[FfH II Art Team Blog]

I think your competition is fine. I dont know what you could have done wrong. I am trying to get some screenies to help out but have been focused on playing test games for the new releases. So I havent prioritized on playing the Elohim. I also have had trouble getting the flying camera to work well. I can't enable it during a fight, and I don't know the hotkeys to use when having it enabled. So its been a real pain to use it. I will practice more with it later, but for now I am running some test games.

(Edit: Not attempting to belittle Pi with that - didn't notice anyone had submitted something resembling what was requested.)

Click to expand...

No insult taken compared to what an art monkey can do, my work looks like it was made by a monkey.

I have no idea why there was so little interest, my guess is that some people were intimidated and the rest were to busy. Personally, I might have tried to mess around in Gimp after seeing what you made, but I have no spare time until school ends.
Maybe if you made it a month long and made the prize "cooler" more people would enter. For instance, maybe the winner can decide what unit you create next (art wise), or they get their picture on the FFH2 website, or some other highly visible place. Good luck in getting better entries next time, if there is a next time...

I might do something later, but I gotta be in the mood first.

i could have tried to come up with something to the competition but was too busy making wallpapers and i just noticed this now so

Ok, guys, thanks for the answers.

In a way Pi has won the competition , but I think its better to call this a testrun and start a new one (with much more time for everyone to contribute, clearer goal and better prized) in some days (I expect weekend or start of next week).

I will try to realize an idea and if it shows to be exciting and reproduceable with gimp, I will set it up for a competiton and the best artists will for sure get a place at the homepage.
And the winner may even decide what (and how) we create next, artwise that is. Or if he wants he can even request his alter ego (like a model with his face or whatever) being implemented in the mod in form of a unit (or respectively face of a Unit).
We will think of something motivating

In the meantime, take a cam with you if you go for a walk through the woods or countryside.
And make sure to download gimp and get familiar with its tools
And post comments about a reasonable prize you would like to earn for your best submission.
I could try to create something like a small tutorial for the next competition if people want it (just to show you that you can achieve great stuff with small effort)

Sounds fun. And Hehe I might just have to learn how to use GIMP cuz it would be cool for me to see a white elk in the game. I coined this name because of a D&D Druid/Ranger who had a white elk mount/totem. Back in Civ3 I wanted to change the Celtic Sword to a Bowman riding a white elk. Then with FfH2 the desire to play with a personal unit has made me wish that Civ4 units were as easy to mod as Civ3 units were.

I hope there will be another competition! Although I'm not sure if I find the time to create something I sure hope so (and your example looks really cool SeZ).

I enjoy photoshoping, I will certainly join after exam time.
Now I'm just more into infinite-dimensional spaces, Maxwell equations and such.

TheBoatman said:

I enjoy photoshoping, I will certainly join after exam time.
Now I'm just more into infinite-dimensional spaces, Maxwell equations and such.

Click to expand...

yea, I study chemistry, creating art is a good change (next to sports and girls ).
But next contest will go for a longer period, to make sure people have the time they want to contribute.

I'd like some character pics, on a solid black background, sized as large as possible, in a variety of poses...

I could try to create something like a small tutorial for the next competition if people want it (just to show you that you can achieve great stuff with small effort)

Click to expand...

That would be great!
Trying to figure things out trial and error is fun, but it is very time consuming and can get pretty tedious.
P.S. Yeah, I Won the one horse race, Woot!

How about making the first graphic contest less restrictive than the first one? As in not limited to a few units or just one civ. Perhaps make it alignment based or just leave it wide open for any aspect of FfH2? But maybee limit the level of graphic editing allowed so as to give the noobs a halfa chance, but more importantly so that the art is strictly representitive of what one will see in the game? In that way the submitions can also serve to help introduce people to this most awesome game by way of cool art presented in a section of the Website?

White Elk said:

How about making the first graphic contest less restrictive than the first one? As in not limited to a few units or just one civ. Perhaps make it alignment based or just leave it wide open for any aspect of FfH2? But maybee limit the level of graphic editing allowed so as to give the noobs a halfa chance, but more importantly so that the art is strictly representitive of what one will see in the game? In that way the submitions can also serve to help introduce people to this most awesome game by way of cool art presented in a section of the Website?

