Sculpting Mini: Steet Fighter Busts, Results now in!

[blankslatejoe]

Sculpting Mini: Street Fighter Busts, Results now in!


Results are now in for the Sculpting Mini: Street Fighter Busts

Wow..105 entries.... I do believe that is a record! I don't know what to even say! Great work guys, and congrats to the top five!

See the results here:
http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/minis/view_entries_sculpting_5.html


And here's the full lists:
bcavett => total points: 863
rv_el =>total points: 829
Josh Singh => total points: 464
AntonM => total points: 415
jocz => total points: 380
neverwintered => total points: 368
Spacemonkey => total points: 228
ThatDon => total points: 170
Gavin => total points: 160
Guybrush => total points: 146
obson => total points: 132
Jaco => total points: 114
dkreset => total points: 98
crazyfool => total points: 81
dozogovi => total points: 64
NikitaNV => total points: 50
Chaos3d => total points: 46
Mind Traveler =>total points: 44
sriramatrix => total points: 40
kipiripi => total points: 40
jamis => total points: 29
darkfox => total points: 29
SaltyDog => total points: 25
longhi => total points: 24
rakadam1 => total points: 24
PoopaScoop => total points: 23
PhattyG => total points: 21
g2000 => total points: 19
vivin => total points: 18
doses => total points: 18
Shim => total points: 16
obeyurnapster => total points: 15
Dusty => total points: 14
BARON_3D => total points: 14
kotelnikoff => total points: 13
Sinzalot => total points: 13
SgtJoesphCrack => total points: 13
Gungnir => total points: 12
Joey Spijkers => total points: 12
Smooth_Criminal => total points: 12
typhus22 => total points: 12
tacit math => total points: 11
Fenixy => total points: 11
Pavel Petrenko => total points: 11
Gaston => total points: 10
hugohugo => total points: 10
velvetrevolver => total points: 10
Fiveways => total points: 9
Aldarius TD => total points: 9
freakmean16 => total points: 9
zberry => total points: 8
aj_digital => total points: 8
cg-sammu => votes: 3; total points: 8
DimsumCowboY => total points: 7
Firecrow78 =>total points: 7
Yozora => total points: 7
mookster => total points: 6
ReplicA => total points: 6
wim => total points: 6
3DLam => total points: 5
carcass => total points: 5
phobalien => total points: 5
dione22 => total points: 5
renderdevil => total points: 5
warrior21 => total points: 5
Aravindan => total points: 5
gegrazion => total points: 5
LuisPe20 => total points: 5
psykes => total points: 5
qsort => total points: 4
rspooner => total points: 4
seforin => total points: 4
Belal said => total points: 4
kessler => total points: 4
pogimonz => total points: 3
BigJohn => total points: 3
chris1solo => total points: 3
ManfredP => total points: 3
NiGHTS2o06 => total points: 3
ravenslayer => total points: 3
zanman => total points: 3
Ervis => total points: 2
JJP3D => total points: 2
cashfire => total points: 2
mradamw => total points: 2
seven => total points: 2
Inpw => total points: 1
kexan => total points: 1
Kit11 => total points: 1
Lokendra => total points: 1
NoriRoll => total points: 1
Samson Brown => total points: 1
Shadowplay => total points: 1
slebbo => total points: 1


Itching for more Minicomp madness? Try the Dominance War mini on for size! (http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?t=7283)

[rv_el]

Awesome! congrats to all who finished. Insane turn out on this one!

Congrats to bcavett... (i voted for you..... mmmrrphhh) :) hehe
It came out frickin awesome man. What i really like is how in the final presentation it really feels like he's challenging you, the viewer. you really get sucked into it which i'm always a big fan of. mad points there alone.

Lots of solid entries!

[ThatDon]

Congrats, HAIL TO THE KING BABY! (Mr.Cavett)

[bcavett]

whoa! I was not expecting to place that high or at all! Thought for sure it was gonna be rv_el.

Thanks for all the votes and congrats to everyone participated in this awesome comp.

I don't know what else to say :)

[Gavin]

'grats man! Was an awesome first mini to be a part of

[jocz]

holysh*t ! I've got my little (littleeee) star now ! :D
That was my first mini too, and it was really great,
congratz to all who finished this comp, and to bcavett, you really deserve it man !

[cookepuss]

Interesting. None of my choices even placed top 5. Guess I should cancel that Vegas trip. :p

Congrats, guys.

[Guybrush]

Wow ! i'm so happy to be in the top 10 :eek: :eek:

congrats to the winners, awesome work, awesome comp !

[AntonM]

That's absolutely incredible! Can't believe my work got in top 5 ...
Congratz to everyone who got in top 10!

[sinz]

Nice job all Congrats victors!

[ReplicA]

Congrats bcavett! I voted for rv_el for the win, but with so many fantastic entries, it was a serious competition. And I'm SUPER psyched I got I got 6 votes! I knew I wasn't gonna win, but I never thought I'd get more than 1 vote :D So thanks everyone! ;)

[JacqueChoi]

Wow. Strong entries allround

waahhh no SF3 love!

