Challenge Topic/Format

[abvfx]

Pick the topic which interests you the most. Be selfish, i think we all agree variety is something we all want but this challenge will be a good benchmark for further events, so I think it would be good if this one is ruled by consensus to get the highest amount of participants.

As for .hip sharing, i feel it should be encouraged but not mandatory. Deterring those who might want their efforts to be sold on Orbolt / made part of their portfolio might be a bit harsh. Then again they could post in the WIP/Gallery forum. Vote on it.

As for the format. I am a fan of keeping them completely open-ended. With the Current Challenge being stickied at the top. I'm guessing the challenge will be posted in the Challenge forum (there are many sub-forums there so it might need a bit of re-arranging to make finding the challenge easier). This is obviously a mod/admin issue.

Because this is a Challenge and not a Contest, there are no winners. And especially with being open-ended the next greatest solution to X problem might come after 6 months of being idle.

Marc mentioned that he might be able to wrangle some swag from SESI, so community contests are also in the realm of possibilities. This will mean however a fixed length, winners decided by designated judges/poll and being a contest, not a lot of forum participation until the contest is over. It seems another topic altogether in my eyes.

Btw i am not the gatekeeper , i just thought some questions/answers were needed for those who will actually make the contest.

edit:// typos

Edited April 24, 2014 by abvfx

[Guest tar]

Question for .hip sharing.

 

Is that British English "Encouraged" which actually means the opposite? i.e. "Not mandatory"

[Skybar]

Question for .hip sharing.

 

Is that British English "Encouraged" which actually means the opposite? i.e. "Not mandatory"

Mandatory - you must share. Encouraged - you aren't forced to share, but it would be nice if you wanted to, it is encouraged.

[Guest tar]

a campaign for mandatory

 

A fool only looks for old CG gallery images; the wise looks for .hips, vex and vops.

 

The beauty of Odforce is that it isn't a pop culture; when there is real information behind each post it lasts forever.

 

For example if one wants to read up on glass shaders, you can get some great info from grand masters like Mario, from 2006! The information is still current as it informs where we are today and there is always something to learn. No one cares for old gallery images as much as the process that got one there.  On the issue of not not being able to share proprietary ideas, simple; don't use it

 

Another great example to aspire to is Siggraph. It works as there is lots of sharing. The main complaints one reads of Siggraph is that there isn't enough acceptance of papers to share!

 

Glass (2006):

http://forums.odforce.net/topic/4196-glass/?hl=%2Bglass+%2Bmario#entry28495

 

 

Siggraph crtique (2006?):

https://www.cs.utah.edu/~michael/leaving.html

[abvfx]

I hear ya Marty .

The votes are pretty tied for the subject of the challenge. Rendering, Misc. (Tool/Problem) and Rigging are very close. Any way to get more people to vote, only 25 at the moment.

For Rendering how would people feel if we took one of the scene (with permission of course) from the CGTalk Lighting Challenge? To render in a specific style? Encouraging users to create there own shaders?

For Character rigging, i should be able to construct a model if people want it. Just a face? Body part? Challenge could be to make a decent eye system (blinking, tracking, soft eyes, cartoony effects), sticky lips, a procedural animation rig (fish, ant, spider, horse etc)or a new 2014 take on Autorig tools? (Keeping it simple with individual body parts).

Misc. This is a tough one to think of a challenge? It could be too easy or too hard, trying to think of a topic/problem is tough. It would be nice to hear from some of the more experienced users(my word for guru) to chime in here. Create a transformers style effect or procedural animation? Create a feather rig? Create a tree system? Dust/Algae/Vine system (growing on all objects)? Cable snapping (showing individual wire/strands breaking)? Bullet hit system? Origami system? A candle system (lit, melting, dripping with wax), create a fish eye effect. Or it could be any of these but with the stipulation that it has to use all contexts of Houdini or with the fewest amounts of nodes or if something that uses DOP to be done in SOPs etc. Especially since a lot of these suggestions (which is just me thinking out loud) can fall into one of the more specific options. Or it could be something totally wacky like create your favourite board game in Houd, to the point where you could play it (Guess Who, Mouse Trap, Monopoly).