Click to expand...

I suppose you are certainly welcome to create freely and upload the results here. I think competitions should be specialized a bit, otherwise it is difficult to compare entries.
I also like the way how SeZereth's example is using grass from a photo (at first I thought it was a photoshop brush), because civ engine doesn't allow many details in close-ups. So, out-of-the-game art like this should be allowed.

White Elk said:

How about making the first graphic contest less restrictive than the first one? As in not limited to a few units or just one civ. Perhaps make it alignment based or just leave it wide open for any aspect of FfH2? But maybee limit the level of graphic editing allowed so as to give the noobs a halfa chance, but more importantly so that the art is strictly representitive of what one will see in the game? In that way the submitions can also serve to help introduce people to this most awesome game by way of cool art presented in a section of the Website?

Click to expand...

You are free to upload any screenshot of the game you think covers a great moment. We would like to see a lot of it, as it gives new players a quick look of what awaits them in game

For a lower graphic level in a contest. well, first of all I think a contest should follow rules, have a clear goal and should be challenging.
But you are completely right, restricting it to 2 units is a challange, but is not the best idea.
So, yes if my Idea works out (i still need some preparations), then the next contest will
-allow you to choose from a wide variety of sceneries (hint: some great writers did an awesome job to provide you with exciting stories and moments set in the ffh universe )
-allow for the use of all assets available in FfH for characters
-allow for the use of background/closeup stuff, which you can capture by camera in reality or look up from the net (as long as it is not directly stolen from another game or movie (I would provide my environment pics, but those diggicam pics are too big in filesize))
-provide you with some helpfull stuff for extracting characters from screenshots
-provide you with a "making of" the example I provide, which will hopefully inspire people to follow my steps and create their own contribution
-will give you enough time to create your contribution
-will be rewarding not only for one person
-will be a great enrichment for the ffh universe as long as people contribute
-will allow you to request from one of the art team members to polish your work if your idea is far superior to your artistic skill .

So, now the major thing is getting my example done

So, look forward and read some pedia entries

what about having two mini-competitions in one? like have one winner for in-game screen shots and one winner that used photoshopping.

kenken244 said:

what about having two mini-competitions in one? like have one winner for in-game screen shots and one winner that used photoshopping.

Click to expand...

i think it would be best if people just "acquired" stuff that looked cool, by any means...
neccessary

eerr said:

i think it would be best if people just "acquired" stuff that looked cool, by any means...
neccessary

Click to expand...

what do you mean with this?


and a general notice:
it will take some days until the competition starts, I had not enough time recently to prepare necessary things. sorry guys.

I finished the new look for the Nightmare (in newest version its called a Spectre )

this has nothing to do with the next contest, I still need to finish 2 or 3 more Models until I can start working on the Contest stuff, but if you like you can try to do something along the lines of my nightmare picture above, choosing a unit from pedia and arranging some parts of screenshots to describe the unit (think of showing new players some art and let them read some mechanic examples connected to the unit). Then simply write the FfH version you took the description out somewhere on the picture and then post it here. If its good, we can set it up at the ffh wiki.

Some tips:

When in debug mode (Ctrl+Alt+D), you can choose slow motion option, which makes catching the poses in units animations easier.

You can choose wire models as well, overlaying two identical scenes, one in wires, other in full display makes nice pictures.

@SeZereth: Fearsome.
(Nightmares have been renamed to spectres I suppose.)

EDIT: in debug mode you can also disable viewing flags, cursors, borders etc. which stand in the way while taking screenshots.
And does anybody know if there is an easy way to disable the whole interface at once? Ctrl+I does only part of it.

(Nightmares have been renamed to spectres I suppose.)

Click to expand...

Hehe, just when I was about to say that they look more like Spectre than nightmares

Looks great as a spectre, I would only scale it up a little so it looks more scary. It is a 4 str unit.