Terraining Contest #12 - Theme and general discussion

[M0rbid]

Even though it looks like number 11 is still taking a while, I would like to start a discussion about the theme of the next contest already, so we have the time to get to a very good and pleasing aswell as well thought next theme.
THerefore I would like everyone that is interester and/or has a good idea for a theme to post it. The post should not only include the theme name, but also a short description in it, one sentence is enough, but you can also add more so everyone can get an idea of the theme.

Keep your ideas coming.

Other aspects of the terraining contests like rules and stuff can be discussed here aswell

 

[chilla_killa]

Ancient Ruins / Tombs.

The contestant has to make a terrain showing an ancient ruin or tomb, whatever you like.
But you have to see that it's really ruined and maybe overgrown by the nature in the time of many years.
Could also be the inside of a Ruin / Dungeon / Tomb / Pyramide.
With dark spooky atmosphere full of dirt, dust, ruined pillars etc.

You know what I mean.

 

[Tleno]

Example

My idea would be contraptions. You have to create something machnical/technological or something like that.

Second idea would be Overpopulated Cities. You have to create some kind of urban terrains with lots of people and structures...

 

[Vunjo]

Hell, cause everyone got his own opinion how it looks like, so it would be funny to see everyone's imagination

 

[Chaos.]

In my opinion TC11 was so successful (in terms of numbers) because it had a theme that anyone could achieve. Anyone can throw in some units with out too much thought in what they need to be doing, and submit it. The two that follow (taken from the last poll) imo would also be so simple too create. A contestant looking to join his first contest can easily spam orc buildings on a map and call it orgrimmar or an orc settlement. Alot of beginners have trouble envisioning a completed terrain and instead just start placing doodads. These two themes would allow them to just start working away with out needing to think of a core idea like you would have to do in themes like steampunk or constructions.

Racial Settlement -A settlement has to be created, that could represent a specific race or organization.
Warcraft Lore - The contestant has to recreate a terrain of the Warcraft Lore in a nice terraining manner.

 

[AyeKantSpel]

Sky fortress maybe? I guess to put a bit more width to it, some kind of floating structure, similar to Dalaran in WoW.

 

[Skycraft]

Here's a list of ideas on what you could do! I got these ideas from myself and other users too.

• Wonderland
• Underwater
• Natural Environments
• Apocalypse
• Sanctuary
• Candy-land
• Creepy/Eerie
• Sci-Fi
• Universal
• Racial Settlement
• Emerald Dream
• Nightmare
• Castle
• Sand Dunes
• Nether-realm

You don't have to like them, they are just ideas.

 

[PROXY]

Example

My idea would be contraptions. You have to create something machnical/technological or something like that.

Second idea would be Overpopulated Cities. You have to create some kind of urban terrains with lots of people and structures...

I support that highly.

Though, the ideas from Skycraft are also very likeable

 

[M0rbid]

Here's a list of ideas on what you could do! I got these ideas from myself and other users too.

• Wonderland
• Underwater
• Natural Environments
• Apocalypse
• Sanctuary
• Candy-land
• Creepy/Eerie
• Sci-Fi
• Universal
• Racial Settlement
• Emerald Dream
• Nightmare
• Castle
• Sand Dunes
• Nether-realm

You don't have to like them, they are just ideas.

I would prefer you would name a few less and therefore be a bit more detailed on what you imagine with the theme.

 

[Skycraft]

I would prefer you would name a few less and therefore be a bit more detailed on what you imagine with the theme.

Alrighty! I'll re-evaluate my ideas and give more description to my imagination.

 

[Tleno]

Oh, I know one that won't be hard to make and it's still has a full spectre of ideas to use.
Plus it's kinda related to current stroywriting contest: Horror/Nightmare.

You need to make something nightmareish, terrible and spooky. A haunted mansion, zombie cementery, monster filled swamp - anything you like!

So what do you think about it?

 

[The_Olorin]

Oh, I know one that won't be hard to make and it's still has a full spectre of ideas to use.
Plus it's kinda related to current stroywriting contest: Horror/Nightmare.

