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Racial Settlements
Participants are to capture a race from the Warcraft lore's special style of construction and portray how it interacts with their habitat/natural enviroment.
~Azurot~
Depicting aztec trolls for people who can read the fine prints on a snellen chart.
Creativity | This margin will be a bit thin, but you're not off the hook. I have a magnifying glass token from the Mystery Mansion board game. It's a big leap from a simple troll design and I like that you went the less tribal route on this one. | 11 |
Detail | This front is looking a bit meager on the variety side of things. Bit uniform and monotonous. Steinlords mess things up a bit, especially close up where you can tell just exactly how jagged and ugly they really are. On the plus side you really do know how to shift the scales. Foreground might rob it just a slight bit of its beauty, but it's a non-issue in comparison. | 11 |
Technique | As usual you blend things really well. Fog unfolds smoothly, layering in the background is really well done and the pale lighting wraps it up nice and tight for us. Damn fine how the the constructions consist of like 2 or 3 different models and still look intricate enough to be the real deal. This is how construction is supposed to be done. | 12 |
Aesthetic | This is where you excel, babycakes. And you know it. Shit comes together really well and it's pleasant to just lay back and rest my eyes at this. | 15 |
~Oziris~
The Elder Trolls IV: Oblivion
Creativity | Not too arousing on the creative side. It's an ordinary troll concept with tons of gizmo gases in the atmosphere. Sky itself is a bit creative, but it's nothing we haven't seen before. | 9 |
Detail | Literally lacking. Frankly the whole thing looks a bit half-assed and effortless. Definitely not up to your normal standards. I mean the background is literally just... sand. It looks good enough --even the sparse trees-- but I could almost count the details on my fingers. A little more effort would've been nice. | 9 |
Technique | Yeah, you do pull the lighting off well. Not liking the stars though. I go by a very simple rule of thumb: if you can clearly tell the shape of a star, you need to scale it down. I wish you would've approached it differently, like tiny ones in clusters or something. Part from that I have nothing substantial to fire bullets at. | 12 |
Aesthetic | The islands in the far and the sky are pleasant to look at. Foreground, not as much. The underwater rock is a complete misplce, the green grass tile deeply clashes with the barren color of grass and shrubbery, and the whole thing is looking... untidy. The foreground robs you of the good score as you can achieve in this field. | 13 |
~kari00000000000000003~
... barrens 0003res and their camp.
Creativity | While I do like that you chose to portray ogres as opposed to grabbing one of the classic race designs off the shelf, it is a fairly average and one dimensional ogre concept. | 8 |
Detail | You did okay on this front. The scenery is very rich in details, but it's very rough and misplaced. Forget about rough edges, we're talking pancakes now. Look at that punctured rock on top of the cave far right. Sorry, but that's awful. The rocks in general are stretched and a bit scrambled. On the positive, you did well with props and structures. | 11 |
Technique | Lighting is the first thing I'll address. Pinkish purple was a great choice, but (un)fortunately there are things you could improve on. First and foremost it could have been less intense. | 10 |
Aesthetic | Aesthetically this is looking quite good. Bit fishy scales, but a nice enough atmosphere. | 12 |
~Windu~
That can't be blight, it looks too good.
Creativity | I'm going to give you a gold nugget in this field. Really clever perspective, definitely something I could stand to see more of. Plus it's always sweet when people make good use of spell models. | 15 |
Detail | You deliver in this margin as well, stretching from fucking great work with tiles --come on, you even pulled off blight-- to a nice and varying color scheme. | 14 |
Technique | Some pretty decent constructions, really good use of textures and nice fading technique. Slightly short on lighting, personally I feel like a second light source might have done the scene proud. | 10 |
Aesthetic | So, leaning back in my chair, the snow does rob the scene off its beauty. The fog held the ambience up by itself. The colors work really well together though. Good enough feather in your cap. | 10 |
~MaTiJa97~
Tree spam in a remotely good way.
