Yep, as Roberto mentioned - I’m in the process of putting together a file uploader that will provide simple, fast, direct file hosting for everyone final FXWars submissions.
I’m working out the last remaining bugs now, but I’ll probably open it up for beta later tonight.
Thanks Akin for all your help.
And to all. I will be doing a final tweak tonight, and then ill do the plug.
So please do add any comments and/or ideas and Il implement them.
Thanks,
-R
desinegration is one of the best topics fx challenge can do but I still think fxwars is in some ways going in the wrong direction in relation to most of it’s contestants. It needs to be
more strightforward less openendedness, more specific challenge. (disinegration of a specific object like wall, sphere, anything simple to get started on the fx right away, then light, comp, textured ect) so it’s compariing apples to apples. and people don’t have to think about it to much and just get right to it. more attempts to have people doing the same thing, like 10second club for animation where everyone HAS to use the audio file and do the best they can with it. Right now people spend more time doing nondynamic things like modeling and stuff and spend only 10% of the time on fx.
simpler attempting to make huge fx that take professionals months to develop and compelete is still dificult, it will probably just end up looking like crap. try smaller fx. (like the more specific examples above, one object) when people are doing those so well that it need to get harder make the competition harder. It should be something a pro could do in a weekend and a student can do in a month. if you can finish the effect in a weekend then it give you time to actually polish it to a higher level add more subleties
one winner, no categories it’s a mini challenge after all (unless there were more than 30 entries)
no extensions in time, less time to do it (4-6 weeks max)
( ) my 2 cents ( )
quick response to say that you make a very good work for these challenge roberto. respect! 
and cool for this new rules. cool to see that things change and become better and better.
i dont have too much things to say, as many have already been said, so just go on, and we will try our best for the next challenges 
edit: agree with destruct007
How does everyone feel about a 6 week / 2 week schedule for the challenges?
Everyone would have exactly 6 weeks from the start of the challenge to complete their entry.
Then 2 weeks down time for Voting, Plugs, Awards, and organizing the next challenge.
That way there would be a brand new challenge announced every two months.
i agree with destruct. some times date line could be extended and ppl loses interests in the challanges. the more time given, the more it will be less interested. after the challange annoucned, it gets plugged,ppl browse this forum and some get interest in it and take a part.but after that very few ppl browse this “FxWars” subforum. i think if anything like lighting challange,if we could do effects in less time, (2 months and if most entries are unfinished… dateline extended and except contestents no one knows what is going on in fxwars…) and posting results for voting. after 2 or 4 weeks, ppl except contestents could have fun in voting and enjoying the result of the fxwars.
also what about running 2 or 3 challanges(with diff. subjects) at the same time, and giving freedom to take a part in any subject. but posting the result veryweek.if subject 1 result is posted on 1st week then on 2nd week posting the result of 2nd subjects. thus everybody will take interest in it.
another idea is to give a min icon(this is mini challange…so mini icon) as an awards to fxwars winners under his/her id.so if any winner is browsing another thread or post reply there other will notice it and i believe that will inspires to get more ppl here.
-Jigu.
I uploaded a couple of older animations into the gallery (it will take me a few days to track down all the old animations) and plugged the current challenge.
I do want to continue talking about the NEXT challenge.
So lets discuss more ideas.
-R
For this challenge, I like a lot the idea and I’ll try to get in, I love particles & disintegration Fx :), so good one Roberto, and all the cgtalkers that help make it possible.
For the Next Challenge, I agree with Destruct007, I think that maybe All the participants must Download a Scene package (Cg files, video shots, etc.) and a Script (or story board) of what must be do on the challenge, focusing only on the VFx (non modeling, etc.). For compatibility maybe the CG Files must be on FBX file format so can be imported to many cg softwares. With these presets for everyone, will be more ease (and will cut some creativity, sorry) to judge the final works. I have´nt worked on a CGMovie scheddule, so maybe Im saying some crazy things right here, hahaha.
Bye!, and Keep the good work.
–<Daniel>–
I agree 110% with everything destruct007 said. He makes some very good points. The contests have been to open ended.
It would be nice to do one where I knew everyone was doing the exact same thing.
Let me also say that Roberto has done a fantastic job not just on this forum but tons of forums he works on every day.
