The new challenge discussion thread!

[KStarr]

Hi everyone,
On the lattest blender collab (week 20) we did had some great discussion about setting a new challenge with an extended period of time. The weekly challenge rules will not change, we are talking a brand new challenge here. This Thread purpose is to get some fresh idea about how we could get it started with the maximum benefit for everyone.

So let’s start some brainstorming session here!

Here is what I think could be interesting:

• In my opinion, a duration of 2 weeks up to a month would be great!

• I also believe it could be a good idea to turn the achieved weekly collab into this new challenge. That would give unfinished project a second chance and would allow a bit of polishing too for those how did make the deadline. Also that would allow people to submit a single render into the two challenge simultaneously, wich would be a great thing.

• as a requirement, I would suggest a mendatory new technique for the artist, something they never did before. They could also, if they please, link some tutorial of talk about issues they encounter or ideas the wanted to achieved.

And you, blender people, what do you think?

[Yee]

This sounds great, I like the idea of a longer challenge for those that really what to push their skills. Here are some points I would like to discuss tho.

• The mandatory new technique should not be a rule. This might cause entry troubles for beginners or people that simply want to specialize into a particular style or tools.

• I think the subject should be entirely separate from the weekly challenge, this allows to further train your creative muscles, that being said, I don’t see a problem with people using their previous entries. What should not be allowed is using the exact same entry.

• Don’t make it a competition, this is going to be a long one:
  To compete kills the purpose of this, which is learn, experiment, have fun and maybe even meet people. I’ve seen how Game Jams have turn into this absurd competition instead of a learning and networking experience, the moment you introduce a reward (as little as choosing the next theme), people start doing crazy stuff like cheating or doing the exact same thing over and over again with little to no benefit, that’s why I haven’t participated in the weekly challenge and even took down one of my entries, my mindset is “I have to win” because well, it’s a competition, instead of “Hey! Let’s have fun and do something crazy even if it ends up looking awful!” You learn more from that kind of work even better when people give feedback, but for some, like myself, is hard to keep it as a learning experience when it’s clearly a competition.

• Mandatory feedback. This is to push the purpose of this. Tell what you like and don’t of at least one entry and don’t leave anyone without feedback.

[NP5]

I am happy with a longer time frame series of events running separately.

For me these events can get me to make something I would never bother or conceive making otherwise. Most things I play with are hundreds of hours and unsuited to such short creation. They make me limit by ambition! But often have to look up how to do different things.

At the risk of disrupting this thread. How about a real collaboration? I wondered if we could set up a single world/scene tile by tile. Based on those tile type scenes some make. (I never have)

So we start a world with an opening post of one tile. It, if square, could be hex, has four sides new tiles can be added. So people claim a square, and need to make it in a time period. Popular joining sides will get more claims so a vote can pick which goes in at the end of the time. It has to connect reasonably logically to the original and not close off following tiles.

Basically the first tile is just a crossroads. after that the next tile might pull towards a forest on one path, a village on another etc. As it expands it quickly has more tiles to use than we have potential creators.

Uploaded selected tiles, joined to the starting one and posted for the next round.
It will require more discipline like scales. A sample humanoid on tile one?

May be too ambitions but more on the lines of that game jam thing.

[KStarr]

There is a lot of great ideas already, good work, let’s keep grinding even more!

I do like everything I’m reading so far, the collab part is original and could turn into something very interesting. If we do make some tiles, we then should get quite specific about the realisation, to make all projet scaled right and have some kind of smooth transition between each tile. That might be a little less beginner friendly, but I guess we could use more experimented artist taking over at some point and tweak them if needed. We will need to be carefull with the level of detail also, we could not have a high poly tile next to a low poly one, that would be odd.

Still that would be a very fun project, let’s keep gather some more great idea and we should be able to tie it all together nicely.

Also, I understand the fact that we need to be carefull with the “challenge” part of it, I have always been thinking it more like a self-challenge also, not in a competitive way. So yeah, I guess we should take the pools and winners out of this.

