Competition #1 - Big Huge Games Art Challenge

[FredH]

Welcome to GameArtisans.org’s first official Game Art Challenge. As often as possible, GameArtisans will invite game companies to participate in hosting a contest within these forums. Our first contest is brought to you by Big Huge Games. (http://www.bighugegames.com) Together, we hope to inspire 3d and concept game artists to cook up something great, learn new tricks, and above all, have fun!

We hope you willl enjoy our first official game art event.

(Note: A thread will automatically be created for you after you submit a title and initial thumbnail)


View Entries:
http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/competitions/1/view_entries.html

Read Brief:
http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/competitions/1/readbrief/index.htm


Good luck to all those who enter!


- Please use this thread to ask questions and/or inform Fred of errors on any pages.

[george.vas]

Cool contest. If I can squeeze in the extra time you can count me in. :thumb:

[Imperialism]

Awesome! I would say something, but my head is too busy thinking of ideas!

[Gavin]

Brilliant. Really hoping I can take part in this one. Just a question Fred, would a weapon we have for the character be include din his total polycount and texture limits?

Thanks!
Gav

[FredH]

Yes, everything is included. Never again, in my entire life, will I try to seperate them:p

[kurocrash]

not to be That guy, but... 3500 polys for a character that's essentially a stage unto itself (citing the games mentioned in the brief)? i mean if the player model's going to be up close, crawling all around & stabbing it all over the place, they're really going to be getting in tight to a lot of that detail. does it necessarily need to be a full model? take the colossus of rhodes in god of war 2 for instance. the majority of the time, you only see it in the distance from the waist up.
just thinking out loud. regardless, i'm up for the challenge. a very cool idea for a comp!


-J

[zann]

Hey this sound interesting since i wanted to do some gigantic creatures for a long long time, will probably joining for sure!:approve:

[indian_boy]

and it begins..... but i won't be able to participate.... the computer will be packed as of 23rd April dammit. good luck to all who will try!

[Oink]

I'm interested in participating but I don't know. Could my girlfriend for example join the concept part and could I then use her Concept for the 3D part?

I know teamwork is prohibited but in what sense? She won't touch the 3D model in any way.

EDIT: I'm a bit stumped about the whole character thing, it's always characters.... will try to see if I can knock some enviro things into the characters design.

[kipiripi]

Super contest again.Fred
But I wonder,Can we join both of them ( 3d and concept ) ?

[EVIL]

I'm also feeling the 3500 to be a bit low, I mean I seriously doubt the monsters in a game like shadow of a colossus would have such a low polycount They are almost levels by themselves. Its all about silhouette and remember that its basicly going to look as if you blow up a UT2k4 character to colossus size.. it'l look a bit nasty.. unless you hide most of it in fog.. I'd rather have a count of 7000 like the dom war..

[_Vincento_]

Thank you Fred
Woooaaa GameArtisans is becoming the reference in the 3d Game artist contests :p
I will try to manage my time to take part of this contest.


_Vincent

[TryForce]

I'm cool with it! i like this idea, gonna join right after i'm done with cg chats competition.

[FredH]

kipiripi --> Yes, you can join both of them. So if you make a concept for your 3d model, you can also use this concept for the concept challenge:)

kurocrash --> hmmmm, I will see what I can do. I will let everyone know if the poly limits have been raised this monday or tuesday. It won't be 7000. It might be 4000 or 5000 tops.

Oink --> For this contest, I am afraid everyone must remain seperate. So if she enters the concept art section, you would not be able to use her concept.

indian_boy --> Consider buying a laptop:p I use a laptop, my brother uses a laptop, rawstar uses a laptop... They are great man!

[EVIL]

oh I can decide if I can do 3d or concept art.. hmm.. I'm Doing concept art..(I'm more 2d oriantated) altho its sad to see the prizes for the 2d and 3d aren't the same..

[_Vincento_]

Fred i use a latop and you forgot me :mad:
Grrrrrrrrrr

Yes polycount to : 5000 tri would be better

_Vincent:D

[FredH]

Well, you didn't ask a question:p
Btw, cool idea about putting your signature on the right. It looks better when it's over the buttons.

