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Cinematic Contest #7 - Results

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Cinematic Contest #7 - Time
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APproject's reviews

Azsure's reviews



Story

  • Pacing: This was pretty solid, it started out smooth and slow as it developed the story, and the plot began to sprout, I didn't feel anything rushed out or half-way made - 15/15
  • Dialogues (if not explicitly excluded from the contest's theme): You really outdid yourself with your script here, your choice of words and dialects were flawless. It worked well that you gave no dialogue throughout the entire cinematic up until the very end too, adding a sense of plot revelation and conclusion - 10/10
  • Plot: I had a hard time trying to digest this whole sci-fi story on my first watch, but as I went on my second go I got to appreciate all the little details put into it, but I imagine that was your intention, considering everything was basically explained at the end of the cinematic, leaving the viewer in awe throughout the whole process beforehand up until that point, I can't really find anything to nitpick you about in here, haha - 15/15
40/40

Terrain

  • Concept: This was a mixed bag of sorts, it started out very simple and sci-fiesque, then post-apocalyptic, and a mix of abstractness put together. Since the contest and topic are about the concept of time, it seems like abstractness was the more obvious answer to that, and you executed it fantastically - 5/5
  • Execution: You put your cards in using custom assets for pretty much every aspect of your cinematic, and the terrain was no stranger to that either, which worked since you mantained that aesthetic by not mixing in assets that don't fit in together, which is something alot of people fail to do (mixing wc3 models with WoW, for exampe). - 5/5
  • Attractiveness: I am personally not a fan of the sci-fi aesthetics myself, and yet you managed to charm me with such eye candy of a terrain. There was so much work put into it, it could even be seen from back in your WiPs. - 10/10
20/20

Audio & Visuals

  • Visuals Control: This cinematic was definitely rich in eye candy effects, the use of the billboarded sphere at the center of the screen was very clever use of a very simple effect. The minimap, loading screen and overall aesthetics were also excellent - 4/4
  • Lighting: Fade filters are things most cinematics can't go without, the fogging and ambient lights were also on top with the mood and didn't feel out of the plane - 4/4
  • Music: This really complimented the pacing, (which is the point of any music or OST in a cinematigraphic piece), you did a good choice in selection here, every scene had its moment and mood accentuated with the dramatic pieces of soundtrack you used, (and in those where you didn't use any too) - 4/4
  • Sound Effects: This is where I'll have to sadly break your flawless streak, since, as I mentioned in the terrain, you put all of your cards in custom assets and worked your way there with not using anything default placed (Except the Outland terrain, but that didn't feel out of place and the terrain isn't the point here now), so I'm conflicted why use a single non-custom sound effect in the whole cinematic? I'm talking about that abolish magic sound effect when the murloc-like construct was sort of opening up the gate for the main character, this might be seen as nitpicking, but seeing as you went all your way in the cinematic relying solely on your self-picked sound effects (which were magnificently picked). I don't see why you couldn't do it that way until the end. (Yeah, I know that there was also a default sound effect of sorts during the scene were the middle screen billboard effect with the sphere and the MC was floating with yellow particles all over was also a default sound, but the reason why I didn't point this one out was because the music pacing and volume managed to camouflage this out well enough that it didn't feel out of place, while on the other scene in conflict I mentioned, it was more silent, the sound effects were accentuated and made it more notorious how it just didn't belong with the rest. Don't worry though, this is hardly going to affect your score, hah - 3/4
  • Voice Acting: You're very good at using voice filters, although it was on the edge of distorting the voice enough that it would become hard to understand what he was saying, however, it mantained itself on the margin. I'm glad that you put the effort yourself in giving your voice for the only dialogue in this cinematic - 4/4
19/20

Camera & Technical Competence

  • Camera Control: Your management with the camera and pacing was cinematographic, people should learn from this and know to use different angles and perspectives to not bore out the viewer - 5/5
  • Camera Effects: The transition between scenes was smooth and pleasing, using instant repositions to relocate the viewer into different planes - 5/5
  • Scenes Acquisition: Great as about everything else, you did a good job at capturing the scenes using different angles and perspectives - 10/10
20/20

Verdict
Aurora's Miracle is no short of a masterpiece, the execution and concepts explored summed up what this contest was about and I highly recommend anyone to take a look for its lovely eye candy and intriguing story, hopefully you change that one detail I mentioned so I can proudly rate this a max score (If I were a map reviewer, hah).99/100


Story

  • Pacing: The pacing was rather monotonous and pretty linear, save for the music pumps that saved you in two scenes, with Mal'ganis' first encounter with Arthas, and Fordrin's speech. Although it started out fine and slow, it kept that same pacing in overall the rest of the cinematic - 12/15
  • Dialogues I know that you used Blizzard dialogues, but that shouldn't have been a halt for you to short out pieces of dialogues that were rather optional or unnecessary, overall the piece felt too long winded dialogue-wise, alot of lines could have been skipped over and reduced to a minimum to maximize your time more efficiently. Eg: "I serve the Dreadlord Mal'ganis, he commands the Scourge that would cleanse this land, and establish a paradise for eternal darkness, seek him out in Stratholme if you need further proof" here I skipped out the following dialogues where Arthas mentions what cleansing means, and Kel'thuzad's following response, there were many cases like this in the whole cinematic which could have shortened out the length of the whole piece much further - 7/10
  • Plot: The plot was quite clear from the begining following the piece of events being related in the story, although from a human perspective so it seems, as it completely skips out anything related to Arthas' following invasions to Quel'talas, Dalaran, his trip to Kalimdor and Northrend, and so on, so while the title of the cinematic might be a bit misleading, (since this isn't a full timewalking of Arthas' past, but rather just bits of things that happened during the human campaign and then events in Wrath of the Lich King, I don't think that's a flaw so to speak, but the whole piece felt somewhat incomplete or cut off, since, it went straight from events in RoC all the way to Arthas' defeat 5 years in the future (If my memory of WoW lore was correct and that's the actual timeline that is), completely skipping the process of him becoming the Lich King even, which is one of the main plot points of Arthas' story, I think if you had shortened out bits in the past tale to compensate and added some other important plot events it might have leveled out well enough - 11/15
30/40

Terrain

  • Concept: While you put alot of effort in the terrain notoriously, you missed out some key points in the story that kind of contradicted what you made in contrast, for example, after the battle at Hearthglen, the village was already being sieged by Undead hordes, corpses everywhere, death and devastation were drowning Arthas, that was one of the first main points that changed Arthas in the story, seeing the strength of the Undead Scourge, and him being completely powerless to do anything against it while they devastate his homeland, even in the vanilla RoC cinematic you could see piles of corpses both from Lordaeron and the Scourge's forces, yet in your cinematic the whole place was almost like a painting, compeltely bright and dandy, looked like there was no invasion at all in the first place. The other point was when in Northrend, Mal'ganis mentioned Arthas leaving his forces to die while he went on to carry Frostmourne and face Mal'ganis himself. Also, it makes no sense that some footmen use some catapults to burn down the ships, they were the ones who wanted to go home after all, there's a reason why you use Muradin's Mortar Team dwarves and mercenaries instead - 3/5
  • Execution: You were consistent in your mixture of custom and vanilla terrain assets, it seems sc2 wc3 remade models do mix well with vanilla wc3 after all, not so much for HotS though - 5/5
  • Attractiveness: I gotta give credit where it's due, you put alot of effort in this, and I can't really point out anything negatively for this, you could take my previous comment about "painting" as a compliment here, good job - 10/10
18/20