Creativity | I honestly can't say I recall seeing a night-elven scenery like this one. Quite vividly portrayed, nice big scope and sweet atmosphere. It really isn't a style you see too much of, so you can at the very least be pleased with your performance in this field. | 13 |
Detail | Ambivalence like shit. One part of me wants to go weed some of those trees up and open it up, one side actually does see how it all ties together neatly enough. But fuck, it is definitely a detailed piece of work. Perhaps just a bit overkill, but I think you did really well considering. | 12 |
Technique | Fountain is well constructed. Good choice of textures (in this perspective even the statue heads don't look too bad). Surrounding wharf is a bit simplistic and not too rich in details, but it doesn't smear across the face as badly as it might have in a different perspective. Lighting would have been better without the moon, or at the very least a less bright and reasonably scaled moon. | 10 |
Aesthetic | Bit risky approach that you pulled off well all things considered. Seems a bit "back to basics" but it does really work with that atmosphere. Job well done. | 11 |
~BeTaGod-~
Rule #1 for taking care of a Mogwai
Creativity | Can't score you well in this field. Firstly, the scene is bland and generic, and secondly, there's no apparent sign of this being a harpy concept. I think I pointed that out before -- you could probably pass it off as an orc, tauren or even quillboar concept, but harpies is stretching a bit too far. | 5 |
Detail | Not too bad in this front. Desperately needs variation, but for all intensive purposes let's say that a barren scenery isn't supposed to have that level of variation to begin with. Rocks look okay (some are floating and some textures have been stretched a bit too far) would be better without the blizzard cliffs in the foreground. Even though they aren't quite as annoying as they use to be. | 8 |
Technique | Rule #1 for taking care of a Mogwai: NO BRIGHT LIGHT. It's way too radiant and overpowering. Hits the rock textures well enough, but that could've easily been done with less intense light as well. But sure, it fades well and at least you don't have any critical instances of white noise, so it's passable. | 7 |
Aesthetic | The lighting does steal some points from this margin as well. Takes effort to figure out what's going on, and from a laid back perspective it might as well be an orange gradient chart. You get a free pat on the back from me though since I like that it doesn't show much of the background in this case. | 9 |
~ExMortis~
Spires scraping the sky like morning glory.
Creativity | Another nice approach on this side of things. Angle is groovy and innovative. Concept wise I couldn't say, it's not really something I generally come across. Definitely more than what I usually expect from someone who hasn't shown his ass in the terraining section before (at least as far as I know). | 11 |
Detail | Scarce. I feel like this could be something extraordinary if you give it a makeover. Trees are growing a bit sparsely, (right side is better, left side is lacking) you don't catch a scent of any background work, and the details on the settlement are a bit rough and inconsistent. | 8 |
Technique | Sky, while simple, does suit the scenery hand in glove. Rays are redundant and executed poorly, but the lighting scheme seems really lovely to me except for the fact that the fog does clash a bit with the sky (see how the spires fade). Construction could do with some work (especially how differently tinted objects perform together) but it's nice to see you make an effort. | 10 |
Aesthetic | If I ignore the ground level I actually find it to be a good scenery. Color ties in well in most cases, and I don't see any extreme misplacings or deformations. | 9 |
~alexandero6~
Better luck next time.
Creativity | From one end it looks like a sort of clever underground settlement twist, but from the other I think you just squirted out doodads and that whole thing happened accidentally. I don't know, but I have to be objective so I guess I'll stick to the first one. | 8 |
Detail | Very rough. I get that this is probably your first go with the editor so I'm not going to fuss about it, I'll try to be as concise and constructive as I can. The two walls up close don't work well that close up to the camera, the crystals can be a nice touch on occasions but they're way too bright here, the rocks are a bit stretched and quite frankly not the best choice if you want to highlight them. Might seem that you're far off, but I think you could probably come around with a slight push so keep reading up on tutorials and go for the next contest. | 4 |
Technique | The rays don't fit at all, and beyond that thee's no real source of lighting. Even a fog could have made it better. On the technical side I don't find that much to comment on besides for a couple of rough edges that could be smoothed out (for instance the height variation is very steep). | 4 |
Aesthetic | A bit too much wrestle mania rumble for my taste. Doesn't seem to have much structure to it and the absence of any smooth fog and lighting doesn't help your case. Again, don't stop here because you get critique. Keep brushing up and join us in the terraining section and future contests. | 5 |
~xorkatoss~
Mmmrrrggglll
Creativity | It's a distinct murloc concept, but it's pretty standard as I see it. Seems like something you would sprint past in Wetlands. That deep marine blue color does sort of leave its mark though. | 9 |
