Posted: Sat May 28, 2011 1:35 pm Post subject:
PPM 2012 free for all SHP competition (preparation)
I would like to bring in the idea of an SHP contest which has basically no restriction. Any building, unit, animation and interface shp would be allowed.
The judging would then be done in the separate SHP-categories, if there are more than one submission for the same category
and/or a general judgment over all submissions.
The judging points could be given in the following way
Originality: (up to 25 points) Less points are given for designs, which already exist somehow in TD,RA,TS and/or Ra2. More points for something new. A simple conversion of a 3D model from a different game would give low points as well.
Functionality: (up to 25 points) How well can it be implemented in one of the SHP supporting games (TD,RA,TS,RA2). e.g. a warfactory without a dooranim would get some lower points, or an explosion anim that isn't centered correct.
Quality: (up to 25 points) Pixel errors, wrong or bad palette choice, wrong animations etc will reduce the amount of points. A too low or too high number of frames (e.g. for explosion anims or unit walking anims) will reduce this rating as well. The size will also play a role here: e.g. a big object with many details would get a higher rating than a small one. (though a too big one could get a low Suitability)
Suitability: (up to 25 points) How well does it fit into the game for which it was made for. A blue building for TS GDI would give for example a low rating.
Since each SHP-type has a different difficulty level and needs a different amount of work/time, the final result over all submissions would be determined by adjusting the result according to the SHP-type
Buildings give 100% points of the final rating.
Infantry give 85% points.
Units give 75% points.
Animations (e.g. explosions) give 50% points.
Interface (e.g. mouse cursor, select.shp etc) give 30% points.
GUIs (e.g. ingame sidemenu, mainmenu etc) give 90% points.
What do you think? Is the judging fair and is there interest in such a contest?
I think the openness for all SHPs could make this interesting for much more people.
\EDIT
current solution:
No judges.
Each contestant will judge all submissions except his own.
I would take care that all contestants get all submissions. For that all contestants would be asked to submit their SHPs to me until the deadline so i can collect them and send them as a package after the deadline to each contestant for the judging. The judgment follows the above described rules. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Posted: Sat May 28, 2011 1:45 pm Post subject:
Re: PPM 2012 free for all SHP competition
Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:
Buildings give 100% points of the final rating.
Units give 75% points.
Animations (e.g. explosions) give 50% points.
Interface (e.g. mouse cursor, select.shp etc) give 30% points.
I don't think that's fair at all. What's really that more difficult about making a building in 3D than putting tonnes of detail into a sidebar in Photoshop? Plenty of people can model but not make textures etc, they're really just different skills. A great looking building won't look any better than a great looking bit of GUI, in the end.
If a crappy building got 5 points whilst some better GUI gets 15 points, they'd still only get the same rating in the end which seems wrong to me. QUICK_EDIT
I can only tell from my experience and i admit i haven't done much GUI stuff. So i only thought about editing the select.shp, mouse.shp, pips.shp which are extremely easy.
Maybe an additional category for complete GUIs could be added which give 90%.
I wouldn't like to give a GUI such a high rating as a building, since a GUI is basically a single picture cut into different small SHPs, while a building consists of several complete different/separate models/SHPs: damage and normal frame are almost 2 complete different models/shps and the activeanims are usually a complete new and separate done model/shp as well and finally the buildup which is a complete separate animation too.
It also needs a lot of planing for a building, so all activeanims work together and don't overlap each other.
I only want to give the example of my TI Temple of Nod which has 26 different max files (together 50 MB) for all the different parts/anims.
Posted: Sat May 28, 2011 2:23 pm Post subject:
ppm
Gui is the framework which we see around the game? radar screen, building, defense, vehicles, and people? _________________ I am authorized to send out the TMP Studio, PM ME IF YOU WANT IT And check this out, these were sent to me for help with terrain and zdata help along with TMP Studio/Builder
GUI = graphical user interface. Basically things like the main menu, sidebars or really anything else the player uses to interact with the game.
