Decided that I didn’t really like the additional scratches and stuff, so I submitted everything today.
The winning pose image:
The beauty render:
Everything in chronological order with some comments:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/81026017@N00/sets/72157604331882436/
Looks really great swiz. Nice and clean. I love the glows. To be honest, I was hoping the text would be a little smoother and pronounced, but it is still a great effect. My one wish is that you would have spent more time on the pedestal, and that’s just a personal preference. I totally hear where you were coming from and applaud you for sticking to your guns on keeping it simple to avoid character detraction. Again, that’s just me on beefing up the pedestal; it would have been sweet. So it’s all up and submitted on the game artisans site? i’ll go check it out! Best of luck to you man!
Thanks, guys.
Firebert:
I don’t think there’s any place you can see the submitted entries yet. If I’ve read the judging page correctly, all the submitted entries will be available for viewing shortly after the contest is over.
You are right, and now I’m pissed, so can you put them up here for us or are you going to hold out for a while?
Check out that last link in the post with the images. I knew I should’ve put the link above the images.
Well damn! Forgive my partial blindness. I was just too blown away to notice the 2pt Verdana text.
Kudos to all the special effects, such as all the fire, glows and the text. Very good job done, even thought I would personally prefer more scratches and imperfections on the armor.
My only question is if the normalmap really produce 100% accurate result? On some places it looks only smoothed normals without any normalmap. Minor flaw, thought every bit is useful in this contest:)
good job mate! dont know why but it reminded me of mario galaxy, think its cuz the shadders you´ve used! nevertheless, very well done!
good luck!
hakanpersson:
I know what you mean about both the scratches and normal map. I decided against doing scratches because, while it might look kinda neat, it would just add too much visual noise to something that’s already bordering on difficult to look at.
The normal map in this case doesn’t do much more than add definition to things that need it, like bits of armor that have curves and creases that aren’t actually there in the low-poly geometry. It’s strongest on the arms and legs where I used Crazybump to add a lava texture, and that’s the way I want it. I didn’t want to go overboard with insane little details because they’d just detract, in my opinion, from the end result.
[b] rart[/b]:
That would be the rim lighting, methinks. I have a bit of gradient on there based on incidence angle so it's lighter around the edges. It's something that lots of games (like Mario Galaxy, Half-Life 2: Ep 2, Call of Duty 4, etc.) are doing these days. It makes things pop out from their background a bit and can, if you do it really subtly, simulate peach fuzz on skin.
Overall, I’m satisfied with how this came out. I’m well aware of the various criticisms that could be madeespecially those involving adding more wear and tear or burn marks or other details. However, I’ve submitted all my final images. It’s finished, even with its imperfections and such, and I’m not going to be working on it further. Thanks for all the kind words, criticisms, critiques, everything.
Good luck to all with your entries. See you all at the judging!
It’s my name and “CGSociety - Society of Digital Artists” in a font that’s kind of difficult to read.
nice man, thanks for the explanation 
btw, I just visited your flickr page and found out that you were using this polyviewer soft, I downloaded that but everytime that I try to import my model inside it, the texture coordinates comes all wrongs, even if I use the model wich cames with the software, wierd… do you know why ?
Whenever I used it, I had no problems. I suppose it could be a compatibility issue with your video card, but that’s the only thing I can think of.
awesome! love the contrast between the dark armor and fire. love the text effect rolling around his arm!
cool character man, it’s really nice to see it finished! also dont forget to submit it to the team posters : http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?t=3189
heavyness:
Thanks! You wouldn’t believe the trouble I went to trying to get something around his arm that looked firey but didn’t completely overwhelm the whole thing.
dmightyone:
You know, I keep on telling myself I need to get on that. Hell, I’ve even done a couple of renders, but then I realize I’ve screwed something up at render time and I say “Screw it! I’ll do it tomorrow!”
I should probably get it done… 