Detail | Bit lacking. There's details aplenty, but nothing distinct and noteworthy. I would also like to point out that the water springs from solid rock (doesn't appear to have any source). Tile work is a nice touch though. Coherent and no too drastic transitions. | 8 |
Technique | Fog is done neatly, and it would have faded really well if you didn't block it off with the mountains. Adressing the mountains and the layering, the shapes don't impress me much. You only used the largest brush, right? Work your way down the ladder and add some detail work with the smaller brushes. And allow the fog to run its course for a while before you jam it with mountains. | 7 |
Aesthetic | The village does look nice and authentic, and the fog helps you win me over to your side (at least in this less nitpicky margin). Shallow water gives it a nice feel, and the atmosphere works well. Again, mountains mess it up. Good job considering it's your first contest. | 11 |
I was quite pleased to see a whole lot of new faces in this contest and also a good return to more simple techniques in many of the terrains. I've always liked it when the contest draws in members rather than just having current ones compete a bit, so this contest is a definite success in that manner. I'll be honest, I didn't have all that much faith in the racial settlement idea.. but it's turned out pretty decently! Full credit to all participants for making things like this possible, I know that terrain contests haven't exactly been that gigantic recently, so it's good to see there's still life out there in this region.
As a note on the judging, for each terrain, I decided what race the terrain most closely resembled and then judged it from that, since I find that if you can't tell what race the settlement belongs to...well, it really just defeats the purpose of the theme. For this reason I also judged the Creativity section pretty heavily on how well you turned out the racial settlement idea more than creativity in your actual technique. But now to the judging!
xorkatoss - Murloc Village
Creativity: 7/15
Detail: 7/15
Technique: 8/15
Aesthetic: 9/15
General Comments: Definitely a good start for you (assumedly?) first contest. First off, it's pretty obviously a racial settlement, and quite evidently murloc/mur'gul (they are the same thing to me :>). On that note, it's a pretty stock standard village. The detail and execution is decent, I can see you've put some thought into the environment, atmosphere and actual settlement. The atmosphere is a bit heavy and extremely blue, but it is effective. Also a bit of an issue were the tiles - the dirt tiles seem to just kind of pop up randomly and you could've put a lot more thought into the tiles, especially how to combine them with doodads. Two niggling parts of the terrain were the background being quite stark and the hills being pretty roughly patched and the waterfall's top/back. The waterfall seems to just kind of extend up out of the water and then just...sticks out like a sore thumb. With a decent background, that would've definitely been less noticeable. All in all, a good start but there's definite room for improvement.
alexandero6 - Human Castle (w/ golem guardians?)
Creativity: 8/15
Detail: 5/15
Technique: 6/15
Aesthetic: 7/15
General Comments: You do have a bit of a way to go, but it's a decent start. The general idea was OK, the part where the human settlement is underground and has golems guarding it in some way seemed like a good touch (if that IS what it is). There was a definite lack of detail and technique in parts that really let the overall terrain down. The walls leading up to those houses are very steep and stark and just don't look at all. The fire on the left mid-back ground seems a bit very random. The crystals were far too bright, as were the light rays (which could've been spaced a bit better to help add depth by the way), especially when coupled with the rock/strange stalagmite combination - those two should absolutely always match up. Also, the lack of a sky/other kind of anything in the background was a bit disconcerting. The textures at the front of the picture are also quite stretched and some doodads seem a bit randomly placed (castles down at the bottom). overall.. it's OK! Keep trying and you can definitely improve.
ExMortis - Human/Elf (Desert?) Town
Creativity: 9/15
Detail: 9/15
Technique: 9/15
Aesthetic: 10/15
General Comments: I definitely liked hte overall look of this one. Just definitely one of those desert kinda cities that you always love in books and movies. Buuut unfortunately there were some issues here as well. For one thing, the sky could've been a bit better, or rather, the way the fog fits against the sky could've been done better. For that reason, it's always good to use foggy sky. But it's a good fog/sky apart from that, I did quite like it. While the settlement part of this wasn't anything mindblowing, I quite liked the execution and simplicity of most of it. There are a few bigger issues when you take your eyes off those soaring spires though. There is a blizzard cliff to the left, dirt/grass part to the middle and just that general area below the castles looks veeery bad against them. If you'd increased the Z offset of the camera JUST so that you couldn't see all of that, it would've been several notches better. I recommend that you actually work this terrain by adding a better sky, moving that camera up, maybe adding more spires/castles and make a fully fledged awesome terrain out of it.