Evil --> A Concept Art challenge for game art has never been done. If things work out in this one, perhaps in the next one, the prizes will be raised. At least 2nd and 3rd place winners are the same:inocent:

[kurocrash]

thanks fred, but i wasn't necessarily asking for a higher count as much as maybe just being allowed to just model a section of the giant, from like waist up or something & using the pedestal to obscure the rest. i take it that's out, though.
the higher count is more reasonable though! 7000, like evil said, would be nice & all, but my vote is for 5000 too. thanks!

-J

[Torokun]

Someone top this!

LOL!

http://tn3-1.deviantart.com/fs11/300W/i/2006/241/6/b/Tingle_Fanart_by_torokun.jpg

[ChrRambow]

Great challenge Topic!

What's so wrong with trying to get the best out of 3500 polygons?
I find the polygon limit quite challenging ... and that's what i is ... a challenge.

[EVIL]

wait a minute, so I could start on the concept art challenge and if i'm done with that and find myself to have enough time left to just go ahead with the 3d aswell?

oh and a little comment about the prizes section, It now looks as if 1st place is 360, second wii and third PSP, while thats not the case.. maybe create small icons for the diffrent consoles.. so you can sort it better tot the first, second and third prizes list's

[FredH]

Torokun --> Please no Lol Well, he is big hehe Great first concept man:p

Evil --> yes, I agree, it is a little misleading. When I put in the psp, I knew people would get confused, but if I made it smaller, it wouldn't look as pretty. Unless you mean that I should leave the psp there 'and' put in the small icons too? This can work, I'll see how it looks.

kurocrash --> post some samples here. I'll take a look at it and let you know soon after:)

[EVIL]

now answer the first half of my question yeeeeh!! :)

[FredH]

That has already been answered with kipiripi:cool: But, here it is again, Yes, you can join both.

[EVIL]

sweet :D,

and I was more thinking about this for the prize page
Like nice big cup icons and the consoles as cool Icons like the award medals.. or just smaller pics..

edit: I am even prepared to make small console icons

[Frozan]

hmm im not in the comp but that looks pro and a great idea i might add nice evil!

[FredH]

:eek: ok ok ok, there is nothing like a big and huge (pardon the pun) sample image to convince me to do something. Evil, it will be done!:thumb: Thanks man.

[EVIL]

hihi, I contributed! now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside *rolls on the floor giggling and rubbing his stomach.

anyway cool topic btw..! *EVIL gets to work

[FredH]

yeah, you did good!:p Thanks again. I will incorporate it in sometime tonight.

[Kerepres]

seems interesting!
might be joining :D

[Asmuel]

Damn! This seams like a great competition, hope I have time to join, but its unlikely :doh:

Nice work Fred :approve:

[Marcus Dublin]

I don't know why I'm doing this to myself since I have a backlog of work to finish up but I can't help it; this is to good to pass up. I'll be making some sort of elemental creature, maybe a lava creature or something. I always wanted to make one but never had the chance until now I guess. It's a 50/50 chance that I'll be finishing but I'll give it a shot. I'm going to forgo any 2d stuff since it takes to long for me to formulate my ideas that way so I'll be pushing poly's around until I hit something that feels good.:thumb:

Marcus

[shadowbreeze]

man i really shouldn't enter as i'm in the middle of testing, but i can not resist, i'll be starting this at least

[kurocrash]

i'm having difficulty finding images online, but i'm talking about the huge characters in god of war 2 in particular, the colossus of rhodes & typhon. the characters are so huge that they're modeled in sections & worked into the environment. you'll be running in a storehouse in rhodes & 'stomp' a foot comes in & wrecks everything. you climb a ladder & there you see it (from the waist up) lurching up over the battlements & trying to smack the hell out of you lol typhon is actually built into a huge cavern system. your pegasus is trapped under it's hand so you have to work your way up the mountain & get up to the head & steal a crossbow out of his eye...

basically i was wondering if we could model a section of the giant character & treat the pedestal as sort of the game environment & use it to obscure sections of the character the player won't necessarily see. with my project, i was thinking my character would be lying on its back stationary. do i necessarily need to model the back?

this was just a question i had with the lower polycount, just an idea to milk out better detail with the lower count. if the polycount's raised, it's not really an issue.

also, just a quickie question, that scale model's pretty neat, but i was wondering do we need to match that same sort of design motif? he's kind of got this greek/roman thing going on & i was thinking of something space-y/scifi/high tech.


