HD Modeling Contest #1 - Poll

[Riki]

>> Download All Entries! <<

Contestants were to create a Neutral Hero or upgrade a Neutral creep into a Hero. HD submissions only.

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• Trying to manipulate the poll in any form is not allowed.
  If you're aware of ip-sharing with any voter, for any reason, you should contact the staff.
• Harassment towards others to influence the result will lead to punishment.
• A neutral recommendation to take part at the poll isn't problematic, though.
• Voting for yourself is not allowed, and will lead to a malus of 5%.
• Participating in the poll will not prevent disqualification.
• Judges are not allowed to vote.

You are very welcome to make a short statement about what you like the most, so contestants get a bit of public feedback!

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• 1st place: 750 experience points
• 2nd place: 600 experience points
• 3rd place: 450 experience points
• Entry: 150 experience points
• Judge: 50 experience points per entrant

The three winners will receive an award icon representing the winning entry.​

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• @Mr Ogre man
• @Z1003

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Contestant	Entry
@Moonman	Arc Lancer
@BurnedSmackdown	Female Villager Hunter
@Raddazong	Mo'arg Houndmaster
@Bagysta	Forest Troll Shadow Hunter
@Superfrycook	Draenei Shield Maiden

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Mesh	How does the mesh look? How are the balance and scale? How coherent is polygon distribution? Do the shapes complement the model's theme?	/15
Skin	How good is the wrap? Are the textures appealing, or do they look blurry/stretched from the default game camera and portrait? Do the tones go well together? Is there sufficient contrast? Do the Normals and ORMs create proper lighting for the model?	/15
Animations	How natural, smooth, and appropriate are the animations? Do they have physical coherence? Do they have character/personality? How well are they executed? Does the model have enough animations to function properly?	/15
Effects	Were the particle, ribbon, or mesh effects made in good measure? Do they contribute to the model? Are they impressive?	/10
Theme	How well does the model follow the contest theme?	/15
Integration	How well does the model work in-game? Does it feature the necessary attachments, footprints, sounds, and collisions? Are the attachments obscured? Is the model fully selectable? How well does the it fit in the game environment?	/10
Creativity	How original is the general idea? How inventive is the execution?	/20
		/100

Results calculation

• Judgement: 70%
• Poll: 30%

FinalScore = (30*Reached_Votes/POSSIBLE_VOTES) + (70*Average_Judge_Score/POSSIBLE_SCORE)

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The poll shall conclude on 23th of June 2021.

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Assigned Staff: @Riki

Contest | Results

 

[Barorque]

I believe that an in-depth review of the other contestants models would be a good fit for the vote.
Will re-check them all again in detail with RMS and ingame before I cast my vote.

If you also have the time fur such analysis, I believe we can all benefit for the things we missed, could add or improve in our models (of course considering the time we invested in them).

Will try to do so this week, good luck everyone!

 

[YourArthas]

Pretty sure some sort of manipulation is going on but still let's go @Raddazong !

 

[Raddazong]

Pretty sure some sort of manipulation is going on but still let's go @Raddazong !

Sorry if you think so. ^^
Maybe it's just bad luck. ¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[Hawkwing]

I'm really pleased with the results of this contest! Really great work, everyone. I haven't had a chance to review the models in game yet, so I'll withhold my vote for the moment.

I love the team coloured hair on the Arc Lancer. The Houndmaster is also fantastic. Hakkar is visually an awesome character so it's very exciting to finally see his likeness created for Warcraft 3. It's always great to have more troll and draenei heroes too. Draenei models in particular are often in short supply! I quite like the fur collar on BurnedSmackdown's Villager Hunter. The inclusion of the cinematic animations on that one are very welcome too!

 

[Barorque]

This is a relatively new ground, HD model modding was around for like.. one and a half year. Some people had a lot of experience other less.
Will try to give good tips besides the review. Here are my thoughts and technical analysis from top to bottom of the list.

Female Villager Hunter from BurnedSmackdown

Spoiler: Review

This is a humble character, which is perfectly fine, after all she's a villager, not a soldier. I like the model and think it's even ¨cute¨ in a way.
The Huntress fits the contest well imo.

Artistic:
+ Geoset choices work well and are fitting for this character.
+ No custom textures is not always bad. This character could for example be used as a villager running off to equip herself and transforming into this model in some campaign.
~ No icon provided, but female villager is rare enough for it to not be a big deal.