(Obson, you got one of my votes).


This contest definately raised the bar for these ZB minicomps.

Congrats to everyone. Awesome to look at.

Might be kinda cool if we could somehow montage a bunch of these into a wallpaper of 'Select Your Fighter' kinda screen.

BTW Don, your entry looks ridiculously awesome in colour.

[MM]

congrats Mr. Cavett. totally deserving win.

[Josh Singh]

So, here's my story:
"Wow, a SF Bust Mini Comp Sweet!, Im gonna do Blanka".
so I spend a few Hours over the Weekend and make a Bust.
The Planets align and Rv_el Decides to make a kick ass Guile Model,
That in No way is related to the comp other than it is street fighter.
I finish up my Sculpt and I get lots of love from the Community which makes
me happy.
Enter Kotaku.
Somebody over there gets wind of the comp and the forums are broken for a coupled days, in the mean time, the Kotaku article gets the attention of the LVL 80 Elites like Rv_El and Cavett, and they say in their heads:
"If Singh can get attention with that shit bust, Im gonna go ALL OUT!"
and they unleash the Fury of pure artistic Bad Assery.
I feel Very Lucky to Have got third, The Competition was so Crazy.
It was inspiring.

[Destructica]

fairplay.i am proud with the results,for the first time :paper:

[Cold]

this was better than waiting which president won the election^^

ratz

[Spacemonkey]

Congrats guys! It was a cool modeling comp... just have to go out and pick up a copy of the new street fighter game :D

[Chaos3d]

Congrats to all especially the top 3 guys top notch
work guys! :praise:
Thanks for the inspiration u made me a better artist:thumb:

[Gungnir]

Congrats to all who finished and the top3 offcourse. I'm proud i got 12 points, i'm gonna totally do better next time HAHA!

[ravenslayer]

congratz guys it was a real awesome compo

[ASTRA]

GZ to winners >_<

[Twindragon]

Great work guys and I'm happy that the top 3 were exactly how I voted...top 5 not so much but close.

[vivin]

Great work everyone, Top 3 are well deserved. Cant wait to see what the next theme is :thumb:

[SHockaday]

Sweet work guys, I'll have to do my best to get a point or 2 next time! Awesome work all around, Dominance War is going to be insane this year!

[Amethyst]

Congrats to the participants of this amazing challenge. Hot stuff to say at least. Just fantastic! A special :mugs: to the winners!!: :)

[velvetrevolver]

great job to all who completed this. there was no doubt in my mind who the winner would be! congrats to all the participants not only the winners! :thumb:

[Parnell]

Man i didn't even see rv_el's in the list when i voted:P
I had high hopes for Jocz and Jaco those busts were sweet.
Great work everyone!
B

[cookepuss]

Let me preface this by saying that I thought that more than one of these entries could've claimed that top spot. EASILY. There was just some amazing stuff here.

For me, the big disappointment was how some spectacular entries placed so low. Not sure if this was a soft deadline side effect, but some truly amazing entries got 50% fewer votes than the top 5. That just shocked the heck out of me.

To see some good entries get 10, 5, or even fewer votes.... The soft deadline system as it stands is wonky. Apparent flaws and all, you'd have thought that pogimonz's T-Hawk entry (http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/minis/finals_sculpting_1126.html) (for example) was worth more than 3 lousy votes. I would hope that it wouldn't discourage Mark from improving what he already has or entering future comps.

I'm not going to slam the top guys because they were great. I'm also not going to single out which were MY faves, because that's pretty irrelevant now. However, I did think that the outcome was quite surprising and not at all as much of a foregone conclusion as the votes would suggest.

ANYWAY.... Still lots of amazing portfolio/reel pieces for all of you.

[Aftermath]

Josh: Can i get that story in pictures please?

[NiGHTS2o06]

Congrats everyone who entered!!

[jandaku cintaku]

bcavett ,rv_el ,Josh Singh congrats to you all three....and to everyone it was da boom comp...it was great!!!:thumb:

[Beartastic]

Incredible comp, bcavett, Josh, rv_el, you totally nailed it but there was so much incredible stuff here for the save folder.

[monkeyboy]

Yup...totally agree with that top 3. Great work guys!

[Yozora]

cookepuss, its not the soft entry system that is at fault, its the whole thing. But I already pointed this out in detail on some other thread so not gonna repeat it all here (plus, not enough people care anyway).

The soft deadline part of it is actually a good part of the current system, people who submit late deserve to lose out on those early votes, theres more motivation to submit something on time.

And I'm truly surprised that not a single one of your top 5 were in the top 5, we have very different artistic tastes for sure. I personally find it odd/interesting that many of these even got 1 point at all (including my own), thats not to say they were all crap - its just there were a few that were on a whole different level in my eyes.

You're wrong about your top 5 being irrelevant. It doesnt matter to me or the majority of the community, but it will matter to those 5 who you consider to be your top 5. You dont have to slam the current winners to praise your personal favs.

