Ten years ago, Steve Paget took the initiative to launch the TC-RTC as a 
– temporary – replacement for the IRTC, after a vivid discussion by 
concerned participants to the legendary defunct competition. During 
those ten years, we have witnessed the much regretted and untimely death 
of Steve in 2010, but also a succession of successful competitions, or 
challenges as Steve preferred to call them, yielding some of the most 
striking examples of computer graphics generated images.

When Stephen and I took over in 2010, we did not expect to be still 
here, ten years after the first competition. We have seen some 
fluctuations in the enthusiasm and readiness to contribute new work to 
the challenges. Indeed, the concept introduced by Steve for using book 
titles as competition headers has often been met with some confusion. 
Maybe we should have innovated at some time but we were keen to continue 
Steve's work and in his spirit.

However, after seven years of running the TC-RTC site, Stephen and I 
have come to the decision that we do not want to continue indefinitely. 
So we have decided to call it a day and to close down the site in the 
course of 2017. The times have changed and we do not expect that anyone 
is ready to take over our job and instil new life in the TC-RTC but if 
anybody feels the urge to do just that, he or she is welcome to contact us.

There is however, an alternative to the TC-RTC in the making. Normand 
Brière, aka DrNo, a stalwart member and participant of the TC-RTC, has 
already launched and alternative forum 
[http://dev.noware.ca/index.php/en-us/forums/tc-rtc ] replacing the 
troubled TC-RTC one [http://tinachepforum.forumup.co.uk/]. He is 
planning to launch a new competition site when the current TC-RTC closes 
down. More information on that later. The current TC-RTC forum will 
remain active for the time being to enable comments and questions. 
However, it will be closed down later this year, and before the TC-RTC site.

The timetable for the remaining challenges in 2017 is as follows:

Challenge 1: After the current challenge, one last challenge will be 
proposed, running from May till August. *Remember that there are still 
two months left for the current challenge 'Anniversary'!*

Challenge 2: Three challenges of two months each will be proposed, 
ending in August.

In September, both challenges will stop. However, the site will remain 
up till the end of the year at least.

Remains for us to thank you all for your commitment and support.


Thomas and Stephen

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Am 06.03.2017 um 09:32 schrieb Thomas de Groot:

> In September, both challenges will stop. However, the site will remain
> up till the end of the year at least.

Will there be someone archiving the site?

Post a reply to this message

On 3/6/2017 12:53 PM, clipka wrote:
> Am 06.03.2017 um 09:32 schrieb Thomas de Groot:
>
>> In September, both challenges will stop. However, the site will remain
>> up till the end of the year at least.
>
> Will there be someone archiving the site?
>

Normand might, he has been archiving the forum.
That is why the site is being kept open until the end of the year. So 
that members can download their own images.
The link below used to go to an index where you could select which 
member's portfolio you wanted to view or download. But now it goes to my 
profile By going into the Archive section you can download the images by 
year and Challenge.

http://www.tc-rtc.co.uk/portfolio/index.html

I don't think that there is any point in asking the Dev because he 
answers when and if he feels like it. A major reason why I no longer 
feel like carrying on with it.



-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> Am 06.03.2017 um 09:32 schrieb Thomas de Groot:
>
> > In September, both challenges will stop. However, the site will remain
> > up till the end of the year at least.
>
> Will there be someone archiving the site?


The "Noware" website (http://dev.noware.ca) has all the infrastructure to do so.
However, it cannot assume that all members actually agree with such a migration.
So one solution is to invite people to upload (again) their pictures in the
proper group (round) of the Tina Chep's profile and/or in the picture gallery
corresponding category.

We expect to host to completely new rendering challenge called "Noa of Arc" to
make clear that it is not a continuation of "Tina Chep". The TC-RTC was a
replacement, not a continuation of IRTC, so NoA is meant to take over TC with
similar rules, but completely different administration.


Normand

Post a reply to this message

On 3/6/2017 8:09 PM, Normand Briere wrote:
> We expect to host to completely new rendering challenge called "Noa of Arc" to
> make clear that it is not a continuation of "Tina Chep". The TC-RTC was a
> replacement, not a continuation of IRTC, so NoA is meant to take over TC with
> similar rules, but completely different administration.


And with our blessing.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

For your information: The forum [http://tinachepforum.forumup.co.uk/ 
seems to be (temporarily?) online again.

-- 
Thomas

Post a reply to this message

> I don't think that there is any point in asking the Dev because he
> answers when and if he feels like it. A major reason why I no longer
> feel like carrying on with it.
>
>
>
> --
>
> Regards
>      Stephen

Sad, but expected news somehow. If one could convince the Dev to allow bots for
the TC-RTC-site the archiving would be no problem. In this case the site would
be archived by the internet archive automatically, but is visible to Google too,
a trade off.

@Normand: Yes, it cannot be assured that every entrant will have his images at
the new site. But it would be convenient, to give you a general permission to
copy the data to your site. I would like to do so, to save the time to upload
all my poor content again.

And last: if a new site will be created, the voting system should be questioned.
E.g. since all software is allowed, the technical voting makes no sense to me.
An effect you can create with Blender at ease may be a real challenge with POV
(e.g. particle systems in this special comparison).

Best regards,
Michael

Post a reply to this message

> @Normand: Yes, it cannot be assured that every entrant will have his images at
> the new site. But it would be convenient, to give you a general permission to
> copy the data to your site. I would like to do so, to save the time to upload
> all my poor content again.


Yes Michael, you are right, and I also thought about it. One way could
collect all user permissions and perform automatic extraction for these
users only. The email address is the key for this. If "support" receives
a confirmation from a user, we can transfer all the images of the TC_RTC
member corresponding to the email address the request has been sent from.

However, there are many destinations for transferring the pictures: the
user profile (private, no round), the Tina Chep profile (public, one group
per round), the picture gallery user category (private, no round), and/or
the public picture gallery round category.

The upcoming challenges will use the picture gallery structure (e.g.
http://dev.noware.ca/index.php/en-us/picture-gallery/public/noa).

> And last: if a new site will be created, the voting system should be questioned.
> E.g. since all software is allowed, the technical voting makes no sense to me.

The current rating system does not allow for more than one vote per image.
So the appreciation is simply one value from 1 to 20 overall with no category.
It makes things plain and simple.


Normand

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