And oh yes, didn't actually read the difference between "Interface" and "GUI" in your scoring system. Obviously a pip or cameo would be fairly useless... QUICK_EDIT
Posted: Sat May 28, 2011 2:36 pm Post subject:
ppm
well, then I agree with you. Those are just as important to shps. You can have cool buildings, explosions, people, but if you don't have the GUI it could mean the difference between cool mod or a mediocre mod. IJS _________________ I am authorized to send out the TMP Studio, PM ME IF YOU WANT IT And check this out, these were sent to me for help with terrain and zdata help along with TMP Studio/Builder
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Sat May 28, 2011 3:05 pm Post subject:
I do plan to enter. Don't know wich section... but I'm surely will enter into this one. Maybe with a sidebar, maybe with a building... I am pretty sure it will be connected to Attacque Supérior in a way.
What's the deadline? _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
It's still just brainstorming how this could look like, seeing that the contests in the past had some problems with a too low contestant number or inappropriate judging.
I would say the deadline should be 31.12.2012, so there's really enough time for everyone. And this time the deadline won't be expanded several times and is a definitely fixed date.
Though this is also an idea as well, as nothing is decided yet. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Considering the very low response over the last week, it doesn't looks like the contest will take place at all, if we can't even manage to finish the judging and general contest rules. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Maybe judging should be done by the participants? Each person who enters can cast their scores against the other entrants. Of course this relies on people being honest.
Or perhaps one master judge does the scores and then the participants each vote for their one favourite entry (besides their own) and the number of votes multiply the master scores. Each entry defaults to 1 vote (i.e 1x scores given by the master judge).
Anyway if you could get the entrants to also take part in the judging then you don't need extra people and more people can enter. QUICK_EDIT
Already sounds better than the last one. Count me in. But I think we should let the community do the voting this time. What do ya think? _________________
The enemy shall be injected with toxic poison - Venom QUICK_EDIT
@OmegaBolt: letting the contestants also do the judging is an interesting idea. If they follow the general judging guidelines/ points system, this could work.
Though i don't think finding judges was a problem in the past contests. It was more a quite unclear definition how they have to judge, which i would like to avoid by discussing here the best possible judging system.
A master judge is a bad idea imo, as this always makes it prone for mistakes and a bad response by the community that disagrees with one or more of his points and puts him in a bad position.
Orac wrote:
Well, you did put the deadline at the end of next year, so I wouldn't think speed is the most necessary thing atm.
I haven't put anything, i just made a suggestion. If everyone wants it, the contest could also take place this year.
@Cranium: Community voting is ok too, even though that it can be manipulated by multi-accounts and stupid noobs. So i would prefer some chosen judges or like OmegaBolt suggested, letting the contestants vote. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
yeah, I agree, voting can be manipulated by the community. But I would still let them vote but only count towards like maybe 15% of overall score. But then again "Favoritism" might have a factor as well. I also like the idea of having entrants do some voting too.
What about a 3 way voting panel?
50% from contest judges
35% from contestants
15% from commmunity _________________
The enemy shall be injected with toxic poison - Venom QUICK_EDIT
I will make it into this contest. Last time my bus ride ended up being 7 hours later than expected, lol.
Some of my ideas:
How about having community voting be from users that already are registered after a certain date?
Also in order to avoid favoritism make the entries anonymous by having someone that manages the entire contest but doesn't judge at all. QUICK_EDIT
@Cranium: i think the judging should be kept as simple as possible. 3 different judges plus the different rating for the shp categories could make this way too confusing.
@Edge: i doubt Banshee will implement a new voting system just for this, since voting restricted to users with a certain register date is afaik not possible yet.
When you do public voting, the contestants will recognize their own work and surely tell friends which one they made. So you can't keep it anonymous.
I really think the best right now is to let each contestant judge every submission except their own. These persons are already experienced in creating shps, so they should be also able to judge them. And since they aren't allowed to judge their own work, they can't manipulate the result. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
I really think the best right now is to let each contestant judge every submission except their own. These persons are already experienced in creating shps, so they should be also able to judge them. And since they aren't allowed to judge their own work, they can't manipulate the result.