You need to make something nightmareish, terrible and spooky. A haunted mansion, zombie cementery, monster filled swamp - anything you like!

So what do you think about it?

I like it, eventhough it may be hard theme to follow, but there may be some very good pictures, if it will come.

 

[Dr. House]

hmmm what about Nature´s Revenge? A theme which allows somone to create a terrain which shows a disaster caused by nature which could be an Earthquake or Sunami or whatever.

 

[L2love]

That's kinda like cataclysm though.

 

[Azurot]

I'd go with Racial settlement like Chaos. stated earlier. It's a simple theme that can have quite a lot of elegance put into it as well. It's so open as well, you can make many unique ideas as Orcs, for example.
I think that's the best idea yet, as it's really very open for interpretation, yet makes to so you can't go and make anything you want without thinking about the theme at hand.

Either that, or the nightmare theme, even if it can limit creativity a tad.

 

[AyeKantSpel]

Racial Settlement would be interesting, espiecially to see what comes out, is it just a simple group of humans settling the lands? Or a military outpost? Maybe it's not even humans!

 

[CoBrA b]

Oh no! It's a brainstorm! Run!

Ideas:

Prison:
I don't know why but some of my favorite scenes in fantasy movies have been those showing the prison of the villain (I mean, come on, 99% of the time, the villain is imprisoned in some way at the beginning of the movie.) The goal of this theme would be to construct the most epic and inventive prison you can possibly think of.

Horror:
The idea for this theme would be to either have the terrain create a sense of fear and suspense, by having it be clear that something scary is about to happen, or create a sense of shock and terror by simply having the scary thing happening in the picture. The better the sense of horror we get, the better the terrain.

Gothic:
Darkness, decay, ruin, heightened emotion, fantastic or supernatural events, all the ideas embodied by Romantic Gothicism are the goal to be achieved under this theme. Basically, the idea is to create something which embodies the ideals of Gothic Fiction, infusing elements of horror, romance, and medieval fantasy to create something that can only be described by that one word: Gothic.

Otherworldly:
The idea behind this theme would be to create a terrain of a place in a world not our own, something truly strange and new. Essentially, the goal of this contest is to create a terrain which is as different from Earth as possible while still retaining enough realism to be believable.

Extreme Weather:
Hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, all of these and more are available to you under this theme. The idea behind this would be to show a catastrophic event of extreme weather as it takes place.

There are a few ideas for you to consider.

 

[AyeKantSpel]

Extreme Weather:
Hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, all of these and more are available to you under this theme. The idea behind this would be to show a catastrophic event of extreme weather as it takes place.

There are a few ideas for you to consider.

Extreme weather like snow in the middle of the day in a desert?

 

[CoBrA b]

Wikipedia - Extreme Weather
Wikipedia - List of Extreme Weather Events

 

[fladdermasken]

I'd have to vote for Racial Settlements, as I did for the last contest.
However, Gothic could make for an interesting twist of surrealism, which I really favor.

I should stress that I don't want a theme even remotely similar to the current one.

 

[M0rbid]

I'd have to vote for Racial Settlements, as I did for the last contest.
However, Gothic could make for an interesting twist of surrealism, which I really favor.

I should stress that I don't want a theme even remotely similar to the current one.

I agree on that part about our last theme.

However I like how CoBrA b thought of his theme suggestions. Somewho I see a few of those reminding the last contests maybe a bit toooo much. Otherwordly and maybe also Gothic (not that much though) seem to beconnected to surrealism, while the weather thingy is quite close to Cataclysm somehow.

What do you think?

 

[Vunjo]

I personally think that Gothic is the best idea for now.

 

[Tleno]

Well yeah, I think we should stick with something horrorish/gothical. But see, just horror is more wide theme and Gothical athomsphere is just one of ways to achieve more horrorness...
So I say Horror, this way it's more simplier to make than Gothic while the themes are similar enough. Plus horror has more variety.

