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On 12/03/2013 4:01 PM, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> Keep the brainstorming going folks! Some good suggestions given so far!
Yes that is true.
>
> We want to hear more!
>
Indeed!
I was going to wait a bit longer before replying but it is hard not to
comment, when what has been said so far, I agree with.
One of the big problems is the website administrator.
Thomas and I took over the administration (just super user rights) he
said that he would continue supporting it under the same conditions. But
for the last couple of years he has not invoiced us and seldom replies
to emails. So we are in a position where we are kind of stuck with what
we have got. We do not have the option of saying that we will take our
money elsewhere if he does not do what we ask.
Having said that, minor changes such as changing the timing of the
challenges should not be a big change, I hope.
So keep the ideas coming and we will see what is feasible to ask for.
BTW Does anyone have an idea what it would cost to get a similar site
designed, built and hosted?
--
Regards
Stephen
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I admit that my proposal to end TC after the "woman"-round was an intended
provocation. Much more I would like to see more entrants and more entries. And
I'm happy that we arrived at a discussion here at last. So I will put in my two
cents to it (heavily relying on leo.org with this translation).
Paolo was the first who proposed a longer time intervall. I really think this
would help but I will propose a quarter. A winter, a spring, a summer and an
autumn round. Sounds nice to me. And I think Normand can live with this too.
A thing which was ever adressed within the last discussions about TC and our
efforts to promote it are the topics. Paolo proposed no topics, but I think that
the topics are crucial to a contest. They are a starting point of ones
imagination and ensures that the pictures are comparable (may be in a strange
way). As I read Christians list of topics I was delighted but I think there are
a little bit too technical. May be there is a list between. Topics which proves
technical difficulties but gives artistical freedom too. Why does "blossoms" pop
up in my mind again? May be because this would be a topic between (and may be
because I like flowers). Is it possible to exchange the topic list easily? I
fear Colin has a say to this. I propose to generate a new list of topics. And
since I had a very "strange encounter" today, this topic should be added too. (A
bird has lost its (his? - was a male one) way into our office. Since it was
exhausted I was able to catch it very carefully by hand and let it free out of
the window (12th floor). Never thought that I would ever have a living white
wagtail at my palms. And I will remember this strange encounter a long while).
The programming of the TINA CheP Site is not bad. For example it offers the
opportunity to update a picture easily during a contest. That was not possibly
with the IRTC. The drewback is that one cannot give a source. Which was possible
with the IRTC. But since we are using software which only allow to share the
resulting pictures but not the sources heavily now (Poser e.g.) that issue is of
minor importance now IMO. We can still publish our technical inventions at the
p.b.s-f. The only disadvantage of the forum is, that one cannot place a picture
there directly. You can only post a link.
Best regards,
Michael
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MichaelJF wrote:
> Paolo was the first who proposed a longer time intervall. I really think this
> would help but I will propose a quarter.
it will probably give some people confidence they can spare enough
time in a quarter to finish a scene. On the other hand it doesn't help
those who are reluctant to begin a long term project, in a way it makes
that problem worse ;) Also it may raise expectations, you probably
wouldn't submit a work in progress to a 3 month contest.
I'm not sure if the current implementation easily allows this but
if the contests do not all have to be of the same length some shorter
"doodle" contests could be interspersed. Even if they run in parallel
they could be treated as consequtive contests by the website, e.g.
Jan 1st: Quarter topic announced
Jan 1st: Two week voting period for last quarter begins
Jan 15th: Last quarters winners announced
Jan 15th: One week doodle topic announced
Jan 15th: One week upload period for doodle topic begins
Jan 22nd: One week voting period for doodle contest begins
Feb 1st: Doodle topic winner announced
Feb 1st: Quarter topic upload period begins
Apr 1st: Goto Jan 1st (Renum + 3 months)
The main problem with a short doodle contest is probably that it
can simply fall in an inconvenient week (travelling or whatever),
but otherwise the hurdle for entry may be lower. Also, while the
topics and rules do not need to be as technical as I suggested I
still think for such a challenge they should be restraining, so
you spend your allotted evening rendering something and not
deciding what you could render ;)
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Christian Froeschlin <chr### [at] chrfr de> wrote:
Your ideas are fine, but I fear for this the website has to be renewed
completely. This could only be done by Colin, who seems to be a ghost last
years. Especially since he forgot to invoice. Since now only nine persons met
this discussion here. Adding Normand from the discussion at the TC-Forum we have
ten persons interested. That is not much. Only seven of them had entered the
competition so far. So why we want to have a competition?