[Kwakkie]

Let me preface this by saying that I thought that more than one of these entries could've claimed that top spot. EASILY. There was just some amazing stuff here.

For me, the big disappointment was how some spectacular entries placed so low. Not sure if this was a soft deadline side effect, but some truly amazing entries got 50% fewer votes than the top 5. That just shocked the heck out of me.

To see some good entries get 10, 5, or even fewer votes.... The soft deadline system as it stands is wonky. Apparent flaws and all, you'd have thought that pogimonz's T-Hawk entry (http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/minis/finals_sculpting_1126.html) (for example) was worth more than 3 lousy votes. I would hope that it wouldn't discourage Mark from improving what he already has or entering future comps.

I'm not going to slam the top guys because they were great. I'm also not going to single out which were MY faves, because that's pretty irrelevant now. However, I did think that the outcome was quite surprising and not at all as much of a foregone conclusion as the votes would suggest.

ANYWAY.... Still lots of amazing portfolio/reel pieces for all of you.
Yeah it seems kind of odd. Also one of the pieces I voted on and my own entry don't even appear in the 'full' list? Probably because I got 0 votes, but an entry I voted for isnt in the list as well? :think:

Anyway, congrats to the winners and everybody else, it was an inspiring competition!

[qsort]

Oh man what a "mini"...gratz to all of ya'.

[Neox]

very nice, awesome to see 2 of my favorites so close the top, AntonMs Cammy and Joshs Blanka, both great pieces, the others too but those sticked out for me

[blankslatejoe]

Yeah it seems kind of odd. Also one of the pieces I voted on and my own entry don't even appear in the 'full' list? Probably because I got 0 votes, but an entry I voted for isnt in the list as well? :think:

Anyway, congrats to the winners and everybody else, it was an inspiring competition!

woah..now that's weird...it should be on the list if you voted for it. Do you remember who it was-- I can go back to the source list to check.

[dkreset]

nutS! holi so much for a "mini" comp eh? 105 entries lol congratz to bcavett, rv_el and josh!!! it was a lot of fun and there's A LOT of awesome works! didn't know street fighter was THIS popular lol

[Dusty]

HOly craps! Lookat all them entries!

Good job everyone, plenty of stuff to snag for my reference folders.

[cookepuss]

MOD HAT OFF FOR THIS POST: This thread should be a celebration of the winners instead of a defense of the losers. It should be about elevating those top guys instead of criticizing, critiquing, or complaining. However, I feel that perhaps I should elaborate on my orginal post in a more personal, less moderator-like way. Maybe even single out some good entries that got overlooked too.

The soft deadline part of it is actually a good part of the current system, people who submit late deserve to lose out on those early votes, there's more motivation to submit something on time.
Don't get me wrong. I understand he motivation behind the soft deadline. The problem isn't simply that it penalizes the guy who might be 15 minutes past deadline. The problem is that it rewards the guys who make deadline first, sometimes regardless of quality. (Not necessarily here, but you get the point.)

Sometimes, it's that proverbial early bird who gets the worm. I've seen this happen elsewhere so I know that it's not unique to this board. In other boards, I've seen contest winners who win simply because they get so much pre-voting buzz that every other entrant gets drowned out, some even being far superior.

It's the "Heath Ledger Effect." Did Heath win the Oscar because because he was better than every other guy in his category? OR... Did he win it because there was so much "let's honor the dead guy" talk before the ceremony that his award was a foregone conclusion, leaving some truly great/superiors actors out in the cold? Regardless of the "truth," which is really so subjective, it's one of those things which potentially exposes flaws in the system.

The problem with the current system isn't that it penalizes late entries. If late entries weren't acceptable then it'd be a hard deadline. The problem with the system is that it doesn't always reward the good entries. If this were a hard deadline system then we wouldn't be discussing how a good, but late entry got so few votes. We'd be arguing the technical or aesthetic merits instead.

The fact is (late or not), as long as it's accepted into the voting process, every entry should be given equal weight of consideration based on quality. I don't see that happening so much here. Just look at the votes, the wild distribution, and sudden drop-off.

And I'm truly surprised that not a single one of your top 5 were in the top 5, we have very different artistic tastes for sure.
Long before GA was even a gleam in Fred's eye, I was invited to judge many game art competitions. I can tell you one thing. Reaching a general consensus is nearly impossible, especially when there are so many amazing entries. More often than not, in those cases, we had to call in a tie-breaker judge. :)

You're wrong about your top 5 being irrelevant.
Doesn't change the results much now, does it? :p That's all I meant. My opinion at this point isn't a game changer. However, since you asked, here are my opinions on a handful of entries. Not necessarily my recorded top 5. No particular order either, btw.

pogimonz: I've singled out his T-Hawk for a reason. It's not top 3. At the same time, I really do feel that 3 sad little votes is almost criminal. I can see 800+ people saying, "You're not #1 or even #5." For them to say, "You're bottom 20 material." Hmmm... I don't know. I ask you to look at his T-Hawk and then look at Belal Said's Blanka entry.