 

[Vunjo]

Gothic is unique

 

[Tleno]

Erm Gothic is quite a limited and requiring good terraining skills. I don't say theme should be easy enough even for a noob, I say that some unexperienced terrainers that don't have enough self-confidence could truy joining the contest.

 

[Pharaoh_]

Heh, I was going to make a new topic that suggests a theme, since I found it intruiging. I would suggest a theme "Close to Death", which basically has to do with shots that capture events, which shows presons that are apart from death only by a matter of a second.

Example:

Examples

 

[M0rbid]

I kinda like that idea, even though this would be very hard to represent in a terrain.
Also I think it's kinda close to the battlefield idea somehow. But might also fit the colossus idea that was discussed already. But it has the chances of being something totally different aswell.

On another note. Pharaoh_ could you please use spoiler/hidden tags for the images?

 

[Tleno]

Colosus is, well, not hard to make but what about a theme anyone can make?

Oh, I also got an idea about terrains that represent some emotion, like shall we say happyness is some, well, I have no idea, tranquility ir some sea with clods and beautyful sky, anger it... a battlefield.
Okay let's scrap this idea.

Now I vote for Horror, unless someone will come up with better one.

 

[M0rbid]

Well, I realized I did not yet tell about my personal idea.

So let me try to explain it. For me we had a very nice row of contests now, which were all a success. I now think of making a short break of having huge terrain contests, but therefore start a Mini-Terraining Contest like we had before the Cataclysm Contest. I really loved the idea of this contest. After that I would suggest having a contest like the Cataclysm contest in which you would have to create two images. AS theme I would suggest:
Evolution: The contestant is up to create a terrain and show how this terrain changed during a million of years in two screenshots. (might even be more, what do you think?)

And because this would be quite a huge contest, I would suggest making a mini contest like this before the actual contest: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/terrain-board-267/mini-contest-picture-153575/

What do you guys think of this?

 

[Tleno]

Not sure. I'd prefer some break between contests and then having a big terraining contest... but that's just my opinion.

 

[AyeKantSpel]

I think having to show drastic changes in two screen shots is a great idea, it can reflect upon the creativity of the individual greatly.

 

[fladdermasken]

Heh, I was going to make a new topic that suggests a theme, since I found it intruiging. I would suggest a theme "Close to Death", which basically has to do with shots that capture events, which shows presons that are apart from death only by a matter of a second.

Example:

Examples

I love it, really.
And achieving it is not impossible, there are similar terrains uploaded here.

Examples

 

[CoBrA b]

I definitely support the idea of mini-contests. I loved it back when we had those. I think that they were a really good opportunity to just have some fun and do some terraining, and because people didn't take it as seriously as the big contests, it actually yielded some creative results simply because people were willing to try things they wouldn't dare to try in a normal contest. It was also a good opportunity to try more specific/creative themes than a normal contest, again because it was so much more unofficial and not meant to be taken as seriously.

 

[Tleno]

Well, I have to agree with CoBra, he's right about the mni-contests...

 

[Oziris]

Weird, I haven't seen this. Anyway, mini contests? I was wondering why weren't there any going on. Yes, definitively mini contests between the big ones.
For the big contest I vote for Horror and Close to Death theme.

 

[Celaquil]

Close to death seems interesting, but by my reckoning, far too hard to achieve and still have a good result. Any "horror" theme to me limits the creativity part TOO much, this also applies to many of the other suggestions. And personally, I'd have to say that I still love my idea for the previous contest, the Racial Settlement.

In all seriousness, doing such a theme doesn't limit what has to go on in your terrain, for example, there could easily be a "near death" terrain done in the fashion of Racial Settlement, as for example having a large town of some race being invaded by a large monster or something, then you could also do a horror terrain, I'm not giving examples to such a self-speaking reason.

My point is, Racial Settlement is both very open, at the same time as it is very focused, it doesn't limit the creativity part at all, I'd say, and gives the terrainer freedom as well as restriction. For my part, Racial Settlement is the way to go.