The topics are generating ideas, but to speak for myself: I have a sketch-book
full of ideas for images. Some of them came from old IRTC topics but most from
things I experienced in RL or from my own imagination. So I don't need a contest
to generate ideas for images.
To speak a little bit in behalf of Normand. Sometimes he was accused here not
using POV, which is true. But as all I understood he uses a self-made
Java-Environment and Open-GL to render his pictures, which is still free
software and IMO the same as if he would use an other free 3D software like
Blender or may be AoI. So please do not blame him for this. No one seems to have
used AoI within TC so far, but there is at least one winner with a Blender
picture (Manuela with her wonderful "`Monsieur Dupont"'). As we POVers Normand
uses free software too. The only contributor to TC who uses professional
software is Ives (3 DS max which is some 3500 Euro licence fee if he had not a
campus licence).
But to come to a conclusion. Within more than a week now, only nine persons were
interested in this topic. That is not much. So I propose to await the results of
the "woman" round now. This is a very open topic and should yield a lot of
entries if the topic is really a reason. I decided to postpone my Freya idea a
bit and go for finishing my intended entry for the "Garden" round instead. So I
have to render occlusion maps for Ariadne herself, but Stephen will be pleaed by
it ;-)
If the "woman"-round yields only a small amount of entries, I would consider
ending the contest. What topic should yield more pictures? But the decision is
with Thomas and Stephen finally.
Best regards,
Michael
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Time maybe to give some kind of summary up of the comments so far, and
to give a personal view on the matter. I shall try to play the role of
the devil's advocate ;-)
So far, comments boil down to the following aspects (not in any
particular order):
1) The existence of any kind of competition/challenge like the defunct
IRTC or the present TC-RTC is valuable for stimulating creativity and
increasing POV skills. Other sites mentioned, not specifically
POV-related, are CGSphere and 3DRender.
2) Although participation is not strong and rather variable, most
commentators would be sad to see TC-RTC go.
3) It is felt that either the return time of challenges per year
(bi-monthly) should be longer (three-, four-, six-monthly) or that
deathlines should be extended/more overlapping, or a combination of both.
4) Alternatively (or in addition) short contests (weekly?) could be
considered to address specific topics.
5) In case of (3) more reminders should be posted.
6) The topic list should be overhauled, focussing less on book titles
(too abstract and/or confusing) and more on "simple" topics.
7) More interaction and/or user feedback needed.
8) The TC-RTC site itself: easy to update one's images but no
possibility to post source material. Site issues. Forum issues.
And now for my humble ideas on this.
sub 1 & sub 2) Yes, I agree. Participating is to challenge oneself to
use and improve learned skills, sometimes in areas where one would not
go easily. In that respect, I certainly would lament TC-RTC's demise.
However, while this may be true for most members, including those who
(almost) never participate (consider: TC-RTC has *159* live members to
date!) somehow only an extremely small percentage of the members do
actively participate. Already during the time of the first IRTC,
participation was dwindling slowly towards the end, and the short IRTC
revival never reached the old levels. So, something is bringing
participation down: RL, change/dispersion of focus/interest, boredom,
decreasing attention span, etc. Whatever the origin, it seriously
impacts on the credibility of the TC-RTC at present.
sub 3) Again, I agree. One of the major reasons why I am beginning to
feel tired with the TC-RTC Challenges is that I need to think of a new
scene every two months while I would prefer to go on with running
projects that have more appeal to me. The TC-RTC Challenges often
disrupt a train of thoughts/actions. I still participate because I often
feel that (as an admin)I need to help sustain the continuity of the
challenges. At the same time I get irritated because this has no
particular effect upon the submission bulk at all, or so I guess, and it
does not attract submissions from members who have never done so. In the
end, I fear that the Challenges are (wrongly) regarded as a strictly
private game between a select number of members.
