Yes I'm ripping off another contest. But the entries in that competition where so sucky I thought AM should show up it up. And I love the theme so why not.




The Lost World
AM Challenge


Your Mission: (should you choose to avenge the glove I just slapped you with)

Create an image that shows of a lost civilization or 'dead' civilization. Do it on a grand scale.. or if you think you can pull it off.. on a small one. The stuff that legends and myths are built from. The subject could be an individual or group, a city or city-world. The Lost World as in an ancient abandoned civilization from thousands of years ago or civilization of creatures never discovered by human like an alien city on a different planet! It is limited by your imagination only.



The following part is important!

This Challenge is a Work-In-Progress Challenge -- all contestants are required to post their work-in-progress images for community to critique/comment in order to qualify.



General Rules:

1. Competition is open to everyone. You must enter by starting your own WIP thread in the WIP Forum. Title it "My Lost World WIP" with your name. Or something like that, I'm not a stickler.
2. Participate in the Community by critiquing other challenger's works in their WIP threads. The idea is to help everyone get better and to learn.
3. The entry must be created by a single artist, and only one entry per artist is allowed per contest (NOT multi-entries).
4. Submit your final entry before the end of the challenge (avoid the last-minute rush - get your entry in early).
5. Submit Work In Progress (WIP) images, obtain feedback and give feedback to other challengers in the WIP challenge. Note: Failure to do so will result in a 60 percent handicap being applied to your final vote count. Community interaction is a must!
6. The concept for the image must be created specifically for this contest, But you can use whatever parts or pieces you may have as well as images for backgrounds etc that you might be able to find.
7. Your WIP thread is evidence of your entry. So no WIP thread.. no entry.
8. No submission can or will be accepted past the submission deadline. Once the voting process begins, the entries are "locked," and the votes are cast immediately after the Voting Booth opens. No late entries will be accepted. The challenge may be extended if need be.
9. No trash talking in individual WIP threads. See optional rule below for that.

The Challenge begins now, March 01, 2007.
The deadline for this challenge is set to: Aug 06, 2007.



Optional Rule:

You may post all of your Taunts, Jibes, trash talk and other communications intended to intimidate in this thread.



ps. Good luck and I hope we get lots of participation. I'll see what can I can drum up for prizes.

Some examples of the theme follow.

http://www.hash.com/stills/albums/Mar05/42.jpg

http://www.hash.com/stills/albums/Gallery/0443.jpg

http://www.hash.com/stills/albums/Gallery/0161.jpg

http://www.hash.com/stills/albums/Gallery/0444.jpg

http://www.hash.com/stills/albums/userpics...a_wallpaper.jpg

http://www.hash.com/stills/albums/userpics...Of%20Hunger.jpg

http://www.hash.com/stills/albums/Gallery/0323.jpg

If I find more.. I'll post them.

I like it! I will try to do something when my computer gets out of the shop.

As a fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs I'd like to say... great theme!
I'm so wanting to dive into this challenge.
As I'm behind in TaoA:M, TWO and who knows what else I'm not sure its something I should do.
If I can close out my obligations I'm in.


Let me dig a bit deeper into the 'general rules' as others may have similar questions.

I'm curious about how this will work in the short term especially as everything is out in the open.
I'd guess seeing the posts of others will keep raising the stakes.
Like, "Oooo... Colin has a dinosaur... I need one of those too!"




Obviously you see no conflict in these two aspects but I'm curious about your thoughts on that aspect.
Is there a line the artist cannot cross in accepting critiques?
I ask because at some point the entries seem to become team effort.

Yeah I'm looking at this too much from a 'contest' aspect.
Take the contest out of it and it makes a lot more sense but I\'m not sure how all the voting plays out.

I'll check to see how I might be able to participate given current obligations.
I'd be a whole lot of fun to discover these lost worlds.

Gah. No can do.
I need to solve my graphics card issues on my Vista enabled laptop before I can even model anything.
I'll work on designing my entry in the meantime.

Nope all critiques are good.. the point of the contest is to grow and to get better. Every time I get a good critique that happens. So anything that doesn't kill us only makes us stronger.

Notice the use of stock models etc is allowed as well. The concept and execution is the main thing. How you get there is up to you, and only you. Should you choose to accept advice from someone.. No problem. Like I said I'm not even that much of a stickler about the rules. I just threw them up there to give some guidelines.

I think the one artist thing is mainly a way to force people to get out of their comfort zone.



Yeah that can happen but you'll probably get slammed with the other artist calling you a copy cat but hey if you come up with a better execution of the idea then you can shut them all up and throw pie back into the face of the guy who had the idea in the first place.

