Time for COMPETITIONS.....?

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
#1

A short while ago, I contacted several modellers on these boards regarding their work in sci-fi fan models for various shows and movies. My goal was to produce an online archive of such models. There was a very positive reaction, both from modellers and others who would like to see the archive made. Alas, it seems to have faded away, and modellers have either not finished their work or simply not posted the results. Also, I found that others have been trying longer and harder than I, with varying degrees of success. Most seem now to have merged into BlenderWars.com, which is getting a pretty nice archive running.

But people constantly talk about model archives, and it is clear to me at least that it is one of the things Blender, as a community, really needs. So when people started talking competition on photorealistic humans, I thought, why not make competitions the way to get the ball rolling on some serious model archives??

The basic idea (that I had, anyway) is to unleash a competition every once in a while to produce models within a certain topic. Winners are voted upon within a handful of categories, and each winner gets a full, neatly designed, DVD chock-full of models. How long does a competition run? Until there are enough quality models to fill said DVD, of course! My hopes is that the DVD would become, like Elephants Dream, an open archive available also as a professionally styled DVD through the Blender e-shop. Similar competitions would then be run every now and then to do other topics; vehicles, home appliances (how many types of blenders??), woodland creatures, etc.

If people think this is a good idea, my second idea was to sound off the first competitions, on the topic WEAPONS. Make models of weapons within the categories Swords & Knives, Axes & Hammers, Staffs & Flails (flails are anything that uses chains, like nunchuks or morning stars), Guns (one-handed), Rifles (two.handed), Catapults & Canons, and Modern Heavy Artillery (Gatling tripods etc.). Each category gets a winner, voted by the community, who receives a free copy of the DVD. The real winner is the community, of course, who gets tons of weapon models.

Reactions?

#2

I like the sound of it, but it would VERY hard to get it off the ground. Especially in the first stages, where the promise is a DVD, but you don’t actually have a DVD yet.

Not to mention DVD production and so forth.

#3

I think it is not good idea right now.

There is F1 2008 challange running now. And it seems that the photo-reallistic human model contest is comming soon too. I think, that most of good Blender Artist are, or will be participating on these.

It is nonsense to run all contests in one time period.

#4

That’s a cool idea cognis. I did a “sword” that can entered. Also have you checked out my other favourite site "www.blendermodels.org.

#5

i like the idea of more models and blends i can learn from, but if they are pros they can already make quality models and if they win they can make them as good as or better than the ones on the disk. i like the idea of the disk, but that would be more for noobs like me trying to learn from the masters. i think an official award would be better so they could put it in their resume and it would help them get jobs.

#6

I know there is a gallery on these forums, but they seem to be the only ‘rank’ thing here. That is probably intentional and I don’t want to rock the boat if that is the case. If there was some sort of official 'BlenderArtists.org Choice Award" graphic like the CGTalk ones, would that help people donate these models? Of course, pro-training dvd or render time prize always make for good motivation…

#7

I assume that in order to enter the competition, the blend file must be posted in the archive. Someone must then review it for quality, to ensure it makes it to the DVD, and then there is a vote at some point to determine a winner, who gets a copy of all the blends in the archive. Meanwhile, anyone who wants to, can download any blend from the archive.

The problem Kator Legaz had with the old blender repository was people posting work that was not their own. I don’t recall any benefit to posting a blend at the old repository, yet someone still posted stolen work. For the glory, I suppose. Here you are offering a small prize as well as glory.

There are several archives already available, for particular purposes: archviz (furniture and architectural details), plants. There are several rigged characters. Perhaps the community would be better served by a consolidated list in the wiki, with reviews, of all the resources that are already available.

#8

If people think this is a good idea, my second idea was to sound off the first competitions, on the topic WEAPONS. Make models of weapons within the categories Swords & Knives, Axes & Hammers, Staffs & Flails (flails are anything that uses chains, like nunchuks or morning stars), Guns (one-handed), Rifles (two.handed), Catapults & Canons, and Modern Heavy Artillery (Gatling tripods etc.). Each category gets a winner, voted by the community, who receives a free copy of the DVD. The real winner is the community, of course, who gets tons of weapon models

Better make it catagories that would take a while to get such a model right, a knife is just…simple. Or make them model 30 weapons in 30 days like the extreme modeling challenge RobertT once entered at CGTalk.

#9

I like the “30 in 30 days” idea, though I think it would need a bit more time to give really good models. “1 month, 10 models” maybe? And knives need not be simple, just search for “weapons” on Turbosquid :eek:.

Making it a more ‘official’ competition also seems a good idea, but what channels does one have to go through to achieve that? I doubt I can simply claim to run an ‘official BA.org competition’ out of the blue! The idea of titled awards is cool, and it could be combined with each ‘Prime Contributor’ (sound good?) supplying a video tutorial for the disk on his/her best model(s).

Oh, and forgot Bows & Arrows (incl. crossbows) and ‘Other’ (flamethrowers, water cannons, weird martial arts weapons, etc.) in the categories :slight_smile:

#10

http://e2-productions.com/repository/index.php

#11

Dear God, that site needs more publicity, it’s a goodie box! Are you involved in it, Macuno? If so, how would you feel about a couple of competitions being held in its name (I am not handing you the work, just asking if it would be okay)?

#12

I have nothing whatsoever to do with it… just thought it needed mentioning since people seem to want to reinvent the wheel somewhat often :wink: