Is it just me, or has the overall quality of IRTC entries dropped 
significantly in recent months?

Browsing the current round's viewing page, I'm seing some 
thrown-together entries, which were obviously tossed together in a 
modeller in haste (of course, you'd never know how they were created.)

Okok, the contest is open to all, and I haven't exactly put together 
some stellar images, but I really question the amount of effort an image 
has taken when there's no mention of tools, renderer, modeller, or even 
descriptive text, not to mention the description of how the image was made.

Honestly, I'm thankful I can't vote this round. I would have had an 
exteme temptation to "slap" some of the images.

To me, the IRTC has always been about putting your best effort 
forward... That's most of the reason why I enter only infrequently, 
because I don't have ideas, or I cannot commit any real effort!

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> Browsing the current round's viewing page, I'm seing some 
> thrown-together entries, which were obviously tossed together in a 
> modeller in haste (of course, you'd never know how they were created.)

Well, lots of them seem to be school entries. Even on those that aren't,
there are a shocking number of comments of the form "I didn't really
have time to finish this one off", where it shows in the picture.

There are only so many points you can give to a couple of boxes with
standard Bryce textures on a standard Bryce background. OK, they may be
children, so I can't be too harsh, but you wouldn't expect a school
English class to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize either (well,
except in my primary school, where we ran our own Booker Prize), so you
wouldn't expect them to do well in a contest populated by world-class CG
artists either.

The difference between the best entries, the good entries, and the
scribbles is of epic proportions, one might say.

btw, I think I might have lost this one... there are at least six
entries better than mine.

Daniel

-- 
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Nobody knew from time to time                You can beat us with chains
If the plans had changed         You can run out your rules but you know
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"Mike Raiford" <mra### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:40ead9cb@news.povray.org...
> Is it just me, or has the overall quality of IRTC entries dropped
> significantly in recent months?
>

as a long time spectator of irtc, i agree. in Epic proportions, there were a
lot of images that may have been more appropriate as a "my first image" in a
relevant forum. Of course, there were good images and interesting
interpretations as well. Maybe the springtime isn't the best for irtc?

If i can make a broad statement, i was disappointed in the generally
uninteresting interpretations of the theme, with some notable exceptions. I
think i am going to enter this round, but we'll see. i don't want to submit
garbage, nor do I want to submit something common and dull. i had many more
ideas for Epic Proportions pop into my head than Desert.

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> Is it just me, or has the overall quality of IRTC entries dropped
> significantly in recent months?

It's not just you. I noticed the same trend.

The real question is... how can we change that? Is there any way?

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Mike Raiford wrote:

> To me, the IRTC has always been about putting your best effort 
> forward... That's most of the reason why I enter only infrequently, 
> because I don't have ideas, or I cannot commit any real effort!
> 
That's the only real answer.  It only takes one great image to raise the 
quality.  If not you, who?

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Jim Charter wrote:

> Mike Raiford wrote:
> 
>> To me, the IRTC has always been about putting your best effort 
>> forward... That's most of the reason why I enter only infrequently, 
>> because I don't have ideas, or I cannot commit any real effort!
>>
> That's the only real answer.  It only takes one great image to raise the 
> quality.  If not you, who?

I see what you mean.  20 entries w no description; about a third of the 
total.  Almost certainly a class or something. Since there seems to be 
an unusual number of female names in teh group.  Nothing really wrong 
with that though.

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Program ended abnormally on 06/07/2004 18:48, Due to a catastrophic Jim Charter 
error:
> Jim Charter wrote:
> 
> 20 entries w no description; about a third of the total.
 > Almost certainly a class or something. Since there seems to be
> an unusual number of female names in teh group.  Nothing really wrong 
> with that though.

I think it's pretty obvious by now that we have a class participating in the 
IRTC*.  For the last few rounds there been a bunch of images on the same theme 
(this time it's buildings) with little or no comments in the accompanying files.

I don't think this is a problem.  Although the quality of those images might be 
below what we've come to expect from some IRTC regulars, it doesn't hurt to have 
more participants.  Think about it, if that class wasn't there, there would only 
be about 50 participants.  On top of it, one or two of them might decide to 
continue participating in future rounds and his or herskills might improve.

* On the other hand, it might be someone "diluting" the vote with a bunch of low 
quality entries.  But I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt.

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   videotron.ca  */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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Francois Labreque <fla### [at] videotronca> wrote:
> I think it's pretty obvious by now that we have a class participating in the
> IRTC*.  For the last few rounds there been a bunch of images on the same theme
> (this time it's buildings) with little or no comments in the accompanying files.

Yes, and they're all using bryce & rhino, and the image size is always the
bryce default.  The no description in file is annoying, if this is an
assignment it would be nice if the teacher also required them to spend a
couple of minutes writing a textfile.

> Although the quality of those images might be below what we've come to
> expect from some IRTC regulars, it doesn't hurt to have more participants.
> Think about it, if that class wasn't there, there would only be about 50
> participants.

Provided they aren't driving the regulars away in disgust...  This is the
third or fourth time someone has commented on the "lower standards".


> On top of it, one or two of them might decide to
> continue participating in future rounds and his or herskills might improve.

True, already a few have made repeat entries, a couple of them actually show
some sense of composition, and have gotten away from the stock bryce
textures and skies, and started experimenting on their own.  Having made my
own first forays into 3d with bryce, I know that bryce's deep texture
editor is intimidating for a beginner. Those ones I tend to encourage with
my scores and comments.

RG

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I'm a bit irritated too, but it's mostly due to the IRTC management 
rather than the entries quality. I can't stand waiting days and weeks 
for every single step in the voting process, so I decided to stop 
putting my efforts in this competition until something happens. Of 
course, I'm not personnally a big loss, but this might be true for good 
people too like Gille, Jaime and so many others ?

When the good entrants don't participate the global quality lowers, it's 
mecanical. IMHO having some basic images in the competition is not 
really the problem, they are here for the promotion of raytracing, the 
real problem is the little number of high quality images.

JC

Mike Raiford wrote:
> Is it just me, or has the overall quality of IRTC entries dropped 
> significantly in recent months?
> 
> Browsing the current round's viewing page, I'm seing some 
> thrown-together entries, which were obviously tossed together in a 
> modeller in haste (of course, you'd never know how they were created.)
> 
> Okok, the contest is open to all, and I haven't exactly put together 
> some stellar images, but I really question the amount of effort an image 
> has taken when there's no mention of tools, renderer, modeller, or even 
> descriptive text, not to mention the description of how the image was made.
> 
> Honestly, I'm thankful I can't vote this round. I would have had an 
> exteme temptation to "slap" some of the images.
> 
> To me, the IRTC has always been about putting your best effort 
> forward... That's most of the reason why I enter only infrequently, 
> because I don't have ideas, or I cannot commit any real effort!
> 
> 
> 


-- 
http://exether.free.fr/irtc (more IRTC stats !)

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Hi Mike,

glad, that you mentioned this. I formerly adored the artwork shown in the
IRTC. But after a short pause (of five years indeed), it ist obvious to me,
how far the overall quality dropped.

You're absolutely right.

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