The other thing is in what you choose to show. You can leave some of the secret weapons out. Ie.. show the landscape but leave out the dinosaur ;-)

Also It should be said that nothing precludes someone from having multiple ideas and working on several things. They'll only be able to enter one idea but they'll get input on all of them and probably have some good stuff to show for it at the end.

That said... my entry will surely crush you all and make you wish you'd never accepted the challenge. So think long and hard before you accept. And bring every trick you've got, if you want to be king of the mountain ;P

Yes that last sentence was a blatant slap of your face. The rest of you can be like Rodney and start thinking up excuses to bow out. Save your egos and avoid the humiliation later. No shame in that

let the trash talk commence...

Yesterdays bacon, egg shells and coffee grounds. Russian chocolate wrapper, dead tissues!

Give me a week or two to finish my (一、二）three projects. Then I'll see if I can't wow someone.

Prepare thyselves foolish mortals, for I shall crush thee like a leetle bug. Crush! Crush I say!!

Al

I'm in.
My moddeling skills truly suck but i have an idea and by gum I'm going to go for it.

Fellow Am'ers get ready to kick my sorry ass. (hmm i don't think i should be trash talking myself!)

I'll post my first wip shortly.

Jay

Yeah! Where are all the WIPS?
-----------------------
Ummm.
The refuse collectors will be here on Wednesday.

No doubt people are feverishly drawing up sketches and ideas, waiting to unleash them at the appropriate time in a salvo or uncontrolled creativity that will no doubt start the next creative World War!!!!

or they are currently slammed at their day job like me waiting for that current short term project to be OVER! so I can do some SERIOUS work which will Awe and Amaze you to the point you PUT the EmFasis on the wrong WORDS! and .... write ... SENTences with the.... odd PAUses as .... well!

Those of you talking about real trash are seriously going to have your garbage hauled off and taken to the dump when I get my Garbage truck empty and start filling my WIP dump with some real trash!

-colin this is a wonderful idea; I did not think my image would be classed as a theme..

This def peaks my interest...

I plan on entering after I finish my image contest entry for April.

I am trying to finish my MMC 5 animation right now. Got side-tracked a bit with some video work, then re-installing the OS on my computer, watching all of Season 1 of Grey's Anatomy with my wife, Heroes with my son, Amazing Race and Survivor.

Anyway, have an idea for Lost Worlds swimming around in my head. Going to start sketching the idea out and will post in a WIP soon.

Al

Hey Colin -

Is post-processing in a program like Photoshop or Painter allowed for this contest? I ask because I have a few ideas for my entry and I think that they will need a bit of post processing effects - heck, I always need to post process anything I render (I'm just not that good at the moment). I just wanted to know what you'd accept. I plan to model the entire scene in A:M, texture it using textures I create in Painter/Photoshop, and light and render it in A:M. Then I was planning on tweaking the scene in Photoshop or Painter as needed.

Anyway - just wanted to get your thoughts. I have begun sketching out ideas. I may post some color roughs in the work-in-progress to get peoples thoughts.

Thanks.
- Michael

OT - Hi, Michael - have you tried rendering to openexr and trying A:M composite? You can get heaps of control there, and also apply post effects easily.

On Topic - I'll have a go, if I can think of something. I live in a sort of Lost World (almost bush, Aus, wild animals (roos), huge reptiles (pythons)), so to me a lost world would be something like NY. Hey there's a thought...

If I had the time, I'd love to take a crack at something out of "At the Mountains of Madness" by H.P. Lovecraft.

Bill Gaylord



Wait a minute! I guess I might have enough time!

Thanks, Caroline. I have rendered to openexr. The A:M composite is awesome. I will probably end up doing a lot of my compositing there. However, if there are touchups I want to add, I was hoping I could do them in Painter or Photoshop as it would be faster than remodeling.

Anyway, I'm off to attempt to find my Lost World.

- Michael

Yes Post processing is allowed and HIGHLY ENCOURAGED!!! in case you missed the subtleness of that last bit.. I'll repeat it .. HIGHLY ENCOURAGED!!! (ECHO, ECHO, ECHO)



Oh.. that would just be sooooooo AWESOME! sigh.. you beat me to it. I just started reading Lovecraft a few months ago.

Another good one would be the undergrown cavern from "the rats in the walls"! heck anything Lovecraft would work. Hmmm. Thanks for the idea Bill.

And now for a little trash talk from our sponsers.

I'm glad so many talented people are entering the challenge. It will surely make my impending victory all the sweeter!

Seriously though. If we can get 75 entries, ( I mean serious entries!) Then I promise I'll come up with a worthy prize for the winner. Not gonna say what yet. Gotsta give it some thought. But just throwing it out there.

