The Picture, take 7!

[FeelsGoodMan]

Welcome to the seventh edition of "The Picture"!

Reference: The Picture #6

DISCLAIMER: All contestants are highly encouraged to post IN-GAME screenshots as their entries. The template has been adapted to A) hide all UI, B) change between camera angles with UP and DOWN arrow keys, and C) hide or show the mouse cursor with 'ESC'. The downside to in-game screenshots is that camera far Z is locked to a hard cap of 10000.

Description:

The goal of this contest is to challenge terrainers to adapt to their situation, you are presented with a template that has certain aspects you cannot change and certain objects you cannot remove, you are locked to a specific camera angle and you have to work around these limitations to create something unique and wonderful of your own. So, without further ado, here's the rules:

The Rules:

• Contestants must use one of two camera angles for their submissions and cannot alter the camera object in any way. The template will contain two different cameras, you are free to choose either one of them. In-game you can swap between them with the arrow UP and DOWN keys.
• Contestants cannot alter the elevation (topography) that has already been changed, although so long as the distinctive height variation stays the same, you may make small changes.
• "Flat" surfaces can be changed.
• Contestants cannot delete, resize or hide doodads that are already placed in any way, the final submission must contain these objects visibly. The chain in the template can NOT be removed, but it CAN be rotated differently (this includes changing the object editor pitch and roll values), as long as it is in clear view, and the epicenter of the chain remains unmoved.
• Contestants can change tile-set, fog-setting, time of day, place and tint doodads in any way they want and otherwise add any details they want.
• Contestants can use custom models and assets in their entries.
• Contestants can submit HD and SD entries.

Otherwise the contest rules are more or less the same as official terraining contests, what I am especially referencing here is the use of "unofficial" assets: If you use "off-site" assets, please leave a link to them with your submission, and if you're using assets you made or procured yourself, then please make them available to the rest of the contestants. We're here to have fun, learn and grow together, so let's all play fair
Link: Arena - Rules And Guide

Judging:

The judging will be performed by the host of each respective round, the winners will be included in a photo-showcase below and the latest winner will have their entry as part of the contest's banner.

Criteria:

Aesthetics	Overall appearance of the final entry as a whole, e.g. an entry can lack detail and technique but still have an overall nice composition.	/35
Creativity	How unique and original is the idea? How inventive is the execution? How creatively does it conform to the contest theme?	/30
Detail	Measurement and balance of detail in design. Impurities include rough edges, deficiency in execution, and general disorder.	/35
Similarity	How close is the final entry to the original template? Is it drastically changed or can you see where it originated from?	/10
Total		/110

Deadline: End of June, in whatever time zone changes to july the last

 

[Illbean]

My very first thought is to make an underwater scene, but I reckon that's going to be waaaayy too obvious and common, so I gotta dive deeper and think harder!

 

[Celaquil]

Damn boy, them are some real dutchy angles!

And well, ugh.

My old-school lazy-ass terrainer heart really doesn't appreciate this nu-age "ingame" shit you young un's are so obsessed with, but I'll give it a spin.
I mean, this contest is all about "challenging terrainers to adapt to their situations" or something, what an annoying prick who wrote that.

Jokes aside, this looks very interesting! Those unnaturally uniform hills are going to be hell to work around, but I can dig it. I'll for sure throw something together for this one

Thank you for hosting this! Much obliged.

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

Damn boy, them are some real dutchy angles!

And well, ugh.

My old-school lazy-ass terrainer heart really doesn't appreciate this nu-age "ingame" shit you young un's are so obsessed with, but I'll give it a spin.
I mean, this contest is all about "challenging terrainers to adapt to their situations" or something, what an annoying prick who wrote that.

Jokes aside, this looks very interesting! Those unnaturally uniform hills are going to be hell to work around, but I can dig it. I'll for sure throw something together for this one

Thank you for hosting this! Much obliged.

In-game is not required, but it is highly encouraged

Yeah I messed around with the angles a bit, consider it an added challenge haha.

