Jump to content

2009 3D Awards Update - Feedback Required


Jeff Mottle
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 51
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I don't think he would tell you in writing. It's not worth being accused of slander or anything like that. Besides, the point here is that we can't trust ourselves to do a community vote. I bet there are many others that did the same thing. It just seems that one of them was too damn arrogant about it. Maybe they were from Illinois? ....Just Kidding of course. Florida is probably worse ;)

 

Ok. Before this thread starts getting completely sidetracked. Does anyone have anything else to add about the awards? What about prizes? Should there be any or should there just be some nice statues for the winners? What did they get last time?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you do prizes, perhaps I think it could be better handled if you tied it in with Vismasters and award VMpoints redeemable for purchases. I see a lot of competitions where the prizes are software, hardware, and plugins that we already have, or don't want. It would be nice to have some selection capability upon wining.

 

But then again I don't see anything wrong with just statues.

Edited by BrianKitts
Link to comment
Share on other sites

when and where will the awards be held next year jeff, are you at liberty to disclose?

 

I believe prior notice would really raise the bar and quality of submissions quite a bit.

 

The awards ceremony will be held at the Mundos Digitales Conference again in La Coruna, Spain. http://www.mundosdigitales.org/ There many be a preview of the entries at the VisMasters DMVC this coming April in San Francisco, but that has not been confirmed yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you do prizes, perhaps I think it could be better handled if you tied it in with Vismasters and award VMpoints redeemable for purchases. I see a lot of competitions where the prizes are software, hardware, and plugins that we already have, or don't want. It would be nice to have some selection capability upon wining.

 

But then again I don't see anything wrong with just statues.

 

The award, like last year, will likely be a free or subsidized trip to Mundos Digitales to attend the awards ceremony. This still has to be discussed with the organizers though. With the added categories, the budget for travel will have to be split differently. More to come on that in the coming months.

 

As far as VM points, that certainly is an option that I can explore. There will, as always, be physical awards handed out. The awards that have been given out for the last 3 or 4 years have been $350 handblown crystal awards.

 

I dropped the mass of software and hardware prizes last year as it was a nightmare to coordinate and I found myself following up on prizes for months after the competition. Also, the award providers were getting a great deal of exposure and would not help support the site financially for the remainder of the year. When we created the awards packages last year we premised prize donations with mandatory site advertising. As you saw (no software/hardware prizes), so when it comes down to it most are in it for a free ride. Those who you see advertising on the site througout the year(s) are the ones who pay our bills and the salaries of the people who work on the site. They are what keeps CGA alive.

 

Historically the 3D awards component has never had any prizes, as the clout of winning should be enough. The fact a company was willing to cheat to win, does say something about their value. Also, many past winners' careers have taken new paths as well. Tianyi Zhu, whom you will all recall from BHAA in China, now works as a creative director in dbox's new Amsterdam office. Gus Capote, now works for Neoscape. Others have received a lot more contract work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IThose who you see advertising on the site througout the year(s) are the ones who pay our bills and the salaries of the people who work on the site. They are what keeps CGA alive.

 

Wait....you have people? I was under the impression you were a one-man powerhouse capable of anything and everything!:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wait....you have people? I was under the impression you were a one-man powerhouse capable of anything and everything!:)

 

Haha. Well sort of. I have a sales person, Karen Popp. The rest is still all me :) Karen closes all of the advertisers though. There are some things that are best left to the professionals.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

With one award I won I got a small cash prize - but I was really encouraged to come to the awards to pick it up. I went down and it was great and good fun but honestly the cash was a mixed thing it was nice and paid for the trip but not something that I felt comfortable disclosing to clients. Now if I had been given the same amount as a package deal just to arrive I would have been happy.

 

I don't know how the judges would feel about that but hey I love to travel and I would rather see the event than get paid.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, to help pay for the travel costs for judges to vote on the images and animations in person, we are seriously considering implementing a small fee per submission. Please post your thoughts. The intent in implementing such a fee, which is widely used in other similar competitions, is to ensure people only submit their best work, rather than entire portfolios, and to enable judges to devote dedicated time to select the best entries. The fee will likely be somewhere in the neighborhood of $5-25 per entry if implemented.

 

Why do the judges have to judge the entries in person?

 

I like how Ballistic Publishing handles their "weeding" out the entries process for their books. Not sure how involved that is, but it seams nice and official.

 

Also, to ensure only the best work is submitted rather than entire portfolios, what about simply limiting the number of entries to five?

 

Free entry is nice. I most likely will not submit if there is a fee as high as mentioned earlier.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why do the judges have to judge the entries in person?

 

I like how Ballistic Publishing handles their "weeding" out the entries process for their books. Not sure how involved that is, but it seams nice and official.

 

Also, to ensure only the best work is submitted rather than entire portfolios, what about simply limiting the number of entries to five?

 

Free entry is nice. I most likely will not submit if there is a fee as high as mentioned earlier.

 

As I've been a Ballistic judge a number of times, I can tell you how it works. Once all of the entries are submitted the internal staff vet the images and narrow the entries (from 100's to 1000's) down to a few hundred at most. Usually around 100. Then the judges are sent an online form where they select their top 10-20 and sort them from best to worst. The internal staff then review these and decide which images will be published. Most is based on overall judges rankings, but some do get chosen for format, how well they print, and what will fit into the book.

 

This is not too dissimilar from how we did it in the beginning. There is something to be said for judging in person though. Rather than leaving it up to the internal staff I think it's better to have judges "fight" for the images they believe should be at the top, when there may not be a consensus. This way the merits and image itself can be debated. This is how the ASAI does all of their awards. At the very least, I want to do a live virtual meeting with the judges to ensure the top selections are not by default. Although it sometimes happens, there is not always a consensus for who should win first place. In most cases there might be only 3 out of 10 who rank a particular image first. But if that is the most votes a single image gets then, it wins first. I've never seen an image yet done by independent voting where an image wins by majority.