 

[The_Olorin]

Evolution: The contestant is up to create a terrain and show how this terrain changed during a million of years in two screenshots. (might even be more, what do you think?)

And because this would be quite a huge contest, I would suggest making a mini contest like this before the actual contest: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/terrain-board-267/mini-contest-picture-153575/

What do you guys think of this?

Idea is good, but:
Why in more than one picture, we could make the picture in this style, like this picture.

Picture:

Only that we make it about nature, city etc. So you connect each age with another.

 

[Oziris]

I love the evolution idea! I want it either in the mini or the big one!

 

[Tleno]

Well I'm not sure... I mean I got of idea, like shall we say thee's some old building that stays until the present day, while everyhtinh around changes... but that's not exactly an easy objective... and not so much of creative...

 

[Tleno]

Erm sorry for double post, but 24 hours have passed (You can double post only when 24 hours have passed from previous post, right? Otherwise, sorry).

ao anyway, that would be someway a mix of comic and terraining contest. As example you could look at Forsty's comic that is currently a legend of the Hive, and Alagremm's comics, mostly his newest Red Reporter comic series, you can check those out in his album.

 

[Dr. House]

i miss The Picture! it was a kinda of mini terrain contest and it was challeging enough sinse you didn't really know what you would get and everyone started the same and had the same camera view.

 

[fladdermasken]

Evolution seems very similar to the cataclysm theme, wouldn't you agree?
'Portraying two terrains, one which takes place before the fundamental change, and one after.'

Only difference would be that cataclysm is sudden change, where as evolution is gradual.
The general concept idea is identical, I'd say.

On a side note, I must say I'm in favor of 'The Picture' as well for a mini contest.

 

[Chaos.]

+1 vote for "The Picture #2"
As for TC12, I'm still going for racial settlement.

 

[Celaquil]

I can host The Picture if you guys want it to return, would be an unofficial contest, though. (And dont you DARE touch my baby M0rbid.)

 

[CoBrA b]

Go ahead, Keiji, I can't wait to get started!

 

[VegaKotes]

Well, I realized I did not yet tell about my personal idea.

So let me try to explain it. For me we had a very nice row of contests now, which were all a success. I now think of making a short break of having huge terrain contests, but therefore start a Mini-Terraining Contest like we had before the Cataclysm Contest. I really loved the idea of this contest. After that I would suggest having a contest like the Cataclysm contest in which you would have to create two images. AS theme I would suggest:
Evolution: The contestant is up to create a terrain and show how this terrain changed during a million of years in two screenshots. (might even be more, what do you think?)

And because this would be quite a huge contest, I would suggest making a mini contest like this before the actual contest: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/terrain-board-267/mini-contest-picture-153575/

What do you guys think of this?

Ooh I like that idea

 

[M0rbid]

I can host The Picture if you guys want it to return, would be an unofficial contest, though. (And dont you DARE touch my baby M0rbid.)

Go ahead, lady

 

[Sorceress]

Ruined City Theme..
A detail battle you could probably call it?
Make a city, (doesnt have to be "New York" look-a-like),
but could be nice.

And by ruined i mean like..
maybe after a Zombie attack or something like in the movies?
Or maybe just a big city theme?

 

[fladdermasken]

Ruined City Theme..
A detail battle you could probably call it?
Make a city, (doesnt have to be "New York" look-a-like),
but could be nice.

And by ruined i mean like..
maybe after a Zombie attack or something like in the movies?
Or maybe just a big city theme?

I used to be obsessed with that idea, but the effort it takes to make it look appealing is just way too much.
Unless, of course, you only portray a street or something of the sorts.

Regardless, I'd personally say it's too big a task.

 

[Sorceress]

I used to be obsessed with that idea, but the effort it takes to make it look appealing is just way too much.
Unless, of course, you only portray a street or something of the sorts.

Regardless, I'd personally say it's too big a task.

Hm, youre probably right, but it is possible if people got enough time.