BLENDING LIFE: Category A [VOTING CLOSED]

[Len]

Hear Ye, hear Ye! Place yar votes!! One vote per person only, so choose wisely.

**Please view the high res of each before you vote, make sure you zoom in to 100%.**
SEE LINKS BELOW FOR ORIGINAL SIZE SUBMISSIONS.

C&C's welcome.

Polls close 30 December 2008.

Your votes will count towards 50% of the final scores. The judges scores form the other 50%. The final combined scores from the judges are as follows:

CAT A
Nyxia 34.5 = 7 points

Bigbad 34 = 6 points

Otsoa 29 = 5 points

Frizmer 29 = 5 points

Madmantos 28 = 4 points

Cormega 28 = 4 points

Orinoco56 26.5 = 3 points


A. Cormega


B. Bigbad


C. Madmantos


D. Nyxia


E. Orinoco56


F. Frizmer


E. Otsoa

[Len]

A breakdown of the judges scores for Cat A:

Peter's scores
Nyxia - Score: 9
Bigbad - Score: 9
Orinoco - Score: 9
Madmantos - Score: 9
Frizmer - Score: 8
Cormega - Score: 8
Otsoa - Score: 6

BgDM's scores
Nyxia: 8.5
Bigbad: 8
Otsoa: 8
Cormega: 7
Frizmer: 7
Madmantos: 6
Orinoco: 5.5

Mr. Bomb's Scores
bigbad - 9
cormega - 6
Frizmer - 8
nyxia - 8
otsoa - 7
orinoco56 - 7
madmantos - 7

Len's Scores
Nyxia - Score: 9
Bigbad - Score: 8
Otsoa - Score: 8
Cormega - Score: 7
Frizmer - Score: 6
Madmantos - Score: 6
Orinoco - Score: 5

[Felix_Kütt]

Hope you don't mind, besides the voting, me also throwing a little comment in here.

All the entries are good, happy to see many finished entries,
theres only one thing I would have liked to see done well besides the modeling, lighting and shading,
and that is posing, as that would add a lot to any of the works, to the liveliness of the characters.

But time is an issue alway's, of course, free time is an expensive commodity,
and always in shortage, so, good work everyone involved!

Very inspiring work.

[TheANIMAL]

For me this is a difficult choice, the most realistic realistic human here is not the best overall render IMO.

[bsperan]

Indeed, these are all awesome! Professional-looking even.

Originally Posted by TheANIMAL For me this is a difficult choice, the most realistic realistic human here is not the best overall render IMO.

Why wouldn't the most realistic human be the best render? From what I can tell, all of these aimed for - and achieved - high realism. Personally, I think the most realistic entry here demonstrates the greatest skill.

[harkyman]

Please view the high res of each before you vote -- open the images in a new tab and make sure you're viewing at 100%, not with your browser reducing them to fit the screen. It makes a big difference, and certain ones that looked better or worse reduced flipped at 100%.

[Len]

Originally Posted by harkyman Please view the high res of each before you vote -- open the images in a new tab and make sure you're viewing at 100%, not with your browser reducing them to fit the screen. It makes a big difference, and certain ones that looked better or worse reduced flipped at 100%.

Agreed, pls do that guys, in fact I'll plug it into the main post.

[Len]

Originally Posted by Felix_Kütt Hope you don't mind, besides the voting, me also throwing a little comment in here.

Not at all, everyone must comment to their heart's desire as it will influence next year's Challenge if there is one.

[MasterDomino]

Great work everyone!

I voted for BigBand, since I think his face looks the most realistic, just the hair does not work 100%, but it's still the best overall imo (and far better than anything I could ever do).

Now I shall head over to category B.


MD

[dyf]

in my opinion, the only *finished* projects are the ones by Bigbad and Nyxia.. others look great too especially Frizmer's but they still lack an environment and *story*.. i can already pull out a story from Bigbad's project due to the environment, facial expression and clothes of the character (that's where my vote went btw).. something to keep in mind..

[Big Fan]

As a general comment the setting or presentation of these subjects is perhaps not as flattering as it could be and
although each face has merits and slight misses I think they are actually all of a commendably high standard.
Well done everyone.

[Sanguine]

For my Nyxia really stands out. The materials used, especially under the eye, look truely real. BigBand was my second favorite but some of it doesn't work for me and the hair and the eye brows look fake.

[bsperan]

Originally Posted by harkyman Please view the high res of each before you vote -- open the images in a new tab and make sure you're viewing at 100%...

That's good advice. But, I already did that before voting.

There is no denying that the face of Nyxia's entry is drop-dead beautiful. And, in comparison, the face of Frizmer's entry is - to put it nicely - plain looking, or - to put it bluntly - a bit on the ugly side. But THAT is exactly why I voted for Frizmer. For me, this makes Frizmer's entry appear like it has more realism (and, possibly, more skill). But, to be fair, I think Bigbad's entry is pretty good too (and not as "ugly", either).

Personally, I find more realism in ordinary faces, with all the unpleasant wrinkles and imperfections, than in goddess-like emodiments of Beauty that looks like a fashion model or celebrity.

