Hi I had the wind knocked out of me by the unfortunate coincidence of losing both my laptop and
the slowdown in internet access caused by the undersea cable loss.So Looks like I have to give this
competition a miss.:).I had intended to to email this to leonard as feedback but found the forum a more
suitable location to put in my opinions on the competition.First I apologize for what was perceived
as unfortunate flooding.
The issue I wish to explore here is simply this:.As you may be well aware movie production occurs with teams feeding data to and from one another.
One team produces models another team sets them up and still another team produces the color keys and animations.
The nature of this competition is that the teams are usually individuals or small teams of 2 and 3 working independantly within the limited time framework.Because as you make it very clearly ,drawing on each others works outside your own team is frowned upon and even constitutes stealing ,nobody does that .Everyone is working from scratch.I am more
interested in reproducing the feel of working in an actual movie production house where you have artists doing the story books ,still others doing the models and still others doing the illustrations and the teams specialize and leverage on one another competitively.
If a formal system of acknowledgement is set up and copyright sharing is enforced ,the issues of stealing disappear.
Productivity is higher and the quality rises and the time commitment of each person is defined. I have observed may good entries go uncompleted and good artists withdrawing because of work commitments.This may not be an issue in the illustration category but is definitely an issue in the animation category.I therefore propose a change in the way competitions using movie studio or author intellectual property be held.
Basically the end product is an animation .period.In order to get
there ,you go through the process of story boarding ,producing models ,compositing the models and finally producing the resulting animation.The caveat here is that different artists involved in different steps of the process have no leeway in choosing what
to do .They must get their input only from the
earlier steps in the process.For example modelers cannot roll their own models ,they must draw on only the storyboard sketches for inspiration.Competition is judged only on the final animation with acknowledgement placed in the animation for storyboard artists,modelers and background artist whose work gets used in the final animation.This is the issue that I wish to explore.Essentially how the competition can be better and how more can be done in the amount of time available.
Knowing Leonard’s success with organizing 3D conventions ,it is not a difficult matter to alter the php to create
this more assembly line approach to the competition.I know this sounds crass but animation as it is currently produced
is very labor and effort intensive and it makes sense to pool efforts where possible.
Also in the early in the competition Greg made a silly mistake as one of the judges in commenting on some of the entries.
If you do not believe me just do a search on his comments.I realized thereon that what was needed was a system of categorizing
the various entries and came up with the following categories
category one:
Strong/Beautiful Foreground Potraits with EON elements in the background.
Movie Posters theme.
Characters in dramatic poses.
Characters have detailed skin,muscle and skeletal structures.Characters may wear detailed armor.
Very Detailed Vehicle showed prominently together with characters.The Focus is Character.
category two:
massive architectures,detailed cityscapes,plasma tubes,huge eon elements viewed in the distance in the style of grand space opera with miniscule,faceless,diminutive men ,women and all terrain machines reacting and responding to the environment.Archictectural elements include buildings,pylons,aqueducts,railways station,arches and airports as well as roads.The Focus is Architecture.Huge Explosions may be present.
category three:
air ,sea atmosperics featuring natural elements of islands,skies blend into a grand sense of scale.Includes Tree elements.Gaia oriented.Mountain views and Spectacular chamber vistas. Sky atmospherics.Rivers curve and bend and disappear in the distance.Organic and Crystalline Inorganic natural forms.Terrain
and Environment is the Focus and site of adventure.Open Pit Mines abound.Mining Machinery act as props.
category four:
party scene with the character interacting and gossiping
Social Parties gathered at gate opening or onboard a ship or library viewing
category five:
wonderful sense of humor even black humor and caricature
category six:
action packed conflict with eon elements in the backdrop and lots of machines,ships,cities and soldiers.battlefield atmospherics
category seven:
entire cities,planetary bodies,asteroids,weather systems,gates,singularities,flawships and space vehicles in awe inspiring perspectives with large scale explosions.Ships have beautiful designs.Space/Aerospace Atmospherics.The Focus is on Flight.Very Detailed Flight Vehicle showed prominently with Pilots dressed for flight.
category eight:
detailed explanatory tutorials
Having the categories aid the judges Greg and Brin in deciding who to lookout for in judging the competition.
Perhaps a mysql database could be setup in future competitions to help the judges to track the entries and may prompt
calls for submissions in areas that are lacking?
Finally Best wishes to greg and brin and the upcoming winners of the eon competition.
!
