[esarai]

Lol fightermedic, I agree more time would have been nice, but in regards to your end statement, you are wrong on so many levels it hurts to think about it. 

[fightermedic]

depends on what you want to do
if you want a contest where everybody simply releases stuff they have been working on anyway, the way it has been done this time is the better one
(just to clarify: i don't think this is necessarily a bad thing)
but this might lead to a situation like we have at the moment, with not much of a competition going on due to the way the models are distributed across the categories

if you actually want to fill gaps in the general list of ships for certain species, my suggestion might work better
with the risk of even fewer people applying since nobody is interested in creating this kind of ships, i'm well aware of that

[Phantom Hoover]

He means the pre-edit one, about not being able to complete something in 6 months if you couldn't complete it in 4.

[bobbtmann]

I think tighter categories would be a good thing. Maybe a competition to create a terran civilian ship, or something. It would make for a more interesting competition.

Also, is there an approved license or something that we're supposed to ship with our ships?

[Phantom Hoover]

Just go for a creative commons licence if you aren't sure.

[fightermedic]

that information is somewhere in the OP
in a nutshell: people must be allowed to use your ship freely in campaigns

[bobbtmann]

The creative commons license looks pretty good.

[fightermedic]

i think i will create a small example mission with all the ships of the contest included once the deadline ends
nothing fancy, just a little 1-mission mini story to shoot some shivans, have some fun with the models and show people what has been done in this 3 month

edit: i have in fact just started setting it all up
already 300 MB worth of data, and that's not even all the models yet, this is goingt to be one big example mission *scratch head*

[fightermedic]

I think tighter categories would be a good thing. Maybe a competition to create a terran civilian ship, or something. It would make for a more interesting competition.

one more thought following this:
why not have, let's say 5, competitions done this way, stretched over a long time and with thight focus, even if some end up having only 2 or 3 entries, rather than one big competition
advantages:
- we get the ships we really lack (the community could vote on what the next competition should be about)
- the competition as a whole is stretched over a longer time while the unique segments can be of a lenght that fits the model needed, fighters get 2 months, a destroyer 8, or something
- there should be some real competition going on
- you can still have some "best overal model of the last 5 competitions" prize if you want

just more 2 cents from me, and only relevant IF there is ever going to be another competition

[Kobrar44]

There can always be another competition, but the big question is, what are people going to compete for? Cash? Good luck with regular funding for those contests.
I think periodic contests would be very awesome, and the concept fightermedic came up with I really like, but regarding this particular contest, I think 3 months might not be enough. Not all people have holidays. Moving deadline to December would make this a more of a "2013" contest. Sites like deviantart can afford only a few weeks/months contests, but deviantart is deviantart. It's massive[and we have bigger number of prizes than DA usually has I think].

[Vasudan Admiral]

Last minute entry! The GTI Castalia.



Download in current state

It's a large repair/refit shipyard with a variety of facilities. There are what will be moving gantries with large robotic arms tending to various tasks, destroyable gas processing facilities and as you can see up the back, a moving 'whole ship scanning' facility - essentially an idea pinched from the star trek baryon sweep.

There's a huge hangar with large sliding doors (which will be triggerable via SEXP or automatically on ship landing or takeoff from the hangar) that can fit an argo and a number of smaller freighters/transports, and 3 main shipyard areas. The one on the far right with a hippocrates in it is intended to be a heavy welding station, with 4 moving robotic arms performing hull patch-ups or other modifications.

Obviously though, it's not finished.
My time management sucks, and so I spent way too long in the modelling and UVing stages, so in it's current state it IS fully UV mapped onto a single 4096x2048 texture and I've made an AO map with a base coat hull plating texture, but that's all. I was really hoping to have a finished station to submit, so pretty bummed about that. This station also makes heavy use of Bobboau's look_at feature in the form of hydraulic rams on the moving parts, but I recently discovered that feature was broken earlier this year (my own fault too ) so those won't work just yet either.

Anyway it's currently 5am and I'm exhausted. Can't think of what else I meant to say here other than I know it's likely to be decimated in points due to the incompleteness, but I do still want to enter it as is anyway due to the massive amount of work I've put into it over the past couple of months.

Oh and more pics:







Sleep time...

Edit: Oh yeah, license statement: Errm, free for any non commercial use, but if you do end up using it, a credit in the read me would be nice. If I've forgotten something important there, it's just whatever the bog standard license is around these parts.

