Investing in GoW production

[matthornb]

Okay, I've taken another look and realized quickly (duh) that in this thread we've linked to three different editions of the same book.

"3d Game Textures" - 1st Edition, 2nd Edition, and a Kindle version.

Hmmm...

I'm looking at prize options for the contest. I'm kind of busy today, but will try to post the second batch of textures when I can.

[Jennifer_P]

Jennifer_P, May 15th is your birthday? Interesting - I didn't know that when I chose the date!

A good omen, no? ;D

BTW, Jennifer, if you want to be a tutorial judge, I'd welcome your involvement in that way. But if you don't want to, that's okay too.

Well, I'll have to see how it goes--see, I lost disc 1 of Uru:CC, so I can't even play any fan made Ages at the moment. If it turns up by then, and I have time, I'll do it.

Anyway, any further thoughts on texture books, texture packs?
Only this...If a lot of people start modeling in 3dsmax, they might find some of the non-free plugins for it useful. A thought for later.

[matthornb]

Sorry you lost your disc, Jennifer.

Hopefully the fan-made ages will become available in MO:ULagain soon, though.



BTW, here's the prize list I'm planning to give out. It's a little bigger than I'd planned on initially; the total value of the prizes is about $200.

4th place: Blender for Dummies

3rd place: Mastering Blender, $5 Amazon.com gift card

2nd place: Creating the Art of the Game, Blender for Dummies, $10 Amazon.com gift card.

1st place: 3d Game Textures (2nd Edition), Mastering Blender, $15 Amazon.com gift card.


There you have it - prizes have been announced. Gift cards will be sent via email, books by snail mail. The entries are due by May 15th, 2010.

A judging panel and judging systems will be worked out by that date in this thread, and the judging process will be completed by the end of May, at which point I'll send the prizes wherever the winners opt to have them sent.

As for the texture pack, I aim to have it uploaded here in the next few hours.

[matthornb]

Okay, here's the second batch of tileable textures:

http://www.triumphantartists.com/texturepack2.zip

It's a smaller pack than the first one.

[I.Brattin]

Okay, here's the second batch of tileable textures:

http://www.triumphantartists.com/texturepack2.zip

It's a smaller pack than the first one.

A couple morbid sounding textures in that pack. Bonecracked, Brains, Flesh.

[matthornb]

Yeah, those ones are kind of morbid, I know, and yes, disgusting. But I can definitely imagine them being useful for something.

Organic textures can be kind of... nasty. You can filter them any way you want to; I can definitely imagine people shifting the hue settings on some of these flesh surfaces to other colors to create weird blue/green/yellow-green organic surfaces that look like alien plant life.

How many times have we seen skeletons in Uru? The Whark skeleton in the Cleft, bones in Eder Gira, the Teledahn slave caves, the bone structure in Minkata? So bone textures are useful for Uru, as far as I can tell - as are weird organic surfaces like the "brain trees" in Eder Kemo or all sorts of other odd surfaces.

Kahlo, in the shots we've seen, looked a bit like - well, a maze of decayed whale carcasses or something. And I've seen a thread in these GoW forums that is about making a "scary" age - dark, creepy, howling wind, red lights, creaking sounds, and strange or otherwise unnerving imagery. Like Tetsonot, only larger and more disturbing.

In any case, the theme of most of these two texture packs was "organic surfaces". That meant plant parts, animal parts, food surfaces, skin, clay, bark, etc, and sometimes the kind of stuff that's "icky".

Probably if I do more texture packs after this I'll shift to other types of surfaces for a while - possibly geologic, metallic, etc.

There were some wood and metal and stone and sky textures in the first pack, and I'll probably do some more with those themes next, that and some more wood, maybe a little more organics - more fur textures, plants, and fungi/mushroom surfaces/mold/moss/lichen - some organic surfaces I haven't done yet.

I'm trying to assemble a third texture pack. Tell you all what, I'll work on that - but I'll only release it once there are at least five tutorials submitted for the contest.

Which leads us back on topic - the contest.

I'm serious about the contest, everyone. I'm surprised there hasn't been more response about that.

I just announced $200 in prizes. No comment about that? None? That's a bit puzzling, a bit disconcerting.

I'm just really hoping some of you will step up and start working on tutorials that I can award prizes for.

I really would like to see some good tutorials! Blender tutorials, Python tutorials, tutorials explaining the new 3ds max plugin, etc - I'd love to see some tutorials posted here!

You have until May 15th to turn in your tutorials. I'm hoping you will get started on them soon.

[dendwaler]

Big chance that half of the community won't read this thread!
I advice you to make a new thread on the appropiate place(s), where you announce your competition, with an introduction and perhaps a link to this thread.
You might consider to even announce it elsewhere (not only on this forum) to get a bigger audiance.
I hope it will be sucsesfull and many thx for all your effort in this.

[I.Brattin]

Yeah I would suggest advertising, at GoMe, GoMa, UO, Myst Online, wherever else you can think of.

[dendwaler]

There are 47 replys on this thread and about 800 views,.
So only about 15 to 20 members of GOW at the most ,have seen this announcement.
There are about 20.000 Moulagain players!
Go on an advertise it.

I agree with Brattin that the guild of messengers is the first you should inform.
Have an interview with Shark, he knows how how to announce it to a broad public !
The contest is a great item for next Gome newspaper.

Let him know of your investments, Cooperate with him.

[Leonardo]

Approved the news at the GoMe
Unfortunately Szark has stepped down from many tasks on the GoMe due to recent problems and frustration. The Newspaper is on hold too, due to the lack of a team to develop it.
However don't worry, the GoMe is tring to find new fresh members, the News keep flowing on the Internet and we've expanded to Facebook, Twitter and the Cavern itself with the CavernCriers.

I can post on the major forums (many on this list, I'm not registered to all) if you want and the news will also be translated by our translators.