photoshop job without saying a word... I think RS team stated that if libraries were used you had to say so; no post-production (I would have preferred people not applying bloom effects, chroma aberration etc)...
(mlody what happened to your statements? - I had to delete mine too...)

on topic, if animation competition was to be made, I would really appreciate if it could be Octane raw output only, no post, no live footage.

[BlessOd]

I vote
- A specific theme / open competition for animations only
because it will be real competition.
Creativity is good, but the competition with a specific topic is easier to judge and eliminates the possibility to take the old scane and make animation.
I believe that working for the competition should be made only for the competition.

[radiance]

What about running 2 competitions, one for images and one for animations ?

Radiance

[ROUBAL]

I forgot to vote !o)

- A specific theme / competition for animations only.

On one side, one competition at a time would allow to participate to more competitions. Maybe not everybody will make both still images and animations, but as animations requires much more time, it is difficult to participate to both competitions if they are on the same period.

On the other side, people not making animations will have to wait during the animation challenge, and could be frustrated, so what about two competitions and having the choice to participate to only one : still or animation ?

[n1k]

Animation challenge is ok as long it's stated that only one individual can work on that particular entry. Doing animation requires A LOT of work, so people from animation studios could have upper hand. It would be really great if one of requirements for the competition is that one who's entering the challenge needs to have WiP thread so the things are transparent as much as possible. Also it is common practice for winner of challenge to make short "making of". And I think that shouldn't be two parallel competitions at the same time(still/anim).

Cheers,
n1k

[ROUBAL]

@n1k :In theory, I agree with you, but on an other side, A Making Of requires time to make records and else, as well as managing a Wip thread. All this means less time for making the animation. As you said, animation requires much time. During the past competitions, capturing simple proof screen shots was not a big deal, but If a Wip thread had been compulsary I would have made less images or even not had enough time to participate.

For animations, I completely agree that they must be done by one artist only (excluding team works) to give equal chances to everyone, but if we give extra work with Making Of and WIP thread, the competition can run for a year and will involve very few persons. You said Making Of from the winners, but a making of requires work at any stage of the work. If you don't record things when they are beeing made, it is difficult or impossible to make shots or videos after, when it is done, without restarting from scratch ! For this reason, I gave up on making some tutorials about some of my past works because they would have required to redo and record everything while working... and much more time than making the thing the first time for myself !

For my own I will never find time for it (To participate to the last image competition, I slept very few hours per night during the last month!).

[n1k]

@Roubal

Regarding making of and WiP thread:

By that I meant nothing too complex. You kinda had WiP posts in competition thread, posting many updates and experiments with your scenes and we could watch how things progress toward the finish. Mlody also had nice WiP thread in which he posted his works in development. Every piece of art ,which is chosen as No1, have details separating it from other works. Making of should have accent on those unique details so the competition can have educational purpose also.

[thwak]

so people from animation studios could have upper hand

How is that not true of every competition here, still frame or animation?

The talented pros in this community with years of schooling and experience in the 3D industry will always be the finalists in these competitions. Thats just life. They are very good at what they do. The only difference animation makes is that it puts a larger number of folks here in the 'amateur' bucket where a lot of us reside full time. Welcome to our club.

Radiance: Given that the desired outcome of these contests is to fill the Octane coffers with good marketable content, I would think having a few really good animations would be desired about now. So from a business standpoint I think that would be best.

My 2 shillings.

[Proupin]

I'm ok with animation, but as n1k said only made by one person, and whatever comes out of octane is the final result (no post-production, camera matching...), and NO live footage. And to prevent some old project revival, a themed contest would be best IMO

EDIT: oh, and as long as there are sufficient tools "out of the box" for the production of animation in Octane... We don't want to write our own scripts for the thing do we? That's why I think perhaps is too soon, because of the many different softwares everyone may be using, people without a working mechanism to export animation would be in a great disadvantage (well, they won't be able to participate at all!! )

My 2 pesos...

[n1k]

@thwak

Yeah, but 'amateurs' still have much better chances against 'pro's, from studios, with one person per entry rule. That all makes sense (to me) if purpose of challenge is to attract many people...

Cheers,
n1k