Audio & Visuals

  • Visuals Control: While mixing high quality assets with vanilla wc3 worked for you in the terrain aspect, I can't say the same about the characters, it really felt out of place how different Arthas and Jaina looked like, not so much Uther or Medivh, but she really stood out with her strange idle poses and mannerism, you could have probably used the default Jaina model with a better texture from Hive and it would've worked so much better. Also, I don't personally see the point of using the dialogue boxes for the characters' portraits when talking, but not add in any text, what does that accomplish? The only thing it kinda does is tell the viewer who's talking, yes, but this was more of a fault of the poor camera work that you could have reworked instead of relying on this method (They didn't even keep their team color in the portraits). Furthermore, there really is little to no interaction in most of the scenes, other than two specific ones (Mal'ganis' scene in Stratholme and in Northrend), the rest were rather idle, just the characters standing in front of each other while the music and audio plays, I'm ashamed to say that even the vanilla campaign cinematics added more action and movement than this. Also, you seemed to have focused too much on the youtube video that you forgot to give your cinematic a proper minimap and name, since in the game list it's just called "Homeland", with no description whatsoever either - 2/4
  • Lighting: The scenes' fogs were very consistent with the events and times they took place in, and so did the lightings, especially past Arthas' human past - 4/4
  • Music: You used the same piece from Krucial's video, which I don't personally have anything against, but the issue is, the music has pump moments where it enhances the pacing when they play at the right moment, such as they did in Mal'ganis' scene, but the length and pacing of your cinematic did not take adventage of it and instead had pacing moments that were aimed at in the wrong times, and in some scenes there wasn't even any music playing at all, like in the Frostmourne scene, and I don't feel like this was intentional, and more of a simple music loop, which is a very poor and lazy thing to do - 2/4
  • Sound Effects: Like I mentioned in a few posts above, there was little to no interaction from the characters and the scenes felt rather bland, save for that thunderstorm that was way too loud in comparision to the voices/music, and those two Mal'ganis scenes where you seemed to have put more effort than the rest of the piece, which is the only reason why you're getting 2 points instead of 0 - 2/4
  • Voice Acting: Since this is Blizzard made I'll skip this score and instead add in the remaining 4 points with a cross-multiplication - N/A
10/16 -> x/20 = 12,5/20 = 13/20 (rounded up)

Camera & Technical Competence

  • Camera Control: This was really the poorest job on this cinematic, it was just two cameras either zooming in or transitioning with an awkward rotation that was aiming at nothing for multiple seconds, like the scene with Arthas and Medivh. Also, this might not be related to the camera, but this field is about tecnical competence so I should mention this, but the cinematic doesn't seem to end after the last scene, it just stays in a black screen indefinitely, spent a good 30-40 seconds waiting for something to happen, but since I saw your previous youtube entry I figured it was unintentional - 1/5
  • Camera Effects: The simple transitioning between scenes using the same camera on two scenes connected together was clever, I just wish you used it more often, since it could've done more justice to your cinematic and saved you some points for the lack of dynamic camera angles - 4/5
  • Scenes Acquisition: This kinda goes to a simliar critique to what I mentioned back in the terrain concept, some scenes weren't exactly lore friendly, and didn't express what the intent of that scene was meant to show, but overall, most were accurate, it's a shame that the poor camera work really crippled most aspects of your cinematic, otherwise you would've gotten a much higher score in alot of fields - 7/10
12/20

Verdict
This cinematic shows a clear sign of mixed effort values: Some aspects were very well done while some others were rather lacking, hopefully my feedback will help you on your future projects to improve on the things that held your cinematic down.
Btw, I'm kinda surprised too that your score turned out lower than Yaser's, but that's more of a fault of the contest's scoring distribution more than my judgement, if terrain and story didn't take up to 60% of the score, the results would've probably been different.
73/100


Story

  • Pacing: Pacing is something really simple to do, it mostly consists on distributing the amount of action ocurring in a piece correctly and to keep people's attention on what's important. So that being said, I saw pretty much that here, begining was slow and steady, mid point bumped up the pace with a conflict and the end was slower and conclusive, still, the conflict pacing could have been split up into more than a single segment, it felt rather large and eventually your attention is kinda driven away - 13/15
  • Dialogues: You had too many grammar mistakes to the point that it made the sentences confusing, especially at the begining where the narrator is just monologuing and there's nothing to picture out what he's saying, use a spell checker or anything online to fix your script before actually submitting it. Putting the grammar aside, was the begining monologue necessary? I mean, it was probably the most dull part of the cinematic, so at the very least you could have made it short enough to not be too noticeable, the backstory about Kambujiya felt kinda pointless, there was a kingdom ruling other kingdoms (This is called an Empire, btw), then some forces attacked and they fled? I don't know, this felt like it needed to be reworked and shorter - 6/10
  • Plot: I'm not really sure how to take this, this whole story felt like an introduction, a prologue for something else that is supposed to be the, well, main theme, but it turned out to be actually the whole cinematic. The title was the Treasure of Eternal Kingdom, the cinematic starts with a narrator talking about an old falled kingdom and how it came to its fate, then at the end he just mentions some treasure of an eternal kingdom, and then ends with a cliche phrase. It doesn't even explain what this treasure is or what is its relevancy with this whole story, moreover, it felt more like it was just half-made due to lack of time, the story didn't kinda connect together with the main plot and I don't really see where was it taking me to - 7/15
26/40

Terrain

  • Concept: The concept was adecuate, you used your assets well and although the structures felt kinda out of place when combined with each other during your WiP submissions, I didn't see that much here, my only complaint were the villagers at the throne room being completely unfitting - 4/5
  • Execution: The models were a nice choice, the desert could have used more love, but being a desert, I'll spare it as they are supposed to be just desolated - 5/5
  • Attractiveness: The whole picture fit quite the Babylon style, and overall it was pleasant visually wise - 10/10
19/20

Audio & Visuals

  • Visuals Control: This was really mediocre, we aren't in 2008 anymore, vanilla fire effect spams and soldiers dying of a heart attack because the enemy wasn't even attacking them and instantly decaying are past their time. The narrator awkwardly jogging a few centimeters around whenever he "walked" was also really bad, at the very least, use an animation transfer tool to give them a walk animation, this isn't really hard to do, or get a different model. Sorry, I'm kinda crude with my words but this is what a random viewer would probably think too, so it's best if you hear it from me - 1/4
  • Lighting: The first scene had a good setting, but became much more awkward in the battle scenes, during the zoom outs you could see the regions with rays of lights coming out - 3/4
  • Music: These were nicely picked, I can't really complain here, they fit nicely to your story and complimented it well - 4/4
  • Sound Effects: I was going to point out how low the sound effects were compared to the music, until you mentioned out in a comment that we should watch it with the music at around half its full volume. While this seems to be correct for you, I don't think viewers are supposed to take these precautions for each cinematic they watch, the maker should make sure to adapt their piece to play the same way for any person on any wc3, some people don't even have music turned on, so I import my music as sounds instead, next time, force the music to 50% yourself with triggers - 3/4
  • Voice Acting: Voice acting isn't really mandatory, you aren't going to lose points if you don't do it, but doing it compromises your score if it's not good enough, your voice and tune weren't clear enough and the quality was a bit awkward - 2/4
13/20

Camera & Technical Competence

  • Camera Control: The camera job was nice and dynamic, especially during the battle scenes, probably because your landscape was big enough that using a simple camera slide worked fine here - 5/5
  • Camera Effects: There weren't really any "effects" here other than a few fade filters here and there, they could have been tweaked out a bit though, the transition between the narrator's scene and the battle scenes felt a little slow - 4/5
  • Scenes Acquisition: The battle scenes could have used some more transitions besides an aerial view, a much closer camera could have given a better effect and sceneric acquisition - 8/10
17/20

Verdict
Treasure of Eternal Kingdom isn't really about a treasure of any eternal kingdom, so don't get your hopes up waiting for that, maybe a title change would clear this up...
Jokes aside, I would assume this cinematic is part of a follow up set that may or may not ever come, but it's probably better viewed if it had one to compensate its half-made plot
.
75/100





FinalScore = (30*Reached_Votes/POSSIBLE_VOTES) + (70*JudgeScore/JUDGE_SCORE_TOTAL)

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Chaosy

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I'll go through the reviews in detail later.

I clearly underperformed though, 35/100 is a really shitty score. It's not even a passing grade.
I wont complain about the score itself per say, but I think like the overall points should have been higher.
Basically, if 50/100 is average (which seems logical to me), neither me or Yaser would get out of substandard which I think is clearly not the case.

Of course that would mean the winning entry would get more points as well to compensate and not change the end result.

edit: To clarify after taking a second look, I am mainly concerned about APprojects ratings.
 
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God such a low score! That way we would not be even the winners! (I know there were only 3 entries tho xD)

Basically, if 50/100 is average (which seems logical to me), neither me or Yaser would get out of substandard which I think is clearly not the case.
I would agree. We have also made our maps and took our time. They're not as good as the winning entry, but they are also not the thing to consider that score.

But hey, congratz everyone. And thanks for the reviews!
 