With all due respect to Belal and all of the hard effort he put into his entry, are we REALLY to believe that he got 4 votes, but pogimonz only got 3? REALLY? This is not a slam to Belal, but his work has all the marks of somebody still struggling with the tools, techniques, and (in cases) anatomy. I'm not saying that this should have received no votes. What it did receive... probably sensible given the competition. (No offense.)

pogimonz's T-Hawk isn't perfect. It isn't. In fact, it could use polish and does feel rushed to deadline, particularly below the knees. At the same time, it is not only technically competent and aesthetically pleasing, but it is also quite faithful to the 2D sprite source material. Down to the rippling muscles that inexplicably show through the jeans, he manages to faithfully translate what the sprite artists originally put out there.

So, on the one hand, I see Belal's perfectly acceptable Blanka with 4 votes. On the other hand, I see pogimonz T-Hawk with 3 votes. I just have to shake my head. I have to wonder if the other voters were looking at the same entries I was.


dozogovi: His E-Honda placed #15 with only 64 votes. Again, this is one of those things that floored me. At this point in the game, I am so NOT impressed with muscle men. The reference images are plentiful. They make excellent anatomical studies. That's why, at one point or another, everybody does one. I can pick just about any day of the week, head over to ZB Central, and find a Hulk sculpt on the first page of threads.

ON THE OTHER HAND.... Finding something like E-Honda is a little harder to come by. Modeling fat people, especially ones also have a sort of muscular tone to their girth, is not an easy task. Unlike a muscle dude, where ever bit of skin is so tight that everything stays in place, fat people show the effects of gravity. They show the effects of soft fat accumulation over dense muscle tissue.

Making a character look fat, but also muscular/toned is very tricky. I'm looking at this E-Honda model. This is a guy who is fat, yes, but clearly works out. This guy is a world class fighter. There's a tone to his body that says his gut is muscle and not just the after effects of Taco Bell. :) The fact that dozogovi's model balances these two extremes easily makes this one of my favorites. Plus, that stoic icy stare brings just screams discipline and determination.

neverwintered: 368 votes and 6th place. This is the standing that shocked me the most. For my money, hands down, this version of Balrog should have been #1 overall. bcavett's winning entry totally nailed the beauty shot and final pose, but stood out as being a little more flawed by comparison - in my opinion.

The following is NOT a diss on bcavett's entry. That final shot was money in the bank. It was clearly top 10 material. However, I thought that the hair seemed rushed. The ears lacked some meat/thickness. The carved looking brow seemed more appropriate with the semi-cartoony look of SF4, which I found a little distracting. The lips lacked a certain fullness that I might have expected from a character who is essentially a Mike Tyson knockoff.

By comparison.... neverwintered missed out on the "money shot" - instead opting for a more art house pose. He also left out the iconic sleeveless shirt. That aside, what's not to like? It's more than a Mike Tyson caricature. It's a grittier reinterpretation of a generic character type we've seen parodied dozens of times over. The hair feels soft. Everything from the ears to the nose to the lips to the physique screams, "This guy is a wall with legs. Hit him and you might as well be hitting concrete."

With bcavett's there's something iconic about the overall presentation, but I feel that it certainly loses ground on the technical merits. This is why I was originally shocked to notice that neverwintered's entry got less than 1/2 the votes.


crazyfool: Not in my top 3, but definitely one of my favorites. I think that some re-posing of the hands could've added more dramatic effect to the pose. However, this is one model I can easily see a company like Bowen or Sideshow Effects making into one of those $200 maquettes. It doesn't add anything to the character, but it doesn't damage him either. It's kind of classic. If this were a commercially available bust, I'd probably buy it for my desktop.

rv_el: Here's one model that embodies everything I love about CG and everything I hate about M. Bison. :) The sculpt is technically proficient, but - as a matter of personal preference - I simply detest the original Capcom design. Of all the SF2 originals, his design has irked me to no end. Maybe it's the hat. Maybe it's the shoulder pads. Whatever.... I just couldn't bring myself to vote for rv_el's pretty looking rendition. Just a personal prefernence. Sorry. :p Would've placed top 3 had I not hated the core M. Bison design so much.

Guybrush: THIS would have been my #6. #10 was close though. I loved how he got that puffy look. Tricky. I would have loved to see some of that exaggeration from dusty's entry (http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/minis/finals_sculpting_1070.html) spill over into this one though. Dahlsim is a rubbery dude. He lends himself a bit more to caricature and those Chuck Jones sort of extreme poses. More squetch could've put it over the top. Just that tip over into the extreme and Guybrush could've pushed Josh Singh from 3rd to 4th.

Josh Singh: Josh. Josh. Josh. What am I gonna do with you? ;) You really captured the spirit of Blanka. The monster like growl. The crazy look in the eyes. If this model had been more than what the brief required then you and bcavett would be duking it out to the death right about now. :) My only critique, and the reason why it didn't place an immediate top 5 for me was the hair. Nothing wrong with it on a sculpt level. The fact that the hair penetrates the body in some places seems like such an obvious oversight. On a more full body model, that wouldn't have been such an issue. On a model that strictly adheres to the head & shoulders bust notion, the hair accounts for a big portion of the whole. STILL.... A very cool entry. Fix the hair and this would make a great 3D print.


