So, the lackluster response to the new challenge definitely surprised me. As often as people have begged for character-based challenges, this one even had *me* excited and, if I had time, wanting to join in. Yet with it being nearly a week open and having 1 interested party has me questioning my ability to match the demands of the community. The spaceship challenge, for instance, got a great response. The super villain and, while it's still early, the current serial adventure hero challenge... not so much.

So, feel free to tell me what exactly you're looking for and what would make you want to join.

And, yes, I understand the lack of prizes doesn't help in motivation.

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-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

The lack of prizes doent bother me, I know my chances of winning are slim any way, I just take part for the ride
The main problem with me is I usually have other projects on the go and dont have time to make a decent character.
Also this challenge seems really specific, I have plenty of ideas for heros but dont really want to make an 'adventure hero'
I prefer more vague ones as you get a wider range of entries

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https://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/as28g11/

For me, I haven't really had the time or the spark of a good idea yet. As elephantinc said, this one is relatively specific, so I'm finding it hard to get a good concept going. Also, I'm not very comfortable with character modelling yet, especially realistic humans, so I'm not as quick to jump into it.

It seems to me that most of the challenges recently have been of the model something and texture it type. This is a huge area, but Maya also has a lot of other areas that might be fun to explore more. I know animation is optionally included in the challenges, but what about a dedicated animation challenge where everyone is provided with the same model or something. (That would be more work for someone in setup, but I'm sure someone has a rigged model around). Or, some more ideas:

-Make your best dynamics simulation of everyday life: e.g. putting out a fire, pouring some coffee, a thunderstorm
-Produce a wallpaper-type image involving abstract objects and interesting lighting and rendering... e.g. caustics, reflections, chrome spirals... whatever
-Make some sort of crowd animation... e.g ants marching, people on an escalator, soldiers approaching battle (this challenge would probably be pretty technical, maybe too hard)
-Make an animation personifying an inanimate object... e.g. a talking chair, a depressed airplane, an angry lamp
-Make a 3-5 min tutorial explaining a cool Maya feature and showing it off by creating a little scene that exploits it (ok, that one's maybe too different)

Just thought it would be good to steer away from character modelling every so often... maybe the trouble is that it's been two in a row of a relatively similar challenge.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and the lack of prizes isn't a deciding factor for me either

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-stwert

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I think at this moment in time there seams to be a high percent of new users for maya myself included on this forum, may be a have have a novice and experanced group challange..............dave

Well, these human challenges are getting pretty close... but I'm waiting for the creature feature challenge

And to be honest, the lack prizes isn't a big deal.

I think the main problem for me (and others) is finding the time, and motivation.

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really? i thought the adventure hero was wide open. you've got sci-fi, western, modern, medieval, 40s noir... the list goes on. Maybe i didn't explain it well enough.

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-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

You know me - I love a challenge (my stack of medals hmmmm makes me happy). With the texturing and the two random word thing being my fav`s so far.

To be honest I love the way things run around here. If you are new just join in. You learn loads even if you dont win - Just look at Dango77. We have all watch his skills get better and better though the comps. Arren is another member whos skills really came out in the challenges.

From me they remind me of uni (set projects briefs and sort dead lines).

The only think I can think to change it up a little is doing it a bit more like the HCM section at cg blar blar and set up a discussion of the next channelling. Maybe have a running vote while the challenge is going on (keeping the winner secret so no que jumpers) to find out what people want to do.

The only thing with this time of year is schools going back - Christmas starts to kick in with all the other holidays, it just maybe people are having a slow start.

Come on peeps join in

Mike we all know your buzy but yet you always find time to keep this thread open and for that I thank you.

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Originally posted by mtmckinley
really? i thought the adventure hero was wide open. you've got sci-fi, western, modern, medieval, 40s noir... the list goes on. Maybe i didn't explain it well enough.

Originally Posted by

with adventure i was just kind of thinking indiana jones and tomb raider and the like, I might actually enter now...

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https://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/as28g11/

not to get my own thread off track, but some examples of existing serial adventure heroes are:

Buck Rogers
Zorro
Flash Gordon
Dick Tracy
Lara Croft
Nathan Drake
The Rocketeer
The Three Musketeers
The Shadow
The Phantom
The Green Hornet
Indiana Jones
The Lone Ranger
Doctor Who

Just to name a few...

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-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

i think i understand the type of character you're wanting for the challenge, but at this moment it doesn't quite align with what i'm doing
wasn't sure what serial meant until dango told me.

i was going to finish that entry i did in the super villains challenge but i got distracted... i do need to finish that someday

i suppose i could use it as a testbed for a human model

now a team challenge (like a team of two people) that could produce an interesting result..

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Yeah, I guess there's a good variety out there... but it's still a bit similar to the last one, you know, you've got your hero and your villain

I may give it a try but probably won't start for a bit as I've got some stuff up at the moment. September's always kinda busy for a lot of people, maybe that's it...

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Actually i thought this was a good challenge and i've even persuaded a guy at work to join the forum and have a go.

I was just waiting until the weekend to post my thread, i had assumed others were doing the same.

i didn't want to open a thread without anything to post.

Anyway, to respond to some of the comments about the actual thread topic before I got it off track...

We've tried to do animation, texturing, and particle FX challenges in the past and we either had lots of entries and just 1 or 2 finish or hardly any entries and no one finish. It seems that the modeling/texturing challenges are the ones that most people feel comfortable doing.

Doing a poll might be the best way to go about it. I admit I do generally try to create challenges of topics that I personally find interesting, but maybe that's my problem.

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-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

I think modelling will mostly get the most entries as it's the one part of 3d pretty much everyone will have tried out.
Even if someone specializes in one field which is different, say animation, texturing or vfx, they will have had a go at modelling at some point, and a lot probably do it in the spare time for fun even though their job doesn't require it.

Another idea for the challenges would be along the lines of just a subject matter, as some seem to have felt the guidelines are quite specific, so maybe just use key words, like some other site's comps do, and I think I've seen that done here too. The one Arran won a while back? Decay or destruction or something?

Just that way it gives you a theme to stick to, but a great deal of flexibility and freedom with what you do with it.

Maybe even have two key words that are quite different from each other, and see what people make from that, like "Trapped" and "Slick" or "vast" and "Chained".

Could end up with some interesting results.

My two cents, pence, whatever....

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I have seen a diferent kind of challenge:

the participants were given a raw scene , the same for all, and they had to light it. It was a lighting challenge.

That is something people can do more easilly without consuming so much time and would get much more entries.

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