Grand Space Opera Challenge FAQ / Questions / Answers

#582

There it goes a question: ¿CAN EXTEND THE SPACE OPERA ENTRIES TWO MORE WEEKS???
I think one more day does’nt help very much

#583

penumbrae: come on! man, chill out… the extra day was mainly for the people whou couldn’t upload their images and/or were just finishing. I think you have enough time to create something good.

#584

O.K. now you CGtalk guys did it. I have the feeling of a big black hole inside of me… there is something missing in my life now that the contest is over.

SnakeFarlow: I guess they will put up some kind of little corner in this forum where such information will be comunicated.

BTW CGTALK ADMINS: Maybe you could open a thread where all uploaded finals could be watched? No Post allowed just a simple final image gallery for GSO, could this be possible?

#585

penumbrae: Don’t bet you life on it (come on, we all had three months to create an entry; deadlines are a given for a reason)

theuni: I think thats what they’ll be doing for the public voting instead.

#586

Anyone, know anything about the judging procedure? I assume there is a page dedicated to all the final submissions? Also how do we vote? Just curious.

#587

At current time my submit page says this:

[i]Time left: 0 days, 12 hours, 50 minutes, 4 seconds

Is this a correct count of time? Or does the contest end in 45 minutes?
[/i]

#588

You are correct about ftping through the finder on a Mac. Its so slow its like watching snails race.

I have an 800MHz iBook with 256MB RAM - 10.2 crawled quite badly for me. As much as I loved using OSX, after a year I reformatted and now dual-boot Debian Linux and OS X. Linux is quite a bit faster on it, and is more comfortable for me since I’m more used to it - I still want more RAM though :slight_smile:

When will we know the results of the contest? and how would we know if we were elected or something like that.

Public voting will probably start either this weekend or early next week. If you have succesfully submitted all of your milestones and your TIFFs - which I hope you all have - you’ll be in the voting pages. (We have 250 final contestants so far!).

Results will be a few weeks later, I don’t know exactly.

There it goes a question: CAN EXTEND THE SPACE OPERA ENTRIES TWO MORE WEEKS???

Unfortunately, no. The challenge has been running for 90 days with a deadline set right at the beginning - changing it by two weeks would be unfair to everybody who has already gotten their work in. We extended the deadline by a day to allow a little extra time because of the huge server load delaying people.

O.K. now you CGtalk guys did it. I have the feeling of a big black hole inside of me… there is something missing in my life now that the contest is over.

That’s OK, we’re already planning the theme of the next one. We have a few possibilities, I think you guys will like them all :slight_smile:

BTW CGTALK ADMINS: Maybe you could open a thread where all uploaded finals could be watched? No Post allowed just a simple final image gallery for GSO, could this be possible?

The voting pages will be available fairly soon, you’ll be able to see them all then :slight_smile:

Anyone, know anything about the judging procedure? I assume there is a page dedicated to all the final submissions? Also how do we vote? Just curious.

Public voting will be the same as for the last two challenges (Alienware and Machineflesh). You’ll see a huge list of entry thumbnails - something like 14 pages worth - you click it, see a somewhat larger image. Just above and just below the image is a “vote” button. You can vote for any images you want, each person who votes for an image increases their score by one point.

BTW, your TIFF upload hasn’t been registered - have you uploaded it yet? If you did, let me know what filename you called it so I can put it in the right spot. (If you’ve only uploaded it in the last few minutes, ignore this - it takes ages for the system to check everyone’s uploads, it was last run about 5-10 minutes ago).

Time left: 0 days, 12 hours, 50 minutes, 4 seconds

Is this a correct count of time? Or does the contest end in 45 minutes?

The extra 12 hours is just a little bit of extra “grace period” - but for most of that, there will be nobody around to help you if you get stuck, so you really can’t rely on it at all.

#589

W00t, cause I was re-rendering a small portion of the image and wasn’t sure wether I needed to just forget the changes and get that file up there or wether I can wait about 1.25 hours for the rendering to finish… if I have 12 hours thank the time setter, cause my entry is about to get better. There is only 1 tiff submission allowed correct, unlike the final jpg which the last one is the only one that counts?

#590

There is only 1 tiff submission allowed correct, unlike the final jpg which the last one is the only one that counts?

Not so - just upload the file using the exact same filename* and overwrite the older one.