Chaosy

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Well, I would not say that spending time would give more points by itself. But I refuse to accept that neither of our terrain is 11/20 and 6/20
I have seen 5/5 campaigns with way worse terrain.
I understand that it is fair as long as he is equally harsh on everyone, I have no problem with that. But I do not think the end score does the entries justice in comparison to to map section ratings.

I do not have any problems with the other low ratings (more or less) since it was a consequence of my choice of cinematic where the end result might be pretty good but I cannot get points for it because certain elements cannot be credited to me. But the terrain score there.. I am slightly triggered :p
 
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I was thinking the same too, APproject's ratings seem kinda unfair and unjustified as they don't specify why they lose points at certain areas. Example: Ungoliath's story, he was given a 28/40 despite at no point did he mention something he disliked about the story itself or any of its sub categories.

As far as I'm concerned, the judging score is a rating between 0 and 100, not 0 and an arbitrary number of what you deem the highest, you can't criticize something by saying it's good and then give it a 7/10, this is literally against the judging guidelines as well.
4. You were appointed as judge, because you are trusted to review the submissions in an objective way.
When deducting points, you should always point out what for the points were deducted, and what could be changed, or improved instead. Never say only "Good" and give only "7/10" points, for example. The contestant needs to understand why, or why not he has reached a certain score.
But yeah, I saw this coming after reading his review, fortunately though, as you both pointed out, his rating still more or less gave a simliar score to all entries like I did, despite unjustifyingly deducting points to everyone, so the results would still probably not be affected.

At most what would be in dispute is Chaosy's and Yaser's places, since they're really awfully close to each other in score.

Edit: Also, I wholeheartedly disagree with the politic of "Cannot score high because it uses blizzard assets" (Such as the story or the voice clips), voice acting was not mandatory as the previous moderator in charge mentioned, therefore deducting points simply because they used wc3 dialogues or Warcraft universe lore is unjustified in my opinion.
 
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Good to see the results up.

I see participants did not take my judging very well. The main issues here is that participants seem to grant 50/100 an "average" title, but it is not in my judgement. 50/100 is 5/5, anything above 50 is greater than 5/5. In this case Chaosy would get 4/5 and Yaser 3/5 from me if this was a usual map upload. In the judging rules it is stated:
The contest thread usually defines clear judging criteria. You should follow them, as also the contestant will expect beinged judged upon said criteria. Those critera were made by staff, and usually makes sense; if there's a problem, you can feel free to discuss your suggestions with the appointed moderator, or the staff.
This is the only note on judging criteria, which is presented in the first page. Judging rules does not provide exact and objective criteria on "floor" and "ceiling" of the score. It does not provide guidelines that would grant certain amount of points, if this was provided, I don't think we would need judges, because this could be calculated by anyone.

In my "harsh" judging criteria 50/100 is already 5/5 as mentioned earlier. If I am rating terrain, for example, 20/20 it would mean no one could ever do anything better, for this reason I went with this sort of judging. So 11/20 terrain is already above 5/5 when compared with the rest of map section database. But from my own experience I know that limits are far away and stuff can be made completely custom and truly amazing, therefore many 5/5 maps can not be compared with some other content that is also rated 5/5, I simply leave space for something extra, such as Ungoliath did. Ungoliath truly passed 5/5 in my opinion and this is portrayed in my scoring.

Please address my review and I will gladly try to discuss and solve any issues. Azsure is right on Ungoliath's story rating, I did not mention the bad points to put down the scoring, yet I did not say it was perfect. My bad there, I did not point out why it is not perfect. Story part is far above average and good, yet it did not push the limits, it was not exciting, it did not trigger emotions, it did not make me say "now that was super", but it was great and unique. For this reason it was not granted perfect in my scoring.

I know you guys took your time and it was worthy, I enjoyed it and it was good. Chaosy and Yaser are really close, you guys did great and please do not get turned down by my scoring, there were no bad cinematics, all of them were above average to my view.
 
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This is the only note on judging criteria, which is presented in the first page. Judging rules does not provide exact and objective criteria on "floor" and "ceiling" of the score. It does not provide guidelines that would grant certain amount of points, if this was provided, I don't think we would need judges, because this could be calculated by anyone.
The judging criteria in this contest was summed up to this:

Story
  • Pacing
  • Dialogues (if not explicitly excluded from the contest's theme)
  • Plot
Terrain
  • Concept
  • Execution
  • Attractiveness
Audio & Visuals
  • Visuals Control
  • Lighting
  • Music
  • Sound Effects
  • Voice Acting
Camera & Technical Competence
  • Camera Control
  • Camera Effects
  • Scenes Acquisition
In your case, you simplified these criteria by only specifying the main points which were Story, Terrain, Audio & Visuals and Camera & Technical Competence, without further detailing the sub categories in each of them. Furthermore, judging is meant to be pragmatic and objective, saying we wouldn't need judges for that is ridiculous and basically points to "emotional judging", which isn't what we're aiming at, judging is about technical performance.

In my "harsh" judging criteria 50/100 is already 5/5 as mentioned earlier. If I am rating terrain, for example, 20/20 it would mean no one could ever do anything better, for this reason I went with this sort of judging. So 11/20 terrain is already above 5/5 when compared with the rest of map section database. But from my own experience I know that limits are far away and stuff can be made completely custom and truly amazing, therefore many 5/5 maps can not be compared with some other content that is also rated 5/5, I simply leave space for something extra, such as Ungoliath did. Ungoliath truly passed 5/5 in my opinion and this is portrayed in my scoring.
That is your criteria, but as I pointed out in my previous post, that is not how the judging criteria works, the scale is 0 to 100, 50/100 does not equal to 5/5, but 2,5/5 mathematically, or 3/5 if we're humble, this implies that a map in the resources section with 100/100 and a map with 50/100 judging by your criteria, both would have a 5/5 rating, which is utterly wrong. (We don't have Director's cut rating anymore).

A judge is meant to give a fair, objective critic to a piece of work to what we decide in a given scale, how good it performed to it, and by no means that scale should be impossible to reach, since you imply that anything above 50/100 is "above perfection", which is counter productive, that's like answering all questions correctly in a college grade test, but getting 50% of the score because you didn't add in EXTRA info that was never asked.
 

Chaosy

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That is fine APproject, I mostly disagree with the logic but I would say it is fine regardless.
The main problem here, I would say, is that both judges need to use the same point system for it to give a justified score which makes sense.

Since 50 = 5/5 for AP and 100 = 5/5 for Azsure..
So, effectively in order to convert APproject's ratings to Azsure's I double the points given which gives my entry and yaser's something which I feel resemble the quality quite accurately.
However, the methods gets broken for the winner since his score is too high. (unless you want to argue that it is a DC cinematic and thus goes over the 100 points limit)
 
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This criteria was addressed, it simply was not extracted as a separate rating, but summed as a whole, yet covering those criteria points. There is no rule indicating that each criteria point must be addressed separately giving it its own sum of points, there is no set amount of points for each criteria, but as a sum. For example, Story gets a pool of 40, it does not indicate how many points Pacing gets, therefore I did not violate rules by not proving rating for each criteria point and there were no simplification as rules did not require to provide separate rating for each. Those are but criteria that sums up into 40, for example.

Again, given criteria does not specify methodology on how to evaluate Plot for example. Could you please share rules and methods on how to objectively calculate points for Plot? There are no rules on how to evualuate Plot objectively, there is no A, B and C to tick and add points. This is evaluated by pointing out pros, cons and summing up overall situation. Already by expressing opinion is deemed subjective, therefore if I see no cons it does not mean there are no cons. Cons for one may be pros for other. It is our years of experience in this field that is useful for judging, that is why we were picked for judging.

If there was exact methodology on how to evaluate each criteria then indeed we would not need judges, because everyone could do the math and add up points. Does this lead to emotions? Maybe and maybe not. Could you evaluate Story part from technical performance standpoint? Azsure, you also use words like "felt" in your review, isn't it subjective? It is our experience that is important, because of it we are able to see more than random visitor.

That is your criteria, but as I pointed out in my previous post, that is not how the judging criteria works, the scale is 0 to 100, 50/100 does not equal to 5/5, but 2,5/5 mathematically, or 3/5 if we're humble, this implies that a map in the resources section with 100/100 and a map with 50/100 judging by your criteria, both would have a 5/5 rating, which is utterly wrong. (We don't have Director's cut rating anymore).
How does judging criteria work then? Where it is written that 50/100 in map contest is equal to 2.5 rating in map section rating? There are too many maps with 5/5 that are completely not on the same level of quality, yet we deem it equal in score in this sense. What you described is your personal take on the scoring, I have my own as well and rules does not regulate it. If it does, please show me. What I did, I left room for extra improvement based on the best uploads there are in the Hive. Again, 20/20 in terrain means no one ever could do better. I do not aim at your scoring, it is perfectly fine as proportionally we scored very similar. It is just that I chose different scale of measurement. Again, this is not regulated and what you described is your personal speculation.

