Dec/Jan Challenge Rules and Guidelines!
 

December - January Challenge!

Game Art!

In huge, self-promotional egotistic fashion, this next challenge will focus on game art in celebration of my book's release. Read on for the rules and guidelines!

1) Show concepts! Show progress!

2) The goal is to create a piece of game art. Characters are very popular obviously, but you're not limited to just characters/creatures. However, keep your triangle (tri) polycount at or below 7000!

3) Texturing IS required and it is also required that you show your finished texture sheets. Feel free to watermark them to prevent stealing.

Keep texture resolutions at powers of 2 (256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024). Try to keep total texture usage down to fit on a 2048x2048. That doesn't mean 1 big texture, but if you were to total all your textures, they wouldn't go bigger than this.

Keep in mind that four 256x256 = 1 512x512, four 512x = 1 1024x, etc.

The kinds of maps that are available:

Color/Diffuse (obviously)
Alpha/Opacity/Transparancy
Specular
Reflectivity
Normal (Bump Mapping, sorta)
Emissive

Don't forget these add up as you accumulate them, so pace yourself.

Look forward to a Normal Map creating tutorial I'll be making soon.

UPDATE: you can find it here - http://www.simplymaya.com/movie_page...tml?tut_id=102

4) BONUS goal(s): If you really want to challenge yourself, keep your polycount below 3500! Also, whether you go for the lower polycount or not, pose your entry in a cool way for the final thread.

5) Label your thread thusly:

Dec/Jan - Norm or Noob - Your name

Choose to classify yourself as a Normal or Noobie class entry. Whichever class you choose is the class your final submitted entry will compete against! A winner will be chosen from both classes.

6) Mods and Admins can enter, but are inelligible to win and do not count toward the Grand Prize consideration of 8 or 5 entries mentioned below. If a mod chooses to participate, choose "Mod" class rather than Norm or Noob.

7) If 8+ Normal entries and/or 5+ Newbie entries finish among the 3 Simply sites participating, a Grand Prize will be rewarded to BOTH classes! Regular VIP point prizes will be awarded to both a Normal and Newbie winner, if the Grand Prize criteria of entries is not met!

8) Final entries must be posted into a Final Entry thread that a mod will create in the last couple weeks of the challenge.

The due date of the challenge is February 28th!

Normal Grand Prize:

A signed copy of my book "The Game Artist's Guide to Maya", 14 points, and a choice of a SM tshirt or mug.

Newbie Grand Prize:

A signed copy of my book "The Game Artist's Guide to Maya" and 14 points.

Both winners have the option of waiving the book in favor of:

Normal - a different book
Newbie - a SM DVD of their choice
--------------------------------------------

PRIZE UPDATE!

Hey, guys, I think I'm going to make a special case this time, since I'm the one providing the book part of the Grand Prize and nix the minimum number of entries...

Yep! 2 signed books WILL be given out no matter what!

HOWEVER

This only applies if the winners accept the book that I'm providing (ie. MY book :D). If they would rather have another book (understandable for SL and SMax's case since it's a Maya book) I'm going to have to go back to the minimum entries (8 norm or 5 noob) because then it would the Simply3DWorld site paying for it.

So, yes, even if only 1 person finishes in each category, they'll get the prize... but c'mon... don't let them have it that easily, will ya!? :p

Sound fair? Let me know what you think. :)

I can't wait to get my teeth into this one.
Do we need to stick to triangle polys or can we use quads?

Mark

you can use quads, but you have to count by tris.

Maybe I missed it in the rules;
Can we enter unique entries in more than one forum?

Is this a scene from a level, or one or more game objects?

For example, lets say an entry was from Super Mario 64 (I know, that's copyrighted and unoriginal, but for example only); would the entry just be objects, such as Mario and the Princess, or maybe the castle or a tree, or would it be a complete scene with text overlay and so on, as if screen grabbed from a game? Would either be acceptible?
:confused:

anything under 7k tris is acceptable. Whether that be a character or a vehicle or a building or some sort of small scene, is entirely up to you.

If you'd like to overlay a game interface, that's fine.

If you have finished an entire entry in, say, the first month, then it may be possible for you to do a second. But you'd enter them together as 1 big entry.

What about entering unique entries in more than one forum? (Like one scene/object set in Maya and a completely unique scene/object set in Lightwave)

you're free to do that if you'd like, but the competition is for all 3 forums, so it'd be treated the same... 1 big entry with 2 projects. I'd rather you spend all the time and energy on one really good project than 2 not-as-good ones, y'know? But like I said, if you finish one very early and it's :tup: then another one may be possible.

Would a character AND a scene be included in the total poly count, or could you do both, and just include the character in the poly count (i.e. just use the scene/background for presentation purposes)

Cheers :)

everything in the entry must not exceed 7k polys total.

HAs someone eaven won a grand price, if it's not a secret ?

Can i submit an Unreal level as long as all of the static meshs are made in Maya. So the work would be 90% Maya 10% Unreal Ed?

Yes, that's fine, as long as the work was done during the challenge period of Dec-Jan.

Reimo, yes, we've given out grand prizes before. :) Did for the Sept/Oct challenge, I believe. A few before that as well.

Hey, guys, just wanted to show an image of the character that my book goes over how to make as an example! He's 3500 tris using 3 textures - 1 512x for the body, 1 256x for the head, and 1 256x for the sword.

http://www.mtmckinley.net/book/silenus4.jpg
http://www.mtmckinley.net/book/silenus_steps.jpg
http://www.mtmckinley.net/book/silenus_texture.jpg

And an animation clip:

http://www.mtmckinley.net/book/animation1.zip

No, animation is not required, nor wanted for this challenge. :)

Hey mike for the textures is the max 2046x2046 or do you mean 2048x2048 cause i'm have trouble with my combinations trying to get the max usage of 2046x2046 I keep getting 2048x2048

oops, suppose to be 2048. My bad.