[Ldraw-content] Forwarding thoughts about the MOTM/SOTM contest

[Timothy Gould]

Hi James,

On 10/17/06, James Reynolds <james at scl.utah.edu> wrote:
> I agree completely with Zack Best.  I have thought of entering the
> contest but the lack of focus results in a lack of interest, at least
> with myself.  Winning the contest right now doesn't say much.  There
> is no prestige.  Who knows who voted, or how many people voted, or
> who even looks at the winners.  I know I would die to win a contest
> over at cgsociety:
>
> http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=121

I agree that the quality and prestige of cgsociety contests is
enormous. But... I'd be willing to bet that most of the people who are
successful in those contests are professionals or hoping to become
professionals. There isn't nor will be an equivalent for ldraw. As I
said to Zach when he wrote to me the ldraw community is a niche within
a niche. Throw in rendering and we can add an extra layer of niche to
that. Whatever prestige there is will be amongst a very limited number
of people.

> The prestige that goes along with winning those awards speak
> volumes.  There needs to be someway to generate demand to win the
> contest.  Getting someone in the AFOL community who has prestige
> (Erik Sophie, Chris Giddens, etc) to enter the contest would make it
> prestigious.  Winning a real prize could just be a way to encourage
> someone like Chris Giddens to enter.

This sounds like you're pushing for a contest more along the lines of
a general building contest rather than LDraw. I'm not particularly
convinced that getting Chris or Eric in would add to the numbers (and
in Eric's case it could very easily decrease them). Most top builders
don't (and probably can't) use LDraw. Since most of them have huge
collections of bricks I don't see that they're ever likely to learn
just to enter a contest.

FBTB have a good series of contest running around themed builds
(R-wing, Voidfighter) which have proved popular with space and SW
builders alike but I suspect the number of entries has more to do with
the theme than anything else: between space and SW you have probably
half (at a guess based on the size of the membership of CSF and FBTB
as well as what is put on BS) of all AFOLs and TFOLs.

> One thing CGSociety does is that they have a forum and if a user wins
> an award, the award is listed on all of their posts in the forum.
> Maybe we could get Lugnet to support something similar.
>
> http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?threadid=179462

I do agree with this up to a point. I'm not sure how easy or hard it
is to add titles to lugnet though.

> And perhaps having users vote isn't the best approach either, but
> have a panel of "expert" judges.  This could also add to the
> prestige, because it means you have been judged by people with prestige.

I agree with this to some degree.

> Also, sometimes just looking at a model (what happens when the public
> votes) won't reveal significant defects in it that become apparent
> when the model is either built, printed as instructions, or animated
> (my pet peeve with most LDraw models is that they are built all wrong
> for animation).  How do you know if pieces are not snapped into place
> but just floating?  Someone needs to inspect the model.  It would be
> the panels responsibility to test these things.

Which is actually another point I forgot to mention when I listed my
reasons not to enter the MOTM competition. I don't know if I will be
competing with clean models (like I do my best to build) or with other
models which may be excellent but can't actually be built (and there
are quite a few people building this way and producing some top
quality unbuildable stuff).

> And a theme panel is especially appropriate for a themed contest
> because an expert space builder would have insight to truly ingenious
> space modeling, but perhaps not castle modeling.  So each theme could
> have its own specialists to judge the models.  In other words, get
> the non-LDraw castle folks to judge castle themed competitions, space
> folk space competitions, etc.

If we do themes then I agree. I think it would be good to get theme
"experts" to judge.

> And there seems to be a disconnect between the LDraw part and the MOC
> part of the competition.  What are these contests, MOC contests in
> the LDraw medium, or LDraw contests of MOC's?  There is a difference
> that I think is significant yet not addressed.  The difference is
> more obvious when thinking of the scene contest.  Is it a MOC contest
> in the ray-tracer medium, or is it a ray-tracer contest showing MOC's?

I don't see a problem here. The SOTM competition is essentially a
free-for-all graphics competition based around Lego whilst MOTM has
the rendering element removed since it is done at the ldraw.org end.

> Here is another way of putting it.  There are ton's of SUPER MOC's
> out there made by AFOL who have built up a reputation of quality
> building, but they don't use LDraw.  If those people made LDraw
> models of their MOC's, they could easily win every contest hands
> down.  And there are tons of SUPER POV-Ray users out there who don't
> use LDraw.  If they did and imported the objects into POV-Ray, they
> could build background scenes that again, nobody could challenge.

But there isn't and probably never will be a reason for them to start.
There is no way that LDraw competitions will ever be as prestigious as
real brick ones because too many people have an animosity towards it.
The amount of criticism I used to get on CSF (and still do to a lesser
extent) is extraordinary. Look at point 1) here
(http://fbtbforums.net/viewtopic.php?p=223624&sid=b5909870de9ea024caf8e5c2f3d8ef08#223624)
and see the comments of a long term and quite respected AFOL (Dave
Eaton). The only theme which seems relatively accepting of CAD seems
to be trains.

