This is jumping the gun a bit, but not much. Snarkpit is going to begin a series of mini events. The exact particulars will be posted once those that be, decide them. However, this event will proceed, it should be enticing enough for just about everyone.

I was asked, or more exactly I asked to post this poll to see how it will be received.

As I said, the exact particulars will be posted soon. This is just to get a feel for the idea. This poll will be for your benefit to see what you would like, or not like to see occur. Any and all advice will be seriously considered. Remember though that the word "Mini" will play a key roll in the success of your desire to see your request granted.

I can say this much. The success of each event will dictate the likelihood of the competitions continuing. Also, it is being discussed that the winner of each competition, will be in a strong position of seeing the next event chosen. So, if you have an idea and want it to become an event, enter and win.

It must also be understood that this series of events is in no way tied into Master Dark Trees competition. His is another event entirely and this is in no way meant to steal his glory. I sent him a PM 7 days ago, and he hasn't logged in in 12. I am afraid that he will be away longer than a competition requires to succeed. However, his event is still on the agenda as far as I know so keep it in mind.

Remember, this poll is to get the general feel for the idea. Post anything you wish, as long as it pertains to competitions.

Get posting!!!

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Yes, and I have a few ideas that keep popping in and out of my head, at the moment, they aren't in.

...There they are...
A rats style appliance. I think that would be very funny.
Do you like how I used 'mini' there? :razz:

You have to stall the drop of a barrel (or other physics prop) by a certain amount of seconds in the most creative way possible.
This one would breed some seriously odd contraptions.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

Yes- I would like to see some mini-comps and here are my ideas...

[*] It's nothing original, but still a damn good exercise, "texture and light this room" Maybe limit the number of lights and/or textures used. Skillful use of textures, lighting and cubemaps can mean the difference between a good map and a great one.
[*] Also not original, also a good mapping exercise, "build an area from reference" or "build an area using this photo as the theme" I've seen some great photos of interesting spaces in the Art section of this very site, begging to be comp'd over.
[*] Ever hear the adage 'there are no new ideas'? "Expand on this map" have one of the great mappers who frequent this site create the beginning of a map, and distribute the source VMF. It should be clear whether contestants should build a working map layout, or just a graphical showcase. If enough people enter, and there's enough interest in both a working map and a showcase, have a judging for both.
[*] Accomplish X objective using physics and the I/O system, probably with limits on the number of brushes and of specific entities (ie of the trigger_ and logic_ variety). I'd like to see what creative stuff people come up with.
That's all I've got for now.

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screenshot of the month (areas made, not server shots of someone doing something silly)

[filesize limitations may apply]

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i eat paint

Yes and here are some ideas:

• Texturing competition: Everyone creates a texture set in some predetermined theme and provides a .png of it for DL(.png because it's lossless, yet compressed format). Also providing just a picture and not only a compiled texture will allow other than HL2 or HL people to use the texture in their mod projects.
  </LI>
• Quick and Dirty modeling competition: Revival of the idea AtM made rolling in the past. Only this time it would be a competition instead of a challenge.

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

I'd like to throw my weight behind a few of these ideas -

Also not original, also a good mapping exercise, "build an area from
reference" or "build an area using this photo as the theme" I've seen
some great photos of interesting spaces in the Art section of this very
site, begging to be comp'd over.

You have to stall the drop of a barrel (or other physics prop) by a certain amount of seconds in the most creative way possible.

This one would breed some seriously odd contraptions.

Perhaps we could work on this idea and turn it into say a Rube Goldberg
style competition. I'm sure many of us have seen the domino effect on
YouTube which results in the crushing of Breen (or gman, i forget
which).

Rats - reverse it, make us ultra large people - see the maps Leperous made sometime ago for HL1.#

Perhaps it is best if we adopt a "light and texture" kinda competition
for the first one, minimal effort will guarantee a good stock of
entries, i'd hope. I'm a little concerned by the limited scope of the
HL2 texture set. There was a nice competition at TWHL where a HL1 scene
was converted to HL2 with room for movement on what the layout actually
turned out to be.

Oh, I like this a lot. My idea would be a continuation of the CCC. Learning from the last one we could turn this into a quicker and more organized event.

:smile: :smile: :smile:

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Why snark works.

I have a proposal - see what you think:

<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Tex One For The Team

<span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span>Competition discipline:</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Texturing

<span style="font-weight: bold;">Brief:

</span></span>Create 8 textures, 2 per team. The textures will be

1) A Team logo, for use as base identification and be contained in (dimensions) square.

2) A concrete wall with stripe/pattern to fit the relevant teams theme and colours.

All entries must be submited in the style of "Myth and Legend"

• for example your four teams could be Undead, Elves, Dragons and

Wizards. Or perhaps you'd prefer classical myth - Roman or Greek Gods
perhaps? Each entry must adhere to the colour palette - Green Team, Red Team, Blue Team and Yellow Team.

