Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam) Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Brazil
Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 1:46 am Post subject:
Spotlightable voxels? We need some criteria.
Subject description: If you expect the best of the best voxels, spotlighted voxels won't get a submission.
Anyway, all files are posted on Voxels forum. No user has the right to create new topics at this forum. If your voxel is considered by admins, global moderators or community as a high quality voxel, your topic will be moved here and become another legend.
So, the only "criteria" so far is being a high quality voxel. But what is a high quality voxel? It's so subjective, isn't it?
We have developped some criterias in the past, at some voxel competitions. Here's some of them:
Voxel Grand Prix Triathlon Edition wrote:
2 - Will be out of 100 points, based on the following criteria:
a) Detail - Use and level therof. (20)
b) Coloration - Good usage of colors. (20)
c) Normals - Good use of normals. (20)
Autonormals if not heavily edited get a max of 10 points, handmade Normals can get a max of 20 Points. Bad normals get 0 points (handmade/auto).
d) Competence - The technical side, bounds, well refined shape, HVA, etc. (10)
e) The Pie Factor - when all is said and done, if it actually looks good or not. Creativity, willing to use it, etc. (10)
PPM Voxel Competition wrote:
2 - Will be out of 100 points, based on the following criteria:
a) 30% Detail - Use and level therof.
b) 10% Coloration - Good usage of colors.
c) 10% Normals - Good use of normals.
d) 30% Competence - The technical side, bounds, well refined shape, HVA, etc.
e) 20% Theme - either for accuracy (basing on screenshots and concept art) or creativity (basing on written information)
f) 5% Bonus - Only the 3 submissions that impress each judge in some way might get up to 5 points.
Grand Winter 2008 Voxel Competition wrote:
***Grading system***
maximum score is 100/100 and is divided by 5 scoring subjects below, each worth 20 points
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A=80+ ; Voxel is great, I see little or no need for improvements.
B=65+ ; Voxel is very good, more improvements here and there will get you top of the hill.
C=50+ ; Voxel is Average, things can be improved by advices given by the judges to help young voxellers to reach their enlightment stage
D=35+ ; Voxel is below average, Needs lots of improvements, advices will be given.
The Entrant with the Highest score will be declared winner!
********************
20 - Originality - Original or not, all entries will be scored on how original the design is.
20 - Normals/coloration - good useage of Normals and coloring
20 - Competence - Technical stuff, bounds, shape.
20 - Theme - Accuracy/Style being based on whatever inspired like concepts, drawings, etc.
20 - The pie factor - When all is said and done, if it actually looks good or not. Creativity, usability, etc.
********************
There are others, but these ones are more detailed. Anyway, how about adapting it to our Spotlighted Voxels forum?
Of course that we have to take into account a couple of things.
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First of all, originally is not that much important. Let's be honest, we are not expecting weird things all the times. Sometimes, a heavy tank is welcomed, as long as it is well done.
Second is the pie factor... it is too much subjective. We are looking for something more technically done correctly, so it shouldn't get such a high weight as seen in raminator's voxel contests.
So, based on these both points, I recommend that we use the PPM Voxel Competition rating as a base, but adapt it to a public forum and I'm also tweaking to split the shape from other technical details.
PPM Spotlighted Voxel Criteria Draft 1 wrote:
2 - Will be out of 100 points, based on the following criteria:
a) 40% Detail - Use and level therof.
b) 15% Coloration - Good usage of colors.
c) 15% Normals - Good use of normals.
d) 10% Competence - The technical side, bounds, HVA, etc.
e) 20% Theme - either for accuracy (basing on screenshots and concept art) or creativity (basing on written information)
f) 5% Bonus - Charismatic submissions might get up to 5 points.
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Then, the second step would be defining how should we evaluate each category:
a) Detail: This category rates the shape of the voxel model. It vierifies the presence of all components that the object is supposed to have and how they are executed in the model.
b) Coloration: It verifies the usage of colours in the model. Bland (one or two colour(s) only) models might be punished, as well as models with one pixel wide details that causes noise.
c) Normals: This category rates the quality of the normals in the model, punishing the presence of black dots, as well as topologically bad pixels (that could reflect light to multiples directions).
d) Competence: It rates how the voxel is positioned in game and how it is animated (if necessary). Non-animated voxels might get up to 20% of points here.
e) Theme: It verifies if and how the details and colours used matches the theme and the objective of the voxel.
f) Bonus: That's subjective and up to each one.
