Unofficial Character Mini-Challenge and Community Skill-Building Activity
polycounter lvl 15
There's been a lot of talk in the [Civil War] Spark vs. Gav vs. Hazardous vs. Slipgate thread about doing a community character project, so let's have a crack at it, eh?
So, what is this?
First and foremost, this is NOT A COMPETITION. There will be no registration, no individual threads, no judging, no winners, and no prizes. This is strictly an exercise to get the community involved in something fun and creative while we wait for the next big character challenge (DomWar? A Polycount challenge? Who knows?) to take place.
If you choose to take part in this thing, you should be doing it because you want to learn and improve your skills. It's also helpful if you're doing it because you want to help others. Polycount has a long history of giving hard critiques and tons of helpful advice to people who are looking for it. We want to continue that because it strengthens the community and encourages people to make amazing art.
After some discussion, it's been determined that changing the theme of this thing would be a good idea. Therefore, the rules have been updated to reflect this. There are important changes, so please read up.
Brief
Create a hero or boss character that would fit in the Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40K universes and make it as awesome as possible.
There will be no entry threads, judging, prizes or winners. This is just for fun, but it will be structured like a normal contest.
Again: Do not make your own thread! Keep everything in this one!
Specs
- 20,000 triangles. All characters, weapons, mounts and effects such as flashy magic crap or bullet tracers must be, total, 20,000 triangles or less. This is a big number, but it doesn't mean you have to meet it; using less is always fine.
- 1 2048x2048 material. Any and all textures are allowed as long as you'd see them in a current-gen game on a character. Basically, if it isn't displacement, it's probably okay. Breaking up texture space is A-OK. For example, using a 2048x1024 for the main character, a 1024x1024 for his weapon and a 1024x1024 for his mount is fine.
- For the final image, any and all realtime effects are allowed as long as they would work in a modern game engine (UDK, Crysis, etc.)
- Your character MUST BE POSED for your final images, but how you do it is up to you. Rig it, pull verts around, whatever.
- Pedestals are optional and have no texture, shader or polygon count limits.
- You must post all your WIP shots in this thread. No starting your own thread, no last-minute stuff with finished characters that nobody saw WIP shots from.
Deliverables
- A final beauty shot larger than or equal to 1024x768 using the above restrictions.
- A construction shot larger than or equal to 1024x768 showing how your character was made. This can (and should) have wireframes, textures and multiple views.
Restrictions
- Mounts of any kind are allowed and encouraged. Mounts' polycounts and texture budgets cut into the overall budget.
- Characters must be recognizably from either the Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40K universes, but this does not mean you are required to make a space marine or giant orc dude with a sword. Everybody has seen the Blood Angels and Ultramarines, so give the Eldar, Tau, orcs and orks, elves, dwarfs, tyranids and lizardmen some love, eh?
- Gore and nudity? The more the merrier. Keeping it tasteful would be cool, but not strictly necessary. Actual depictions of screwing should probably be kept to a minimum.
- Post all your work in this thread. Don't start your own thread. We don't want to clutter Pimping and Previews any more than it already is.
Soft Deadline
March 7th, 2011
If you don't finish your character by that date, we won't think any less of you. Well, actually we will, but we won't tell you to your face.
What are the Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K universes?
...Warhammer [Fantasy] is notable for its "dark and gritty" background world, which features a culture similar in appearance to Renaissance Germany crossed with Tolkien's Middle-earth. Chaos is central to the setting, as the forces of Chaos are attempting unceasingly to tear the mortal world asunder. The world itself is populated with a variety of races such as humans, high elves, dark elves, wood elves, dwarfs, undead, orcs, lizardmen, ogres, and other creatures familiar to many fantasy/role-playing settings.
...Warhammer 40,000's space fantasy setting spans a vast fictional universe. Its various factions and races include the Imperium of Man (a decentralized, yet totalitarian, interstellar regime that, as of the main setting of the game—some 40,000 years from now—has ruled the vast majority of humanity for millennia), the Orks (similar to Warhammer Fantasy Orcs), and the Eldar (similar to Elves in Warhammer Fantasy Battle), among others
Relevant links
Species of 40K
Races and nations of Warhammer Fantasy
PS: Don't start your own thread. Post everything in here.
PPS: Seriously, though, DO NOT START YOUR OWN THREAD. Keep it here, unless you and a couple of other people are doing your own personal challenge completely unrelated to this one.
So, what is this?
First and foremost, this is NOT A COMPETITION. There will be no registration, no individual threads, no judging, no winners, and no prizes. This is strictly an exercise to get the community involved in something fun and creative while we wait for the next big character challenge (DomWar? A Polycount challenge? Who knows?) to take place.