I've seen 50 entries in an image contest before, so I think 75 is a nice round number to shoot for. Heck if we get 60 I might have to come up with something. I might come up with something anyway.. heck come to think of it I came up with something yesterday, no the day before, ok. weeks ago.. What to go to for years? Huh?.. I can go allll day tough boy.

oh.. the game is so on.

If I win, I'll accept this: PRS Dragon I - PHOTO

or this: PRS Dragon III

gulp.. nice price! cool guitar though.

If post processing is allowed and encouraged... at what point is this considered NOT an A:M type thing but just a generic "anything goes" image contest?

Or is that what this is?

Would there be some sort of minimum percentage of A:M work? How would this be judged?

For instance, could someone render a single "rock" and clone it in Photoshop at different sizes? Or paint a field of grass instead of rendering? I just don't want to be competing on who can use Photoshop the best.

I will still participate of course, but I would like some clarification on that aspect. Is this a general digital art contest or specifically an A:M contest?

-vern

I know one shouldn't ASSume, but I take it to mean use A.M. Post effects, which I just discovered two weeks ago. They are the cats ass! Of course I could be wrong....but I don't want to be.

One could theoretically do this but I doubt it would get them far with a look or with the judging.

I don't want to set a limit on how much AM gets used, because it might only get used 10 percent and that 10 would be the thing that looked best.

I'm guessing thought that if you didn't use it 50 percent of the time in the creation of the image then something is wrong.

However. You might have a model that took you 20 hours to construct and texture. Then you might tweek it for 2 months everyday for hours in Photoshop or in some paint type post effect.

Thats also the reason for these WIP threads. Every process should be pretty well documented including the post that occurs, If someone shows a full 3d image and thats the last image in the thread but they show some whacked out version of a Matte painting from Lord of the Rings? Again, they didn't follow the spirit of the competition.

Me.. I'm guessing 80 percent of my image will be all AM and the rest will be Post effects and the like.

And no you don't have to just use AM composit, though you are more than welcome to, and if you pull off some incredible effect with it you are likely to impress the crowd and win votes. But I'm an artist not a tool so I don't care what tools other artist use. I just want them to make cool stuff.

So to some up.

AM should probably be the main app.
Document your process and if you are doing something very odd indeed then I'm sure it will get pointed out.
No bait and switch ;-)
If you didn't use AM to create a fair amount of the image then don't enter. It is the AM lostworld challenge after all.

Does that clarify the "rules" or lack there of.

Trust me.. I looked at the other contest (which was open and had both 2d and 3d categories) expecting the 2d to be a bunch of matte paintings that blew the 3d guys away. Didn't happen. Didn't even come close. So don't worry Vern. You will be competing with your creative skills and all your knowledge (which based on my assessment is a heavy advantage).

ARR! if I have the time and discipline to make an entry you will all quake before me! Hmm. not the effect I intended...
Question: are entries going to be judged for over-all impact, regardless of rendering style? (will a toon rendered image have an equal footing with 'realistic' one all other things being equal?) Will the this be a voted event, or a judged event?

good questions, and when I know the answer I'll let you know.. ;-) just kidding.

I'm thinking of a voting similar to the image contests but different, in that you'll actually rank the images you think are 1, 2, or 3 and those will go towards points earned. In addition I'm going to come up with a ranking system for Wips that will also go toward points earned. That part gets complicated, but I'll figure it out.

So in the end you'll get a vote for points and a score for the WIP thread. Making the scoring transparent on the WIP part is the trick and I'm open to ideas. But suffice it to say the more interest and output that comes from a WIP thread the better. Its all congealing slowly, so lets look at this one as the uber fun learning experience that shows us how to do it better later.

Hey? Is a WIP thread like a whip stitch?
"Congealing slowly"... that happens when I try to cook.

Is this a tough cutting edge 3D image contest or a Martha Stewart episode?

Sounds like the voting will be harder than creating the image!
I may not have time to vote for more than one image.

If anyone else does not have enough time to vote for more than one image I am sure Colin can save some time and just hand the prize to me.

I'm cracking the WIP of trash talking slam time. I am the waterboarder of VICTORY. All of you will form a mighty pyramid in my honor and suffer on the rack of defeat and failure!

Wha... what's that you say?
HA! Then I will fight in the shade!

(I do that anyway to save electricity or when the light bulb burns out)



If the judging is based on the whip stitches what if someone rambles on incoherently? Will that cost them points?
Or is it based on other people's posts?

-vern

oops this slipped to page 3...

still percolating some concepts but I should get something going this week.