For the next challenge, I think desinegration could be still the general fx. there’s really no fx too small for a challenge, because we’re mimicing in some cases, and most others trying to make believable photo real fx. (that’s a run on sentence) I look at the 10 second club for inspiration, seems easy but you can do a lot with very strick guidlines. here’s a simple example, that can be very complex
gray sphere floating over a poly grid plane. Destroy/desinegrate the sphere.
level 1
shatter sphere, make rigid bodies, add gravity.
level 2
add particle debris, random small size, particle dust/smoke. Lighting and advanced rendering set up.
level 3
emit particle debris from cracks, set instanced rotations to fake correct movement (like rigid bodies)
level 4
fluid dust/smoke
level 5
skin outter shell burn/peels/flakes off (cloth sim)
level 6
objects on the ground burn, and disinegrate in to ash
level 7
starts to rain, remaining particles pool and puddle, water muddys and flows off leaving the grid clean.
there’s tons of alternates one could do with this. Plasma ball hits the shpere first, or it’s made completely out of lays of cloth and litterally turns to ash and floats away. So a beginner can do it by just doing level one and doing it well, and someone more advanced can push further to level 4 or 5.
this is pure fx, no time to set it up and lots and lots of fx work.
Ok if we do this, I want to do it with an insaly short dateline. And It has to feel like a more directed version on the current mini challenge.
And I suggest we call it something cool.
Like the “Disintegration CLASSROOM”.
Or something like that.
BTW one idea I am going to do for the next common challenge, is a challenge that would e very similar to the Volcano one.
The one I was thinking of doing would provide Concept art, models, and Background plates (mostly stills).
-R
What’s different about fx than any other dicipline in cg is that there is relatively no training. School barely touch the subject, and when they do it’s so rare that it’s by a knowagable instructor. Unlike sketching, modeling, textureing, lighting, you learn all these in the first 3 months of any cg/art school. To get into fx is really hard, even when you get your first job it takes a long time to get to know the BASIC tool sets already built into whatever package you use, let along techniques for using them.
So why I don’t agree with having these big challenges is because unlike all other challenege competitions, 95% of people who want to do it don’t have and won’t have the technical ability during the time of the challenge to produce something cool, and forcing them to spend time on other things (modeling textuing animating rigging lighting) further ensures their failure. Esp since their fx abuility won’t improve as much since they did only a few days of fx over the course of 2 months.
Everyone can enter modeling sketching challenges, simply look at the quality of the entries, they top few are of professional quality and then a good handful at top student level. FXWARS gets maaaybe one good entry and it’s not of professional quality, then very few ok-bad entries. THAT means make it simpler, open it up to more people trying it, try to get more people entering and try to get better quality finalists.
FX are cool, and we all want to do huge fx but realistically the industry is young and tool are not ready for doing it in a short challenge format.
The fact remain people need to lean fx before they can do fx.
Just kinda brainstorming here so feel free to take this with a grain of salt… what if the 2-minute film club and the FX wars were combined into one thing. I’m not talking about group one shoots and group two adds fx, but more of a theme and people could do either thing.
The winners could be:
Best FX
Best Story
Best Look (this would cover either cinematography or in the case of a total CG piece texturing and lighting)
I’m still not sure if this makes sense and I sure it would create some messy boundaries that I haven’t thought about… Just tossing it out there 
I think there are too many restrictions on the challenges these days, too many rules. The best idea would be a one word or description challenge and then throw it out there for people to do as they wish.
If you only have a weekend or all the time in the world you should still be able to enter and while I`m at it how about just one vote for the coolest clip, its not the academy awards after all
Kind of interesting how half the people are in favor of a totally open ended and vague topic that lets people be creative and do their own thing… and the other half want a completely defined topic where everyone works on nearly the same thing.
Maybe we could alternate between the two each challenge types - one open ended challenge, followed by a focused well defined challenge.
Thanks Akin!Lets keep the dicussion going, since I like to see your points of view guys.
BTW!
[b][i]BREAKING NEWS!
[/i][/b][i]I am right now in negotiations to get some common RAW footage from a previous challenge to use in this one.
So if you were on the fence about joining the challenge, well your excuses are over.
Keep an eye on this thread for more information.[/i]
[i][u]Raw Footage__________________________________[/i][/u]
[i][/i]RAWFOOTAGE1
RAWFOOTAGE2(fixed)
RAWFOOTAGE3 (fixed)
For the live action entries you may use this footage, but if you do have to give credit to Daniel J. Lezama L., Daniel Sunwoo and David Schoneveld (actor).
It is footage taken from the fxwars challenge.
-R
Well for those looking for free skeletons
go here:
http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/212223 (3DS)
-R