-J

[EVIL]

also, just a quickie question, that scale model's pretty neat, but i was wondering do we need to match that same sort of design motif? he's kind of got this greek/roman thing going on & i was thinking of something space-y/scifi/high tech.

-J

I think since the briefing sais this
Feel free to download this model to depict the scale difference between a human and your giant:
I am sure you can model your own scale model to fit the monster, timeline planet scane whatever better.

[FredH]

ok, this just in:

The prizes page has been fixed. The gold trophy is even animated now:p

and

The polycounts will be raised to 5000

And kurocrash

The official word is yes, you can do this, but you had better make it cool! Also, yes, you can change the human if you would like:)


Marcus --> It must have been the dom war that created your backlog. Soo sorry. I know this domwar and yeah, she was very demanding:p Hope you will recover in the near future. Nonetheless, you made a great entry for her man!

[Asmuel]

Hey Fred

Im not really clear about the texture sizes. So we get 2 X 1024X1024 total texture size, so we need to pack everything we want into that. So we can just have 1024 difuse and normal, or diff and spec, or 2 X 512 for diffuse and 2 X 512 normal and 2 X 512 for spec and 2 X 512 alpha?

[Vailias]

man you guys complain about specs WAY too much
you can do a LOT with 3k triangles and a 1024 tex even for a huge model
examples
http://www.vailias.com/Images/Content/Thumbs_2/HellHammer-Concept.jpg (http://www.vailias.com/Images/Content/3d/HellHammer-Concept.jpg)
http://www.vailias.com/Images/Content/Thumbs_2/HellHammer-4up.jpg (http://www.vailias.com/Images/Content/3d/HellHammer-4up.jpg)

thats under 2000 triangles, and frankly could be lower but another team member de-optimized it then unwrapped it.
Textured with one 1024 map in diffuse, normal and glow

also asmuel, every comp for the last like.. 2.5 years (on cg chat and pc at least) has specified the texture res to be for any maps needed for the model
ie 1024 diffuse, 1024 bump etc, and you can split that 1024 however you need for material assignements (ie 4 512's or 16 256 if you happen to like to be insane)

[Asmuel]

I know that, Im not a newb, its just worded unclearly...

"Any mix of maps may be used, but the
grand total of pixels may be no more than the equivalent of two 1024's."

Sounds like the "mix of maps" could be refering to a mixture of normal/diffuse/spec etc. that may not exceed 2X1024, and not how you can split up texture maps. It would have been more logical to mention what texture passes we are suggested to use which is important, rather than how we can split textures up which isnt that big of a deal.

[kurocrash]

man you guys complain about specs WAY too much
you can do a LOT with 3k triangles and a 1024 tex even for a huge model


i'm not saying a lot can't be done with 3500. i was just taking the games mentioned into consideration. in both cases, the large character is part of the landscape & i was asking if we could use that to optimize the character, seeing as the camera would theoretically be getting in tight to it in a game. like chrrainbow even said, i was only asking to get the best possible out of the polys allotted to make a good character.


-J

[SupRore]

And both games mentioned were PS2 games, so they had crazy tight poly limits and much smaller textures than you guys get to work with.

3500 is more than enough for a massive landscape style enemy, I'd just rather see less excess in textures if they polycount were gonna be that low -- 2x1024 seems like a huge mismatch for it.

Anyway, contest looks really cool. If I wasn't having such problems with computers and time to work I'd enter for sure.

[kurocrash]

agreed. i never had a problem with the textures. they're more than gracious!
but just to clarify, i was just asking if we could use the same techniques as on the PS2 to get as much out of the poly count, seeing as it was tight. i didn't ask about raising the count (wasn't about to turn down the chance to have more though lol).