Oh and Vern, should win a special prize for excellence in the non sequitur.
Seriously. You crack me up.

Serious question: I am actually in progress on 2 seperate entries for other HASH contests: Mechanical and Mascot. My current mechanical MAY end up with a Lost World Theme regardless, so my question is - if I would enter Lost World (with my Mechanical concept as a component) would that invalidate my chances of entering it in the mechanical contest?

The reason I am asking is that there seems to be a stigma on previewing a contest entry as a WIP, with the perception that the WIP is trolling for ways to trump the other entries. I do not want to spoil my mascot chances by entering this one.

Feedback please / ruling by the judges?

Thanks much!!

all things are possible.

I'm not sure what the effect on the mechanical contest would be, but it shouldn't affect this contest.

I'm guessing your work wouldn't be exactly the same and you probably wouldn't have the final image posted here anyway so its probably up to you.

I've seen many people enter the image contests with stuff they've shown before and several winners. Many of the mascot contests have had images from previous threads that have won so anything is possible.

Good luck

Hey Colin?

You may want to edit the original post to add "Lost World" somewhere in the subject. Makes it easier to do a search for all the relevant threads for this challenge. I wanted to review the due date and other rules.

I was trying to find it using only "lost world" for the subject and for some odd reason it never showed up.

-vern

For Everyone's consideration!

I've been considering some options, for the WIP Rule and the deadline, since my participation is also missing ;-) I'm heading to China for 3 weeks in May and its looking doubtful that I'll have any time to work on a lost world anyway. So.. for consideration here are my thoughts for options...

We can move the deadline back to allow for more participation and more WIP thread time, which doesn't seem fair to those that have already started.

We can remove the WIP thread rule which would allow anyone to enter and increase participation. But might handicap those who have shown their hands already (I doubt it but its a viable argument).

These are the only options I see now. I know there might be others.

I'm planning on finding something Uber cool in china (related to lost worlds) as something perhaps a statue or trophy.. I can offer the winner of the contest. However since I havn't gone to China yet and seen what I'll be able to find, I can't say what that is... yet. If we postponed the deadline a month or 2 and I did find something fairly cool, that might give people more to shoot for as well, and increase participation somewhat.

I'm open to other ideas, feel free to post them here.

C

I want to enter--I'm not sure that I can make the deadline,but I will start a WIP this week

OoooO! 'Lost Worlds Challenge' forum. Nice!

I'm for more time and more participants

I'll second that.

Sounds like 4 votes for more time and none against yet. I'll give it one more day and if I don't get to many "No's" I'll move the deadline back. That'll give me time to come up with a nice reward for the winner from China.

Oh goody goody... more time more time.... <sigh gasp.... ack>.

Big thumbs up for more time!! And I will not consider it unfair to extend the deadline... not in the least. I don't play to win anyway... I just like the challenge.

Plus! This new section will live even longer!

I am torn though... with the short deadline I would have been forced to kick some major arse and just get it done already... now I have 2 choices:

1) slack off
2) make it even better



--------------
WooHooo!

I am so glad this got its own forum topic!!!
It was so hard tracking everyone down.
This will be great. Just click through each entry in the forum to review progress. In the past I tended to only comment on the ones that were updated and showed up in new posts since my last visit.

p.s. Be careful what you get us in China. Did you ever see that TV movie with the Zuni fetish doll??? It was possessed by an evil spirit and chased Karen Black all through her apartment with a tiny machete.

-vern

The more the merrier!

I think it's a great idea to extend the deadline further,Hopefully more people will enter and really make this a great contest.
I'm under no illusion about where i will come,but taking part has increased my abilities with A:M no end!

Jay

Date is changed to August 1. That should buy everyone more time to make their entries great and hopefully stir up some more entries.

Thanks to everyone who's already started and kept their WIP threads going and educational.

Is there still trash-talk allowed here? I'm in the mood for some.

You're going down kids...you're going so far down you'll be in a new zip code. My entry is going to make all of yours bow down at it's large, manly and slightly obscure feet. After they clean off it's boots, it'll whip them them with a whip made out of splines with tons of sharp CPs on it. My entry is going to be Superman and yours is going to be the fanboy. Your entries will go to conventions just to get a glimpse of mine. Your entries will by posters of my entry (scantily clad) and stare at it for hours. Yes, my friends, my entry will make you eat meat before your pudding. My entry will throw all people into a stupor, my entry will make dogs lay down and my entry make lots and lots of lasagna for Garfield, while he is stuck in a cage made from his own entry, that because of its uncreative qualities, will hold him back like a cage a sadness and non-eye-candy-ness, thus witholding him from the large quanties of savory lasagna.