BeTaGod- - General ... Barrens ... Race Hold
Creativity: 7/15
Detail: 8/15
Technique: 8/15
Aesthetic: 6/15
General Comments: This one also isn't really anything much new in terms of settlements or anything else, and its execution isn't brilliant either. Overall, it's an alright terrain, but the left top is waaaay too bright and the atmosphere just screams of a nuclear bomb exploding all around. I really couldn't place which barrens race this was either, so I just labelled it as a general one. I quite liked the use of Blizzard cliffs in this terrain though, that was nice. Just the fact that there's soo many possible refinements possible in this let it down a lot - cleaning it up, doodad wise and atmosphere wise, adding a more refined sky, all sorts of stuff. Overall, decent.
MaTiJa97 - Night Elf City
Creativity: 13/15
Detail: 12/15
Technique: 12/15
Aesthetic: 13/15
General Comments: I have to say, I loved the night elf-ness in this terrain. It pretty much jumps right out at you and that kind of extreme race definition is exactly what I was looking for in this contest. The doodads were extremely well used in this terrain, especially those piers and the trees. Normally, I hate rough contour doodads such as those trees, but in this terrain, I loved them. They fit perfectly in with that atmosphere and just completed it really well. Getting this kind of terrain is just a bit hard to judge because it's going so far from the current style and just returning to what seems like the absolute roots of terraining, at least back when I started. This is absolutely why this seems like such a good terrain. My one big problem with it was the moon though. It really is just so...extremely in your face. I would've preferred it without one a lot. But really, very extremely good job.
Windu - Undead Base
Creativity: 12/15
Detail: 13/15
Technique: 13/15
Aesthetic: 14/15
General Comments: As in the Night Elf terrain, this terrain just screams of the Undead genre. And in a very good way. I most definitely haven't seen anything as simple and yet satisfyingly super excellent as this terrain in a long time. Without using super fancy methods, you've made an extremely impressive and just good looking terrain. You've also somehow managed to defeat the age long enemy of terrainers - blight. I really wonder how you managed to actually make it look that good. One thing I'm just really not sure about is the snow in the terrain. I really don't know whether I liked this one or the snowless one better. For one thing, it does add to the atmosphere, as do the ghostly mists, but then the snow in the white beams and the green clouds does look a bit strange. I'm really just undecided as to that. But please do make more terrains in the future and keep to this simple style. It's very refreshing.
kari0003 - Ogre Village
Creativity: 8/15
Detail: 9/15
Technique: 9/15
Aesthetic: 10/15
General Comments: On the surface, this is a pretty good terrain - obviously an ogre village, looks like it's quite decently made, the lighting is nice. Don't often see pink lighting which is good. Buut there are issues on close inspection, starting with the light. There's just a minor issue here, right beside the big area of light, there's a straight vertical line cutting it off. It detaches the effect of that sun quite extremely and is quite unfortunate. Another big problem was the closer detail. The hills in the background are quite barren, the vegetation around the place is lacking and the tile work is also not brilliantly done. The overall shape of the village and its natural area is OK but it's not all that great either unfortunately - the ledge on the right looks a bit strange, the trees could be better placed and less floating-looking, but it's OK. The actual settlement part of it was quite standard - village in barrens, nothing majorly complicated but not too bad either.