-J

[Vailias]

I know that, Im not a newb, its just worded unclearly...


fair enough. The same questions get asked every comp no matter how the brief is written. Pardon the bluntness, I'm just tired of seeing the same thing over and over with the same answer.

It should be a rule that the first poster in any comp thread asks

"Can we have more polygons?
Can the same size texture be used for other maps too?
Can we split the texture how we want?
What do you mean by [word or phrase]?
What? Characters again? When are the environment guys gonna get some love?
What do you mean no [restriction]?! That totally ruins my motivation!"
...thats all I can think of off the top of my head. ;)

[Asmuel]

Yea I know what you mean, I had to answer that for someone during to course of dominance war ;) It was asked constantly

[EVIL]

ANYWAY! its 5000 now, so I guess thats the end of this discussion.. It can't be changed back and forth, this aint ping-pong where playing!

A good Idea for the start-post might be indeed a FAQ with those questiones mentiones by Vailias. so if the questions get asked again, we can kindly point those posters to look at the start-post & to use their eyes and read

[kurocrash]

A good Idea for the start-post might be indeed a FAQ with those questiones mentiones by Vailias. so if the questions get asked again, we can kindly point those posters to look at the start-post & to use their eyes and read

third'ed! lol


-J

[Asmuel]

People seem to be confused about the textures on other forums, it might be a good idea to re-wright that sentence in the brief :thumb:. Like I said its worded strange, otherwise I'll just go tell people that are unclear :D

[FredH]

Good Idea about the small FAQ for each contest:) I will write a small list of questions that have been answered since the beginning of the first game contest ever made.

For the rules on the texture sizes.. ok ok ok, give me a day and I will get back to you on this:thumb:

_FreD_

[FredH]

Rules update:

Your texture constraints are as follows:
1 1024x1024 diffuse
1 1024x1024 normal
1 1024x1024 specular
1 1024x1024 emissive
For each 1024, you may break it down to 4 512x512. Example:
4 512x512 diffuse
4 512x512 normal
4 512x512 specular
4 512x512 emissive

The main brief has been updated.
Cheers

[Asmuel]

Good job Fred :thumb: couldnt possibly be any clearer than that. Thanks :lucky:

[Gavin]

Well, what if I want 16 256x256 diffuse maps!? :D

[FredH]

no, there are no 256s for this one! Well, actually, yes, ok you can make 256 maps, but before you put it on your model, you must put four of them together on one sheet:D

[Gavin]

Hah, fair enough.

[miezis]

hey now, this looks way more serious, i might even join. the main setback for me was the low texture count - 2 ':\ but noooowwww - hehehe! :)

[Vailias]

edit: never mind.. its late.

[Oink]

Hmm do i want to join or not. Downside, my concepting skills suck balls. You do better when drunk, drugged, beaten and sleeping :)

Oh well. I might end up with something :o

[FredH]

Oink, if you are entering the 3d challenge, you don't have to actually draw a concept. You can simply take reference images and make a collage. This is another form of a concept too you know;) The legs of arnold swartzenneger, the body of Gamara, the head of godzilla etc etc. Have fun with it! Do a search on google and see if you can come up with a cool blend of references. Good Luck!

[EVIL]

I kinda want to see a monster PIG! rampaging trough town

[Asmuel]

If I enter I dont think I'll make a proper fleshed out concept either, the end product is what matters right ;)

[Oink]

EVIL. I might actually go with that. More info tonight :)

I need an animal for my portfolio... (just because! :) ).

[Frozan]

haha nice!

[Sir Gimp]

Amazing... finally something that I have to finish hehehe... This is going to be really cool!

[kipiripi]

Question:Hey Fred,
Are we allowed to join just 1 concept and 1 model? For example:Can I join 2 concept 1 model ? :phew:

[FredH]

nope, you can only enter one time for each. Better make each one count:inocent:

[Bbox85]

Fred, my concept is a possessed human with a giant demon like apparation coming out of his back. Is the human calculated into the triangle count? I know that to show size comparison the downloadable model wasn't added into the triangle count; however, the human in my concept is essentially part of the giant, so I'm a bit confused.