The winner will be decided by a community vote/judging panel (up to you
guys) and judged on the skill in texture creation and creativity in
deciding your team themes.

Timespan: 2 Weeks (?) - your call again guys.

Feel free to make comments/improvements/suggestions, or table your own
brief. This idea seems popular and easy from the minds i've tapped so
far, and will encourage people to pick up Photoshop and have a go.

<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>

Good idea Gwil.

I don't think we had this team-battle thing yet. Plus I welcome the idea of not putting it into the City 17-world.

Here are my few cents:

Each entry must adhere to the colour palette - Green Team, Red Team, Blue Team and Yellow Team.

Does this mean every part of the map has to be in the specific team colors or is it possible to have kind of a "neutral zone".
Maybe - yes maybe - we can do something like hmm "King of the Neutral Zone". There would be a goody in the Neutral Zone every team wants to get/hold/control...

This is already being done at TWHL

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Condemnation without Investigation is the Highest Form of Ignorance!

Almost everything's already been done in one form or another by the TWHL, they have a million mini-competitions arleady...

I'm starting to think we shouldn't bother that much. After all "make a dm-map" competitions have been done often enough also. The outcome will be completely different, anyways.

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Why snark works.

Almost everything has been done, EVERYWHERE. TWHL or Snarkpit for that matter are hardly unique.

On a serious note: Just to not do something because it has been done before would surely be defeatist. For my part, and I am sure with some others, even if we had the same competition every time, someone new, or something new would come out of it.

Such is the defining moments for level editing. Look at Mister Rock. His maps got progressively more excessive with regards to ignoring the fundamentals of the HL1 engine, but did he quit? Not on your ass. Being done before didn't stem his tide of releases.

Anyway, we can push this through. And we have the support to do it.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

me said:
Ever hear the adage 'there are no new ideas'?

It's true, so rather than trying to come up with a new idea, one should focus on coming up with a good one. Having mini-competitions here is a good idea IMHO.

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Almost everything's already been done in one form or another by
the TWHL, they have a million mini-competitions arleady...

I'm
starting to think we shouldn't bother that much. After all "make a
dm-map" competitions have been done often enough also. The outcome will
be completely different, anyways.

Are you in favour of not proceeding with the competitions altogether, reaper? Or am I misunderstanding?

As an aside, another idea that was supported (by Myrk) was a repeat of
the "Contrasting" themes we had a while ago. That produced some
splendid maps and seemed fairly popular and accessible.

I for one, and I know Orpheus too wants to see something succeed and
happen - the power lies with me and ReNo to get this started, but I
don't want to steam roller in without the support of the community.
With Lep away so much and ReNo busy with work, the impetus of the site
lies with me - I know I strike people as a lazy bugger (very perceptive
:razz: ) but I want to work for the bettering of the site. If it comes to
it, we could even revert back to the "Trap Map" competition that Dark
Tree was pushing.

Talk to me people!

We have 20 "Yes" and zero "No' thus far.
It seems fairly obvious that the majority (the 9) would settle for anything, as long as its a competition.

I say, push it through Gwil. If you have a favorite idea, use it to get it rolling then let the winner help you decide the next event.

Someone needs to take the first step and it looks like its gonna be you. About time really, as I don't recall you hosting a competition before. :heee:

Seriously though, 20 yes's actually says something.

[EDIT] For the record, I am unsure if textures would be the best first choice. Its a good choice though.

Snarkpits texture forum died remember. Or... was there a forum dedicated to textures? I cannot remember. Damn me and my faulty recall. :sad:

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I concur.

Watch this space, folks!

I edited my last post. read that before you cuss me out. :biggrin:

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Are you in favour of not proceeding with the competitions altogether, reaper? Or am I misunderstanding?

:o No way, you're misunderstanding. What I meant was that we could do something that's probably been done by TWHL already in one form or another. We shouldn't bother trying to be uber-original and dismiss ideas because they're similar to what's been done already. If it's been done, worked and was fun why not do it again!

I'd love to see any kind of competition to return to the SP.

And I probably change my vote to "Yes- /nuff said..." :smile:

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Why snark works.

It was mentioned earlier, but a themed map of some sort would go down well. The last great comp we had was pretty much create a themed map of some sort, no specific theme, just had to be themed. Or creating a map based on a photo or concept drawing. That one also worked.

That said I probably won't be able to participate between real-life work and mod responsibilities, but I might be persuaded :smile: .

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Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

I would like to see some mini-comps. Couple suggestions I can think of:

1. A door. The most complex door you can build. Could be a 3-in-1 door (one goes up, one goes down, one goes sideways) kinda like the doors in the beginning of "Get Smart" TV show...if anyone remembers that.