[Tyger2]

@NP5

How about a real collaboration?

Cool idea! What about choosing a theme/scene and each making different assets to put together? We could take turns choosing the theme and assembling the scene.

[albesca]

@Yee

• Don’t make it a competition, this is going to be a long one:
  To compete kills the purpose of this, which is learn, experiment, have fun and maybe even meet people. I’ve seen how Game Jams have turn into this absurd competition instead of a learning and networking experience, the moment you introduce a reward (as little as choosing the next theme), people start doing crazy stuff like cheating or doing the exact same thing over and over again with little to no benefit, that’s why I haven’t participated in the weekly challenge and even took down one of my entries, my mindset is “I have to win” because well, it’s a competition, instead of “Hey! Let’s have fun and do something crazy even if it ends up looking awful!” You learn more from that kind of work even better when people give feedback, but for some, like myself, is hard to keep it as a learning experience when it’s clearly a competition.

I get what you mean, and though I feel that our weekly challenge is rather friendly the tight deadline does make it hard to share thoughts, tips and generally to help each other.

• Mandatory feedback. This is to push the purpose of this. Tell what you like and don’t of at least one entry and don’t leave anyone without feedback.

That’s a good idea, though not everybody takes critiques on one’s own work the same way, so maybe participants should say up front whether they want feedback on their entries or not?

[KStarr]

What about we set a deadline for the ideas gathering, once that deadline reached, we could then see how we get it going? We could say an other week and then we put those ideas together and try something.

So new deadline: june 7th

Here’s the proposal so far:

• make it a true collab
• promote constructive feedback
• Longer duration (2 weeks, monthly or even unlimited)
• A single scene for everyone, tile based
• Asset contribution to a single scene

Hopefully I’m not missing too much ideas! Keep sharing, let’s make it outstanding!

[Yee]

That’s a good idea, though not everybody takes critiques on one’s own work the same way, so maybe participants should say up front whether they want feedback on their entries or not?

True, maybe instead of feedback just ask things like “How did you do this?” or “Can you do the same thing with another tool?” Those type of questions can become a starting place for learning and experimenting.

@NP5

I wondered if we could set up a single world/scene tile by tile.

I like this idea, it would be cool to see all different styles and techniques placed in one place, it also kinda works as a portfolio for those that want to get a job, it clearly says that you can work on a team.

[albesca]

I think that while it might be okay for the project as a whole to have no deadline, it’s probably better to build it in steps with reasonable deadlines, otherwise there’s the risk that progress is too slow and people lose interest.

Should we set up a repository on Git or somewhere else to have an official version and to track individual contributions?

[KStarr]

I agree with you, we need some deadline to make the project process, but I guess we could make it little soft, meaning that if somebody truly involved into is craft is not quite done with his part of it, he could get a bit more time to achieve it properly. A repository could be a great idea, how does it work with Git?

[albesca]

I use Git to keep track of my own blend files when working from different computers, but it’s mostly single files.
To work in a team I think we should have a master file with links to separate files, so that everyone can work indipendently on its own part of the project, and then someone (kind of a project lead, I guess) can put the pieces together in the master file.

[KStarr]

I think we just met the deadline, would you be interested in a halloween project due for October 31th?

Each of us could design a crappy house or a old castle with a graveyard or something like that. A forest of dead trees and some zombies or vampires, warewolf… halloween stuff, that could be fun. We would have 5 months to work on this which is a interesting timescale to get started! After this one we could then make some adjustement for the next one.

This is just a theme proposal, if you have a different theme idea let us know! We could then set up some kind of poll to chose if we need to!

[KStarr]

sound good!

[albesca]

Ok, do you think it’s better to enlist people or do we stay open for submissions?
I also think that we should set intermediate steps, with maybe a short brainstorming phase to choose the subject followed by gathering some prototypes to get a coherent style.
A week or two for each step should be enough, I think

[KStarr]

I agree, intermediate steps will help for sure, we probably should stay open for submission at least for the first project to get some people around and we will see how it evolve from there. The brainstorming phase is the next big thing, we do not have gathered many new ideas in over a week, so maybe we should look into the theme and see how our ideas could fit into it.