I could comment on all of the entries, but that would take too long. :)

ANYWAY, right or wrong, these are just personal opinions. Sooooo many good entries this comp. Shame I didn't notice it until it was nearly over. Win or lose, it Would've been fun to enter.

MOD HAT ON

[onelung]

ton of amazing entries and congrats toe the winners! Way to go Cavett, I told you so! hahaha

[Cybertron]

That's a damn fine Blanka, Josh. Got my #1 vote. :thumb: Congrats to all winners! And to all that participated, great work. Always something cool to watch after a hard day's work during this fantastic minicomp.

[Yozora]

The problem with the system is that it doesn't always reward the good entries

You mean it doesnt reward _all_ the good entries.

Soft deadline is not the reason the top 5 won. The top 5 would still be the top 5 regardless of soft/hard deadlines - and the rest don't matter because we are only given 5 votes, which means we can only show our appreciation (in the form of a rating) to 5 entries. Thats how the current system is.

It also isnt an easy system to use because it either forces the voters to open up 1 tab for each entry or to go back and click each thumb constantly, so many people will just filter out the majority of entries and only click on the really good ones/ones they remember from the WIP thread just by looking at the thumbnails. It would be awesome if it was compatible with cooliris http://www.cooliris.com/

I'd say over 80% of the entries are under appreciated, people just look at them for 1-2 secs and then close it when they decide its not top 5 material. And thats fine, why waste more time looking at the stuff when what you think about it wont matter if its not in your top 5? No ones gonna know your opinion unless you post it or PM them.

So instead of changing the voting system, we should just post more comments like you just did :)

[blankslatejoe]

So instead of changing the voting system, we should just post more comments like you just did :)

I agree--I remember a focused crit-week back at ConceptArt.org that went pretty well. Perhaps we can start something similar during DW...

[Amethyst]

The result is about what i figured with one exception Neverwintered to me should have won (sorry bcavett, you were still in my top 5). The sculpt is outstanding in every detail and I'm happy to hear somebody else thought so (cookepuss). Joe and Yozora want to try something different and I'm OK with that. Joe bring it on. One good point is that the same people don't get the gold star all the time!:)

[nesnerosx]

Congrats!!

[Joey Spijkers]

Congratulations to all! I don't think we can really call this a mini challenge anymore, because it was pretty epic in both the amount of entries and the work put into them.

I can never get myself to vote. It's so hard to choose when they're all so different; one has great technical skill, the other has loads of style, the other has a wonderful pose and on top of that, there are presentation qualities that should be ignored, but blur the decision even further.

As I'm scrolling the page looking for the entries that you mention in this thread, I find ones that I didn't see before, and I'm surprised by their quality. It's definitely a shame that most people will only look at the top 3 or perhaps top 10. I know I'll sit down for every one of them tomorrow and fill up an inspiration folder.

[ReplicA]

I don't know, it just seems to me like too many people taking these challenges way too seriously. So YOUR number one pick didn't make it, so what? So your entry didn't make top 5, or even 10-15, who cares? This isn't Dom War, it's just a challenge. A way to get a group of artists together, and inspired enough to maybe try something they haven't tried before. Maybe (gasp) get a little bit better than they were when they started the challenge!

If you're looking at it like "My entry didn't win, so I guess I might as well give up on 3D altogether" then that's your personal problem. Or if you're thinking "My choice didn't get the top 5? Outrageous! I call shenanigans!" Then again, that's your issue.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these challenges supposed to be light hearted bits of "C'mon guys! Let's make something cool!"? That's what I think they are, anyway. My entry got 6 votes. I'm super psyched about that! I didn't vote for myself, so at least 6 other people thought it was cool enough to vote for. That's WAY more than I thought I'd get, considering I picked the least popular character, and did the model while being incredibly depressed. I knew damn well I wasn't gonna "win" the challenge, but it was a cool subject, and I needed something to get back into 3d after the worst 2 and a half months of my life. That's exactly what this challenge accomplished.

So just relax, enjoy the challenges for what they are, and move on. It's not that big of a deal if the results didn't turn out the way you wanted them to.

[mr_ace]

i literally couldn't vote on this, i didn't feel i could pick out of all the entries, usually theres a few that jump out at me but there were too many this time. nice work everyone

[Gavin]

http://www.tonymarini.com/Images/Daisy%20Chill%20Pill_sm_comp.jpg

[Lamp]

Nobody gives Rolento a single vote?! :-(

Ahaha, just kidding. It was awesome just to be there in the bust list.! Gonna find myself inspiration to be more in that contests, just for fun. Now gives us a Final Fight one - just because I´ve already have a char sculpted .(see) (http://amonsteria.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/lamp_damd360.gif)

Congrats for the Winner. Blanka really deserve a good rank position. ;-)

[cookepuss]