If you choose to take part in this thing, you should be doing it because you want to learn and improve your skills. It's also helpful if you're doing it because you want to help others. Polycount has a long history of giving hard critiques and tons of helpful advice to people who are looking for it. We want to continue that because it strengthens the community and encourages people to make amazing art.
ATTENTION: RULE CHANGES INCOMING
After some discussion, it's been determined that changing the theme of this thing would be a good idea. Therefore, the rules have been updated to reflect this. There are important changes, so please read up.
Brief
Create a hero or boss character that would fit in the Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40K universes and make it as awesome as possible.
There will be no entry threads, judging, prizes or winners. This is just for fun, but it will be structured like a normal contest.
Again: Do not make your own thread! Keep everything in this one!
Specs
- 20,000 triangles. All characters, weapons, mounts and effects such as flashy magic crap or bullet tracers must be, total, 20,000 triangles or less. This is a big number, but it doesn't mean you have to meet it; using less is always fine.
- 1 2048x2048 material. Any and all textures are allowed as long as you'd see them in a current-gen game on a character. Basically, if it isn't displacement, it's probably okay. Breaking up texture space is A-OK. For example, using a 2048x1024 for the main character, a 1024x1024 for his weapon and a 1024x1024 for his mount is fine.
- For the final image, any and all realtime effects are allowed as long as they would work in a modern game engine (UDK, Crysis, etc.)
- Your character MUST BE POSED for your final images, but how you do it is up to you. Rig it, pull verts around, whatever.
- Pedestals are optional and have no texture, shader or polygon count limits.
- You must post all your WIP shots in this thread. No starting your own thread, no last-minute stuff with finished characters that nobody saw WIP shots from.
Deliverables
- A final beauty shot larger than or equal to 1024x768 using the above restrictions.
- A construction shot larger than or equal to 1024x768 showing how your character was made. This can (and should) have wireframes, textures and multiple views.
Restrictions
- Mounts of any kind are allowed and encouraged. Mounts' polycounts and texture budgets cut into the overall budget.
- Characters must be recognizably from either the Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40K universes, but this does not mean you are required to make a space marine or giant orc dude with a sword. Everybody has seen the Blood Angels and Ultramarines, so give the Eldar, Tau, orcs and orks, elves, dwarfs, tyranids and lizardmen some love, eh?
- Gore and nudity? The more the merrier. Keeping it tasteful would be cool, but not strictly necessary. Actual depictions of screwing should probably be kept to a minimum.
- Post all your work in this thread. Don't start your own thread. We don't want to clutter Pimping and Previews any more than it already is.
Soft Deadline
March 7th, 2011
If you don't finish your character by that date, we won't think any less of you. Well, actually we will, but we won't tell you to your face.
What are the Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K universes?
...Warhammer [Fantasy] is notable for its "dark and gritty" background world, which features a culture similar in appearance to Renaissance Germany crossed with Tolkien's Middle-earth. Chaos is central to the setting, as the forces of Chaos are attempting unceasingly to tear the mortal world asunder. The world itself is populated with a variety of races such as humans, high elves, dark elves, wood elves, dwarfs, undead, orcs, lizardmen, ogres, and other creatures familiar to many fantasy/role-playing settings.
...Warhammer 40,000's space fantasy setting spans a vast fictional universe. Its various factions and races include the Imperium of Man (a decentralized, yet totalitarian, interstellar regime that, as of the main setting of the game—some 40,000 years from now—has ruled the vast majority of humanity for millennia), the Orks (similar to Warhammer Fantasy Orcs), and the Eldar (similar to Elves in Warhammer Fantasy Battle), among others
Relevant links
Species of 40K
Races and nations of Warhammer Fantasy
PS: Don't start your own thread. Post everything in here.
PPS: Seriously, though, DO NOT START YOUR OWN THREAD. Keep it here, unless you and a couple of other people are doing your own personal challenge completely unrelated to this one.
Replies
i'm in ! Now i'll have to decide if i'm going for sexy boobs or giant brute, would try a combination but i don't think those two will match ^^
"Joo keel my Fader...Prepare to dieee!"
Related to Shadowrun, I made a low poly troll not that long ago.
Anyways, good luck to all. Will be nice seeing some more great work being posted up.
But I'm not 100% sure... so much to choose from
Nah we're keeping all the WIPs in this thread
*edit* nevermind Swizzle beat me to it
edit* Actually, I have no time...
edit* Actually, I'll have a go. I'm more interested in the Warhammer theme and it is two months after all..! I don't think I'll go all the way to 20k polys, but I'll try to make something cool nonetheless.
It will be a Tau mech of some sort.
And this way my old character, Oni No Tsumaru (aka "Three Horn") will get a pic, finally!