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

It has come to my attention that the camera angles are bugged in-editor, and won't display their pitch and roll values correctly. I'll allow contestants who prefer to work in-editor rather than in-game to adjust the camera angles manually so they match that of the in-game camera (as close as they're able to). Any other adjustments are not permitted. I'll add it to the rules in the original post tomorrow.

 

[Celaquil]

I found that these settings are close to "Alternative 2":

If you make a third camera, work from that, and use Alternative 2 ingame, I think they should match up pretty well.

Not sure what to do for Alternative 1 sadly :/

 

[Marchombre]

Damn, this angle looks... hard to deal with.

I might have an idea of what I would want to do... But now, I need to figure out where the hell am I going to find the necessary doodads
May the model browsing begin !


EDIT: Oh god, now I have to learn how to import tilesets. Damn it brain, couldn't you think about something within classic tileset ?

 

[Celaquil]

Looking forward to seeing your entry Marchombre, I really liked your previous one ^^

In other news: Here's my shitty first WIP.

 

[Marchombre]

Looking forward to seeing your entry Marchombre, I really liked your previous one ^^

In other news: Here's my shitty first WIP.

Well, thanks, I'm glad you liked it.
I'm going for a whole other vibe on this one tho, hope I can do something correct

 

[Marchombre]

Here is my first WIP. Mining operation on space rock seems to be going soomthly.
Still have a lot to do, and not satisfied with some of the doodads I used, but thought it might trigger more people to join in

Spoiler: First WIP

 

[gloriouspoppy]

Feel like joining in, but I'm quite busy this week. Luckily, we don't seem to have a set deadline yet, right? I have some ideas regarding this template...

 

[PROXY]

Grabs shovel and gets to work.

 

[Celaquil]

Here is my first WIP. Mining operation on space rock seems to be going soomthly.
Still have a lot to do, and not satisfied with some of the doodads I used, but thought it might trigger more people to join in

Spoiler: First WIP

View attachment 474566

Cool, another sci-fi entry!

It's a nice start, and I'm curious to see how the chain will factor into this scene and not look too out of place.

I would recommend you take care to consider texture quality while working on this

Grabs shovel and gets to work.

Looking forward to seeing your entry!

 

[Marchombre]

Cool, another sci-fi entry!

It's a nice start, and I'm curious to see how the chain will factor into this scene and not look too out of place.

I'm trying to find the right models to make the chain supporting some kind of equipment for drilling/mining, which would attached to robot/spaceship above. So far, not found the right match

I would recommend you take care to consider texture quality while working on this

Well, that's the main point where I'm not satisfied with what I'm using there. But I wanted to make a "sketch" before browsing more for models

 

[Celaquil]

Luckily, we don't seem to have a set deadline yet, right?

Deadline: NA

Correct

I'm trying to find the right models to make the chain supporting some kind of equipment for drilling/mining, which would attached to robot/spaceship above. So far, not found the right match

Interesting!

Well, that's the main point where I'm not satisfied with what I'm using there. But I wanted to make a "sketch" before browsing more for models

Ah, makes sense.

Though a little hint: With some clever use of the "glow" and the "terrainglow" models from the UTM with low RGB values, you can really make most textures work by performing some in-editor "photoshopping", diffusing the textures so that their bad quality isn't so apparent.

 

[Marchombre]

Though a little hint: With some clever use of the "glow" and the "terrainglow" models from the UTM with low RGB values, you can really make most textures work by performing some in-editor "photoshopping", diffusing the textures so that their bad quality isn't so apparent.

Now, you got me curious. Is there a tutorial out there for that kind of textures hiding/correction ?
I'll look for it, but you might have the link somewhere, so I thought I would ask.


Also, I can't figure out how to import this cliff/tileset in reforge editor
If you have any tip on how to do that, please share them

 

[Celaquil]

Now, you got me curious. Is there a tutorial out there for that kind of textures hiding/correction ?
I'll look for it, but you might have the link somewhere, so I thought I would ask.