> And to complicate matters more, Mladen, IMO, could win every month if
> he submitted his models.  Again, this goes to show the disconnect.
> Why isn't he submitting his models?  He is both a genius MOC builder
> AND an LDraw user!

Mladen hasn't built anything for a very long time and isn't likely to
in the near future due to his studies. He's not a renderer either so
although his stuff is amazing and very well modelled he's not likely
to be entering the SOTM any time soon.

> And personally, I know the idea behind the simple unappealing model
> renders is to make them fair, but they are not fun to look at.  I
> think they need to be ray traced with complimentary scenes and
> lighting.  And it wouldn't hurt to have 360 degree spins of the
> models, and maybe even take apart spins too.  Again, I think this
> will increase the prestige.

I agree with this point but it ends up being a lot of work for the
people running it. I recently had to coordinate a set of standard
render settings for a large group of people and farming out is not so
easy and ends up taking a fair amount of time for each model.

> I know LDraw is very small compared to CGSociety, but there are
> certainly many active Lego AFOL's who have the ability to submit some
> fantastic works if they had the motivation.  And there is TLG.  I'm
> not sure if they would want to share some of their prestige, but who
> knows.  And I know when Tim C. was working on LPrize he had some
> significant backing (although for a  different type of contest, it
> just goes to show that getting prestigious or financial backing for
> real prizes isn't impossible).  His contest was a significant
> motivation behind the PCS dogfight animation I created.  And it was
> shown on TV.  That prestige thing again...

TLG might be willing to donate some prizes in exchange for something I
have put forward to the SteerCo. I will look into this.

> Is 2 months enough time for some types of MOCs (capital ships...)?
> And judging should not begin until the submission deadline.  This is
> a huge problem IMO.

I have my doubts that having a capital ship as a theme is going to get
many entries. I know that I wouldn't be likely to bother. It's simply
too much time to spend for a competition.

> And there needs to be a way to handle models that don't win.  Do they
> stay in the competition indefinitely?  What if model A is an
> exceptional model, but someone submits model B, which is absolutely
> ingenious and wins hands down.  But the next month, nothing is
> submitted that even comes close to model A from the month before?
> Should model A have stayed in the competition (and thus won)?  I
> believe I have actually seen this happen in the contests in the past
> (where a previous month's submission lost but was better than the
> next month's submissions).  A themed contest would partially solve
> this.  Another solution is honorable mentions (not a required award,
> but only if it is deemed exceptional).

I think the idea of Hon Mentions is good. If a model can be
resubmitted then I would allow it to be.

> And the scene contests.  People use all kinds of different rendering
> techniques.  What about using Anton Raves' POV-Ray library?  Would
> those qualify if the original scene/models were created in LDraw?
> What if they weren't?  Would it still qualify?  What if I port LDraw
> models to Blender and then Maya and use RenderMan to render it, or
> what if I modify the models in ways that are impossible in LDraw or
> POV-Ray, like deforming minifigs into life like positions or using
> volumetrics or other effects that are really difficult in POV-Ray?

As far as I see it (and certainly how I'd prefer it) I think the SOTM
should just be anything goes provided it is a Lego model. The judges
or voters can decide how much Lego is Lego enough.

> And yet, if those things are allowed, then they should also be part
> of the judging.  For example, a scene that uses fog poorly should be
> docked.  What if someone works hours and hours developing their own
> light effects, and someone else just uses the POV-Ray lens flare
> macro?  Are these taken into consideration?  This provides further
> evidence that the scene contest is too unfocused.  It needs some sort
> of guidelines to take these variables into account.

I don't think either should be judged on POV-Ray technical merit but
on quality of the scene. Otherwise you are measuring people's
patience, research skills and computing access rather than the model
and layout of the scene. If people are really interested in
complicated rendering then they can enter a "proper" raytracing
competition.

> In a way, the scene competition is really the "publicly judged" one
> (vs judged by a panel), because it seems that anything goes in it,
> and the winner is the one who appeals to the visual senses most.

Completely agree.

> And I can never find the link to see the submissions and vote.  After
> a few minutes I remember that I need to login.  Which gives me the
> link to vote.  Which leads to a very empty page with a link to vote
> on something having nothing to do with the contest.  This may annoy
> new comers (and since the contest hasn't been held for a while,
> really everyone is a new comer).

Yes. I think the voting system isn't satisfactory either.

> Ok, I've been editing this email for grammar for way too long and
> every time through it keeps doubling in size.  I guess I feel
> strongly about this.  I'll just have to live with any errors.  So if
> there is a sentence half written or something that doesn't make sense
> somewhere above, you know why.  I'll stop now....  O:)

Nothing wrong with a lot of points.

> I like the idea of the contests.  But I think they could use a lot of
> improvement, mainly focus like Zack said, and focus on making it a
> prestigious contest.
> James

I see focusing it as an option. I see focusing on prestige as a fast
road to disappointment.

Tim