Everything is possible to reach, based on best works Hive have ever seen. 50/100+ is not above perfection, it is above 5/5 in map section in my scoring scale. There is simply too big gap of maps that are rated 5/5, for that I give it space 50-100. Where it is stated in rules that this type of judgement is unacceptable? How can you judge from my review that certain criteria deserves more points? On what methodology? Exactly, there is no collage grade test, there is no methodology. In this sense we can get like 5 participants and all will score 100/100 if there were collage grade test type of judging methodology.

Again, I believe you did great with your scoring, I did okay as well, we just picked different scale of measurement. The main issue was that participants thought 35/100 is like 1.75/5, which is not true and I already stated I would rate it 3/5 and 4/5 if it was a regular upload.
 
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You can divide each criteria to your own leisure, yes, I never said otherwise, you asked about the exact criteria in this contest, so I provided them, we are free to distribute how many points these criteria get after.
Everything can be criticized objectively, as a graphic designer, I take this statement by heart, because this is what separates our work from simple "art", saying we wouldn't need judges is like saying we wouldn't need designers because basically everything could be methodogically done, which is not true. But anyways, since you asked about plot, I'll give some hints.

Plot by definition: The main events of a play, novel, movie, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence.

So taking this as a base for example, what you would check in a plot is the sequence of the events taking place, and considering wheter or not they "make sense", make sense then can be defined as "Do they follow a pattern? Do we understand the author's motives and did they translate well into his work?", this could be judged by using your common sense and experience, which is what us as judges have, or "feel" as I used in my review, and should use objectively.

if you see no cons, then yes you should logically not deduct points, otherwise you're basically saying "Hmm, there's something missing, I just don't know what is it" which is pretty unprofessional and obviously shows that said person doesn't know what they're looking at, and again, it is in the guidelines, if you don't state a con, then you can't give a score of 7/10, the user must know why they didn't reach a certain score.
How does judging criteria work then? Where it is written that 50/100 in map contest is equal to 2.5 rating in map section rating?
50/100 is half the score, period, no less, no more, the map section is a completely different field, but since you insist in comparing it with it, if a map has a terrible terrain, or awkward controls, it should never get a 5/5, if a map like that does, then whoever reviewed that map is a bad reviewer.

This isn't really written because it's taken for granted, why would we make a contest with a score of 100 for judges if judges decide to only take half of that score as relevant and the other half as "extra points"?
 
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Everything can be criticized objectively if there is methodology behind it that exaplains how to criticize. Therefore it can be criticized objectively only from that methodology standpoint. If there is no methodology, it is not objective. If I know participant and we are friends and for that I give more points, that is also not objective, but this meaning is not speculated.

Our work is simple art and again, there is no methodology, therefore it is not objective. Exactly, you are right, everything can not be done methodogically, because this is art. For this reason you can not say "my score is objective", it is impossible if there is no base for it, and there is none.
"Do they follow a pattern? Do we understand the author's motives and did they translate well into his work?"
Alright. Let's say I judge an entry, my asnwers are Yes, Yes and Yes. How many points is a yes? How many points is a No? Why there are no more criteria and only those? How to tell if it translate well or not well OBJECTIVELY? Maybe it translates well for me but not well for you, where is objectivity in that?

How common sense, experience and "feeling" can be used objectively? Please elaborate on this. Basically you said "let's go subjectively and call it objectively".

You are correct, if cons are not presented, points should not be taken away. I explained Ungoliath's Story part. If there is something else missing, let me know and I shall explain.

Yes, 50/100 is half score. Map section is different, yet participants brought this concept of X/5, so I went along with it. How do you know if terrain is terrible? Maybe it is amazing for me and terrible for you, pelase provide objective baseline to evaluate it, because you said you can do it all objectively without methodology. Who deems it bad reviewer? Why the reviewer is bad? Maybe he liked the terrain, so because you did not, reviewer is now bad? Explain objectivity in this area.

I don't deem it as extra points in the contest, it is like "extra" in comparison with regular map section ratings, if you would like to convert. That is how I went with the scoring, that is my personal take and this is not regulated, because there is no objective baseline.

What if I did participate in this contest and if I managed to do better at terrain than Ungoliath, for example only, we both would get 20/20, is this right? Who did better? We did equal? On what objective criteria? We did same in concept, execution and attractiveness? Provide objective criteria for attractiveness, it is impossible.

Objective means every judge should come to the same result despite their experience and opinion. If you are objective and I am too, we should get the same scoring, exactly the same. That would be objective. I work as energy efficiency specialist and I am working with multiple standards that regulates estimations and calculations objectively with certain methodology, so if we follow this criteria, we always end up with the same result, objective result. This can not be achieved in art.
 
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What if I did participate in this contest and if I managed to do better at terrain than Ungoliath, for example only, we both would get 20/20, is this right? Who did better? We did equal? On what objective criteria? We did same in concept, execution and attractiveness? Provide objective criteria for attractiveness, it is impossible. Objective means every judge should come to the same result despite their experience and opinion. If you are objective and I am too, we should get the same scoring, exactly the same. That would be objective.
"6. Do never change judgement score, just for getting unique ranks. It's not an issue when having equal scores, and a poll will usually exist, too."

You are worried that if both yours and Ungoliath's terrains were getting a max score, but you considered your terrain to have had much more effort than his, then this is a non-issue, there is a top to be reached for a score, thankfully, terrain can be subdivided into 3 categories.

Concept: What was the idea behind it?
Execution: How was it made?
Attractiveness: Was the result aesthetically pleasant?

Now you could argue that the last criteria could be classified as "art" to which I would say it's partially true, this is, after all, based on a personal preference, and therefore this could vary, but that's why there are two other factors to take into account, this is why Chaosy lost points in Concept for example, despite his terrain work being lovely, but what he tried to portray was inaccurate, while Yaser, to me, hit that spot better with his own theme.

This contest isn't art, this isn't an art exposition, this is a contest with methodogical rules and scores, if it was art, there would be no scores to judge, because both are polar opposite. Art follows no rules, therefore if there are rules present, it's following a methodogical pattern. There ARE some artistic points obviously, such as terrain attractiveness which is one of the only points, but it barely affects the full score as it's only a part. (I would even dare to go as far as explain how something couldn't be aesthetically pleasant using methodigical critic based on design rules, but you don't wanna go there).
How common sense, experience and "feeling" can be used objectively? Please elaborate on this. Basically you said "let's go subjectively and call it objectively".
Yes, common sense, you know, that thing that tells you how something doesn't follow for X or Y motives? The experience that tells you that, based on other contest works you've seen, this specific work seems to be focused on X and Y aspects? Yes, that thing.
Alright. Let's say I judge an entry, my asnwers are Yes, Yes and Yes. How many points is a yes? How many points is a No? Why there are no more criteria and only those? How to tell if it translate well or not well OBJECTIVELY? Maybe it translates well for me but not well for you, where is objectivity in that?

There's actually a scoring system for this, I can't remember the name, my college uses it alot, but it basically consisted in three stages, for example in a scale of 0 to 10, there were three possible scores: 0 (Insufficient), 5 (Partially done), and 10 (Correct), if your answers are yes, yes and yes then in this scale it would all mean a 10 score, if there's something wrong then it would be a 5, if the job was really poor then it would be a 0.

There are several other scoring systems too of course, you can choose to deduct only 1 or 2 points on a specific point you mention to be wrong, or more, depending on the gravity of it, but if you can't find anything to nitpick or criticize over, then there is no reason why you'd not give it a 10.

Also looking again at your previous post.
Again, 20/20 in terrain means no one ever could do better.
This idea is flawed by itself, there is no perfection achievable and as simple people we are always meant to improve, it's impossible to hit a score of "Can't be improved" because there will always be something to improve, to you it might just be based on your own perception of "I think it can't be improved anymore", but it can, and that's why this scoring shouldn't be based on that, it's based on simple rules and wheter the contestants met said rules, if they did, then they're given the score they deserve, if there really was something grave to improve then points would be deducted obviously, but if you can't word it out then it is automatically taken as there is nothing remotely important enough to improve at this point.
 