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The 3rd step is to define a spotlightable threshold. In short, a minimum score to spotlight a voxel. My suggestion for it is 75 points. A voxel with such score would certainly be a good one and deserve attention from the community.
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And that's it. What do you think? Do you agree with it? Do you have a better idea? Post it and discuss it. Once we have some sort of consensus, we might implement it. QUICK_EDIT
No, there is so much crap that it would be impossible to find the good ones.
Especially when you're new to PPM and just want to find a good looking voxel and not the unfinished or mediocre stuff.
However, like in the past on competitions, setting too many voting criteria is bad, since it would make too much work.
I think the best is to keep the current way, by simply letting the members vote for spotlight and then spotlight the voxel if it got a certain amount of votes.
Don't know if it's possible,
but maybe you can give automatically any topic in the normal voxel forum a poll with the 2 options spotlight, non-spotlight. Then every Voxel that has 2/3rd of the votes for spotlight, the topic is automatically moved in the spotlight forum. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
The way i see it is, if the .vxl/.shp thread has more "spotlight" votes than not, Then so shall it be spotlighted. But it needs to be viewed for a specific amount of time so an adequate amount of people can examine the product and vote.
However I think people do need to carefully examine the product more, and not just jump on the "Spotlight" bandwagon. _________________
The enemy shall be injected with toxic poison - Venom QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam) Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Brazil
Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 1:24 pm Post subject:
Considering that LKo has already responded Mig's post very well, here's my response for the other ideas posted here:
Quote:
However, like in the past on competitions, setting too many voting criteria is bad, since it would make too much work.
Yea, I agree that it is too much work. I'm trying to get some criteria to let:
1) VXLSE III do part of the rating. I believe that normals and coloration criterias could be rated by algorithms.
2) Know the relevance of each comment against the voxel in terms of spotlighting it or not. So, moderators could have an idea of 'how many points could be discounted' due to a certain problem mentioned by a user in a reply.
3) Let interested people or moderators rates the voxels that have potential to be spotlighted and discuss it before the spotlight is confirned.
Quote:
I think the best is to keep the current way, by simply letting the members vote for spotlight and then spotlight the voxel if it got a certain amount of votes.
That allows many distortions, such as letting people create multiples accounts to get their voxels spotlighted (by ammount of votes) and gives the same weight for opinions from experienced modders and those who know nothing about it.
Quote:
Don't know if it's possible,
but maybe you can give automatically any topic in the normal voxel forum a poll with the 2 options spotlight, non-spotlight. Then every Voxel that has 2/3rd of the votes for spotlight, the topic is automatically moved in the spotlight forum.
I'd have to hack the forums for it. And if the voxel gets a single vote and nobody else votes... gess what? Spotlight!
Quote:
The way i see it is, if the .vxl/.shp thread has more "spotlight" votes than not, Then so shall it be spotlighted. But it needs to be viewed for a specific amount of time so an adequate amount of people can examine the product and vote.
However I think people do need to carefully examine the product more, and not just jump on the "Spotlight" bandwagon.
All arguments that I've mentioned for LKO's ideas applies on yours. QUICK_EDIT
Well how bout this, If a .shp or .vxl recieves enough attention from the community for spotlighting, then that .shp/.vxl can be further analyzed by a select group of trustworthy members who have good judgement. Then thier findings can be presented to you for final approval. Seems like the only plausible way to go about doing this. _________________
The enemy shall be injected with toxic poison - Venom QUICK_EDIT
voting restricted to members which are longer than 6 months on ppm, to avoid account creating abuse.
-automatic poll system moves voxel only in spotlight forum when a minimum of 3 spotlight votes has been done.
-spotlighted voxels are not automatically moved to spotlight forum, but get a mark "awaiting moderator approval" (*), so the last decision lies on a human. (*) a topic in the moderator forum could automatically get a new post with the link of the voxel-topic, so its easy for the moderators to notice an awaiting spotlight voxel. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
voting restricted to members which are longer than 6 months on ppm, to avoid account creating abuse.
Illogical. Without additional guidelines, all someone with dummy accounts has to is allow the dummies to wait six months before using them to vote. If need be, said Dummy accounts may even have Dummy Emails and/or partake in active posting. QUICK_EDIT
well, then longer than 6 months on ppm and more that 250 posts. (a spammer would be quickly found and banned)
Or create a special member list, which has the special power to vote for spotlights. (could be like moderators chosen by Banshee or a public voting for those members and then accepted by community)
e.g.