I just get the impression that some may have voted primarily on a superficial beauty factor or an infatuation factor, rather than on factors of realism or skill.

Which Brings Up a Good Question:

What ARE the qualities that entries are supposed to be judged by?

I was confused when I found this contest and I had to read it several times, looking for the conditions. But all I found was "Select your favourite, or who you think should win."

Depending on which qualities are to be considered, I may have voted differently. I admit that Nyxia's is my favorite, based purely on beauty. (Looking like a dream date.) However, I feel more strongly that Frizmer's should win, based on perceived realism and skill.

Then again, I'm still new to Blender and my impression of skill may be a bit skewed. (Perhaps these contests should only be open to those with at least 6 months experience in Blender?)

For that matter, I'm still pretty clueless to the requirements for entry submission. All I know is that this is called the "Blender 3d Photo-realistic & Stylized human challenge." From this, I understand that the entries must be made in Blender and the subject matter must be human. And by being "Photo-realistic" I had assumed (perhaps incorrectly?) this contest was about realism. Was a requirement for submission that entries had to be 100% created from scratch? Or could poser-type models or clothing objects be used? I assume the textures can be from another author, correct? Knowing such things could greatly influence votes.

Finally, I think the conditions (or lack, thereof) would influence the type entries submitted for contests such as this. For example, if it's clearly stated beforehand that a particular "human challenge" contest would be judged solely on Looks Appeal, then I believe all the entries would be either gorgeous young women or adorably cute babies.

[bigbad]

bsperan brings many good points. If it's about best looking then the hot chick wins. Even I find Nyxia,Ormega and Otsoa's images very attractive.

I must admit that I couldn't go all the way about my character. I was supposed to make him more "regular" but I couldn't. That makes me somewhat weak in my artistic skills and that is something I must work on.

[Len]

I find everyone's comments fascinating Bigbad to be dead honest with you, you were my favourite (and i followed your progress in the WIP as I did with many of the others, you shoulda just added a tad more specular bro!!) ... that was until Nyxia came along lol. It's incredibly difficult to create a cg female as the skin is much smoother, having tried it myself and failed like miserably!! So in that sense she got my vote ;-)

I pretty much loved ALL of the final entries hey (and all the other entries as well), judging on them was incredibly difficult. And with Frizmer running at second place at the moment it just shows how different people's opinions are, personally I thought Frizmer was incredibly well done, but damn I didn't like the presentation - just a simple closer crop would've gotten rid of the texture stretch marks on the neck and them nasty hard shadows.

I'm even more surprised that Otsoa got only 3 votes so far as he scored in my personal top 3.

[ypoissant]

I find the three lowest scores interesting. Personally, there are two of those 3 that I wondered what the hell are they doing in the finals. I agree with the presentation also. Some entries have clearly a lot of work on the texturing. All the `must-do` are there on a very high resolution color map and the skin looks really well done. The models are usually well done too although I see several anatomical errors. But the lighting is severely lacking when not totally overlooked on some of them as well as the expressions/posing.

My conclusion goes in the same vein as the previous comments: The rules as to what was expected from the entries was not well defined enough. For a next context of tis sort, I think it would be nice to have a set of criteria that will be judged. It would help both the participants and the judges in getting on the same page.

[bl33d]

I just cant keep my keyboard quiet.. but now seeing the final entries. I am starting to think this competition was out of line... not properly executed and ... there is just something horribly wrong going on. (Also i am somewhat frustrated that some of those works that got into finals seem more like WIPs and hence far from anything photorealistic).. This sucks.. no seriously it does.

[bigbad]

@bl33d and ypoissant

Don't worry. Next time there will be more people in the competition and more voters. The way I see it is if you don't like what you see then do it yourself better. Maybe next year you'll get in better position. Right now the voters like those images and that's the way it is.

How do you think I felt when Nyxia come from nowhere and wowed me. I was like..Noo I lost my shot on winning and in the same time I was wondering where all the other cool entries are.

I was expecting Maqs and a few other to enter this contest, even @ndy. Maybe cause this is the first contest and the rules aren't defined 100% it will get like this.

I just hope that people that are watching this contest says "Hey I can do a lot better than those guys and gals".I say bring it on.

This is an contest and the more competition there is the better it is.

I bet next contest will be awesome.

[Len]

Keep in mind that we entered unchartered ground with this competition boys. There's been only a few portraits made with Blender before by artists that aimed for realism and my guess is that most of the guys and girls entering this contest had very little if no previous experience. Keeping that in mind I think everyone did really really well.

As for the execution of this contest this was a first time for me. Some things do need to be expanded on and fixed, I am but one person and to try and think of every single variable is no easy task.

Originally Posted by bl33d I just cant keep my keyboard quiet.. but now seeing the final entries. I am starting to think this competition was out of line... not properly executed .

You're going to have to be specific. Simply saying it's not properly executed and not pointing out the problems ain't gonna help anyone from fixing it in the future.

[Len]

Edit: Decided to remove post.