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Current methodology is free for interpretation and is incomplete in terms of objectivity. There are no rules to evaluate attractiveness, it is personal. Why would you try to go around corners and try to justify with "partially" or "one of the only". We have facts, current methodology gives criteria points to cover, but does not specify how to perform it objectively, facts are facts.

Why attrativeness barely covers terrain? Maybe I will give it 18 points pool and 1 for others, you said I am free to choose. Just pointing out flaws in this objectivity issue, because cleary your review is not "completely" objective, nor is mine.

Go ahead and explain why something just can't be aesthetically pleasant for me. It is completely subjective and you can not appeal to majority saying "this would be for majority", it does not work like that. It can always be aesthetic for me and may not be for you.

Yes, common sense, you know, that thing that tells you how something doesn't follow for X or Y motives? The experience that tells you that, based on other contest works you've seen, this specific work seems to be focused on X and Y aspects? Yes, that thing.
Sorry, not objective at all, because there are no rules that could be followed. No rules in this contest, so please don't come up with some methodology that does not apply to the contest. I can also throw some methods but it makes no sense in this situation, those are not regulated in this contest.
 
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Sorry, not objective at all, because there are no rules that could be followed. No rules in this contest, so please don't come up with some methodology that does not apply to the contest. I can also throw some methods but it makes no sense in this situation, those are not regulated in this contest.
No rules?
Alright.
No submission may violate any of the site rules.
  • If a submission does not follow the map submission rules the creator will be disqualified.
  • You must show at least two instances of progress, for example a screenshot, a video or part of the cinematic map.
  • Your submission may not be started before the official launch of the contest.
  • Judges are not allowed to participate.
  • Teamwork is not allowed - you have to work on your own as well.
  • Your cinematic has to be between 3 and 10 minutes in length (The entry length will not decide the winner).
  • Custom material is allowed, but has to be credited (see judging criteria).
  • Your map must be posted before the end of the deadline.
  • The is no restriction to the file's size.
"No submition may violate any of the site rules"
19. Common Sense
- If you are uncertain if something is against the rules it probably is. You are expected to think on your own and use common sense.
Common sense is a rule wheter you like it or not, it's the backbone of every community guideline, and guidelines apply to these contests, you are supposed to use common sense when criticizing, giving 1 point for Concept and Execution and 18 for Attractiveness is your choice, and obviously a lack of common sense, there's no way to defend this.

Then there is the Judging Guidelines which you've already read by now.

Still no rules you say?
Go ahead and explain why something just can't be aesthetically pleasant for me. It is completely subjective and you can not appeal to majority saying "this would be for majority", it does not work like that. It can always be aesthetic for me and may not be for you.
Okay, there are multiple things that influence in the aesthetic of a piece, such as color palette, grid (seriously, even the WE offers a basic grid for a reason), the golden point, the fibonacci proportion, visual weight, and so on.
This is all focused on distributing elements systematically where it's best suited. "Best suited" can be interpreted as, where we want the viewer to put all their attention onto, and where we don't want them to, such as to ensure our graphic work would work on our favor, and to ensure that the image may not "Hurt" our eyes (some color combinations can be obnoxious to the sight, this is where color palette plays a role in).
Systematically, if something "works", then by definition it turns into something beautiful, this can then be interpreted as "Attractiveness".

In short, terrain attractiveness can be interpreted as the shape and form we give our landscape and terrain, the way we positioned our elements in each scene: Are these burned houses organized in a directional way? Are these trees stacked together in organic forms? These details are often not noticed by the viewer, but they're still perceived, thus it's what leads to the "I like this, I don't know why but I do", because they naturally perceive these details but don't know what they are, we study them in hopes to understand how to drive someone to like something through their perception.

There, I explained how you can achieve a methodogical judgement of "terrain attractiveness" using element distribution and their natural perception.

Of course, there's always specific layouts that work for specific public targets only, while there are also those that are meant to work for everyone, in this case, if he aimed to target at the generic public, he may have better chances of getting a good rate from most judges, if he aimed at a certain layout that appeases to a certain judge only, then that's a different story, again it's not 100% systematically but we're going over to a rather small segment here, and as judges we have to be partial about the entry and our own taste, I'm not a fan of sci-fi aesthetics yet I gave Ungoliath a well deserved score because he captured the scenes he was trying to make amazingly, and one doesn't need to be a sci-fi fanatic to appreciate that.
 
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There are rules, but there are no rules on the subject we are talking about, seems like you take things out of context. There are no rules how to evaluate criteria points exactly, there are no step by step methodology, period. If there are, share a link.

My common sense may be different from yours, it is personal, therefore not objective. And you can deem I may lack common sense, but that is only your personal speculation as well.

You are talking about concept of "something works", what if I don't like it? Provide objective criteria on how to evaluate attractiveness without my personal opinion aka subjectivity. What if something does not work to my view? Where is objective baseline to state "I am wrong, it makes sense, even though I think it does not"? You are still appealing to subjective evaluation, I don't see how to come to objective conclusion as you talk about how should someone feel.

"Naturally" does not mean beautiful or good. Appeal to nature fallacy. There are tons of art that is far from natural, yet looks truly great. It is subjective and personal. You also deem that irregular and unexpected/different element distribution will never look good, this is also false, it can be good and does not require to be natural or distributed by standard. For example, abstract art. Appealing to majority (generic public) is also not a good measure, it does not provide objective criteria.

I think we got our points, I would like not to get off the subject and drift into different kind of discussion. :)
 
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The rule simply says to use common sense, which can apply to about anything you do site-wide.
And you can deem I may lack common sense, but that is only your personal speculation as well.
That's a fair point, but that's because we're having a dual argument only, maybe a collective opinion on the matter would change your mind? Or would you say that most people just have "their own opinion" about your idea of distributing points for Concept and Execution as 1 and 18 for Attractiveness? I don't generally like speculating, but I'm pretty sure about this one when I say most people would not agree with that distribution, and consider it a lack of common sense.
You are talking about concept of "something works", what if I don't like it? Provide objective criteria on how to evaluate attractiveness without my personal opinion aka subjectivity. What if something does not work to my view? Where is objective baseline to state "I am wrong, it makes sense, even though I think it does not"? You are still appealing to subjective evaluation, I don't see how to come to objective conclusion as you talk about how should someone feel.
Like I said, there are layouts that should work for the general public, while there are some that may only work for a specific public target, there can also be anomalies like any statistic, but they're usually too small to be relevant, if it happens to be a judge, that's a special case, and people would probably question your actions (Like they are now, for example).
"Naturally" does not mean beautiful or good. Appeal to nature fallacy. There are tons of art that is far from natural, yet looks truly great. It is subjective and personal. You also deem that irregular and unexpected/different element distribution will never look good, this is also false, it can be good and does not require to be natural or distributed by standard. For example, abstract art. Appealing to majority (generic public) is also not a good measure, it does not provide objective criteria.
Now who's taking things out of context? I mentioned the word "natural" once and you just jump into the conclusion that I'm talking about nature itself.
No, I was talking about Natural Perception, the unaffected action of visualization and pragmatism we have of objects we perceive around us, when we see an object that stands out of a pattern, like a straight line and a bending in one spot, this is a perception we have of said anomaly. we notice it.

Secondly, I never even hinted that irregular forms are bad, on the contrary, the use of irregularities is what helps performing visual weight and other forms of element distribution, you don't understand my point at all if you think I am defending some sort of equally organized element distribution.
I think we got our points, I would like not to get off the subject and drift into different kind of discussion. :)
If you do get my point, then I'd agree, but I'm not fully convinced myself yet.
 