Oziris - General Island Race Village(s)
Creativity: 9/15
Detail: 12/15
Technique: 12/15
Aesthetic: 13/15
General Comments: I must say, this one was quite a mission to judge. If someone had drawn a diagonal line from bottom left to top right, I would've chosen the left top half and given it near perfect scores in a heartbeat. That side was truly beautiful and extremely skilfully done. I love the sunset/rise and the general colour schema, the islands in the distance are well made and the sparsely vegetated horizon actually looks great. The slightly underwater partitions near the bottom left are quite well done too; I only have a bit of an issue with the grass tile underwater - I'd just use sand + village rocks. Shrubs underwater? Debatable - in this case, I found they were OK. The settlement part was even quite cool in the top left half, kinda simplistic villages, a good base but definitely with need for improvement. Now, unfortunately, we must come to the other half. On first glance, it looks quite good. However, there's major issues. In this terrain, it's a case study of the age old struggle of high/low res. Those rocks + ufergrass/tiles/shrubs/ruin/partly ramp clash sssooo badly. If there had been only shrubs or only ufergrass, it would've been much better. The portions of grass draw sight directly to them and they are quite poorly done in that way that they're close up and are some of the less good looking sunken ruins textures. Especially the straight line rising up to that palm with the grass/sand/grass bit is just bad :- (. The ramp itself is quite good, but then when the tile of sand + a bit of grass goes over it, it is sadly a bit strange looking. I would've loved to ignore the second half of the terrain...but sadly I could not.
Azurot - Naga Temples
Creativity: 10/15
Detail: 13/15
Technique: 13/15
Aesthetic: 14/15
General Comments: First off, I'd like to compliment you on the landscape and the natural part of this terrain. It's really quite beautiful and serene, I hardly found any fault with it. The detail is extremely good and not excessive either, I'd like to especially draw attention to the foreground of the terrain that just plays down the excessive vegetation that is quite common in many (including mine) terrains. The background is also quite artfully done, the overall style reserved and very effective. A couple of issues however - there is a strange line in the water that draws a huge amount of attention to it, I have no idea what that is, but it is a really bad fault. It actually trips me out because it looks I'm going cross eyed on that part of the terrain... that rock + tree island gets almost exactly mirrored. Strange. The racial part of this terrain wasn't that obvious, I assume that it was something like a naga temple kinda thingy? It seemed to me that the emphasis was a lot more on the environment which is usually cool but in this it was a bit of a problem. Thirdly for me, I found that jagged strange line up in the top left inside the light rays to be a bit...well, strange. Not quite sure what I make of it but it seems to be detaching from the goodness of the picture. But good sky otherwise + lighting.
As a note on the judging, for each terrain, I decided what race the terrain most closely resembled and then judged it from that, since I find that if you can't tell what race the settlement belongs to...well, it really just defeats the purpose of the theme. For this reason I also judged the Creativity section pretty heavily on how well you turned out the racial settlement idea more than creativity in your actual technique. But now to the judging!
xorkatoss - Murloc Village
Creativity: 7/15
Detail: 7/15
Technique: 8/15
Aesthetic: 9/15
General Comments: Definitely a good start for you (assumedly?) first contest. First off, it's pretty obviously a racial settlement, and quite evidently murloc/mur'gul (they are the same thing to me :>). On that note, it's a pretty stock standard village. The detail and execution is decent, I can see you've put some thought into the environment, atmosphere and actual settlement. The atmosphere is a bit heavy and extremely blue, but it is effective. Also a bit of an issue were the tiles - the dirt tiles seem to just kind of pop up randomly and you could've put a lot more thought into the tiles, especially how to combine them with doodads. Two niggling parts of the terrain were the background being quite stark and the hills being pretty roughly patched and the waterfall's top/back. The waterfall seems to just kind of extend up out of the water and then just...sticks out like a sore thumb. With a decent background, that would've definitely been less noticeable. All in all, a good start but there's definite room for improvement.
alexandero6 - Human Castle (w/ golem guardians?)
Creativity: 8/15
Detail: 5/15
Technique: 6/15
Aesthetic: 7/15
General Comments: You do have a bit of a way to go, but it's a decent start. The general idea was OK, the part where the human settlement is underground and has golems guarding it in some way seemed like a good touch (if that IS what it is). There was a definite lack of detail and technique in parts that really let the overall terrain down. The walls leading up to those houses are very steep and stark and just don't look at all. The fire on the left mid-back ground seems a bit very random. The crystals were far too bright, as were the light rays (which could've been spaced a bit better to help add depth by the way), especially when coupled with the rock/strange stalagmite combination - those two should absolutely always match up. Also, the lack of a sky/other kind of anything in the background was a bit disconcerting. The textures at the front of the picture are also quite stretched and some doodads seem a bit randomly placed (castles down at the bottom). overall.. it's OK! Keep trying and you can definitely improve.
