Roberto's Bullhorn: LETS TALK (Lessons Learned Thread)

#9

What i like of these challenges is

_To have a dateline with a defined theme gives me the organization that i need for finish a model.

-Sharing with people with same interests and different experience.

-Learning a lot of modeling and applying and doing more…to watch tutorials is too easy, anyone can do it.

_The relaxed and supportive environment in the comunity.

_More images for the personal portfolio

_Participation it´s free:D.

_The extra time saved me the two challenges i partipated and i think is a good thing.
I find that saying who posted on time is fair, and imo is not an stigma…plus nobody seems to care at the time of voting.

I don´t hate, but i don´t like having to upload the orthographic views, with the respective wires and with size restrictions is a little painfull, …wich don´t seem to be respected rules anyway.

And i agree with this

The thing I’d change would be making it strictly modeling oriented - no texturing competitions …

…but if you need to make a hook for the voting thread, you could have a separate categorie for beauty render.

Really those are just details that don´t realy mind…is all positive about the challenges.

About fomenting the challenges, you could post in diferent forums of CGtalk every new challenge…and for what i see you may need help from others moderators, it looks like you´re a little lonely with all these challenges, but i don’t know if that’s the case.

Sorry for the extention of this replay:blush: .

Cheers.

#10

Its my first attempt for any of the challenge

I realy like the comments, critics from co-participants. This keeps us to learn and prepare to win the race in more social way. If not won, no probs bcoz we won attitude.

Its not a problem, if someone use additional shader / texture / light to forecast the model in better way. Sure, It 'll develop us as multiskill artist, if we too practice it.

As its hardcore modeling challenge, you may create addional category for “winner of best forecast model” in this section to avoid broken-heart feel for additional shader work.

May we all develop this idea, if u like it.

Cheers!

#11
  • I dont’ know if I am entitled to talk since I didnt’ find the time to partecipate. I think this was really hard competition and lot of great professional partecipate on that.
    there’s my suggestion that I also pointed out on the other forum

-It will be very funnny to work also with the lighting challenges people. we have great modellers here and it will be very good to do something together also to learn more about texture, shaders etc.

-There should be also the possibility to have both hard surface modellers/organic modellers at work in same competition with two categories. I try to model both organic and inorganic and with new softwares the disctinction is not really more clear but I can totally understand that organic and inorganic modelling can be two different worlds. A very good and fast hard surface modeller can totally suck at portraing humans (myself :slight_smile: even if I’ not so good and fast HD)

KUDOS as always to Roberto and all partecipants. I guess this was one of the best (well my favorite also were the 80’s toys and how not to mention the Heavy metal competition ?)

#12

I thought the challenge was great. It was also my 1st challenge…

I think that maybe if everyone was doing either a cartoon or real or fantasy character that crits would have been more precise and that way more people are learning. It also puts every one on an even footing. It helps people to compare there models to someone else so that they can learn. With everyone doing there own thing it was also difficult to judge.

I’d also like to see more anatomy challenges. (Not sure its been done here already as I’ve only recently started following HMC). This way everyone can really learn. Like doing the arm with hand at all different positions and so on. The possibilities are endless. You could probably have a HMA (hardcore modeling anatomy forum). But its just an idea.

I have no problem with textures and such. Most of the past challenges included textures. And to be honest a texture is only as good as the base model. You can’t map a photo to a cube and expect it to animate right or look right in all angles.

Its great what your doing. Keep up the fantastic work.

#13

Hehe, I just think Roberto runs the best challenges. For whatever reason, I’m pretty sure it’s Roberto, his are always mega popular.

#14

Of course, i said what i said trying to bring some ideas that might or not be helpfull for promoting the challenge. And because i have the feeling that moderate and run this challenges are a lot of work for one person…even if that person is doing an excelent and sufficient work:thumbsup: .

By the way WiattHarris, would be good to see you participating in upcoming challenges.

cheers.

#15

It’s a modelling challenge. No textures.

Yes, a texture won’t save a bad model. BUT, it obscures the model, it makes it harder to see the form. I don’t like it because the person must post more images, with textures, without textures, etc. But it’s not part of the challenge. It won’t hurt the quality of the works.

