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Hyperdev

"To err is human, to really mess up requires a computer"

OK, now for some feedback. If I've accused anyone of copyright infringements and they are not guilty then I apologise - let me know and I'll edit this post. The reason I've highlighted those demos I believe to have infringed copyright is a) because the rules forbid it and b) because I believe that those programmers who have made their own art/music/whatever should be recognised.

Okay, here's my analysis of all the demos in reverse alphabetical order. All demos have two positives, two negatives and one programming challenge to take the demo that little bit further. Demos are rated in two categories - Artistic and Technical, scoring Very Weak, Weak, Medium, Strong or Superb in each. All criticism is intended to be constuctive, and for the guys whos demos are rated lower - you aren't last of twenty. I just counted the number of unique posters in all the topics on the first page of the NeHe forum. At worst you're 20th of 95!!

(P.S. some feedback on my own demo would be appreciated)

Wei Chong Ng
Positives:
Great concept
Pieces spinning off when hit by arrows
Negatives:
Texture alignment
Visible jump between scenes
Challenge:
Smoother camera movement (i.e. slow to stop, accelerate from stationary)
Score:
Artistically: Medium
Technically: Medium

Vincent David:
Positives:
That we got a demo from you at all
Bump mapping
Negatives:
Too short
F1 doesn't change windowed/fullscreen
Challenge:
A proper demo next time?
Score:
Artistically: Weak
Technically: Strong

Shawn Silsbee:
Positives:
Very nice intro & outro
Nice eye and sun
Negatives:
Terrain looked flat lit
Quite simplistic
Challenge:
Improved lighting
Score:
Artistically: Medium
Technically: Weak/Medium

Rishi Ramraj:
*copyright infringement - May It Be track*
Positives:
Extremely nice animation
Nice texturing
Negatives:
Lighting
Too short!
Challenge:
Finish it!
Score:
Artistically: Strong
Technically: Medium/Strong

Remco Blewanus:
?copyright infringement - models and music?
Positives:
Guy who falls from battlements
Great attempt at huge numbers of troops
Negatives:
Texturing of Helm's Deep
Some arrows clearly go through the walls
Challenge:
Thinning the ranks of troops during the battle?
Score:
Artistically: Medium
Technically: Medium

Philip Leszczynski:
?copyright infringement - music?
Positives:
Rain
The people models (OK, they were a little cartoony but kudos for having a go!)
Negatives:
Some of the people flickered - intentional?
Ground looked odd
Challenge:
Add some textures
Score:
Artistically: Weak
Technically: Weak

Paul Kitchin
Positives:
I made it
Negatives:
So I can't really comment
Challenge:
For someone else to comment on it
Score:
Artistically: Not marked
Technically: Not marked

Michael Wallace:
Positives:
Boat's wake
Music & Atmosphere
Negatives:
Reflection of trees in water in Boromir scene
Lighting on Boromir's horn looks odd
Challenge:
Clamp the top of the 'banner of the white hand' to the pole
Score:
Artistically: Strong
Technically: Strong

Mark Turner:
Positives:
Animation of rings And text
Horse models
Negatives:
Trees
Lighting was a bit washed out
Challenge:
Moving horses!
Score:
Artistically: Strong
Technically: Medium

Luke Benstead:
Positives:
Shadowing at start
Light through windows (but shouldn't it only be one side?)
Negatives:
Lighting
Texture alignment
Challenge:
Lines of text to cast shadows on each other
Score:
Artistically: Medium
Technically: Strong

Lasse Ebdrup Pedersen:
Positives:
Nice pace and layout of pictures
Nice story (quotes)
Negatives:
Some nasty moire effects on border of text
Popping and clicking on music
Challenge:
Make some of the pictures move in 3D, i.e. ripple, spin e.t.c.
Score:
Artistically: Strong
Technically: Weak

Joao Filipe Cunha Lopes:
*copyright infringement - sound samples*
Positives:
Nice artwork
Nice fading sky effect
Negatives:
Masking
No movement
Challenge:
Moving clouds in background
Score:
Artistically: Weak
Technically: Weak

James Trotter
*less severe copyright infringement - music (author is credited but apparently no permission for use)*
Positives:
Edoras
Sky turning red
Negatives:
Far clipping plane in Edoras
Music pops and clicks
Challenge:
Smooth out end of camera moves, i.e. slow to stop instead of sudden stop
Score:
Artistically: Strong
Technically: Strong
P.S. Anonymous appreciates the credit

Jaanus Uri:
Positives:
Lightning
Ents
Negatives:
Texturing
Very short
Challenge:
Add some sky
Score:
Artistically: Medium
Technically: Medium

Hermanns Christophe
Positives:
Great Helm's Deep model
Ladders
Negatives:
Some clipping problems
Some problems with masked objects - order of drawing (I saw half an archer!)
Challenge:
Add some rain
Score:
Artistically: Medium
Technically: Medium

Francisco Lopez
Positives:
Great idea
What a license agreement! (are you a lawyer?)
Negatives:
Camera felt out of control
Good guys trousers change colour
Challenge:
Bring the camera under control - i.e. slow left-right sweeps as well as moving in and out
Score:
Artistically: Weak
Technically: Weak