You know, I don't think there is one as far as I know, but some of the techniques used might be covered in this tutorial: Fundamental Principles of Lighting

I did a little shitty mini-tutorial using the felsen rock and the aforementioned glow and terrainglow from the UTM: Minitutorial
It's not super good, but I think it gets the point across. Obviously I would recommend working with lower values and layering them more, but I hope you get the gist.

As for the cliff tile, no idea. Might be that doesn't work for reforged editor, I even tried the old trick of saving, quitting and reopening the editor, didn't work.

 

[Heinvers]

Hey.

These be some refreshing terrains.

 

[gloriouspoppy]

After spending some time on this map, it feels like I'm finally moving somewhere. This one is much harder, as I chose to create a city-type terrain which I'm not good at, and it also takes quite a while to go through all available models in UTM (seeing it for the first time ).

Here's my first WIP with all kinds of stuff randomly scattered around

Spoiler: First WIP

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

A deadline has been set. The deadline is end of month, in the time zone that changes to july the last.

 

[Celaquil]

Well shoot, I won't make it then.

On vacation and away from my computer this week and busy all week next week.

We'll see if I can squeeze some time in to finish it up somewhat enough for a decent submission.

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

Well shoot, I won't make it then.

On vacation and away from my computer this week and busy all week next week.

We'll see if I can squeeze some time in to finish it up somewhat enough for a decent submission.

I'm sure we can postpone the due date a bit if nobody objects, let's see closer to the end of the month.

 

[Marchombre]

As I didn't get much time to work on this after my first wip, I wouldn't mind a bit more time

 

[gloriouspoppy]

I also wouldn't mind extra time. Elden Ring DLC release definitely didn't make it easier to work on the map . Here's my progress so far:

Spoiler: WIP - 2

The struggle is real - it's very hard to build fantasy castles/cities with no substantial prior experience, but at least I'm earning said experience in the process :^)

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

Since there are very few entries I think we can safely extend the due date. Let's set a new due date 2 weeks from now, on the 15th of July.

 

[Marchombre]

Still not satisfied with what I got

Some part are fine and close to what I had in mind, others... well, I can't get to make them work, it's frustrating

Spoiler: WIP2

I just hope I'll manage to find more time to work on this.

 

[gloriouspoppy]

Posting another WIP before the weekend crunch in an attempt to finish this project:

Spoiler: WIP - 3

Still got to work on details and finish the foreground, but I'm glad that at least it moved in a direction that looks satisfying to me

Also wanted to ask - is it fine to hide terrain hills with big rocks like that (talking about the background walls)? It doesn't seem to break the rules, since nothing about terrain height was changed, but it feels like a grey zone

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

Not seeing a lot of engagement here. Would the contestants prefer another template? Must be a unison agreement from all those who have submitted WIPs.

It's already past the due date, but if you think you will submit your final entry soon-ish, I don't mind extending.

 

[Marchombre]

Here is my final entry, not much diff from WIP2, as I didn't get much time, but at least, mouse isn't visible anymore

Note to myself: sci-fi is harder, do not go for it when you don't have much time to work on it

Spoiler: final entry

Not seeing a lot of engagement here. Would the contestants prefer another template? Must be a unison agreement from all those who have submitted WIPs.

It's already past the due date, but if you think you will submit your final entry soon-ish, I don't mind extending.

Not sure changing template now would a make more people come in.
I feel like at this point, we should just close this one and go to the next, hoping more people will join in.

 

[gloriouspoppy]

It's already past the due date, but if you think you will submit your final entry soon-ish, I don't mind extending.

Thought the due date included 15th, so I hoped to finish my entry and post it later today (according to UTC +3)

Not seeing a lot of engagement here

Yeah, a little sad to see so few entries, it's partially the reason it took me a while to come back to work

 

[gloriouspoppy]

Here's my final entry post:

Spoiler: Final Entry

Attaching the map itself as well.

It was quite a journey I like the end result despite being quite desperate at certain stages of the project. I'm also glad I pushed myself to build an actual "city" and not another natural landscape, it gave more experience than I anticipated.

Thanks to the everyone involved! Looking forward to the next challenge (hope I have enough energy for the next one )