Be prepared - for the motorcycle ridin' troll sumo wrestler physad!
I know this thread's going to get real cluttered real quick, but I'd rather just have one thread that's cluttered than an entire section of clutter. Maybe if this gets Adam's blessing or something, people can make some threads in the contests subforum.
Speaking of clutter, let's start adding clutter, shall we?
The idea at the moment is to make a punky elf chick with a huge handgun not unlike Hellboy's. Expect thigh-high socks, miniskirts and tattoos. Oh, and less shitty concepts. Well, hopefully.
And here are a few of the refs I've been collecting:
Also, bring it on, bitch.
DomWarV starting or not might mess me up though.
Nice punk ref Swizzle, who's the chick on the top left? So tempting to do a sexy lady as well, but it's too close to another character I have going already, so might try to make some beefy muscle man instead, have never really tried that.
Cheers
Seriously if you guys want a small character challenge then I'll put one together but let's not copy what the Fantastic 4 are doing ok.
Let me chat with the powers that be and see what can be done.
This wouldn't be a full blown contest but a challenge. As in no prizes! So....let me get back to you.
Let's not turn this into a flame and troll war instead.
kind of like saying the same thing 3 people before you just did
anyway i don't care about what subject , just get a challenge rolling where we can have some fun together.
And as a moderator, it's his sworn duty to ruin everyone else's fun.
Hboybowen... I kinda think you are missing the point. Gav/Spark/Hazard/Slipgate started a thread with their own writeup, idea, etc. Why are you guys copying it word for word? Seriously. There has been talks over and over about a potential polycount challenge/contest in the very near future.
Hell I just said something about it a few posts above so why insist on just plowing ahead anyways? Is it not possible to just make art for the sake of making art? You need a contest or challenge to force you to do it? I like to see people getting excited about this sort of thing but let's not copy other peoples threads because we aren't original enough to come up with our own themes.
SO PLEASE STOP THIS IDEA and let us mods and admins put something a bit more official together for you guys.
Ok thanks
- The Official Destroyer of Fun
Heh forum ;p someone posts an idea some people agree some dont...you count them and smaller group looses
/runforcover
Does GA have some sort of notification system with mini-comps? I always seem to miss the start of them.
I'd like to challenge scoobydoofus and swizzle if they're interested.
I'll come up with specs, a theme and draw the names.
A thread will be set up for EACH gauntlet of competing members. We can do groups of 2 or 4. What would you prefer.
This will not be anything official with challenges but a fun way to make some new art.
So let me know how you guys feel about this. I'm sure Adam will shoot me in the face but oh well.
Modern Gods , take an ancient god from the Egyptian, Mayan or Greek culture and bring him/her into this era. You could choose to blend him or her in with a subculture like hades with goth for example. limitations would be to only use technology that is available today or parts of it and keep the ancient culture very clear while mixing it up with the modern.
just trowing it out there to see if anyone likes it
Hm, I'd prefer just to have everyone in the same thread like in PreDominance, or will everyone still compete against each other and the gauntlets are just for the sake of forum structure?
No, you just gotta keep an eye out for them. This one just started a couple of days ago though.
I really wish there was a system for those comps. I missed the Tron comp here on PC for that same reason. Just have a locked thread that people can subscribe to, and have a mod post there when a new comp starts. That way you get an e-mail every time.
And yeah, if doing a small mini here, I think one thread for the whole thing makes sense.
Since this is an 'unofficial' challenge of sorts, organized by Swizzle, we'll keep it to ONE thread only for this challenge. If you would like to participate, then open your 3D app, read the rules and specs, and get cracking. It's as simple as that
Challenge yourselves, HAVE FUN, and enjoy some harmless competition.
As for something more official from Polycount: We're back to working on that now that the holidays are over.
And by heart, I of course mean my penis.
Anyway. I just wanted to reemphasize something I put in the first post. I decided that the Shadowrun theme would probably be best for this because it lets people basically do their own thing while still having a bunch of references to fall back on. It also means that you can learn directly from the big four who are doing the same thing.
However, if there are enough dissenting opinions and you guys want something different, it's not like I have to change the thread title. If you guys are interested in a different theme and different specs to make this more distinct, then I'll gladly change the first post's info to reflect that. It seems like a lot of people would like to do something similar to what the big four are doing, though, so I'll let it go for a couple more days in its current form and if there's a deluge of people screaming "CHANGE NAO!!1!" then I'll change it. The worst that happens is that people lose a few days of concept work and the soft deadline gets pushed back a little.
Also, if you're interested in breaking into your own groups and doing your own like the big four, I don't think anybody (aside from maybe Adam or Jesse or whoever) will stop you.