  • The same filename that’s given to you in Step 3 of the Submit Final Image page
#591

Public voting will probably start either this weekend or early next week. If you have succesfully submitted all of your milestones and your TIFFs - which I hope you all have - you’ll be in the voting pages. (We have 250 final contestants so far!).

Glad to hear that; I heard somewhere else that it might take 2-3 weeks for the voting to start.

#592

I heard somewhere else that it might take 2-3 weeks for the voting to start.

Nope. It took a lot longer for the last two challenges; we weren’t nearly as well prepared and we had a lot of people wanting extensions because they didn’t understand the rules.

That’s why we’ve tried to be a lot more vocal and really make sure people know that if they don’t make the deadline - even if it’s because they didn’t understand the rules - they’re disqualified. It’s really unfortunate, but otherwise we spend a week after the challenge (including some time during voting) helping people upload their “Final Image” JPEG or TIFF, or some other random milestone they missed. That then delays judging, is unfair to the people who got it in on time, etc.

Once Leo’s small extension is over, that’s it. We cannot accept any more entries, or it will delay judging - and we have a huge number of people that already want the voting to start! :slight_smile:

#593

I submitted my final tiff last night via FTP but I still haven’t seen any e-mail confirmation. Does this mean that it didn’t go through?

#594

Are you sure about the pictures judged by the jury? will it be the high res or on-lin efinal image? Or still you are not certian about it? And just to be on a safe side, if I have uploaded a few final versions milestones, the last one is the one for the public vote? And what about any comments, will they appear in the final entries pages? (I mean th estory for example or other details of the work). Thank you in advance for answers:)

#595

…we’re already planning the theme of the next one. We have a few possibilities, I think you guys will like them all :slight_smile:

Have to say I can totally empathize with theuni. I’m new here so i have no idea: How long between contests? Will the next one start in two months? Half a year? I know you don’t have an exact time but is this an annual thing? Semi-annual?

Thanks, both for a response, and for hosting the whole thing to start with!

-mike

#596

Well, this is my own guess, but I believe we’ll see the next Challenge sometime in March.
(maybe?) :shrug:

#597

Are you sure about the pictures judged by the jury? will it be the high res or on-lin efinal image? Or still you are not certian about it? And just to be on a safe side, if I have uploaded a few final versions milestones, the last one is the one for the public vote? And what about any comments, will they appear in the final entries pages? (I mean th estory for example or other details of the work). Thank you in advance for answers:)

I haven’t spoken further with Leo about it, but jury voting isn’t for a while yet. Public voting is definately on the Final Image JPEG, and has the comments and other stuff listed much like when you view a challenger’s information now.

Whatever thumbnail you see in the final image page is going to be what is considered your TIFF submission, so as long as that’s the latest one, you’re set.

Have to say I can totally empathize with theuni. I’m new here so i have no idea: How long between contests? Will the next one start in two months? Half a year? I know you don’t have an exact time but is this an annual thing? Semi-annual?

We’re going to be aiming for 3-4 a year, with a faster schedule for future challenges than past challenges. I can’t really say more until the next challenge is announced, I don’t know how final any of it is until then. (I can say that the gap before the next challenge shouldn’t be too long at all :)).

#598

Erm, Mibus. Hate to sound like a dork, but did you get my final tiff?
Thanks. :smiley:

#599

Erm, Mibus. Hate to sound like a dork, but did you get my final tiff?

Yeah. You should’ve gotten an email about it by now.

I haven’t looked to make sure it loads OK, but it decompressed OK. (I’m just looking at a looong list of pass/fail automated tests here :)).

254 people completed the challenge so far!

#600

I have to say I’ve been somewhat amused at the number of “final, final, final…, no really, this is the final” images that some artists have submitted, due to the time extension. The time extension was granted because of a server problem preventing some artists from uploading their final entries. But now we have an full on “tweak-out,” with endless strings of final images. Some artists are still working quite hard to finish their milestones. A bit not fair, perhaps?

Anyhow, it’s all kind of funny, but maybe I’m just tired…

(And I’m forced to admit I was tempted to go back and touch up some minor glitches, but I didn’t feel it was in the spirit of the challenge.)

#601

Thanks a ton Mibus, you rock! I can’t imagine how many times you’ve had to answer the same questions over and over for this contest alone, and yet you don’t seem the least bit annoyed, I really appreciate that.