I can see why the Misc. option has a lot of attention but i would love to hear what people would like to take part in. Again difficulty is a problem if we want to have a lot of people take part. Please discuss, im getting tired of typing

[Gyroscope]

I'll probably be in the extreme minority here and would try and participate no matter the challenge (time permitting), and I know Houdini is largely a TD centric tool but I've always been a fan of http://greyscalegorilla.com 5 second challenges. Simple themes, 5 seconds max, up to the user to interpret. It's can be more arty and less technical, but if you could find a technical twist to it all, all the better?

 

Let's say the theme is "Twister". It could range from the obvious Tornado, to... procedural twizzlers/candy or to a Circular User Interface forming. Just some examples.

 

Judging would be harder but, could open up the types of participants.

[Guest tar]

Damn... Looking at the Mandatory at only 35% of the vote we need to offer sweeteners!

 

Everyone who votes for Mandatory will see their salaries increase, taxes will be reduced, and you will have more holidays per year!

 

Vote Mandatory

[eetu]

As for .hip sharing, i feel it should be encouraged but not mandatory. Deterring those who might want their efforts to be sold on Orbolt / made part of their portfolio might be a bit harsh. 

 

Regarding the portfolio sentiment - what you should be selling is not the techniques you have collected for yourself, but the ability come up with new ones.

 

If you share something it is not taken away from you, this is the digital world, we are not talking about cars here

Edited May 2, 2014 by eetu

[Guest tar]

true - Call it Challenge Yourselves, Challenge might be better 

[abvfx]

Regarding the portfolio sentiment - what you should be selling is not the techniques you have collected for yourself, but the ability come up with new ones.

 

If you share something it is not taken away from you, this is the digital world, we are not talking about cars here

 

 

I have nothing worthy of selling. This option will not affect me in any way. 

 

And if i did i would just give it away since most of my knowledge is via other generous users. Just like some, i would love it to be mandatory, it will only serve to help me learn more.  But im just thinking of those who might like to participate but not open source their efforts. I just think this is a choice some people would like to make on their own. 

 

This is why i put it to a vote.

 

Most of this thread's discussion is spent more on this point than the topics of the challenge (which is at 1 person).

 

Please note, I wont be running this challenge. I made this vote as an indicator for people. If anyone feels differently, run a challenge/contest/competition the way you want it. There is nothing holding you back. There is no challenge/contest/competition i am aware of. This is all vapor. There is no plan. 

 

If you don't agree with the vote, then ignore it. Like i said i am no gatekeeper. 

[eetu]

I have nothing worthy of selling. This option will not affect me in any way. 

 

Yeah, sorry, this wasn't aimed at you in any way, just general sentiments I've wanted to air.

I appreciate the effort in trying to get these going, hope it takes on!

As for a topic, I think it might be fun to also try something pretty common, but try to collectively come up with as many ways of doing it as we can.

Could be educational, as there would probably be a couple of new ones for everyone

[eetu]

How about trying to duplicate these http://leegriggs.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/xgen-color/

It's easy to get some copysopping going, but takes some twiddling to get things looking that good

[Tom]

I agree to eetu, although its not the hardest thing to do, but it looks nice and at the same it can be challenging to add some artistic/techical twist to make it unique

 

+1 for the color thingy.

[Grucho]

+1 for the color thing for me as well!

[stevegh]

We should make it interesting if we are going against Arnold. Like check out this beautiful image with depth of field, blurred reflections, GI, and the render-time is 1 minute.

[Solitude]

We should make it interesting if we are going against Arnold. Like check out this beautiful image with depth of field, blurred reflections, GI, and the render-time is 1 minute.

 

There's no link. If it's from the page eetu sent out, did anybody see render times listed? Or were you suggesting we try to render our version in one minute?

Edited October 15, 2014 by Solitude