This seems like the best scenario right here. _________________
The enemy shall be injected with toxic poison - Venom QUICK_EDIT
First post updated.
With the contestants as the judges, it would also allow me to enter the contest (if i find the time).
Now we have to agree on a deadline and i think the contest could actually start. Except someone has an issue with the rules described in the first post. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Joined: 26 Nov 2002 Location: Algae Colony On Mars
Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 9:20 pm Post subject:
But they'll all be deflated equally. It doesn't matter if the top mark gets 100% or 40%, as long as they are ranked in an order of preference (which should then be how good they are). You can always give a final score as score divided by score of first place then subtract some arbitrary number (maybe to make the median score 50%) to give a nicer distribution of scores.
Do remember, though, that letting the contestants judge means you should try and get as many submissions as possible, otherwise one person can easily mark down significantly to win it. _________________
Quote:
This is sexier than what this forum was supposed to tolerate. - Banshee
Yep, with only 2 contestants this wouldn't work, so there should be at least 5 persons taking part in the contest imo. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Well I dont mind when the contest starts, just as long as there is significant time in between the start and finish date. I'm definitly in, just dont have the free time like I used too with my new job eating up much of my days. So I'm gonna need atleast a minimum of 4 months. _________________
The enemy shall be injected with toxic poison - Venom QUICK_EDIT
ok, i think we have the guidelines set and the contest is almost ready to start.
The only thing that is needed now, is a nice logo/banner. It would be nice if someone is willing/able to do one, as i don't have the time to do this.
The banner should contain:
-a small logo of each C&C supporting SHPs (TD,RA,TS,RA2/YR)
-a headline with the text "2012 PPM Free for all SHP competition" or "2012 PPM Free4all SHP competition" or something similar (maybe you also find a better name) _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 2:33 pm Post subject:
IJS
I don't MigEater, 4StarGeneral, or Cranium should be allowed to enter buildings....way too unfair, lol _________________ I am authorized to send out the TMP Studio, PM ME IF YOU WANT IT And check this out, these were sent to me for help with terrain and zdata help along with TMP Studio/Builder
I'd love to see a purely photoshop shp, Team Black.
And considering I've seen this now, at least 6 months in advance (from the title) I had better be able to submit something 'decent' or I'm quitting.
Everyone has a different opinion of what is hard and would take more effort. For me, I could NEVER do a GUI or explosion, so that would be 100%, and I'd say buildings and units as 50%. So idk about how the judging would work out. I mean I realize if you're good at something its easier and maybe GUIs take less time for skilled people, but I just think the judging is more relative. _________________ "Don't beg for things; Do it yourself or you'll never get anything." QUICK_EDIT
I'm not sure I like the idea of giving different percentages of the score to different things, it seems needlessly biased. TBH, it kinda turns me off entering, knowing from the start that I don't stand a chance at the 100% since I wouldn't be making a building.
So yeah. Is there an alternative system which would give everyone an equal opportunity? QUICK_EDIT
I don't see an alternative, as i really don't want a stupid 2 minute select.shp job being higher rated than a 5-10 hour GUI or 10-25 hours building.
I also wouldn't have a problem with someone who sends in multiple submissions. If you send 2 GUIs, they will be separately judged and their points summed up for the final result.
@4StarGeneral
The percentages are also not chosen according to the difficulty of making these, but the amount of work that needs to be put in them.
It's the shpers problem if he uses inappropriate software for certain things. E.g. i would never start doing an infantry frame by frame via paint, the same way i would never fire up 3dsmax/photoshop just to draw some pixel in select.shp or pips.shp.
An explosion is actually a pretty easy job, as there are
a) explosion generators available
b) you can use any 3d-modeling program (e.g. 3dsmax) and particlesystems to create an explosion from scratch
c) with a bit time you can even do them in paint/shp builder frame by frame
And finally do explosions consist of only 5-30 frames which are peanuts compared to other stuff. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 10:09 am Post subject:
ppm
Why not have a category for shp, vxl, gui? maybe
Cranium wrote:
yeah, I agree, voting can be manipulated by the community. But I would still let them vote but only count towards like maybe 15% of overall score. But then again "Favoritism" might have a factor as well. I also like the idea of having entrants do some voting too.