Aro
Bittah
Banshee
Muldrake
Morpher
Mig Eater
Gangster
ErastusMercy
SuperJoe
Crimsonum
Team Black
Rampastein
Orac
raminator
Nyerguds
Stinger
Bu7loos
azri_apoc
Machine
...
Just a list of active modders with also quite a bit of experience. (Sorry if i forgot someone. were just the first that came to my mind) _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Meh, I think the voxel criteria from "PPM Spotlighted Voxel Criteria Draft 1" is good enough, rookie voxelers like me would really like to see what we did right or wrong, I don't know if its very ambitious, but having that criteria implemented in every released voxel would be nice, other than that, yeah, have the more experienced users decide if the content is spotligh worthy or not. Maybe you can use the ranks for that? _________________
Creator of Shattered Paradise .
ORA Discord https://discordapp.com/invite/tuhp9m6 , SP Discord https://discord.gg/hk428Wk QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam) Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Brazil
Posted: Mon May 07, 2012 11:14 pm Post subject:
LKO, your solutions demand a lot of hacking at the forum code, which is something I'm not really inclined to do. I think Cranium's solution is excellent.
And Nolt, I plan to implement a small part of this criteria at VXLSE III at some point. QUICK_EDIT
Uhm, people vote spotlight and if there are enough voting it gets spotlighted, if something is not spotlight worthy but still exceptionally good why can't one make a thread like "Editors choice" and list them up there? Thats how I'd do it. _________________ Free Tibed!
EA for worst company of the decade! QUICK_EDIT
FYI 99% of the voxels I make are done with Will's editor, which is now 12 years old. The newer tools make things easier but not necessarily better IMO. _________________
I meant to reply here earlier, but I have a busy life these days (unfortunate for modding).
In my opinion, having two sections for voxels and another for incomplete works (Media Hut) is redundant and disorderly. The base voxel section should be for all voxels, works-in-process or not. There, experienced voxelers would comment and criticise on people's work, give advice and instructions. Only finished voxels can be lifted to the Spotlighted voxels section.
This idea applies to the SHP sections as well. Not only does this make things more organised, it also prevents unfinished but potential material from literally disappearing to the vast depths of Media Hut.
As for Media Hut. There's no "Miscellaneous Graphics" (sidebars, fonts, backgrounds, wallpapers, etc.) section in it, which is exactly what the section is fit for. Anything that doesn't find a place in the five subsections would stay in Media Hut.
That was slightly off-topic, I know. Thought I'd wrote it down here first. Now, for the criteria for spotlighted material. As our tools and knowledge in crafting voxels advances over time, so evolve the criteria for high-quality voxels. This is why the Spotlighted voxel section must be reviewed once every couple of years to purge it from material no longer considered worthy of the spotlight. I don't mean to say they ought be deleted, just moved to the base voxel section.
Also, one criterion that seems to pop up every now and then is originality. I don't consider this a criterion at all. Even the weirdest, most ambiguous of voxels (something I'd expect from Ickus, for example ), can be spotlighted if they are well-made. Whether they fit any existing game or mod is irrelevant, as that will only limit modding and the birth of unique, creative mods.
LKO's suggestion to select a group of experienced members to vote for spotlight sounds like a good idea. However, instead of a voting system, these people would simply have a more influence, among the casual "Yeah! 's good." and "Spotleyght!" -posts, in criticising a voxel and choosing it as a candidate for spotlight. It would, of course, be expected from the group not to fall into posting like above.
The only criterion for membership is enough knowledge of voxels and voxeling. A member doesn't necessarily have to be skilled at crafting voxels him/herself. This group doesn't even have to be official, as the community quickly gets to know which members are experienced. That's also how it would update itself as old members depart and new ones appear. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam) Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Brazil
Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 12:50 am Post subject:
Voxel Section Editor III has received a tool that analyses the quality of the topology of the voxel model. It should be useful to rate the quality of the details and normals.
Go to Tools -> Quality Analysis -> Topology
QUICK_EDIT
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Spotlightable voxels? We need some criteria.
), can be spotlighted if they are well-made. Whether they fit any existing game or mod is irrelevant, as that will only limit modding and the birth of unique, creative mods.