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The rule simply says to use common sense, which can apply to about anything you do site-wide.
That is perfectly fine, I agree with the rule. But by no means you can argue that this is the objective method to evaluate entries. I believe we disagree on the extents of objectivity. Having just no emotions and favours towards friends are not the only extents for it in terms of being a judge. Judging itself should be objective, yet we are judging from our experience and common sense, how can you see objectivity in that?
but I'm pretty sure about this one when I say most people would not agree with that distribution, and consider it a lack of common sense.
I agree most would not agree, but having opinion of the most does not make it right or true. Appeal to majority fallacy. Saying "I think most would not agree, therefore this and that" is wrong and fallacious argument. We need to get down to the bottom of the argument and try to come to a logic conclusion, not appealing to masses.
Like I said, there are layouts that should work for the general public
That's fine, there are things that work for general public and appeals to majority, I agree. Is this contest regulated in a way that a judge should favour the opinion of the majority? There is a poll for that. Again appealing to majority, but it does not make it right or true. I am just trying to dig deeper into the current situation and how contest is regulated. In those terms so far I know I did not violate the rules. By rules asking to use common sense does not regulate what my common sense should be, as my common sense is based on years of my personal experience.

If anyone questions anything please feel free to express your concerns and we shall discuss it in further detail.
Now who's taking things out of context?
I was talking not about Nature, but anything deemed Natural. You provided exmaple of "anomaly", but it can only be called anomaly if there are rules regulating what is anomaly in specific case. In reality it is not anomaly, it is just what you thought from your personal point of view. If rules indicated that straight line should meet the bending line in one spot, then it would no longer be anomaly. By saying anomaly you provide negative meaning to that event, in reality there is no negative or positive, it just is the way it is. Now if we set certain rules, we can say it is anomaly from the rules standpoint. Now we should get back the original subject and narrow it down if I was unacceptably subjective and you were truly objective. Rules are unclear, therefore we both posses a lot of subjectivity, but it is fine and that's how it should be, because criteria is not regulated, we base it all on our experience and personal common sense, that is by no means objective.

Very well, irregular forms are fine, sorry if I misunderstood.

To sum up, I think you would not agree with my judging because it is not in favour of your common sense. Yet rules asks to use my common sense and not to appeal to someone else's common sense. So what exactly is wrong with my judging? So far I see participants were complaining about scoring, thinking about converting it into X/5 in the map section, that I explained, that's my common sense, because the gap between 5/5 maps is just too large.
 
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Judging itself should be objective, yet we are judging from our experience and common sense, how can you see objectivity in that?
Every good profession is learnt through both the theory and the experience, hence why most employers require you to have experience in your field when looking at your curriculum. Would you argue that they're looking for subjective professionals then? No.
Saying "I think most would not agree, therefore this and that" is wrong and fallacious argument. We need to get down to the bottom of the argument and try to come to a logic conclusion, not appealing to masses.
What do you think these polls are for? Appeal to the individual? It's pointless to try and reason with you about common sense when you're too adamant about your own judgement, so I'm relying on a more democratic approach to a subject that I already made my points about.
By rules asking to use common sense does not regulate what my common sense should be, as my common sense is based on years of my personal experience.
This is both our first time judging a contest in this site, I don't know about your own personal background, but I've had some experience judging other people's works before, mostly in the design field, hence why I'm pretty critic about things, so with that being said, you might have alot of experience as a mapper and in the cinematography field, most of your points in your review were more or less simliar to mine for a reason, do you think it's a coinscidence or more of an objective factor that we both had similar conclussions and scores for all three entries? But anyway, participating isn't the only factor, while I lack that experience as a contestant that you have, I'm very sharp about what I judge, and I've done cinematics before, too.

I'm not questioning your ability to be a judge, but part of improving is to accept critic, just like we criticize other people's entries, you should be more open about my critic to your judgement, because being adamant isn't going to lead you anywhere.
 
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Not subjective professionals, but experience by itself is subjective, especially when criticizing art.

If contest was based on democratic approach we would only have Polls. Sure, judging from democratic point of view is fine and it is your choice, but that is not the rule of the contest, again. I am asking for reasoning on what is regulated by the contest, not on methods you chose to roll with.

I am not saying you did anything bad as a judge, you did great, I have nothing against it. The subject itself was about me not following the rules, so I brought this subject about the rules. Let's sum up and point out again if there is anything I violated (Story part on Ungoliath was covered, it lacks cons indeed, missed it). I accept your critic and I am thankful for it, without critic it is hardly possible to improve. Yet if you presented critic, I believe I am free to respond and point out where I stand at it. I simply was not presented with very strong arguments to change my mind. It seems we argue about different things, I would appreciate more facts and less common sense.
 
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We aren't criticizing art, stop bringing up art. Art is subjective from head to bottom, it's based on emotions and not rules.
The subject itself was about me not following the rules, so I brought this subject about the rules.
The rule I was talking about was the one you mentioned, you added your cons to justify it and most of the other criteria, I simply find those cons harsh by themselves following your logic of scale of 50/100 for map standards.

For example, the criteria you judged Ungoliath's terrain felt more like nitpicking, since you deducted 6 points solely for a minor thing on the house and the creature's texture, (I'm no longer going to bring up your 50/100 logic here, I'm speaking through the normal criteria of this criteria being a 20 score.)

Sure, I'd accept these criteria taking 1 or 2 points since they're insignificant details, not 6, that's basically 33% of the score on terrain solely for that, you see how unfair it is?

Same goes for the criteria on Camera & Technical Competence, none of the points you made seemed strong enough to deduct 5 points over. When you brought over the main character passing through the crabs part, you have to also take in mind the author's intent, the character is presumed to be not bound to time and space, therefore when you think about it, he could be unable to interact wtih his surroundings as we saw throughout the cinematic, he goes through alot of flashbacks and abstract scenery but we never truly see him interacting with something physically, other than them seeing him. The crab scene makes me think that he's simply not there in time, thus he just passes through them.

Of course, that is just a theory based on what I understood from the scenes, go ahead and call it "Subjective", judging by you, everything that is analyzed through someone's interpretation is subjective and is not bound to any objective rule, even though I presented all of these facts about the story to justify my conclussion.

---

I'm mostly using Ungoliath's cinematic as example since his is the one with the least amount of errors to criticize him over, from both our points of view, I could point out that Yaser's review was also harsh for deducting 17 points out of 20 on camera competence for all his mistakes.

Sure it was very flawed, but there were things he did right too and should have taken merit for it, like scene acquisition, some points you made were also already made in Audio & Visuals, so you were basically deducting points on both for the same thing.

He doesn't deserve a 3/20 by no means, and there's no logical reasoning you can come up to convince me otherwise, because your criteria is arbitrary and it follows no rules, you simply deduct points based on what you "feel" rather than taking an objective stand point of how many points would it be fair to deduct someone for.

And like both him and Chaosy mentioned, their terrain job was probably their strongest field, maybe not the best, but your scoring clearly didn't appreciate that either. Also, your conclusions (Last sentences in each criteria) don't really project what your analysis described, for example, you described Chaosy's terrain as average, but nicely done, you pointed out some competence errors like mixing unnatural fogs and the weird result of mixing wc3 models with custom HD ones, then at the end you say "In all the terrain is well made, suits the theme and compliments entire work. Lighting and fog usually was well used, especially in the ending scenes. I believe the terrain part required most of the work." and then slap in a 11/20, how is that compensating what you just said earlier? That's competely contradictory, if you're going to make a praising conclusion, at least make one that makes sense compared to its body, and not just say something nice because you don't want to hurt the author's feelings.

And lastly, a point I made at the begining that was never addressed was the unfairness of deducting points for using non-custom lore and voice clips, you are aware that voice acting was not mandatory, therefore, not using it shouldn't compromise someone's score, and of course, if they use voice clips from warcraft 3, we can't criticize the voice acting either since it's not theirs, so what we essentially do is skip that criteria altogether, why? Because it's common sense, but what you did was deduct points for it, under what grounds? Chaosy even messaged us asking if his story would lose points for using them, and both you, Warseeker and me said he wouldn't.

You said that, based on your criteria, "Anything custom is highly appreciated", but that wouldn't be consistent, I would personally hate a cinematic that mixes wc3 lines with custom ones because of the quality difference between them, you either stick to one or the other, hence why I didn't see it necessary for him to do custom voice acting on a piece that already uses wc3 lines, I deducted points on his dialogue criteria instead, because he didn't try to reduce the amount of lines that weren't necessary for the plot, but the voice acting doesn't deserve to lose points over.[/quote][/quote]
I would appreciate more facts and less common sense.
Common sense is based around facts from our everyday life, things we take for granted because they've been tiringly proven over and over throughout history, hence the definition of "Common" sense, unless you were a sheltered child with autism, you should have common sense.
 