Good luck

Sincerely,

Killer

A palpable blow and it should score you 2 points for... wordiness and shear misconception.

Fact.. I havn't started a WIP thread... YET!
Fact.. I will start a WIP thread ... eventually!
Fact.. It will be the AMAZO made out of Kryptonite to your Superman!

You'll go down smoking in a blaze of glory.

Fact... I should get 3 points just for having the nuggets to talk trash without having started a WIP yet.

I'm glad your in "Killer". The contest is shaping up nicely!

Fact... Superman has NEVER been taken down and out by Kryptonite, AMAZO or any combination of the two



Fact... The only "nuggets" you're gonna need are the gold ones to buy my Grand Prize with!

Killer

P.S. Great contest Colin, can't wait to see what you'll come up with (even though it will only be 2nd place)

I will get to the trash talking momentarily...

First off I put this out...

Considering the scope of my planned image and the limitations of the rendered format, I have chosen to enlarge the setting... physically. I am making the building much wider.

I plan to render more than one image from different views to show more detail. Would this be in violation of any rules? Do I need to pick a single image for the challenge?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WARNING! TRASH TALK AHEAD. MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO SENSITIVE EARS OR MINDS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At the risk of offending the tender sensibilities of the terminally politically correct (this is all in fun... don't send me to live with "Imus")...

... You will all be "Ashcrofted" in the "Abu Ghraib" of artistic competition by my astounding talent.

You will be whimpering with cries of surrender as you are "rendered" by the proxy torture of my astounding greatness.

Now I insist ONCE AGAIN that you all must form the pyramid of submission before the snarling hounds of my executive powers!!!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
p.s. Too much? Over the top? The world just isn't as much funny as it use to be.
(I'm just kidding. I don't have snarling hounds or executive power.
I only have the yapping chiuauas of... annoying neighbors.)

You know darn straight this thread is being logged on some federal watch list now... hmm... maybe I'll get more votes.

p.s.s. I just found out my new next door neighbor is going to be... a little old lady... not the 3 hot college babes who need tutoring on the computer that I was hoping for... hey I can dream can't I?

Good lord... "a little old lady" might not be much older than me...

-vern

LOL..

ok.. Lee gets bonus points for being a very good if severely mistaken trash talker. Nice slip in the quote to.. I liked it really.. nice touch.



True, but thats only because he had Batman , not to mention a bunch of PANTY-WAIST writers afraid to piss off their FANBOYS ! Remove the caped crusader and the wimpy writers and the man of steel would be the man of Toast. Now don't get me wrong. I like Superman, but if I was going to compare myself to some super hero, I sure wouldn't be comparing myself to some guy who gets the trots when you show him a chunk of green rock!

Vern.... Vern... hmmm.. Vern? hmmm... Ver... I don't even know where to start with that one.

So I'm working with my Agent and a PR consultant and we're putting together a powerpoint to test with a my "Target" audience, before I do my grand unveiling for my lost world entry. Shouldn't take more than 3 weeks or so. I might have to get a few spin doctors to help me with the message depending on how the User Group Testing goes.

Man, even the trash talk might reach new heights (or is it depths) of creativity! This will be quite a learning experience.

I'm a rank amateur by comparison with retorts like "Yah, (insert name here), you're such a comedian you even smell funny!"

This will be like jammin' with pros!

Initial User testing is coming along well. My press agent is working on a campaign as I write this. I suppose my next move would be to visit some ancient cities in the far east to gather source material ;-)

A hint as to my concept? hmmm I think its safe to say I'm going for the gold.

Haha! You should get 4 points for that and your name printed in every DC Comics title for a month! What have your PR people said about the best topic?

Lee

I swear to tell the truth!

You all participate at MY pleasure and must resign to failure IMMEDIATELY! I am THE GONZO OF SUCCESS! I am the prosecutor of your fate and I will NEVER leave this battle.

Swear your oaths of truth to me and admit my superior talent. You have been abandoned to fail in this Lost World!

Do you accuse me of fear? Do you say I tremble in your presence? NEVER! I can not recall such a thing. To the best of MY knowledge you are all WRONG and will be destroyed.

I am the DECIDER of triumph! I will prevail before your hearings of artistic judgment. I will stand up to any challenge. I will not withdraw until the battle is WON!

No idol of immunity will wash away the crime of your miserable defeat! You will leave my island of success, and taste the pain and sorrow of elimination from this artistic challenge!

The votes are in, the game is NOT rigged and you "Malakars" of the Lost World will be condemned to merely taste the win, but never be chosen by the bachelor of FIRST PLACE!



(Bachelor of first place? What the hell?)



-vern

lol.. you said "malakars"

C