[fightermedic]

somehow, i knew there would be one or two last minute entries not shown before
great work VA!
it's already very sexy with only such a basic texture, can't wait to see it in it's full glory

man, all these last minute entries are srsly interfering with my model-show-off-mission plans...

[Lorric]

somehow, i knew there would be one or two last minute entries not shown before
great work VA!
it's already very sexy with only such a basic texture, can't wait to see it in it's full glory

man, all these last minute entries are srsly interfering with my model-show-off-mission plans...

If that monster capital ship and this installation get in, maybe it'll be up to the little ones to take the big ones down.

[Black Wolf]

And that's the deadline. Welcome to October people.

However, in light of the activity in the last two weeks, and the somewhat underwhelming total number of entries, I'm declaring an arbitrary two week extension for all released or announced WiPs. The fact is that this contest was designed to stimulate the creation of high quality models, and it has done so, to some extent. People like Esarai have worked hard, made great models, but were stymied by technical difficulties at the last hurdle.  That hard work should be recognized.

Hence the extension. In order to be eligible, you must have made substantial progress on a WiP within the contest period, demonstrated by the release or showing of a WiP. If you haven't shown one yet, get in touch with me either by PM or by posting a WiP  within the next 24 hours. That I will have to be strict on - a line has to be drawn somewhere. There's no need to get in touch if you've already released or shown something. If you've released a WiP, we will judge you based on your later release (I.e. In the extension period).

So in summary - if you've started but not finished, make it known and your new deadline is midnight of the 14th. Results will be released on the 28th.

I realize I can probably expect some blowback for this. But I hope people recognize that the intent is to reward the people who've put in the effort to make great new models for all of us to use. I think that that deserves another two weeks.

[whitearrow]

There can always be another competition, but the big question is, what are people going to compete for? Cash? Good luck with regular funding for those contests.

Compete for fame! We have a wonderful modelling community with talented modellers, let's see who's the best! Frankly I'd rather have a medal icon on my signature than 100$ I can earn in different ways with less effort than dozens of hours spent in modelling and texturing. I'm not blaming the people who put their money for founding this competition. Actually I appreciate their commitment and service to our community, especially in a period of economic crisis in which not all of us can rely on a steady job.  But maybe there are better ways to use them. E.g. funding server's maintenance or the development of those animated PNG format...
I think the competition might have been much tougher (I mean we would have seen a higher number of submissions) if the prize had been 1000$! But this would be both impractical and unnatural for people that live this community as a hobby, like the vast majority of us I suppose. This is just my opinion anyway (but if there's someone who wants to throw 1000$ on this I'll build even an entire fleet for him!!! )

[Lepanto]

Thank you VERY much. I could really use the extra time to patch up my submission.

[fightermedic]

*ponder* from a strict point of view, wouldn't that allow me to enter my whole set of recently created and almost finished fighters too, since i'm definitely going to finish them all in the next two weeks,
or would that just be mean on the judges *evil grin*

oh, and you have put lepanto's ship into the wrong category, it should be newcomer

[Black Wolf]

OK, we're well past the 24 hour deadline, and I've received no new PM submissions, so only the so-far-announced WiPs will be permitted entry. If you were holding out or missed the deadline, I'm sorry, but better luck next time. I believe that this means we can expect updates from Oddgrim, Esarai, Lepanto and VA (plus, of course, Bobbtmann's late submission has already been included). As soon as we get the final submissions from those four (or on the 14th, whichever comes first) we will begin the final round of judging and have our winners pretty soon after that.

That said, it does make the final makeup... interesting, and a little disappointing if I'm 100% honest. Fightermedic wins Shivan by default, and Oddgrim win Vasudans by default, unless either of them win in another category (Newcomer in fightermedic's case or overall for either of them), in which case nobody will win those categories. Other than for the overall victor, the only real challenges will be in Terran and Newcomer categories. Lesson for future contests then - fracturing the prizes too much is a bad idea when there aren't enough potential entrants.

Anyway, that aside, we have gotten some very cool models out of the process, and that was the main objective. Good luck to those who're still submitting and those who already have, and thanks for taking part.

[Black Wolf]

We're now well into the final 24 hours - the contest will close at midnight tonight, GMT. No extensions I'm afraid. So, for those still finishing up, please do so post haste, or release whatever you've managed to do in the last two weeks within the next 22.5 hours. It would be a real shame to see all the extra work be for naught because of a deadline missed by a few hours.

[Colonol Dekker]

I can understand your disappointments BLACKwolf, just don't feel responsible. I think a single category bi-monthly contest could be considered? In any case there have been some outstanding entrants to this one and the judges, I do not envy.