Don't get me wrong. This is not an issue of sour grapes. Apart from how it ultimately reflects on the larger GA community, I've got no vested interest in who wins or who loses. It's not as if I've got a bet down on lucky #27 or anything. :)

Get yer geek on and look at it this way:

This is an episode of Star Trek. Some Romulan bad@$$ fires off a 2,000 phaser shots, all set to kill, against the away team. He should easily win the day, right? The guy did fire 2,000 shots after all. Nope. Kirk takes him down with ONE phaser shot... set to stun. And the Romulan's body count? A couple of "red shirts" waiting to be bagged & tagged the moment they're beamed down. :p

Just looking at the votes and to whom they belonged, this is what it looked like. Some of guys got practically no votes, yet fired on all cylinders. Phasers set to kill, 2k shots fired, and (inexplicably) all they take out are some red shirts.

Maybe Yozora is right. Maybe it's not the soft deadline system. Maybe I'm just out of touch with what I think is good. Maybe I've got my pre-voting criteria of priorities in the wrong place. Totally possible. Totally.

Then again.... Maybe something about the current system amounts to Star Trek rules of combat. Sometimes, no matter how many shots you get off all you can do is kill some red shirts.

I know what it sounds like - me taking stuff like this way too seriously. It's just a silly art comp, right? No big deal, right? No harm. No foul. Everybody walks away a winner - with a shiny new portfolio piece and some distinction of having competed.

I'm looking at it from a different perspective though. I'm looking at a bigger picture too, one that goes far beyond this comp alone.

I'm not saying, "Boo hoo! My fave didn't win. That's why this system sucks." Not at all.

Some of the youngin's here are part of a generation where everybody is a winner, everybody gets a shiny medal, and everything is wonderful. It's not about winning or losing. It's about how you play the game. ... ... ... I never bought into that crap. :)

At the risk of sounding old, my generation was brought up with the idea that losing builds character and a trophy is a prize to be hard fought over and won. Not handed out like cheap beads at Mardi Gras for whoever flashes some boob.

I truly understand that a win is a win and a loss is a loss. I'd never attempt to devalue ANY of the hard work the entrants put into their models. I'm not moaning for the sake of moaning. I'm not moaning for the sake of sullying their victories. The votes speak for themselves. It's the system I question and what it means overall.

The way I see it, how we judge our entrants reflects on the larger GA community. It says something about what we, as a community, value or seek.

There were 100+ entries in this comp. Regardless of who you favored, it's hard to argue that some entries that, by all reason, should have been Top 50 ended up in the BOTTOM 50. Now, I ask you, what does this say of GameArtisans as a community? Just something for you to mull over.

Imagine that you're an outsider looking in. Imagine that you're a lurker. What does this say to you? Would you feel like entering any comps? For that matter, how might this affect your decision to post your stuff? If a likely top 50 pick ended up as an unlikely bottom 50, you'd probably feel discouraged.

Like it or not, GameArtisans is itself being judged. Constantly. How we, as a community are perceived in the greater scheme ultimately affects GA's future. Call it what you want. Disparity. Imbalance. Teething problems. Whatever you call it, it ultimately takes out of the bottom line.

Anomalies I can deal with. In every sort of poll, there's room for error - minuscule deviations that defy common sense or proven data. That's a non-issue. This stuff is par for the course in math. When you're dealing with people - a community - it's more than just numbers. It's about people. People who have already competed. People who are currently competing. People who may yet compete. Or not.

If, for example, you've got 1 entry that should've ended up top 50, but inexplicably ended up bottom 50 then I'd consider that to be a deviation. I'd consider that to be an error. A major one at that. If there are 100 entrants, that's a 10% margin for error. Pretty big, if you ask me.

Would you take a medicine that would cure 90% of the people taking it, but possibly kill the other 10% also taking it? Of course not. Probably an unacceptable margin for error. :)

As with any poll or voting system, the ultimate goal is to minimize that margin for error. In this case, the errors being those head scratcher low count anomalies.

The idea here is to have a system that is both fair AND balanced. The more fair and the more balanced it is, the more likely people will continue to enter these comps. The more people who enter these comps, the brighter GameArtisan's future looks. For me, as a member of this community, THAT is the bottom line. The continued prosperity of a good community.

I've seen good CG communities come and go. For valid reasons. For no reasons. It sounds like I'm b***hing about a whole lot of nothing, but I've got a different picture in my head.

Like I said before, who I THOUGHT should've been Top 5 is inconsequential. The voting is done. The people have spoken. This is all just food for thought though.

In the end, Kirk shoots the Romulan, the red shirts die, and we fade to credits. This episode is d-o-n-e done.

~~Rob~~

[ReplicA]

Sorry, bro, but you kinda defeated what you were saying about it not being a big deal to you, by typing that monster of a post.

If people are lurking and checking out GA, then one CHALLENGE (notice it's not a contest/competition) isn't gonna make them turn around and leave. Even if it did, that's THEIR problem. And if they were to let that type of thing keep them from posting here, is that really such a bad thing?