ExMortis - Human/Elf (Desert?) Town
Creativity: 9/15
Detail: 9/15
Technique: 9/15
Aesthetic: 10/15
General Comments: I definitely liked hte overall look of this one. Just definitely one of those desert kinda cities that you always love in books and movies. Buuut unfortunately there were some issues here as well. For one thing, the sky could've been a bit better, or rather, the way the fog fits against the sky could've been done better. For that reason, it's always good to use foggy sky. But it's a good fog/sky apart from that, I did quite like it. While the settlement part of this wasn't anything mindblowing, I quite liked the execution and simplicity of most of it. There are a few bigger issues when you take your eyes off those soaring spires though. There is a blizzard cliff to the left, dirt/grass part to the middle and just that general area below the castles looks veeery bad against them. If you'd increased the Z offset of the camera JUST so that you couldn't see all of that, it would've been several notches better. I recommend that you actually work this terrain by adding a better sky, moving that camera up, maybe adding more spires/castles and make a fully fledged awesome terrain out of it.
BeTaGod- - General ... Barrens ... Race Hold
Creativity: 7/15
Detail: 8/15
Technique: 8/15
Aesthetic: 6/15
General Comments: This one also isn't really anything much new in terms of settlements or anything else, and its execution isn't brilliant either. Overall, it's an alright terrain, but the left top is waaaay too bright and the atmosphere just screams of a nuclear bomb exploding all around. I really couldn't place which barrens race this was either, so I just labelled it as a general one. I quite liked the use of Blizzard cliffs in this terrain though, that was nice. Just the fact that there's soo many possible refinements possible in this let it down a lot - cleaning it up, doodad wise and atmosphere wise, adding a more refined sky, all sorts of stuff. Overall, decent.
MaTiJa97 - Night Elf City
Creativity: 13/15
Detail: 12/15
Technique: 12/15
Aesthetic: 13/15
General Comments: I have to say, I loved the night elf-ness in this terrain. It pretty much jumps right out at you and that kind of extreme race definition is exactly what I was looking for in this contest. The doodads were extremely well used in this terrain, especially those piers and the trees. Normally, I hate rough contour doodads such as those trees, but in this terrain, I loved them. They fit perfectly in with that atmosphere and just completed it really well. Getting this kind of terrain is just a bit hard to judge because it's going so far from the current style and just returning to what seems like the absolute roots of terraining, at least back when I started. This is absolutely why this seems like such a good terrain. My one big problem with it was the moon though. It really is just so...extremely in your face. I would've preferred it without one a lot. But really, very extremely good job.
Windu - Undead Base
Creativity: 12/15
Detail: 13/15
Technique: 13/15
Aesthetic: 14/15
General Comments: As in the Night Elf terrain, this terrain just screams of the Undead genre. And in a very good way. I most definitely haven't seen anything as simple and yet satisfyingly super excellent as this terrain in a long time. Without using super fancy methods, you've made an extremely impressive and just good looking terrain. You've also somehow managed to defeat the age long enemy of terrainers - blight. I really wonder how you managed to actually make it look that good. One thing I'm just really not sure about is the snow in the terrain. I really don't know whether I liked this one or the snowless one better. For one thing, it does add to the atmosphere, as do the ghostly mists, but then the snow in the white beams and the green clouds does look a bit strange. I'm really just undecided as to that. But please do make more terrains in the future and keep to this simple style. It's very refreshing.
kari0003 - Ogre Village
Creativity: 8/15
Detail: 9/15
Technique: 9/15
Aesthetic: 10/15
General Comments: On the surface, this is a pretty good terrain - obviously an ogre village, looks like it's quite decently made, the lighting is nice. Don't often see pink lighting which is good. Buut there are issues on close inspection, starting with the light. There's just a minor issue here, right beside the big area of light, there's a straight vertical line cutting it off. It detaches the effect of that sun quite extremely and is quite unfortunate. Another big problem was the closer detail. The hills in the background are quite barren, the vegetation around the place is lacking and the tile work is also not brilliantly done. The overall shape of the village and its natural area is OK but it's not all that great either unfortunately - the ledge on the right looks a bit strange, the trees could be better placed and less floating-looking, but it's OK. The actual settlement part of it was quite standard - village in barrens, nothing majorly complicated but not too bad either.