And I think the themes should be open enough to allow us to choose the style and techniques. I’m particularly interested in challenges that are more creative and the results have a wide range of styles, like the last one. In my opinion that’s what make these challenges successful and fun.

#16

I thought the challenge provided a great opportunity to learn and improve modeling skills. I like the timed structure and open ended topic. The time limit helped me to stay focused and finish the model. I did not have a problem with the time extension. I know that things do not always go as planned in life and this is just an online community, not a strict job. Also, the extension allowed for the inclusion of some really nice models. I think having a general topic with the modeler free to choose how they want to approach it works well.

There wasn’t any part of the challenge I hated. I would have liked more critiques on my work. Getting a late start on my expressions and finishing most of them in the last week probably did not help, but the lack of comments was rather awkward. I know I am somewhat timid and did not comment much on other artist’s work, but I am trying to change that. Maybe if there was someone who posted some constructive criticism every so often, it might help the artists such as myself to improve their work or encourage others to post some helpful words.

To help community interaction, maybe you could post periodic updates of the other competitions going on. I just know that I got wrapped up in the challenge and was only looking at the other modelers entries. I also think this current/upcoming challenge will help. With all the different branches working on art for the same topic, I think people will have more of an incentive to check out how the different groups are approaching the same topic.

#17

That’s what I was talking about with my last post. Maybe just something like a voting category for “most helpful forum member”, which could be won by people not even in the challenge if they’ve taken the time to offer constructive criticism to other people. There are already a lot of voting categories so I don’t know about that, but it would be good to acknowledge the people who really spent time helping others out.

I’d second Brett on the anatomy challenge thing, but that’s just because that’s what I like, it’s my bag baby :slight_smile:

#18

This was my first time participating in a HMC, and I really enjoyed it, and loved the feedback I got. Some of it was very helpful really helped my entry, and all of it was at the very least encouraging. I’m not sure I really commented much on other peoples entries, I shall try to do so more next time. Maybe there should be a most active/helpful commenter award at the voting stage!

I can’t say there anything I hated about the challenge to be honest. The time allocated was short enough to be interesting, and even though I stayed up late finishing my entry before the original deadline, I didn’t mind when it got extended. I had some time to make a quick animation from my model and I could have worked on it some more if I hadn’t wanted to move on to other things.

With respect to textures, I think it worked nicely not to have them for this particular challenge, but I’ve seen challenges in the past where they were an important part of a lot of the entries so I wouldn’t want to see them ruled out entirely. Maybe instead have it specified at the beginning whether textures were required, optional, or mandatory.

#19

I didn’t participate in this one, but an anatomy challenge would be Sick.

#20

we will do it…

but first I am going the concept art challenge.
Oh yeah I almost forgot, the next challenge goes live ON FRIDAY
-R

#21

Agh! Friday? Well that’s cool. I will be away on vacation starting this Saturday so I will be a week behind. Although I’ve got some extra work on my plate right now so I might be too busy anyway. We’ll see, seems like a great challenge. I really hope to get involved. Don’t want to just stop at one HMC. I want to keep going.

#22

While part of me agrees with the whole texture idea, they are not required, so punishing someone who adds them is a little silly imo. besides, if 4 people out of 10 put textures on their model, and the other 6 feel belittled by it, it might give some of those six the inspiration and motivation to create textures themselves, giving them a finished piece for the portfolio.

That’s what these challenges are about. Creating artwork for yourself and the community. Saying “no textures” to me is just a form of justifying one’s own laziness, and rather than trying to push the extra mile to get those textures done, you’d want everyone else to “skimp” on their own models so you don’t feel so bad. Pardon if that sounded harsh, it wasn’t meant to be at all, I’m just tired. Yeah, there’s a vote and some people win categories, but for all those with a finished entry who didn’t win a category, well it’s not like they lost or anything. They still have a model to showcase, and in some instances, a model with textures, which will help sell your artwork on your demo reel.

