Polycount Weekly Challenge rules and regs.

[bearkub]

So here we go, this is the first run of one of these and we are going to see how it goes. The general idea behind these weekly challenges is to give those people that are aspiring to get into game development to work with short deadlines on a common theme with a very limited amount of resources. This is in no way to mimic a real-life game studio situation or based on any fact. It's just a nice way to voluntarily try and get accustomed to working with deadlines and restrictions. Here are the general rules:

<ul type="square"> Each challenge will last two weeks; From Sunday til Sunday. There is no definate time at which the new contest will go into effect, so just keep looking on Sunday (that's GMT -5, for those of you counting.)
The challenge will have very loose limitations and all be centered around a central theme. (ex. WWII US Air Force member with a 2000 poly count and 2 256x256 maps). All participants will do their interpretations of the theme in the time alotted.
THIS IS NOT A CONTEST. There are no prizes. The only "prize" is that your peers will pick one piece out of each challenge to be displayed as pic of the day on Polycount's main page.
The challenge will change from week to week. One week may be modeling, then a concepting challenge, then possibly a texturing challenge...etc. Comments and suggestions on this are welcome and appreciated.
[/list]

As I said, these are just the basic rules and idea behind what we want to do with this. These will be added and edited as needed and comments and suggestions are appreciated.

[Bronco]

Hey bearkub

Sounds good man,thanks for the oppotunity /images/graemlins/smile.gif.

As for the texturing challenges,im not sure how they would go unless we keep them as enviroment textures or a task like "make a texture set based on *insert theme here*" as we would need quite a good quality base model already made to make it worthwhile.

Also bear in mind there are plenty of SDKs being released in the pimpin section for texture practice anyway.

Thanks again sir.

john

[MoP]

Sounds good. They do a similar thing over on ConceptArt.org, the Creature of the Week challenge, just a week to draw a concept based on a brief consisting of just 2-3 words. Seems to work well, with a Voting thread assembled by a moderator at the end of every week, while a new contest is started.
I think the simpler the better, the way you have it now sounds about right - so you might say "Flying lizard, 1000 triangles, one 256x256 diffuse map with alpha channel for opacity" and just let people go at it).

I vow to participate in the first one! And hopefully all of them, if I have the time!

[ElysiumGX]

Sounds like a plan to me.

May I suggest rules for organization. It seems there are already people posting their entries without a guideline for thread titles. Wouldn't something like:

PWC Week 12: Elysium - Flying Lizard

...be a little easier to browse?

Or depending on the number of entries, would it be better to post WIP's and Final work within the same thread as the topic? Either way would improve the "voting" process as well.

Hope all goes well. I'll do what I can.

[Slash]

Sounds great! Im surely gonna try to catch as many as these as i can.

[hawken]

might be time for someone to update this *hint* *hint* /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Mal]

Is there an area where people can suggest a challenge?

I'd like to suggest a merging of two different challenges, both intrinsicly linked.

One is to model a vehicle, of approximately 2K polys.

The other is to model a suitalble environment ( approximately 20K polygons ) for this vehicle to drive around.

This app can be used for free for personal usage ( and therefore for this type of competition )...

http://www.candointeractive.com/gamedesign/car


Also, here's a link on Macromedias website explaning how to use it in under 30 minutes ( probably 10 if you're familiar with game modelling already ).

http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/director/articles/3d_in_30.html


Regards...
Mal

[hawken]

threads pop up every now and then asking what people want to do, usually entitled "next...". Look out for them and add your tuppence worth.

[KDR_11k]

Looking at all those new entries a few days before the deadline that don't have much more than a rough concept I think we may end up having to extend the deadline if we don't want to kick out 90% of the contestants. I'm as good as done but those other people might need extra time.

[hawken]

yeah I agree but no-one has asked me for extra time yet.

[Weiser_Cain]

I'm having trouble telling who's who with all these duplicate avatars.

[hawken]

don't be afraid, join us

[thefatladysings]

[ QUOTE ]
yeah I agree but no-one has asked me for extra time yet.

[/ QUOTE ]can we have extra time? /images/graemlins/crazy.gif

[Ramucho]

yeah weiser join the GOMA ARMY!
WE NEED YOU! /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Tulkamir]

If enough people besides me need extra time that'd be cool. I could use it as well, but don't wanna hold up the whole challenge for me. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Emil Mujanovic]

just posting so it can be 5 dudes in a row with the same avatar!
Pitty I found out about this comp late, would have loved to have entered.

-caseyjones

[hawken]

ok if more than 5 people PM me wanting an extension I will extend by one week.

however by the looks of things the challenge is going ok.

[Archanex]

So what are the rules on 2 sided materials?

[hawken]

might be time to axe this thread. thoughts? bearkub?

[bearkub]

Hehehe, actually, I was going to do that today as I thought the same thing. =]