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We aren't criticizing art, stop bringing up art. Art is subjective from head to bottom, it's based on emotions and not rules.
What is a cinematic then? Not art? Movies, music, models, terraining, 2D contests, other design is not art? What is it then? Can you prove that cinematic is NOT ART? Because contest has map submittion rules it means it is not art? If it is true what you are saying, it is mind blowing.

I simply find those cons harsh
Alright, that is your opinion.

the criteria you judged Ungoliath's terrain felt more like nitpicking
Yes, terrain is all about details. Ungoliath did a truly great job, but terrain quality was far from anything similar to terraining contests or one of the best playable maps. It was not facinating or outstanding when compared with the best terrainers around, that terrain did not reach that level. In your logic if I am making an empty field terrain, and I make it empty without any touch and that is how it should be, that terrain gets 20/20. It absolutely makes no sense, because this is not a grade test, this is art however and if terrain is not visually stimulating, I don't care if that plain field is constructed the way it was meant to, it is not stimulating as art should be doing. Again, this is not regulated by the rules of the contest so your speculations are subjective and personal, just like mine is. Rules simply indicate what criteria points to cover, it does not indicate how to measure it. We decide it, so we did.

you see how unfair it is?
I get our point. You simply lacked more detailed explaination on why specific amount of points were taken away. I would gladly improve the review with explaining loss of every single point, but review was sent to KILLCIDE, moderator reviewed it and deemed fitting. If my review is biased or poorly argumented, moderator should notice me. But you also did not tell what con took X amount of points. You appeal to your common sense as if that nitpicking was not strong enough to reduce points, so what arguments are strong enough? Where do you draw the line? How to methodically estimate how serious a con is? There is no such methods, you are again appealing to opinion. Our entire review is opinion, however.

none of the points you made seemed strong enough to deduct 5 points over.
That is your opinion. Can you prove it? Let's say I think it is strong enough, can you deny that objectively?

the crab scene makes me think that he's simply not there in time, thus he just passes through them.
Your opinion again, that's how you saw it. I saw no indications of that. For some reason it looks like what you think you deem objective and right, is that correct?

even though I presented all of these facts about the story to justify my conclussion.
You presented your personal experience and opinion, I respect that and it is equally valid as mine is. Why your opinion are facts and mine is wrong? I know your opinion, I did not see facts so far. And I will probably not because we are speaking of art, however.

He doesn't deserve a 3/20 by no means, and there's no logical reasoning you can come up to convince me otherwise, because your criteria is arbitrary and it follows no rules, you simply deduct points based on what you "feel" rather than taking an objective stand point of how many points would it be fair to deduct someone for.
We are bouncing back to the beginnning. My reply to this:
1. If you don't believe, it is your opinion.
2. There are no rules on how to evaluate presented criteria points. I asked to provide it, you didn't, because there is none that are regulated by the contest. Your opinion is not rules or the right way.
3. I duct points based on my experience and common sense, that also can be called "feeling", because there is no approved objective methodology of criteria evaluation of ART.

And like both him and Chaosy mentioned, their terrain job was probably their strongest field, maybe not the best, but your scoring clearly didn't appreciate that either.
You are speaking of objectivity but now you are appealing to participants, as if their opinion should change my scoring. Maybe it works that way in your democratic method of judging. But you are free to do as you wish, I have nothing against it, you did equally fine.

That's competely contradictory, if you're going to make a praising conclusion, at least make one that makes sense compared to its body, and not just say something nice because you don't want to hurt the author's feelings.
I said what I thought was right and I don't take it back, not a word. Yet again it is your opinion. 11/20 is pretty good for me, as I explained earlier. This is art and not grade test, there is no objective criteria, I start to repeat myself I guess.

Because it's common sense, but what you did was deduct points for it, under what grounds? Chaosy even messaged us asking if his story would lose points for using them, and both you, Warseeker and me said he wouldn't.
Can you prove I deducted points for the voice acting? Voice acting was high quality, but not custom, therefore there were no extra points for that, Yeser got more, because he did his own and in my opinion with fine quality. This issue is pretty much the same as with the rest of your criteria, I explained that in order to score high something special needs to be done, can you prove I violated rules with this attitude? Please don't share your opinion, just proofs.

You said that, based on your criteria, "Anything custom is highly appreciated", but that wouldn't be consistent, I would personally hate a cinematic that mixes wc3 lines with custom ones because of the quality difference between them, you either stick to one or the other, hence why I didn't see it necessary for him to do custom voice acting on a piece that already uses wc3 lines, I deducted points on his dialogue criteria instead, because he didn't try to reduce the amount of lines that weren't necessary for the plot, but the voice acting doesn't deserve to lose points over.
Of course, if it was custom and it constributed to have more cons, sure. I highly appreciate the effort, and effort means customized content, but it has to make sense. No one gets points just by throwing some custom content into a pile yet making it a mess. You really thought I meant that?
You thought the lines were unnecassary, your opinion again, and I thought those were needed, am I worng because our opinion differ? Or it is wrong by objective criteria that you concluded? Based on what? Your feeling. Is it bad? No, I think it is fine and you can't do otherwise, as contest favour experience and common sense, that is subjective.

Common sense is based around facts from our everyday life, things we take for granted because they've been tiringly proven over and over throughout history, hence the definition of "Common" sense, unless you were a sheltered child with autism, you should have common sense.
You have your understanding of everyday life, I have mine. You literally deem your commen sense is the only true way and mine is wrong, because it is different. Can you prove why my common sense should be just like yours? Makes no sense to me at all.
 