 

It would be great if I could find judges who would not require payment and would ensure they make the time to vote on time, but that has yet to happen (with a few exceptions). I think the only way to ensure time is dedicated is to pay them, which means a small fee to submit. I'll probably give a free image or two for veteran forum members with x posts. That would be you. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

:( I like old AVC ...

 

Me too, but I want to leave on a high note. I don't want to sacrafice the time and difficulty for this competition, but in most cases it's simply too much time for people to fit into their schedules.

 

I think the 3D awards properly altered will still work well. If there were a mission statement for the awards and competitions it would be "to recognize outstanding talent in the industry, and highlight them in a way that will bring recognition to the art of visualization and to the individuals who win the awards."

 

I have a number of ideas for the 3d awards that I've not yet mentioned that will still bring a lot of recognition to those who submit entries. And not neccesarily those who end up winning the competition either. Similar to what the AVC did. More on that later. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a number of ideas for the 3d awards that I've not yet mentioned that will still bring a lot of recognition to those who submit entries. And not neccesarily those who end up winning the competition either. Similar to what the AVC did. More on that later. ;)

 

oooooo...sounds all too excitng!! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that there must be some sort of categorization as in most architecture, art, and as said here - visualization competitions.

 

I was part of of the planning committee for an architecture/urban design competition that turned out very successful. What we did was make the entrants apply to a specific category therefore narrowing down the labor of the judges and forcing the entrants to focus their talent, energy, and resources into a very narrow field. That is not to be said that there can't be an "award of excellence" or two/three/four for overall masterful articulation of the medium, subject, and intent that trumps the specific category.

 

I also feel that including "feature" length items into the animation category sidesteps the issues of what this craft is about. With such a category, you are dealing with millions of dollars of budget and armies of expert artists... not that on a talent-per-talent basis we (arch-viz artists) can't compete, it's just that the intent of the art is different. I'm thinking more along the lines of the early Kosinski stuff like Desert House and Apple.Ispec that used the elements of architecture (space, light, color, materiality, etc) as a primary device to push the communicative envelope. I also feel that although some of the talent present here has bridged into other markets such as games and advertising, and although that work may be beautiful, it is not relevant to arch-viz and therefore should not be included. Since many of the games, adverts use elements of architecture ~ there is obviously much room for discussion ;)

 

...Let's not forget the students.

 

edit: I also recommend a discrete judging in lieu of public polling.

Edited by tecton3d
Link to comment
Share on other sites

very interesting tread. I myself barely have time to enter into competition like this. I am very design driven and feel some of the best 3d work derives from good design in any field. If I have to pick an exquisite bathroom rendering I see everyday or an unique exquisite rendering, I would chose the latter. I also feel the animation catagory is wide open. What I mean is whenever I see or produce an animation, I want it to be "best of the best" and not everyone in the visualization field has the capability/resources to do that.

 

keep the catagories simple and direct and hopefully will encourage some very good entries:

 

1. exterior rendering - view from exterior

2. interior rendering - view from interior

3. animation short - approximately 1 min. achievable high standard by the 1-2 persons producer. also a nice little niche of animation here.

4. animation full - open to all. full blown. if you are a 1 person producer and feels you can compete with the big fish please do enter.

 

And yes of course have to pay discreet judging for winner with prize reward.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow.....where to start.....?

 

The original awards which started the whole thing off were the 3D awards at the 3D festival in Copenhagen back in ermmm 2000. Originally we had statuettes for these but no software etc, then with the demise of 3DF, CGA took these over for the architectural and design professions, and Ballastic started the whole Masters thing in Expose along similar lines (more or less the same categories and judges!). Both of these used an intial vetting process to get the sometimes 1000s of entries down to around 50-100. Then the judges would meet physically in one place and hammer out the placings - usually this was at an FX House so that the winners could be comped into a showreel for the awards event.

 

My take on categories is that if these are going to expand from best still and best animation there are two or three ways to go:

 

The first would be on the basis of purpose eg. design presentation image, planning image, marketing image etc.

 

The second would be techniques eg. out of the box software(the main ones only?), individual rendering packages (the main ones only?), photomontage, non-photoreal renderings, cutaways etc.

 

Another category might be building types eg. residential, commercial, public (museums), healthcare, engineering (bridges), masterplanning etc.

 

From a judging perspective, I'm not fussed about getting paid if the logistics of viewing all the entries don't take up too much time. It would be nice as a judge to attend the awards and meet the winners ;) But this obviously increases the overheads of the awards at the cost of the entrants.

 

I'm not sure about rules of entry, from an entrants point of view there should probably be a limit on number of entries and a time constraint on when they were finished (ie. they should probably have been done in the last 18 months). Individual artists should be attributed rather than studios I think? Perhaps studios should have their own awards for innovation and consistency?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure about rules of entry, from an entrants point of view there should probably be a limit on number of entries and a time constraint on when they were finished (ie. they should probably have been done in the last 18 months). Individual artists should be attributed rather than studios I think? Perhaps studios should have their own awards for innovation and consistency?

 

I think the time constraint on when the image was finished would have to be the date of the last award entries, so as to always keep a fresh flow of images and not make any entries redundant due to some amazing classics that have never had the chanve to win.. Im not sure.

 

These categories should be studied carefully so as to give everyone a chance, and at the same time not undermine some old underdog who produced facsinating work and lost by only a few votes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, or maybe a 'who billed the most/least money this year' award. It would take hardly any time at all, just submit your tax return.

 

Lol...That would be interesting to see. How about one for volume of work? I would be curious to know which studio produced the greatest amount of renderings.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share


×
×
  • Create New...