What about a 3 way voting panel?
50% from contest judges
35% from contestants
15% from commmunity
90% from judges & 5 from the other 2. If you give the contestants and community the same as judges it can mean ballot stuffing. if leet makes building and people don't like him it could kill his chance even if judges give him full 50% _________________ I am authorized to send out the TMP Studio, PM ME IF YOU WANT IT And check this out, these were sent to me for help with terrain and zdata help along with TMP Studio/Builder
A 2 minute select shouldn't be scored very highly, but what about a damn good infantry? On a number of frames basis, the infantry is much larger than the vast majority of buildings. Infantry especially seem like a bugger to get right, so they seem to me not to need any further discouraging score-wise.
Judging, how ever it might end up being done, needs to think about how fit the object is for its purpose. Ranking how good a GUI is against how good a building is just makes things difficult. Judging needs to take into account how good the GUI is compared to the standard quality of GUI, and buildings to the standard of buildings.
Weighting scores has no effect if the yardstick being used is different for each category.
Actually, what about selecting a typical, high quality object for each category against which to judge all the rest of the type? This would allow for some kind of benchmark, a yardstick, by which to judge things without having to compare X's Allied GUI to Y's Nod Powerplant or Z's EMP burst explosion.
It would make finding an overall winner difficult, but narrowing down each subgroup to a few good ones would be a start...
IDK, I just don't like the idea of a merely good SHPer making a building which automatically scores higher than a highly skilled SHPer's GUI. QUICK_EDIT
An infantry consists only of many duplicate frames from different directions and not like a building out of complete different anims.
Once you have the model, you only need to animate the infantry and copy the animation in the CAD program 8 times (one for each direction). Then animate a camera to rotate around the infantry and you're done.
The whole unit rendering can then be done in one step and converted afterwards in another single step.
So from the finish model to the final animated infantry it's like only 2-3 hours.
From a finish building model to the final SHP it can still take several days, since you have to do different animations that can't be simply copied. You also have to model almost the whole building again for the damage frame (if you want to make it look good and not only with some dark spots on the surface via a simple paint program).
In addition you have to consider a lot of special cases that only apply for buildings. e.g. does it fit into the foundation, do the activeanims work and don't overlap each other, does the visibility work (e.g. units are covered correct behind some parts but not on other parts), do special logics like siloanim, dooranim etc work etc etc.
All these special cases you don't have to consider when creating a unit. There it's simply: 8 standframes, some walkframes, some firing frames, optional deathframes.
However i would agree with a differentiation between vehicle and infantry shps, because vehicles only have half the amount of frames or even less. On the other hand are infantry that small, that you can save adding a lot of details. So the modeling of an infantry takes only half (maybe even less) the time it takes to model a well detailed, much bigger vehicle.
So how about
Vehicles: 75% scoring
Infantry: 80% scoring
If you judge each submission via a strict guideline, it shouldn't be a problem imo to rank a GUI against a building or unit.
For that are the 4 criterias Originality, Functionality, Quality and Suitability
Orac wrote:
IDK, I just don't like the idea of a merely good SHPer making a building which automatically scores higher than a highly skilled SHPer's GUI.
But a merely good building would only get merely good points, so a perfect GUI can easyly win. Also the 10% difference isn't that much imo.
Nikademis Von Hisson wrote:
Why not have a category for shp, vxl, gui?
GUIs are nothing else than SHPs. But to compare VXL and SHPs is like comparing apples and pears. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Don't get me wrong, there are some really good CnP jobs, but imo they can never reach a new building made from scratch.
Especially since CnP buildings tend to be stiff (non-animated; a single flashing pixel is no anim), with more or less many lighting bugs due to flipped parts etc. You can also often notice very well the base building, which would give a quite low originality rating. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Buildings are more time consuming to make than infantry?
Now I'm wondering why there are so few publicly available infantry, because I'd like a few of them...
Comparing voxels to shps is indeed comparing apples to pears, but comparing SHPs for one purpose to SHPs for another is, by the same token, like comparing apples to bright purple origami cranes. There's such a wide range of differences that I don't see any objective way to compare any one to another.