[Tyger2]

Not sure about you all, but I’m mostly interested in the “true collab” element of this. I think it’d be valuable to gain experience working together on projects, dividing labor, meeting deadlines, etc.

An example workflow:

• brainstorm topics
• vote on collective favorite
• whoever’s idea it was could be the “lead” for that project
• we divide the labor (not sure how to do this)
• set some intermediate deadlines
• finish after a certain amount of time (maybe a month?)
• repeat in different roles

[NP5]

I Have made a base tile for the other tile world concept. To spark debate on that idea. It’s no problem at all if not needed at this time if concentrating on a different line for now.

I made it very bland so as not to dictate any direction.
The tile is 10x10 blender units to give space for buildings outdoors scenes etc. To which end I made a human manikin for scale reference, it is one unit tall. As the image render shows I made the four connection first tiles that would in theory be the first ones available to be made as additions. With snapping on positioning is easy. I have marked compass directions on the tile, and the new waiting ones.

All sorts could be discussed. This is low poly, How high to restrict it and by what parameters? This is plain colours, do we avoid image textures? Allow procedural? Have a limited to some extent set of image pbr textures? What era should it be, or even could directions be towards different time zones? Tricky to make look like one world. I think something based round an indefinable ‘old’ medeavalish is easier.

Assuming it works as you download the tiles completed that are touching the one you want to do. Match the joins (duplicate the edge verts and build into yours.) Restrict changing heights by 1 unit up or down to keep geographic transitions sensible, while enabling movement out to hills and mountains areas, or seas rivers. For working purposes I suspect you want your own tile centred, and the touching ones moved to it’s edge. Easy to do as set up snapping by increment from overhead.

I can fancify the core tile if it looks like going anywhere.

[Tyger2]

If we were to do this one, what’s the final product? Is it a collage of different styles? Or are they supposed to blend together?

[Tyger2]

I decided to just go ahead and try to start a project to see how it goes. You guys are all invited to join!

[NP5]

I see it as fitting together in styles but permitting slow transitions, rather than the next tile going to the deck of a starship, then the next to a dinosaur in a jungle. Part of the creative discipline would be matching to the adjacent tiles, joining, slightly changing the tile towards some other direction makes it interesting. One road might go to a town, another the sea fishing village, boats even out to sea tiles, fish aquatic life, side roads could get branched off to a forest, a castle. One direction might go up as hills, become rocky. You start a town with a first small shack, Next person adds a blacksmiths. town gets bigger, streets branch off. You might get to a big mansion where one tile is only the entrance hall and some door off, up or down too. You are both constrained and directed by the tiles adjacent, while aiming to make the free edges go off somewhere else offering the next person a new direction.

For example from my tile 0:0 there are four roads. The next tiles could start a transition to a cobbled road to suggest the beginnings of a village, town. Another direction could start to narrow and gain the beginnings of the edge of a forest, or farmland. So just the simple road surface can change hinting at what might come next. I would expect the first few tiles from the tile 0:0 to be fairly plain so as to spread out subsequent development from overlapping as the develop. There is lots of space between human occupied sites. But we have seen others do random tiles of nature, foot bridges over steams. Ponds. A horse and cart going along the road. A tile of sheep in a part of a field. The tile does not have to be the whole field, or everything ends up very square. You could leave two, half or so edges open so the next tile might add in a shepherd and more sheep, his dog, a wolf!

After connected road tiles were done, the next set opening up to be done would start to include tiles with two edges pre ordained by the previous tiles, the missing corners in my image set up above.

Just throwing it out as an idea. It could be set firmly in era, with an preset general area map. Could be all a town with the starting tile the town centre square, a pre ordained street plan etc.