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What is a cinematic then? Not art? Movies, music, models, terraining, 2D contests, other design is not art? What is it then? Can you prove that cinematic is NOT ART? Because contest has map submittion rules it means it is not art? If it is true what you are saying, it is mind blowing.
Movies, models and terrains outside contests are art, because there are no set of rules bound to them, or rather, they are secondary, not essential, the difference between art and design is that design is done to fill in a purpose, an objective, art is purely done on a emotional level with no purpose, wheter the viewer likes it or not is irrelevant, in design the viewer HAS To like it. In this case, the cinematic HAS to appeal to us, not the author, because the author can't say "Well I like it so whatever", I mean they can, but they won't get far in this contest, you see the difference now? Sigh, probably not, I'm just as tired as you are to repeat myself.
Yes, terrain is all about details. Ungoliath did a truly great job, but terrain quality was far from anything similar to terraining contests or one of the best playable maps. It was not facinating or outstanding when compared with the best terrainers around, that terrain did not reach that level. In your logic if I am making an empty field terrain, and I make it empty without any touch and that is how it should be, that terrain gets 20/20. It absolutely makes no sense, because this is not a grade test, this is art however and if terrain is not visually stimulating, I don't care if that plain field is constructed the way it was meant to, it is not stimulating as art should be doing. Again, this is not regulated by the rules of the contest so your speculations are subjective and personal, just like mine is. Rules simply indicate what criteria points to cover, it does not indicate how to measure it. We decide it, so we did.
So you're basically saying that to get a full score a terrain in a cinematic contest has to be of a simliar level to that of an entry of a terrain contest, do you realize how ridiculous that is? You probably don't, seeing how incrediblly dense you've been so far, so I'll explain, you're basically asking double the work in difficulty for a single contest, what's next? Are you going to evaluate every single model used in the cinematic to see if it's worthy of being on a model contest?
I get our point. You simply lacked more detailed explaination on why specific amount of points were taken away. I would gladly improve the review with explaining loss of every single point, but review was sent to KILLCIDE, moderator reviewed it and deemed fitting. If my review is biased or poorly argumented, moderator should notice me. But you also did not tell what con took X amount of points. You appeal to your common sense as if that nitpicking was not strong enough to reduce points, so what arguments are strong enough? Where do you draw the line? How to methodically estimate how serious a con is? There is no such methods, you are again appealing to opinion. Our entire review is opinion, however.
I spoke to KILLCIDE the moment I read your review when this thread was made, and he told me that this thread was specifically made so that we would resolve any inconveniences we had about the reviews here, your review seems fine on a quick glance, so there was no reason for KILLCIDE to notify you since your review appears to be acceptable. Only until brought on the table with both reviews and the contestants unsatisfied was the difference noticed, even if I hadn't said anything, Chaosy and Yaser already spoke for me at the begining of this thread for a reason, without me saying anything. Regardless, I'm still waiting for any word from him or Ungoliath in this thread.
That is your opinion. Can you prove it? Let's say I think it is strong enough, can you deny that objectively?
I presented my proof right after I said that, but you took it as "opinion, no facts lol". Alright... Why do you consider it as opinion? When I'm citing events straight out of the cinematic's script, the character not being bound to time and space happened, it's a fact by the cinematic's storyline
You presented your personal experience and opinion, I respect that and it is equally valid as mine is. Why your opinion are facts and mine is wrong? I know your opinion, I did not see facts so far. And I will probably not because we are speaking of art, however.
Because it's a scene that literally happened in the cinematic, there's no subjective ambiguations to derail over, it happened, there's no "What if's", even if it's not explicitly said my theory is completely logical judging by the cinematic's content.
We are bouncing back to the beginnning. My reply to this:
1. If you don't believe, it is your opinion.
2. There are no rules on how to evaluate presented criteria points. I asked to provide it, you didn't, because there is none that are regulated by the contest. Your opinion is not rules or the right way.
3. I duct points based on my experience and common sense, that also can be called "feeling", because there is no approved objective methodology of criteria evaluation of ART.
You keep bringing up that I'm somehow imposing my rules to you and my rules only, but whenever I bring up that other people probably agree with me, because they likely also think the same (And they do), then suddenly it's not objective and not valid anymore?
You are speaking of objectivity but now you are appealing to participants, as if their opinion should change my scoring. Maybe it works that way in your democratic method of judging. But you are free to do as you wish, I have nothing against it, you did equally fine.
Read my response above.
I said what I thought was right and I don't take it back, not a word. Yet again it is your opinion. 11/20 is pretty good for me, as I explained earlier. This is art and not grade test, there is no objective criteria, I start to repeat myself I guess.
Yeah, I'm not repeating myself either for the houndreth time either.
Can you prove I deducted points for the voice acting? Voice acting was high quality, but not custom, therefore there were no extra points for that, Yeser got more, because he did his own and in my opinion with fine quality. This issue is pretty much the same as with the rest of your criteria, I explained that in order to score high something special needs to be done, can you prove I violated rules with this attitude? Please don't share your opinion, just proofs.
Of course, if it was custom and it constributed to have more cons, sure. I highly appreciate the effort, and effort means customized content, but it has to make sense. No one gets points just by throwing some custom content into a pile yet making it a mess. You really thought I meant that?
If you give extra points to one participant but not to another that is essentially deducting points, and yeah, like you said, bad quality custom content shouldn't get any merit, custom or self-made, and his voice acting was really poor, to the point that it compromised the cinematic's quality. Both no voice acting or blizzard made voice clips neither get "extra" or "deducted" points, you can't judge something the contestant didn't make logically, but since the criteria was worth 20 points you simply skip the voice acting criteria and distribute the points to the other remaining ones, again, common sense, you probably hate this word by now.
You thought the lines were unnecassary, your opinion again, and I thought those were needed, am I worng because our opinion differ? Or it is wrong by objective criteria that you concluded? Based on what? Your feeling. Is it bad? No, I think it is fine and you can't do otherwise, as contest favour experience and common sense, that is subjective.
Did you actually read my review on Chaosy's entry? I explained why the lines were unnecessary, if after that point you still believe they were necessary, then that is, ultimately, your subjective opinion.
You have your understanding of everyday life, I have mine. You literally deem your commen sense is the only true way and mine is wrong, because it is different. Can you prove why my common sense should be just like yours? Makes no sense to me at all.
Common sense, "Common" sense, based around the common knowledge and logical thought people would come out with, I presented you logical conclusions for why I brought my points, I explained how this is what common people think, you discarded it away because you apparently disapprove anything that is conducted through democracy,
 
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It just seems like you guys are arguing over opinion, which is pointless, so let's stop. Let @Chaosy & @PrinceYaser talk to @APproject about their scores. As I mentioned, they know their submissions better than anyone else, and can point out any issues they had with his review. Since I haven't passed out the awards, I'm more than happy to adjust the scores if need be.
 

Chaosy

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I am not sad over my score per say. I just wish the judges used the same criteria.

I got a pretty decent score from Azsure a shit one from APproject (in terms of points).
APproject then clarified that 50/100 is actually a 5/5 for him, while 50/100 for Azsure is a 2.5 this makes my endscore seem way worse than it actually is.
This would not change the standings, would just make me feel less bad about my entry because I am on Azsure's side of how I view the 1-100 scale.

For actual review complaints I am only a bit sore because APproject decided to judge skill rather than outcome. Specifically, not getting credit for voice acting and story.
I'd argue that you should judge the end product, not how it came to be. This is a debate I had with the staff a while back and I do not intend to go through it again as it proved fruitless.

I'll admit that it is a somewhat reasonable stance to have in a contest however, and I was aware of the chance of it happening so it is not that bad in the end.

It would feel way worse if I was a few points away from getting first place or something, but I do not want to make a scene to gain 5 points if it does not change anything.
 
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Azsure. I wish I could continue this conversation, but it seems like time spent arguing gives not fruits. Just quick reply to some of the statements:

So if I am making art that has an objective and submittion rules therefore it is not art? Sorry, makes no sense in my world at all. Everything we make is bound to certain rules, let's say I am making abstract art, therefore I must do it the way it falls under this category, or I am making some crazy-gore-sexual-bizzare thing and I wish to upload on youtube, I can't, there are rules. Any contest in Hive is based on art and how good it was, it is all but creation, expression and art, that is why I fell in love with Warcraft 3, because it provided me this ability to express and create. Not because something is bound by rules, as if we follow rules and create something empty and objectively evaluated. That is my opinion, you have yours. And your opinion is equal to mine, deal with it, because nothing you stated has any objective value, it is all your opinion. If you explain your opinion it also doesn't make it a fact.

Yes, terrain should be similar to terraining contest, music to music contest, models to model contest, of course. Why not? Are you saying it is impossible? What if someone does it? Cinematic is a mixture of all areas, it is probably the most difficult contest there could be because it contains all areas of possible contests, if you choose to go the distance of course. What if someone does average and gets 100/100 from you and someone does 3x better and still gets 100/100, well this type of scoring is just plain nonsense in my opinion, it simply does not favour quality, it is like "ok, your terrain was okay, I have no cons, so it is 20/20" and "oh wow your terrain is the next level and Hive have never seen anything like it before, many hours were spent into it, here you go 20/20". In the last contest I did custom modelling for example, used custom animations, it was highly appreciated by judges and noticed and I am almost certain it favoured their decision, that makes sense to me. Now you are saying "reach certain level and you are fine, 20/20 for you, and if you reach far beyond, oh well, 20/20 for you". I choose to value effort, and effort equal to better outcome. It is hardly possible to have an amazing outcome without effort, that's the way it is and always will be. That's my opinion again, I am not saying this is regulated, that's my common sense.

I agree with KILLCIDE, it became opinion war, even though I was asking for no opinions. I also agree with Chaosy, you are absolutely right, the scaling of me and Azsure is different, but the problem is that this scaling is not regulated by the contest rules. Someone should make a clear statement on this and edit the rules some time, then it becomes regulated and no longer an opinion to follow.

For example, if there are no major flaws despite outcome quality, maximum points should be given, then we would approach Azsure scoring system. If this gets regulated by rules and I am a judge, it would be my duty to follow it objectively. But this way participants may aim for simplistic outcome trying their best to hide any flaw, despite overall quality, and getting maximums.

In my country school exams are rated for 100 points, score 50 is already deemed maximum in terms of regular grades, anything above is extra for the most talented folks. Just something that is already in use, even where everything has a correct answer, simply having much more diffucult tests and doing it right gives extra.
 
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Better late than never!

This was a really fun contest with great entries (Chaosy and Yaser did such an awesome job). It was interesting to tackle the theme of time and sci-fi, as I often tend to choose something of a mix between dark fantasy and horror. I'm quite pleased with how my cinematic turned out, but of course, it could've been polished up a bit more. Things that I wanted to fix, that unfortunately ended up in the cinematic due to time constraints, were all noticed by the judges. I will try to correct those errors at a later date!

Big thanks to the judges (Azsure and APproject), I loved reading your feedback! What I really love about these contests is the amount of learning that takes place, both by the inspiring entries, as well as the constructive criticism given by the judges. Not to mention how an approaching deadline makes you figure out more productive and efficient ways to go about things! To me it should not just be about numbers, but about improving and learning how to be better at, which this essentially is, a wonderful hobby.

Already looking forward to the next cinematic contest! :)
 
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