Technical:
+ Animations generally work as intended and fit the character.
+ Considering there are different upper and lower body parts, this is executed very well.
++ She holds the gun without it moving about, I know how hard it is to do so. You killed the animation frames making arms glued to the gun, but it works!
~ Not perfect hand movement while shooting, but it's very hard to fix and is barely noticeable form RTS camera distance
- Cape and hair are clipping a little too much for my liking, it would be a little challenging to fix, but definitely possible
- No PopcornFX for the gun shot (and therefore no sound on attack)
- No death sound

Mo'arg - Houndmaster from Raddazong

Spoiler: Review

Legit a very nice model! Looks like a fresh new character, both fitting a neutral hero and a Burning Legion one.

Artistic:
++ Excellent geoset choices, you completely transformed the Bloodliend into a whole new (very intimidating) character.
+ Re-textures are quite good as well.
+ Good PopcornFX for fire and spell animation.
+ Normal fire makes him even a little more distinct from usual fel fire demons in the Burning Legion, for some reason I like that.
+ Provided a decent enough icon for the character, which was necessary since he has a very unique look.

Technical:
+ Majority of animations are fine, you even used the double weapon trick for death and standard animations.
~ Spell 1 animation is a nice ideas, but has a quite awkward head position, could be fixed easily.
- Dissipate animation has crazy moving geoset for a split-second.
+ Texture sizes are good, large textures for Emissive and ORM are reduced in size as should be standard for all HD models.

Hero Forest Troll Shadow Hunter from Bagysta

Spoiler: Review

Disqualified because stole secret/hidden model from Blizzard!!! No... jokes aside, this has such high quality that it's 100% 99% Blizzard standard (in a good way, you Reforged haters!).
I am almost worried it's too good for it's own sake. Technical and artistic choices are so well executed that it barely looks like a custom model.

Artistic:
++ Absolutely perfect geoset picks.
+ Simple retexture, but it makes him more distinct from Forest Troll High Priest. Most importantly you gave him underwear... thank you... it was absolutely necessary for his animations...
+ Provided a good icon for the hero.

Technical:
++ Incredibly impressive and clean animation transfers. Nothing looks off, like said, it's perfectly implemented.
++ While he uses the same animation as the original hero, you went the extra step to make ALL of his extra geosets animated in every single animation (the feathers, heads etc.). This takes a lot of effort.
~ You bastard... I spent so much time to find a single flaw and there was none.. buuuut, one single animation bone (his back equipment) moves a liiiitle bit awkward in his death animation towards the end (even though you would never see it ingame).. gotcha bitch! Nothing's perfect!

Draenei Shield Maiden from Superfrycook

Spoiler: Review

Honest thoughts, this is not the best you can offer (your Blood Elf Warden for example is a really good model).
You took a risk going for a character that doesn't exist in Reforged, an unbroken Dreanei, in some ways it worked, in other not so much.
Since you took Tormentor (succubus) model as base, you could have greatly improved the aesthetic of the character by making her a ¨fel Draenei¨ like Tyrant Velhari of the Sargerei, without reworking too much, except skin colour to red. She could have looked like a succubus, but still be a (ex-)Draenei character.

Artistic:
~ Geoset choices besides the leg armor are not that great. Like said, she's way too bad-girl for a normal Draenei, too skimpily dressed for that race. Also the shield has skulls.. man this could really work well for a fel-Draenei, you missed a great opportunity!
- Texture recolors for gear are just meh, sorry. You could have made the axe from some ice geoset to make it crystal, but it's all just pink overlay.
~ If you really were going for a normal (good) Draenei, you could remove the face paint, and make her eyes blue like most of the seem to have.
~ No icon provided, but succubus one can fit also.

Technical:
+ Animations work fine actually, axe throw animation etc. are a good touch.
~ You kept the LODs, those don't need to be in a custom model at all, they just make the file larger (which is not an huge issue for your model).
~ Clipping occurs only with shield and pauldrons, not that critical.
~ Dissipate animation somehow seems to start too fast after death anim, think the latter one is the issue, but it's not that bad.
~ Emissive texture is too large in file size. For it to look good, full image size IS NOT required. Next time reduce the image size of Emissives by half... also it doesn't need an alpha channel, so it's half file size gone again. But since it's only one Emissive texture, it's not critical.

So... I wanted to be as objective and fair in my vote. With only 4 contestants for me to choose from (sadly some others with great potential not having time to finish) the choice for me is simpler to make.
My favourites after the deeper look at the models are the Houndmaster and Shadowhunter. First one is very unique and is done well, second one supplements an existing hero to a different troll tribe, but is done almost entirely flawless.
My vote goes to: Bagysta's entry for how well the character is done and how great the technical aspect of that model was executed.

 

[Riki]

HD Modeling Contest #1 - Results

Archived.