2. A lift. Complex, items on it, see-through, goes from Point A to Point B. Could even have several sections, but all are connected and lift at same speed between points.

3. A train. Same idea as the Lift. Only need to go from Point A to Point B..so doesnt need to be a huge map... perhaps just to see it move a small amount, but all together as one.

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Condemnation without Investigation is the Highest Form of Ignorance!

Too much entity work for my taste albeit the door challenge sounds funny.

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Why snark works.

My ideas:

A rats map. Anyone can make one, relatively quickly. They're easy to build, but hard to be original.

An upside down map. Most mappers ignore their ceilings while mapping. Their floors always look better. A map turned on its top, would encourage mappers to focus on their ceilings, while also making them navigable.

A theatrically based theme, such as a circus.

A seven wonders of the world map.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

An fy_ map which doesn't have a box like appearance?

An fy_ map which doesn't have a box like appearance?

WTF is a fy_ map anyways?

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

Heres an idea of mine.

A basic sketched layout of a map would be created, just a basic outline showing roughly how the map should be. The challenge would be to take the layout and choose a theme and a setting, and then create your map while following the layout. The layout should be very relaxed in it's form leaving as much flexability to the mapper. It shouldn't specify outside areas from inside areas, it should only give the basics.

:dorky:

WTF is a fy_ map anyways?

Stands for 'Fun Yard,' 'Fight Yard,' or 'f**k you' depending on who you ask. It's basically the CS equivalent of a killbox, usually very small and simple, so you don't have to learn any layout of the map, just shoot people.

I'm not interested in making an fy_ map of any kind.

A basic sketched layout of a map would be created, just a basic outline showing roughly how the map should be. The challenge would be to take the layout and choose a theme and a setting, and then create your map while following the layout.

While that would most likely have some interesting results, having a dozen versions of the same map seems like somewhat wasted effort. Maybe someone could create a layout sketch with large pieces missing, enough done to provide a guideline, but enough left blank to make sure no two entries would be the same.

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Bridges - Build a map that involves a bridge the player has to pass and that is the dominating part of the map.

What kind of bridge and the environment around it is completely up to the mapper. Entries will be judged based on the originality and beauty of the setting, how interesting it is for the player to pass the bridge and the general quality of craftsmanship.

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Why snark works.

Me likes.

A lot of these mini comp ideas sound like a grate deal of work. What kind of time limit are we looking at?
I'm liking Baron von Snickers ideas.

My personal opinion on time limits is this:

Depending on which current mini-comp is up, the amount of enthusiasm would dictate its ending. Say, that the FY idea was the current event, the comp would have a short time period due to the lack of it drawing any real crowd. Of course, if my idea flies, the winner of each event will have a great say in the next event, and that person may want a FY map comp.

Anywho, say the bridge idea is up and 10 people genuinely dedicate themselves, then a much longer time frame would be ensued. For my part, I want each even to run no less than 2 weeks and no more than 2 months. Otherwise, the idea for "Mini" would go down the dumps.

At this point, I dunno exactly how much influence I will have over this idea. So anything I mention hereunto, may be totally ignored.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

fishy said:
screenshot of the month (areas made, not server shots of someone doing something silly)

I like this idea a lot, and it wouldn't take a lot of effort to make happen. Maybe a monthly thread in the Art forum and a sticky in General Banter with links to each month's thread.

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i'm just gonna say that, no matter what type the compo is, mapping wise, i'll do it unless i have another project going on

Personally, i think the event should take the average person no more than 6 weeks. Keeping in mind that anyone participating in this most likely has their own thing going. The time limit should allow time to work on the comp and their own project (because i certainly don't want to stop working on mine).

i'm just gonna say that, no matter what type the compo is, mapping wise, i'll do it unless i have another project going on

I don't know who's running this, but maybe it's time someone starts a poll to see what ideas people like and don't like.

I agree with Fatstrings and RedWood.

We've got all the potential ideas we'll ever need and any kind of competition would be good.

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Why snark works.

Don't worry, i'm listening to what everyone is saying. The competition
will start with the turn of the month, so i'll collate the best ideas
and stick a poll up to see what people think - and could run roughshod
over that anyway :razz:

One thing I will say is that I agree with Orpheus - the time limit will
be 2 weeks to 2 months (perhaps even 6 weeks?) Otherwise, it's not
really "mini".

The competition will start with the turn of the month

mmm... good to hear :smile:

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Why snark works.