This whole thing is being blown WAY out of proportion. If you have a problem with the voting system, take it up with GA staff, you're a mod, I'm sure they might listen to you, and maybe make a change.

Again, situation blown way out of proportion, it was a great challenge, everybody had fun, everybody made something worthy of the challenge, and pushed themselves. So who cares about the rest of it? Including the voting system. It simply does not matter. If it matters to you, pm a staff member, and keep it off the boards.

[Yozora]

I disagree replica, why keep it off the boards? More people should voice their opinions whether its positive or negative, as long as its constructive. If you filter out every thing with a hint of negative this place will become very dull. Plus he really isn't being that negative. Hes simply suggesting to change the system.

I'm personally more interested to read the detailed big posts from cookepuss. If he commented on my work specifically, I would have appreciated it far more than 50 different people saying "congrats everyone, you all did a great job!" etc

And cookepuss, you really shouldnt take any positions after the top 5 seriously - considering the majority of the community had no say on them at all. Theres no such thing as "top 50" and "bottom 50". There isnt even a true 6th position.
The only way you can achieve an accurate ranking system is if every opinion from every member for every entry is taken into consideration (right now its 5 opinions from every member for 5 entries).

Anyway, I gave up trying to change the system after this thread; http://gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6660
There's just not enough interest to support any kind of big change.

[cookepuss]

Hes simply suggesting to change the system.
Plus, I'd probably be doing a bad job as a moderator if I basically said, "Ah. Who give a crap?" and not voice my concerns. Being a moderator doesn't pay. It's a volunteer thing. Your only reward is the community.

As a mod, you do what you do because you love the community not because you're apathetic. It would kinda make sense for me to look out for the best interests of this community.

Suggesting that the system be tweaked or improved in the best interests of everybody involved is not a call to arms or riot.

Theres no such thing as "top 50" and "bottom 50". There isnt even a true 6th position.
Tell that to bcavett & his 863 votes or slebbo and his 1. :) I'm pretty sure that it mattered to them, even in the smallest part. Rankings are what they are. Like it or not, they DO mean something.

Some people only enter these things for fun and the idea that they can challenge themselves. Still, others like the idea of being able to challenge their peers. Taking away the importance of ranking does mean something. For some people, that's 90% of the motivation right there.

Now, if there were thousand dollar prizes involved here like with DomWar I'm pretty sure you all would start b***hing though, right? :) Maybe the stakes aren't high enough for people to care and the honor of winning, losing, or placing is worth less than a free Cintiq or a cash bonus. Wonder what THAT says.

Anyway, I gave up trying to change the system after this thread. There's just not enough interest to support any kind of big change.
Gee. I thought I was jaded. LOL
By your logic, I might as well just leave GA because it's doomed anyway. The voting system.... This is a small issue. If what you're saying is true and that there's not enough interest to support big changes then GA is 100% truly and utterly f***ed.

That's kind of a depressing POV. Might as well retitle the board EmoArtisans. I can see the tear soaked hankies & razor blades piling up already. :p

EDIT>>> Actually, this is a large part of what sank communities like CG Chat. Members only cared about board vitality when prizes were involved. To a lot of people, the small issues didn't matter until they became bigger ones. By then..... Welcome to the birth of GA. You may think that I'm taking this stuff too seriously, but a community is a living, breathing organism. Every community needs a heart. Take away the heart and you're just left with apathy and indifference. Apathy will be the death of this board if we're not careful.

[BoBo_the_seal]

heh this is silly to be honest. I think you are looking at it all wrong. We had 5 spots we could choose. Don't look at it as the 20th place guy got 20th place. It means that he had some people who thought he was top 5 potential. The people who got the most votes were the people that the mass of this community thought had the MOST top 5 potential!

The system works great. Don't change a thing. Heck we had over 100 people enter, obviously the community had fun so stop worrying about "what this says about our community". To me it says WOW! they kick ass over at Gameartisans!

- BoBo

[BoBo_the_seal]

EDIT>>> Actually, this is a large part of what sank communities like CG Chat. Members only cared about board vitality when prizes were involved. To a lot of people, the small issues didn't matter until they became bigger ones. By then..... Welcome to the birth of GA. You may think that I'm taking this stuff too seriously, but a community is a living, breathing organism. Every community needs a heart. Take away the heart and you're just left with apathy and indifference. Apathy will be the death of this board if we're not careful.

Um... we had over 100 entries into a contest with no prizes. The theme was good and the contest was fun. Please calm down a little and stop with this apocalyptic end stuff. Have fun. :)

- BoBo

[Josh Singh]

Snarky Hat On Hey Cookepuss, Did you Have your Mod Hat on or off when you made that Last Post? I didn't check. LOL Snarky hat off

[Yozora]

Tell that to bcavett & his 863 votes or slebbo and his 1. :) I'm pretty sure that it mattered to them, even in the smallest part. Rankings are what they are. Like it or not, they DO mean something.

I meant theres no such thing as top 50 with the CURRENT system, at least not a reliable one that reflects the communities opinions. I never said they didnt mean anything. I know rankings can motivate people, thats another reason to change the system to provide a more accurate ranking.