Oziris - General Island Race Village(s)
Creativity: 9/15
Detail: 12/15
Technique: 12/15
Aesthetic: 13/15
General Comments: I must say, this one was quite a mission to judge. If someone had drawn a diagonal line from bottom left to top right, I would've chosen the left top half and given it near perfect scores in a heartbeat. That side was truly beautiful and extremely skilfully done. I love the sunset/rise and the general colour schema, the islands in the distance are well made and the sparsely vegetated horizon actually looks great. The slightly underwater partitions near the bottom left are quite well done too; I only have a bit of an issue with the grass tile underwater - I'd just use sand + village rocks. Shrubs underwater? Debatable - in this case, I found they were OK. The settlement part was even quite cool in the top left half, kinda simplistic villages, a good base but definitely with need for improvement. Now, unfortunately, we must come to the other half. On first glance, it looks quite good. However, there's major issues. In this terrain, it's a case study of the age old struggle of high/low res. Those rocks + ufergrass/tiles/shrubs/ruin/partly ramp clash sssooo badly. If there had been only shrubs or only ufergrass, it would've been much better. The portions of grass draw sight directly to them and they are quite poorly done in that way that they're close up and are some of the less good looking sunken ruins textures. Especially the straight line rising up to that palm with the grass/sand/grass bit is just bad :- (. The ramp itself is quite good, but then when the tile of sand + a bit of grass goes over it, it is sadly a bit strange looking. I would've loved to ignore the second half of the terrain...but sadly I could not.
Azurot - Naga Temples
Creativity: 10/15
Detail: 13/15
Technique: 13/15
Aesthetic: 14/15
General Comments: First off, I'd like to compliment you on the landscape and the natural part of this terrain. It's really quite beautiful and serene, I hardly found any fault with it. The detail is extremely good and not excessive either, I'd like to especially draw attention to the foreground of the terrain that just plays down the excessive vegetation that is quite common in many (including mine) terrains. The background is also quite artfully done, the overall style reserved and very effective. A couple of issues however - there is a strange line in the water that draws a huge amount of attention to it, I have no idea what that is, but it is a really bad fault. It actually trips me out because it looks I'm going cross eyed on that part of the terrain... that rock + tree island gets almost exactly mirrored. Strange. The racial part of this terrain wasn't that obvious, I assume that it was something like a naga temple kinda thingy? It seemed to me that the emphasis was a lot more on the environment which is usually cool but in this it was a bit of a problem. Thirdly for me, I found that jagged strange line up in the top left inside the light rays to be a bit...well, strange. Not quite sure what I make of it but it seems to be detaching from the goodness of the picture. But good sky otherwise + lighting.
((Votes / Total Votes) * .25) + ((Belgarath + fladdermasken)/2) * .75 = Final Score (cut to two decimals)
xorkatoss: ((3/103) * 0.25) + ((31 + 35)/2) * 0.75 = 24.76
alexandero6: ((1/103) * 0.25) + ((26 + 21)/2) * 0.75 = 17.63
ExMortis: ((3/103) * 0.25) + ((37 + 38)/2) * 0.75 = 28.13
BeTaGod-: ((3/103) * 0.25) + ((29 + 29)/2) * 0.75 = 21.76
MaTiJa97: ((18/103) * 0.25) + ((50 + 46)/2) * 0.75 = 36.04
Windu: ((15/103) * 0.25) + ((52 + 49)/2) * 0.75 = 37.91
kari0003: ((14/103) * 0.25) + ((36 + 41)/2) * 0.75 = 28.91
Oziris: ((24/103) * 0.25) + ((46 + 43)/2) * 0.75 = 33.43
Azurot: ((22/103) * 0.25) + ((50 + 49)/2) * 0.75 = 37.18
4th - Oziris
5th - kari0003
6th - ExMortis
7th - xorkatoss
8th - BeTaGod-
9th - alexandero6
5th - kari0003
6th - ExMortis
7th - xorkatoss
8th - BeTaGod-
9th - alexandero6
Poll | Contest
Special thanks to Belgarath for great and efficient judging and fladdermasken for delaying the contest results for an eternity.
(he also did the math and compilation and shit like that.)
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