Building a comp around the notion that any SHP is roughly analogous to any other SHP in terms of construction is flawed, but so is trying to gauge in an unbiased manner the difference in complexity of a given set of SHPs.
Thinking about it, I'd say that the best way to judge would be to rank the SHPs in each subset from best to worst, and then ask the community by way of poll which one they would most like to use in a mod. Otherwise the judging will be done based on the judges' own conscious or subconscious biases. QUICK_EDIT
Infantry are a quite unthankful job imo. You spend a lot of time in creating a model and some decent animations and in the end it's just a few moving pixels.
On a vehicle/building you can actually see the work that went into it.
The percentages are only used for the category spanning judging. If there are multiple submissions, there will be of course a winner chosen for this certain category.
But seeing that the contests in the past had merely 2-4 submissions, the free for all competition with its percentage rating is the only way to get more submissions imo. Else we could start 5 separate contests, which surely ends with several ones having only 1 submission. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
I consider entering I have a lot of time the next 7 weeks so i'll try my best on my first Shp _________________
Askhati wrote:
The Flying Circus carryall! See many vehicles crammed into one! See bewildered AA units go crazy! See the most expensive crash in the history of TS when the Flying Circus is shot down!
I would still like to have a logo/banner from an experienced photoshopper.
Then i'll make an announcement/news post, with the deadline most probably being 31.07.2012 so it's a good year till then. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
I was actually going to try this contest out, but after seeing the completely fucked up concept behind judging I have no interest now.
Infantry should never be worth less than a structure, because you have such tiny room to make something look good. In a building, a 3x3 building can get tons of detail and look good. An infantry must make maximum usage of each pixel, and they need to still have the detail to fit into the game. QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 15 Jun 2011 Location: "Where do you want setup?".
Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 5:32 am Post subject:
LKO do you think a mech unit for ts would be considered a building rating (100%) rather than 75%?. _________________ Also known as superluigi949 and SuperMario949.
Banned for pretending to be someone else. QUICK_EDIT
I was actually going to try this contest out, but after seeing the completely fucked up concept behind judging I have no interest now.
Instead of only bitching around, why don't you give some constructive criticism, with a solution for your issue.
This is still the preparation for the contest to avoid exactly these rants and find a good solution for the rating of one shp-type against another.
The topic is already active for almost a month, so there has been enough time for you to post before and come up with a better/your own/different judging solution.
m7 wrote:
Infantry should never be worth less than a structure, because you have such tiny room to make something look good. In a building, a 3x3 building can get tons of detail and look good.
Yet, infantry are a lot easier and faster to create than buildings and exactly for that are the percentages used. To judge one type against another.
The look and design is still judged by the 4 categories Originality, Functionality, Quality, Suitability, which is a complete different matter from judging the amount of work.
In addition, It's the taking part that counts!
Kcirevam wrote:
LKO do you think a mech unit for ts would be considered a building rating (100%) rather than 75%?.
No. As explained several times, there is a different amount of work and time necessary for each shp-type and the rating percentages are there to compensate this and be able to judge one type against another.
A mech can be much faster/easier done than a building, thus the lower percentage. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
LKO, you're basing the percentages on your own opinion rather than any standardised measure. As 4StarGeneral mentioned, everyone has different strengths and weaknesses and this makes it fallible for anyone to rank the difficulty of different (and absolutely unrelated in some cases) forms of SHP.
Now, this may be unpreventable. There may be no better way to rank things. But a participant can't be allowed to set the criteria, for the obvious reason that it is naturally biased. QUICK_EDIT
But a participant can't be allowed to set the criteria, for the obvious reason that it is naturally biased.
1. I'm not even sure i'll take part
2. I've never "set" anything, i just made a proposition. And i'm always open for improvement suggestions.
How about the following: no judges, no rating. Everyone sends a SHP and then they will be made public in a big package. Thus no winner, no loser and no one complaining about bad judging. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
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PPM 2012 free for all SHP competition (preparation)
