Lately, I've seen most competitions are aimed to character artists. Im an environment artist hoping to compete in some really sick competitions. U guys know of any good ones that are coming up, have recently started, or annual ones? What sites host these competitions most often?

Any chance of an official Polycount competition coming up? The valve one was a great start. I hope there will be others.

The only one I know about is Unearthly and well, the results of last years are still not out but at least we've gotten a top 15 so far.

The next UC won't be until next year though so eh... maybe we can get some polycount love here? (Although polycount usually does love it's character artists... just a bit to much ;) )

Maybe we could get one going.

I'm going to make a detailed suggestion of something we could do when I'm back at home. I really think the community could benefit from some environment competitions because it's something that's really been lacking outside of Unearthly.

A well-advertised and organized PC env contest would be damn sweet.

Maybe now that the TF2 contest is over, something new will follow?

some kind of movie scene competition could be sweet.....?

I'm think we should get a consistent routine of competitions going, say like one environment/scene contest every 3 months including the voting/judging period.

Yes yes yes! This would be mega rad! I think a theme that would be cool is something like.. "watercolors"..like to do environments that aren't the dystopia brown or apocalyptic grey. Scenes with nice colors and mirror a Miyazaki palette. But that's just me.

Originally Posted by Zipfinator

I'm think we should get a consistent routine of competitions going, say like one environment/scene contest every 3 months including the voting/judging period.

+1

Never realised it before but there's actually a buttload of enviro guys on pc.

Those damn character artists are stealing all our thunder... not to mention the babes.

I'd love to get involved in an environment contest, so count me in. I was still getting to grips with game art last UC so I missed out, but I think a contest would be a good experience and a lot of fun!

Let's let the LPC #3 finish its course then see if we can't cook something up for you.

It'd be a 'Challenge', though, and not a contest as we wouldn't have prizes/sponsors for you. We could leave the voting open for you to choose the winners.

Originally Posted by adam

It'd be a 'Challenge', though, and not a contest as we wouldn't have prizes/sponsors for you. We could leave the voting open for you to choose the winners.

What I'd like about it is just the involvement and the kind of 'group motivation' associated with working towards something with a bit of a deadline to kick you up the ass!

uuuhm, what? I don't follow..?

It's Monday, go slow.

has to be real time, has to be playable download (udk or sandbox). ;)

I think he meant that he'd be more into the community spirit of a challenge, as opposed to the prizes of a contest.

I think what he means is that he doesn't care about prizes and such, just the ability to work and get constant feedback from other people entering. I completely agree because competitions, even without prizes, motivate me to work harder and push myself to meet the deadline.

Exactly, I don't care about prizes to be honest, obviously free stuff is nice but just like Dan and Zipfinator said, community spirit and motivation to complete a project and work to a deadline along with getting a load of feedback is just as great.

Ah, yes.

I like the idea of the contest being for UDK exclusively. 3 reasons:

1 - It's free.
2 - It's real-time.
3 - 'Winners' offer up their upk and udk files for download/observation/learning.

OK, let me get the team on this.

Originally Posted by adam

I like the idea of the contest being for UDK exclusively.

I'm in, to build something wacky.

I like a UDK scene idea a lot. Even better if it were annual!

Also, winner should have little tags under their avatar (like in cgtalk). Im not lookin for real prizes. Just recognition. Something good in the folio

Oh heck yes...I've already got what I want to make in my mind. I now need to know if I should wait to make it for this contest, or start now!

Let's make this thing real and get it going asap!

Especially with UDK ...perfect.

sounds pretty awesome, would we be able to have teams Adam if this does happen. Im sure a buddy of mine would hook me up with a cool concept to work from.

It'll likely be loose as to who enters. We'd just give a theme, some limits, and an overall goal for your environment and tell you to 'go'. The idea here is that we challenge your skillset.