Anyway as you said, this voting thing is a _small_ issue and theres good reasons to stay, competitions are still fun to do and the fact lots of people take part in them provides good motivation for everyone to keep producing stuff. Occasional comments from peers is nice too.

And when I said "this thread" I meant the one I linked directly after I said "this thread" (http://gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6660)
Your quote makes it look like I meant this Street fighter thread.

Changing the title to EmoArtisans wont work either, not enough people will support it unfortunately :(

I didnt mean the 'no big changes' thing though, thats just me approaching the whole improvement-suggestions thing from a different angle to see if it works.


None of this is about GA being doomed, its all about improving GA. Current system is fine, but fine can be improved.

[Gavin]

Um... we had over 100 entries into a contest with no prizes. The theme was good and the contest was fun. Please calm down a little and stop with this apocalyptic end stuff. Have fun. :)

- BoBo

QFT. I don't understand why everyone is getting their panties in a bunch over a "for fun" contest. Don't you people have a DW mini comp to get to? :)

[ASTRA]

oh my God, please stop crying. i have around 20(!!) votes...... and i'm not crying, this put me to bad mood very much, but myself i thing- if i have this 20 votes- my work is bad, i need to work, then work, work and work on myself more harder,
and by the way, if i have this 20 votes- it means someone like my work, maybe not too much, but i like it, and i'm glad to work for there peoples.

if i'm wrong say it please and if my sculpting is bad say it too

sorry my bad english,learning another lang in school..and gratz to winners..

[DreameR]

crying about votes... wtf has happened to this community.

[Yozora]

crying about votes... wtf has happened to this community.

Its called a discussion.

I dont understand why it offends people so easily and why you cant look at it from a positive perspective like you do with everything else. Everyone is calm, long posts does not equal angry posts.

But the recent replies do sum up the majority of GA's feelings towards this minor issue, so it proves my earlier point that no one cares for improvement :p

[ASTRA]

discussion about crying a votes^_^

[dkreset]

holy... so i've been reading the posts and wow, it's gotten crazier and crazier lol
so well, since we ought to voice ourself, here's what I think. It is true that the voting system might not get the most accurate results and I agree with it myself, but I think for a mini competition it is probably okay. No one thought we'd get over 100 entries to start with. Also, as cookepuss mentioned, probably because this is not as important as dominance war so no one cares about improvements. Well, that means we're doing the right thing for dominance war right? getting judges, setting prizes and rewards and give recognition to those people who deserve them. It is harsh, but people who received 1 vote during a mini competition, chances are they won't go far in dominance war either. That is not a negative comment about them. Like saltydog mentioned earlier, if he gets little amount of votes then it tells him that he needs to work harder. I think it goes for everyone else. Rankings do mean a lot, but it's up to each individual to decide what they mean to them. If getting 1 vote means that the system blows, but not "I should work harder", then there is something wrong with this perception anyway fundamentally.

Anyways, having said that, I don't think anyone is wrong, what cookepuss has said is true, yet there is different aspect to things. I don't think it would make sense to find judges all the time for every single mini competition (not that cookepuss has pushed for getting judges everytime, just an example). On top of that, the judges may want to join these fun little contests as well right? Public voting may not be the most accurate system and I've been told that by so many people and I myself have seen people trying to get all his friends to vote for him just so that he can win. However, not once have I seen shitty ass work (excuse my description there) taking 1st place, 2nd place or third place, in any mini challenge ever held. So while it is not the most accurate system, I think it is accurate enough for fun contests like this. If you're getting 1000 votes, good for you and you definitely deserve it and if you are getting 0 vote or 1 vote, hey, there's nothing to feel sad about, just work harder. I know it's easy to say hard to do, but if you kick ass at what you're doing, why are you not getting any votes?

I'm not here to make this any worse, I just think that it is not SUCH A BIG DEAL. Not because it doesn't matter, but because the system isn't so bad that it needs a complete make-over.

[Shadownami92]

I think this is a good way to read how you need to improve in the future.

If you made something awesome and turned your art in later and get a low score. That scores says you can improve the speed to make something of that quality.

If you get a low score and turn it in on time that means you can work fast enough but you need to improve on quality.

If you turned it in on time and perform very high quality work and got a low score then maybe your topic didn't appeal to the general population of those who were voting, maybe your final entry wasn't displayed in as nice of way as another entry. So then you can work on how to make your final entry look nice with the way you display your nice work.

This is kind of how I go through to vote.


So by this outlook I think this is great for minicomps. You make models, sculpts or concept art in a shorter time span then a normal competition and the outcome can show you how you need to improve so when a big competition comes around you can do better and get it in before the hard deadline, and learn how to display your entry better as well.
1. Find the best artwork.
2. If I can't decide whats the best then I look at how professional they displayed it (posing the character and the photoshop type stuff and how they display the details and info) and the difficulty of the piece (complex geometry, # of subtools, etc...)
3. If I still can't decide I might pick my favorite character out of the few or just which one looks the coolest.