[ivox3]

yeah maybe if i put in more than 10 minutes work on the next one i might get beyond 3 votes .......ahahahahahaha e

[Maximus3D]

Hehe the next challenge will be more challenging and tougher for all but that's just the way i like it.

I agree, it'll be lots more fun for all to use the new 1.0 instead of the beta. But i ran this challenge to check for interest and to liven up this forum a bit, it been kinda dead lately. So far it's a success in many ways and i'm happy.

Tim, you lucky prick to get such a new fast monster machine.

ivox, atleast you got 3 others got less.. now you could guess why i never posted a entry (phew!).

/ Max

[Wendy Nickerbater]

I agreee with you Kevin, I was looking forwards to seeing lots of ideas / renderings. The only suggestion I can offer is to have the next challenge run over a longer period, then hopefully more people can drop in and give it a try.

[oz42]

just an update...

I was dissapointed with the noise on my entry image and so had time to re-render it last night - got to a sampling level of 18 (much better!)

[Maximus3D]

Hi Kevin

The next challenge will be more serious, i haven't yet quite started planning it. The theme is ready, the models aren't even started on yet (have to do that.. phew!) and then comes all the other planning and maintaining that goes into this as it's honestly quite a big project each time. The 3d models themselves for this challenge were totally over 300+ mb if i remember correctly and all that needs to be converted, tested, hosted and maintained and fixed.

But as you said, some type of registration system for that could be a good idea so those who say sign up for it will not bail out before they even start. I'll look into that..

Challenges like this are important as you also said Kevin, they teach you the hard life of being in the 3d business, doing your job and finishing it on the deadline or before even, and most important doing it well. That's ofcourse if people take that approach that it teaches them and challenges them to improve themselves and their skills. The downside is the problem with prizes, i have no possible ways of handing out fancy expensive prices as i'm both poor and unemployed, sorry but i wish i could. Perhaps in the future..

The fact that alot said they were interested is nothing uncommon, that happens in competitions and challenges everywhere like this one, people always drop out for one reason or another. That's sadly enough a factor you have to take into account as it's not easy to keep the interest up and to keep things like this alive, and i have to admit i thought nothing would come of this, it was after all more of a test to see if there actually were interest on the forum which now i can happily say there is.

About few challenge entries, that's ofcourse a problem. But it could be a headache if you did stuff like this for money and you had sponsors with big expensive prizes. At this time it's not such a big problem, i mean look there were totally 9 entries. I gotta say that's great for the first time!

It was good to see your contribution Kevin, i'm happy you and everyone else joined in on it

The one thing i think decides if it's interesting is the theme, mainly that and the idea behind it all. If the idea and the theme are solid then people will see it's worth putting time into it. Who knows, maybe we can talk NL into posting the top 3 winners of each challenge into their gallery if they're good enough it'd be a pretty good carrot to drive people into do their best and win.

And btw Kev, thanks!

/ Max

[oz42]

Max,

you don't need to worry about a cash prize, I think the prestige of winning some sort of "Maxwell Award" would be enough for most people to bother entering.

If you could get NL to approve the award then people could use the award logo on their web site, just like http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=282203 - see the use of the CG Society Award as Jonas's avatar.

Hey what about having that as your first challenge - design a Maxwell~Render award and use the winning entry as the logo. It would be useful if NL bought into this idea first.

[Olivier Cugniet]

I think it would be much more difficult if next challenge gives only one object.
Just to see what everyone is able to do with this object. It's funny to see what we have in our brain

[Olivier Cugniet]

well, then go on..... let's see what you do on next challenge....

[ivox3]

Hey Exclamation what about having that as your first challenge - design a Maxwell~Render award and use the winning entry as the logo. It would be useful if NL bought into this idea first.

----i think,- brillianté.


of course the problem with this is modeling. What does design/modeling skills have to do with the render engine itself? ......it's all about the renderer, in this case.

but i still like the idea.

[Tim Ellis]

Tim, you lucky prick to get such a new fast monster machine.

Heh, I wish my bank balance was as lucky. It's a Boxx Tech 7300 with twin 244 Opterons, 4GB ram & Nvidia Geforce 1400. Will be with me in 10 days, so in time for the next challenge.

The 3d models themselves for this challenge were totally over 300+ mb if i remember correctly and all that needs to be converted, tested, hosted and maintained and fixed.

This was certainly something that initially put me off when I downloaded the models. The size of them meant that only people with a 'super computer' had the ability to use more than one mesh.

Adding both the chair and the table pushed my version of Max to a halt and I had to change the viewing propeties to 'box' when I duplicated the chair three times.
Perhaps the models could be somewhat smaller in file size, a less complex mesh which can then be sub-surfed to bring them back to the glory of your orginal models. Or even have the option of a decimated version as well as the excellent high poly versions.

Certainly with M~R v1.0 's claimed 'no slow down with high poly counts' and with the faster noise reduction this should be less of a problem in the future.

I'm sure I speak on behalf everybody, that we really appreciate the time and effort you put into this first challenge.

I like the idea of the 'award' scheme as an incentive too, especially the idea of the next, or a future, challenge being the design of such an award.

Tim.

[Maximus3D]

Hi all

oz: The award like what they have on CGTalk is a good idea, i thought about that too. A challenge to design a award would be a even better thing as i don't have to do it myself hehe saves me some job.

Olivier: Yeap you're right, only one object would force people to seriously put an effort into it and work harder to win. I'll keep that in mind for the future.

ivox: The only thing is that not everyone on here are modelers, some excel at that while others are better at rendering, and since this forum is more rendering oriented then to let the users get pre-made models makes more people take part in the challenges than if they had to model something themselves.

Tim: I'm sorry you didn't like the overly complex models in this case, and i'm well aware of the high polycounts in them i apologize about that but there simply was no time to optimize the polycount of all models as there were just too many in too many formats.

Even my computer chokes after i loaded the table model, it's probably around a million polys so no surprise it brings just about any computer down on it's knees. But i will put more effort into minimizing that issue for future challenges.

Thanks i did put alot of work and time into this but in a way i do think it was worth all that seeing people working.

Maybe hmm.. it should be possible to run a short inbetween tiny challenge where people should model and render such a award, or a gold, silver and a bronze type of award so they the top 3 winners win something

/ Max

[Maximus3D]

Meanwhile i plan out the bigger challenge we could have a smaller one making that Maxwell Award model and rendering. For that one i don't need to supply models, everyone make their own design and render it. I'll be posting more details soon about it in a special thread.

/ Max

[Tim Ellis]

Meanwhile i plan out the bigger challenge we could have a smaller one making that Maxwell Award model and rendering. For that one i don't need to supply models, everyone make their own design and render it. I'll be posting more details soon about it in a special thread.

/ Max

I'll be looking out for this then mate.


Cheers,

Tim.

[Olivier Cugniet]

Max, it's time to plan a release candidate forum challenge !!!