Would this all be improved with fewer challenges? Four per year for
instance? I seriously doubt it, to tell the truth. I see no reason why
this would really stimulate more members to submit.
sub 4) This also means more work for the admins and the question is if
they are willing ;-)
sub 5) That is easy.
sub 6) I agree. I think that also a more comprehensive list could be
extracted from the book titles, bringing those to their essence as it
were. Remains the question of the site overhaul by Colin.
sub 7) Sure. However, the TC-RTC forum should be used for that. There is
the problem of the spam users (still) queuing up at the gate and I have
closed new admissions indefinitely, asking new members to contact the
admins if they want to also participate in the forum. To date, I have
/never/ seen any request from any member through that way. In addition,
to us Povers, the TC-RTC forum is a bit redundant of course, as we
communicate easily here.
sub 8) All depends on the site owner really.
To draw up my own conclusions, I would regret to see the TC-RTC go but I
am seriously considering the fact that it may have had its 'best' days
and that it is time to stop. Frankly, from the different suggestions, I
see no guarantee that participation numbers will suddenly go up as by
enchantment.
Thomas
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On 18-3-2013 10:03, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> sub 7) Sure. However, the TC-RTC forum should be used for that. There is
> the problem of the spam users (still) queuing up at the gate and I have
> closed new admissions indefinitely, asking new members to contact the
> admins if they want to also participate in the forum. To date, I have
> /never/ seen any request from any member through that way. In addition,
> to us Povers, the TC-RTC forum is a bit redundant of course, as we
> communicate easily here.
Interestingly, access to the forum is closed at this moment.
[quote]
anti hacker flood system, please wait some seconds and reload. sorry errn#90
please report on staff forum for investigation:
[/quote]
My impression is that for years, the forumup.co.uk site has serious
problems with their protection...
Thomas
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unavailability of the developer. We think that we have a work-around
which will not require any work in his part, as we do have some control
over the front page.
I propose that we abandon voting for a topic and the topic will be
run for. We could for instance start 2-month, 4-month and 6-month
challenges, and repeat that pattern at the end of the 6 months. We can
change the pattern randomly or make shorter or longer challenges. As
long as voting does not coincide for the challenges it will work.
As always, your comments are appreciated.
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Stephen wrote:
> As always, your comments are appreciated.
I think a good mix would be
1 week - doodle topic for people with commitment phobia
2 months - room for traditonalists
6 month - diligent scene builders with availability issues
I'm not quite sure how you intend to handle submissions with
multiple contests. I reckon the submission periods should not
overlap either? Depending on the constraints a 6 month pattern
could fit multiple shorter contests.
BTW: Do you have access to the data generated by the contests?
It sounds like the site is very much hanging on the goodwill of
an unknown entity and it would be too bad if all the images
will be lost at some point in the future without backup.
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On 24-3-2013 20:30, Christian Froeschlin wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
>
>> As always, your comments are appreciated.
>
> I think a good mix would be
>
> 1 week - doodle topic for people with commitment phobia
> 2 months - room for traditonalists
> 6 month - diligent scene builders with availability issues
The problem with 1 week is the "fixed" return period of 2 months for
each challenge. Assuming that we cannot make significant changes to the
site building, this would pose a problem.
6 months, imho, seems a bit too long. I am afraid people will forget
about it before the challenge is ended, rushing in during the last two
weeks to finish a scene started six months before but forgotten in
between. Personally, I would suggest 4 months as the longest challenge.
>
> I'm not quite sure how you intend to handle submissions with
> multiple contests. I reckon the submission periods should not
> overlap either? Depending on the constraints a 6 month pattern
> could fit multiple shorter contests.
This is a problem I thought of waking up suddenly this night. ;-) Not
sure how to solve that elegantly presently indeed.
>
> BTW: Do you have access to the data generated by the contests?
> It sounds like the site is very much hanging on the goodwill of
> an unknown entity and it would be too bad if all the images
> will be lost at some point in the future without backup.
Not sure. The data may disappear, but so did most of the IRTC data, or
am I wrong there? That data seems to be only partially available nowadays.
Thomas
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On 25/03/2013 8:24 AM, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>>
>> BTW: Do you have access to the data generated by the contests?
>> It sounds like the site is very much hanging on the goodwill of
>> an unknown entity and it would be too bad if all the images
>> will be lost at some point in the future without backup.
>
> Not sure. The data may disappear, but so did most of the IRTC data, or
> am I wrong there? That data seems to be only partially available nowadays.
To add to Thomas's answer. All members can access all images through the
Archives. But I have know idea if anyone has actually downloaded them. A
big job doing then one at a time.
I also thought that if we can talk the developer into converting the
animation section into another stills one. We could run two concurrent
challenges with different run times.
--
Regards
Stephen
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