Secret weapon hey?
I’ve got a secret weapon too, and it’s called love.
And you know what they say 'bout love:
“love conquers all”, “all you need is love” and “love can break your balls and leave you bleeding like a pig”.
%|
Looking forward to see some the entries.
Love y’all,
Sago
I hope the last day gets a heck load of entries, because here in my country its the last day… about 24h left.
Good luck everyone who is entering.
Alltaken
I’m so friggin’ nervous, I hope I get it rendered in time.
The Challenge
http://battles.mudpuddle.co.nz/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=406
From Runes to Ruins
The life blood and energy of a once powerful hub has been drained and eroded by the never ending river of time. The original creators forgotten, the new meaning strange.
This months challenge is about showing the progress of time in a still image. Both the state of vibrancy, and dilapidation should be addressed in the same image. You must tell a story without movement.
old/new
power/ruin
vibrant/dull
lost/found
You may choose to go from Runes to ruins, or from Ruins to Runes. It is suggested you look at how things can be misused, or reused in different contexts. How a car now seems ordinary, but in the future may not be understood. Or may even become an object of worship to a post apocalyptic society.
Outcome
The expected outcome of this challenge is a single complete and self sufficient image, to be submitted for judging at one of these sizes.
Size: They can be either vertical or horizontal.
normal 3:4: 640x480 or 1280x960
Wide format: 1280x480 or 2560x960
250Kb for your submitted image. Larger file sized images for wide entries can be emailed to me.
Software Rules
Most modelling needs to be done in Blender. Rendering can be done in yafray, blender, or a mixture of both.
Post processing is allowed, and expected. (gimp, photoshop…)
You are allowed to use pieces from old models, as long as this is a largely original composition, with a largely new design.
Deadline
The Deadline is the End of the Month 1st April 0:00 GMT. Find the time in your location
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=4&day=1&year=2006&hour=0&min=0&sec=0&p1=0
Prize
The winner will get a 1 month, Blender Bronze subscription at Respower super/farm. http://respower.com
The winner will be able to choose when to use the subscription, within 3 months after winning the competition.
Tips and Tricks for Entries.
Research
Research is a must. Without it, you will be limiting your imagination to what you understand right now. Don’t just research the topic you are designing for, research anything that offers inspiration, could be beetles, could be electronic components, could be anything.
Draw your Concept
Before you model in blender, perhaps draw your concept. it doesn’t need to be a masterpiece, it just needs to serve as a Guide for your creativity. you will find you are spending less time thinking and resolving problems while modelling if you resolve them on paper.
Simplicity and Elegance
Sometimes modelling every single detail is not needed, a simple object made from 5 cleverly intersecting spheres or other simple shapes, may in fact look better than an elaborate model that took you weeks. Remember its in the lighting as much as the model, even a simple model can look amazing if well lit. We don’t want entries to be laborious, we want them to be efficient and effective.
Create a simple model, get the lighting and camera angle correct. Sort out a background, and then add details as you need
Post Production
You are free and encouraged to use post production, don’t feel you need to render the background at the same time as the foreground. If you do use post production (out of blender, i.e. Gimp or Photoshop) please include your original render also, we are all interested, and it will help prove the effectiveness of Post production, to convince others to use it in the future.
Composition and image aspect ratio
This month allows much wider formats for your work, this should be used to full effect for those wishing to have linear space to tell a story.
Subject matter
Be creative, don’t just think of a ruin as an area lost!
You choose for the ruins to be incorperated into a modern city, built upon, expanded upon without people realising.
You could show that society and civilisation has left and has never returned.
You could show that society has made an ordinary ruined object into a place of power…
Wow, lotsa words I never heard of. what does ‘challenge’ mean… 
Ruins to ruins? Not sure if I’m getting that. Or do you mean “runes to ruins”?
Anyway, very interesting. Not really my cup of tea, but maybe.
Thanks for giving more options for the size and setting the maximum size higher. I really had a hard time with my first work; with the small size some details just got lost, and with the big size I couldn’t get it to look good under the max. of 200 kb.
Love y’all(taken),
Sago
Me too. I looked up vibrancy on wiktionary and there came no results. Dilipadition (or however it’s spelled) I understood like it was the crime of letting buildings become ugly and disrepaired and stuff, and cutiing down trees was some kind of Dilipadition.
Kinda confusing title for the contest “Runes to ruins”. I don’t understand it. Runes are the letters that vikings was writing with and you don’t have to do anything historical or anything about the vikings. So why is the contest called “Runes to ruins”?
Don’t break your head over it too much. The title isn’t meant to be taken literally, but more general (I think).
Runes were original used as an alphabet, now it’s more like a ‘mystical’ museumpiece.
See the title as some sort of example.
It’s about changes in time that something goes through; the way it looks, the way it is used and the new meanings it has gotten.
Sago
If I’m wrong please tell me…
I’ve got an idea for a project but it would probably involve fire. And I haven’t learned how to do it yet, but I have seen a thread with a ball of fire in his hand and there was a tutorial in that thread too about how to make fire without using particles I think. So please if anyone has a link to that tut I would be more than happy if you could give it to me (I know that there is a search function but it doesn’t work, let’s try search for “fire tutorial” and we get 9264 matches).
That’s an easy one.
Clickie: https://blenderartists.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41327&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=fire+tutorial&start=0
Thanks. Harder than I rememberd. I gotta learn Photoshop.
Yes Sago is right.
the topic title is not to be taken litterally. the challenge is written in the words of the post.
look at some of the work by @ndy and Endi to get an idea of some beautifull old stuff. look at some modern futuristic posts from people to get ideas how to re-look at time.
Simplicity and lighting are really important in this one. it will mainly be in the lighting and materials.
unless i spelt the words wrong, they are all real words (perhaps i take them for granted)
Alltaken
Are you free to make an animation or do it have to be still image?
[/quote]
Ok, thanks.
there will be animation contests later on.
the first challenge was looking at composition and lighting (effective dispaly) this month is looking at telling a story in a still image.
We will have challenges looking at other aspects like animation.
People will build up a good level of skills if they meet each months aims.
Alltaken
Would something very old in a very modern building count?
If I do a scene with the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan and have some spanish conqeastadors (right spelled?) on their way to the city would that count? I mean it’s something that the Aztecs see every day but it’s something new to the europeans.
Please don’t steal my idea.
When it comes to voting, people don’t really seem to care much for those aims and the very meaning of the topic. Whatever the average Blender/elYsiun/BlenderBattles user may be (boy, 17 yrs old, amateur ‘artist’?), most people just vote for the ‘coolest’ pic. No matter how cliche the work is. In fact, most people just looove cliches.
This is just something that’s been bothering me for a long time. People make cliche work, people vote for cliche work (this isn’t about the Monthly Battle, but more in general). Not that I really care what they make or do, it just feels I don’t have an audience I can reach, my work not getting the proper recognition. And seeing other peoples talent being wasted 'cause of lame approaches.
Oh well, sorry about that.
Btw. Alltaken, such a shame about the low voting turnout, even though this is the first one. I think your work and effort deserves better, something I (and surely the others) appreciate very much.
See ya next mothly battle,
fight the cliches
and thank God for Backiz’ alien octopus bathtub spacevessel.
Sago
well the idea is a profound change in meaning or time.
an event like you are describing is really one moment of time. but two totally different time periods being shown in the same image could be achived.
think about the aztec civilisation in its glory… then tourists taking photos of the ruins. you have two different meanings to the same elements.
good idea though.
Alltaken