Orph mentioned a long term project for the snarkpit in another thread, but what if all of the mini-comps were done with a long term plan in mind. the idea of submitting simple themed models that could be put together into a mappers resource pack went down quite well, so why not take it a step further, by having all of the mini-comps build towards a larger theme.

a larger theme that seems obvious to me would be some sort of store/mall, with multiple shops. texture comps for wallpaper stores, gunshops for weapons model comps, a lighting store for the previous comp etc.

or each comp could just target a particular store, and it's up to the artist whether they submit a texture, model or brushworl/entity prefab. eventually there would be enough content to have a bigger comp to see who could get the most from it all.

i'm sure there are other ways that this could be done, but one idea a night is enough for me. any more and i get delusional.

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i eat paint

I have entertained the notion of a prefabbed city. A real city where each person builds a fully functional building as a prefab.

Consider this, if we managed to make 100 buildings, there'd be almost an infinite amount of ways to configure them into maps.

I know its an absurd notion, but I still think it could be done, especially if we simultaneously had a prop prefab section. That way we could have the mundane things like fire plugs, mail boxes and phone booths for our future city.

Then, if someone or one's built some custom skies, we could have many daytime or night time cities.

Well, its a notion I have had.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I backtracked Dark Tree to his last post and it was unfortunately in the Snarkpit Promotion thread.

I hope he wasn't disheartened with it enough to depart.

However, given that the alternative is that something really bad happened to him and thats why he is missing, I'd rather he be disheartened.

/ruminating

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The best things in life, aren't things.

How about we have the mappers map LIVE?

By this, I mean they use a screen capture program (I recommend CamStudio, since it's free, open source, and encodes on the fly) whilst they map and have to try to get a good looking level done quickly, while being cam'd.

This would have two benefits: You can tell if someone is creating something from scratch; and you can learn from the submissions!

There should probably be a theme, and possibly a time limit.
Perhaps have a timed and untimed version.

Very interesting idea there Daedalus. I've seen a few video tutorials in my time done with screen capture programs, but I've not seen one done in Hammer yet. Would be cool to see other people work. Would only really work if we did a speed comp of an hour or something though - I wouldn't fancy downloading and watching 8 hour marathon mapping sessions :smile:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Sounds stressful, I must say. But I'd sure like to see how others speed up their mapping. Probably there's a lot to learn.

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Why snark works.

I learned a lot by going to a fellow mappers house and watching his keystrokes. We, were about even then in experience, but you'd be surprised to note that although we began to map in the same week, we had diverged totally by a year or so later.

I cannot say that a video type would work because it wouldn't show the keyboard too, but I'd watch some flicks.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I only have a 1.67 (amd) processor. I don't know if i can run hammer and a capture device at the same time. I'd probably just sit that one out.

Well I'm running an AMD64 3000+, which runs at 1.8Ghz, so it isn't much faster.

CamStudio can encode into Xvid on the fly, but that does use up 100% cpu, and I only used it for a short tutorial on the right way to do displacements.

The default encoding is 'Microsoft Video 1', and doesn't use much CPU power to encode the video.
After that you could always encode that to Xvid or some other codec.

Also remember that a lot of media players can play videos at a certain speed, eg 1.5x, 2x, 4x, 8x, so the timeframe doesn't need to be THAT small.

DaedalusRaistlin said:
Well I'm running an AMD64 3000+, which runs at 1.8Ghz, so it isn't much faster.

.

They call it a 3000+ because it is comparable to a P4 3000.

Looking at it as a 1.8 is a bit misleading. I'd consider it much more than a 1.8.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I download it and tried it. Nope, i can't even get the program and a game to run at the same time. computer just locks up.
Does anyone hear know why AMD and Intel have different ways of showing the speed? Is it a marketing skem to keep the buyers confused about the technical specks so their advertising is effective? (I don't know what those numbers mean but the colors in that commercial sure are shiny)

If you look at the new Intel chips, they run at 1.66GHz to 2.66GHz, and yet they're faster than 3GHz+ Pentium 4 chips. It's basically because the Pentium 4 architecture is inefficient, so a 3GHz Pentium 4 is roughly the equivalent of a 1.8GHz AMD64. Think about it, would you rather have a 3.0GHz CPU, or a 1.8GHz CPU? That's where the AMD naming scheme came from, it's just to let buyers know the equivalent performance.

The problem with recording hammer is, most everyone probably works in a resolution that's not ideal for compression (even 800x600 can make some pretty large files). I've fiddled with it before, setting the capture program to record a time lapse is probably the best option (I use Camtasia, I dunno what you'd have to do in CamStudio), I'll see if there's a way to half the resolution or something.

Also, just to reiterate:[quote=me][quote=fishy]screenshot of the month (areas made, not server shots of someone doing something silly)[/quote]I like this idea a lot, and it wouldn't take a lot of effort to make happen. Maybe a monthly thread in the Art forum and a sticky in General Banter with links to each month's thread.[/quote]

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That would run separate to a competition though, and act more as a community spotlight.

Yeah that's how I understood it as well. I think it's a great idea and I want to see it happen, not disappear into obscurity :wink:

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