[FredH]

oh, missed a question. Sorry about that. I should subscribe to this thread:inocent:

no, the human is always counted as seperate. However, becareful. It is the giant that should be the main focus, not the human. I would keep the human as simple as possible.

Good luck

[_tdc_]

Hello, Fred. Got a question to clarify about the size of the giants. Is it preferably the size of a colosses, the size of a mountain? Is 10 times bigger than an average man too small (like 6 foot man to a 20 foot creature, which is the size of a 2 story building, though not 10x) instead of 10 million times bigger, like when Kratos was in the beginning of God of War II when he just entered back to earth? Becaue to me Big Huge and Epic doesn't really mean a giant that is big enough to be called landscap or environment. I usually think the big and huge is 80 percent size but the other 20 percentage is all attitude (i usually picture this situation in a physical fight). My inspiration on my creature was started from seeing the flaming dragon in Devil May Cry 4. Is that a good big huge epic size? I'm full of "stupid" questions. I just want clarification. I really don't care either way in the end because i can just shrink or increase the size in Maya.

-tdc

[FredH]

hmm, I think it would be best to make something 10 x larger than a human. For maximum, something that fits on a gamescreen somehow would be nice:) Putting some sort of a struction on your giant will make him look extremely huge, so you probably want to keep these structures to a minimum unless your giant is a level in itself.

Hope this helps. Good Luck

[_tdc_]

How about this pic as a reference. I kind of want around A and B...mostly A. But is C most preferable.

-tdc

[FredH]

C
C would be most preferable:p

[Marco Mazzoni]

Hey, I just stumbled across this competition and if I'm not too late, I'd love to have a go at the concept challenge. Quick question about the 5 thumbs; are you looking for design studies for the character, or composition studies for the final illustration?

[FredH]

Hi Marco, it would be 5 initial different sketch studies. They should all be different. Simple black blotch like dudles to find a character's form is perfect for this:)

[kipiripi]

Fred some questions from me;
Innitial Sketches:
1x 800w x 900h dimension page include 5 design or 5x 800w x 900h ?
and
Sketches can be digital or must be on paper?
Thanks...

[FredH]

you have to have 5 sketches on one sheet to show your thought process, and yes, it can be digital.

[Gavin]

Hey Fred,

Not sure if I asked you already or not...but would it be possible to get the challenge logo for my entry layout? I like having the logo in there for some reason...call me crazy.

Thanks in advance.
Gav

[kalabre]

tingle is my hero.

[kipiripi]

Fred:
You recommending old looking ambience to Keo but
Brief say that ...black & white or single color (example light to dark blue etc).

I mean ,are we allowed to use old paper ambience?Thanks..

[FredH]

The mod I did for leo is all brown. Light to dark brown. I didn't add in any additional colors (blue, red, green etc).

I am not sure what you mean by paper ambience, but if it's like Keo's mod.. then sure:)

[kipiripi]

Hahahaha I just saw your notice in submision page:

Aacckk!! It was a mistake! please, Please, Pleeeease cancel
my submission and let me go back!! and let me know Who am I,Where am I .What game art is mean....

Fred ,its really working dude.I have checked out my submission more than thousand :)

Last 24 hours to fly guys.Gogogogo Gameartisans....

[Vikkie]

Just dropping by to say good luck to everyone. I failed to complete my entry in time due to my finals and other stuff on my plate.

Best of luck everyone! see you next month.

[keo]

Just submitted my finals; so when is the next competition? >:-)

[FredH]

Keo --> You didn't submit a final thumbnail. You won't be able to change this if you pressed submit finals. If you would like, when you are ready, just post your new thumb here, and I will replace it. The next comp will start next Friday. It will be a celebratory comp for something special:D So, you have two weeks of resting time:thumb:

[keo]

doh! I missed that, but the cropped-in shot of the winning pose, which I assumed you made, looks great. thanks!

[FredH]

Yeah, I stuck one in there for you:) btw, you did a great job on the modeling sheet;)