Cheers

-Rage

#23

I’m reminded of something, what is it… Oh yes, the same exact conversation. :smiley:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=4385373

I mostly remembered this one because it involved Rick Baker. The fact is though that some are going to texture their models, there is no getting away from that. This challenge proved just like most of the ones in the past, the best model wins textured or not. I think it’s the quality of the CGTalk crowd that can look past any raz-ma-taz and judge the model strictly by the modeling or sculpting.

Make sure you notice the date on that old thread. Certain topics never die on this forum. :smiley:

#24

Rage, you have a point here. Though I don’t agree with the laziness part :wink:

I gave up that idea after seeing the previous challenges.

Btw, that wasn’t harsh at all.

#25

@Wyatt Harris: Hmm…It seems the discussions and arguments after challenges is either “no textures” or “no time extensions”. Lol it seems to me that they alternate from challenge to challenge. Also, it is prety hard to forget anything that MonsterMaker writes or posts. Any tidbit we get from him is valuable. A true artistic genius, that guy; with a heart of gold to boot :arteest:

@fabio dona: I’m glad you didn’t take it personally. I know I wrote “you” but essentially it was aimed at everyone, whether they are for or against textures. And I never meant to insinuate that you were lazy.

Cheers

-Rage

#26 
I don't agree with Chris about "most helpful forum member" category. It is too scary, I try to comment as much as I can, by pm / drop a line in people's thread without expecting something in return. I wouldn't do that then if there was such category and since this community rather different for me to adapt, I enjoy and at the same time learn just by looking their threads. I think you should consider their posts on their threads as comments as well. They share their thoughts with you. You shouldn't comment someone else's work just to get a critique, you should however comment if you enjoyed, learned something, have any idea, ~what you get in return is total mistery :D 

As for comments, if you really expect people to encourage you to continue~, you might get motivation from the model but usually not everyone think the same way, so try to find something popular, funny, something different ~or try some other places/people. But if you don't, look at your lovely model and smile.

As for critiques, when you don't get enough critiques, first critique yourself about something doesn't feel right and ask a question about that part, you still didn't get any critique? Change the view, present well, but still nothing? There are great people here, why don't you send PM to them and ask their oppinion? I'm sure they'll give critique whenever they find time. (Great people, don't hate me! :D) And there is another possibility that not everyone gives critique because they think you might be sensitive about your work, which is pretty common.

~
I don't know if I should post to this thread since I'm not in this challenge but, I'm doing my own work at nights and what I learned from this challenge which effected my own, topology from Brett & Magdalena(I'm 8 months old, so it was important for me to understand why, that it can be troublesome if a model hasn't got muscle flows) and I'll always remember Chris' methods.

Great work pals, gals.
Cheers!
#27

At least the “sculpting/no sculpting” discussion hasn’t popped up in a while. :smiley:

I think Rick’s real important point was he didn’t care about the contest part of the challenge at all. Just having fun and producing good results. If you make hard and fast rules that can’t be flexible then it really takes away from enjoying the challenge. I don’t feel like my work is finished if I haven’t textured it but sometimes I run out of time and can’t finish the texturing. I don’t want to penalize those that are able to texture. On the flip side you had Oddity’s point that making this a straight up hardcore challenge, “Michelangelo’s David” for example, really shows the how hardcore it is. No doubt this challenge could get a lot more hardcore but I think doing that would alienate a lot of people and we wouldn’t get as many participants.

The late start may have been the problem. I’ve found that the comments slow down quite a bit toward the end with the deadline approaching. Those that comment are usually competitors and competitors are quite busy by this point trying to finish up.

#28

Maybe the topic about texture or not texture remain because in the rules there are no mention about textures, just modeling and displacemnt maps.

and after the rules, it says…

Only participants who follow the rules and submit a final entry will be eligible for the voting process.
Any piece caught breaking the rules will be taken off the thread.

The thing is that the regular participants knows very well what is ok and what not by experience.

But new ones may stick to the only explicit rules and then be confused with the flexibility of them, thinking…if i knew it, i would do it that way, or the other.

To be complete honest, in the rules it says:

At at the end of the challenge the final model will have to look like a scene that we might see in a cg movie or a commercial."

Wich can be interpreted like a model textured, iluminated, and even with some postpro effect. But it’s not realy explicit and given the name of the forum, the hole thing about the textures is not 100% clear.

Cheers.