Daniel Brewer
Positives:
Nice animation
Sun & moon cycle
Negatives:
Moire effects on textures (not mipmapped?)
Balrog sinks into ground after death
Challenge:
Spice up the breaking of the bridge - magical effects, cracking and crumbling?
Score:
Artistically: Medium
Technically: Medium

Brian Truitt
Positives:
Great concept
Nice text appearance and morphing effect (I especially like the way it spreads diagonally, not finishing one line
before starting the next)
Negatives:
Wouldn't run fullscreen
Text wasn't centered
Challenge:
Proportionally spaced text
Score:
Artistically: Medium
Technically: Weak/Medium

Andreas Hammar
Positives:
Wow!
Great font
Negatives:
Music pops and clicks
I get diagonal black lines as scenes fade in and out
Challenge:
3d trees
Score:
Artistically: Superb
Technically: Strong

Akos Ludanyi
Positives:
Nice outline/shadow of character at beggining
Like the ents point of view (bobbing camera)
Negatives:
Very dark
Lighting was a bit flat
Challenge:
An army of ents attacking the tower
Score:
Artistically: Medium
Technically: Medium

Enigma

EDIT: Andreas Hammar music was freeware, so no copyright issue
EDIT2: Now seen Hermanns Christophe's demo
EDIT3: Lasse Ebdrup Pedersen - permission for music and images were freeware, so no copyright issues
EDIT4: Hermanns Christophe - classical music, so no copyright issue

[edited by - Enigma on September 10, 2003 10:51:49 AM]

Woohoo! Just finished looking at all the entries. They''re all very cool If there was a prize for the best original concept, I''d go with Wei Chong. I really liked the concept of the chessboard in order to show the various battles. Very cool. I hope everyone likes mine (Michael Wallace). How is the voting going to go? Will Jeff select some "finalists" that we vote on or do we just send him our favourites? Can''t wait for the results

I''ve downloaded and tried 5 so far. And they are all great! I wish I had a faster connection im downloading as fast as I can

Michael yours is real good, i really like the river scene!

I hope you liked mine too (Luke Benstead)

Hyperdev

"To err is human, to really mess up requires a computer"

Wow! Thanks for the super comprehensive analysis Enigma.

My responses:
> Reflection of trees in water in Boromir scene
I tried getting the reflection on the actual water but couldn''t get decent texture coordinates going right But I like the "reflection" even if it is a bit of a cheat

> Lighting on Boromir''s horn looks odd
I have a bug in my model exporter somewhere in the generation of normals (probably due to Max''s ridiculously complicated smoothing groups )

> Clamp the top of the ''banner of the white hand'' to the pole
I tried this but it went a bit out of control. Then I ran out of time (needed to do the music ) so it stayed.


Now let me rate yours

Paul Kitchin
Positives:
great waterfall
very atmospheric swamp
Negatives:
the text at the bottom tended to draw the eye away from the graphics. Also in the swamp scene the text jittered dramatically.
No music
Challenge:
Make either the bushes or the bodies in the swamp scene sway slightly. It may not be instantly noticable, but will subtly add realism. Check out my underwater scene - I "animate" the fov slightly to give a subtle "underwater" look. It can easily be missed, but looks very static in comparison when the fov change is taken out.
Score:
Artistically: Strong
Technically: Strong

I agree with you about programmer created art/music etc. Proper artists/musicians will always be able to make much better models/animations/music, but hard work (my gollum head to HOURS to model) should be rewarded. That said, I don''t feel anyone really needs to be penalised as it''s what you do with resources, not the resources themselves that count. Good luck to everybody

Lukerd. Yours was the only demo that gave me a sense of the sheer size of Isengard. Definitely one of my favourites

Yeah thanks for the analysis Enigma!

Lighting: Yeah fair point, the program is lightmap enabled, just need to change the map file, thing is GTKRadient doesnt like me and wouldn't create the lightmaps for some reason. I also did have the trees casting shadows, but I took them out because they caused a lot of z fighting.

Texture Alignment: That was one of the items on my "Things to do if I have time" list.

Im downloading your one now Enigma, i've heard quite a few good things about it

I think Nehe has a set of judges, well him and 2 others who decide who wins, i'm not sure tho.

Lukerd.

Hyperdev

"To err is human, to really mess up requires a computer"


[edited by - Lukerd on September 8, 2003 5:57:37 PM]

I just watched your demo Enigma, I like the waterfall and the atmosphere (rain, fog etc.) I thought the swamp was brilliant. Its a shame about the music not being ready.

My only criticism is the text scrolled past a bit quick and it was difficult to keep track of what was being said and watch the rest of the demo at the same time. But otherwise the demo was real good, one of my favourites.

Hyperdev

"To err is human, to really mess up requires a computer"

Personaly i got 3 favorites
Andreas Hammar- But i don't think the future crew would like you using their music.
Michael Wallace - screwd up some texturing though, golum just looks strange.
Paul Kitchin - ok but the water in the first scene kinda looks like tar, it needs some work.

And now im conna complan a little so here is the top 3 of the demos that i find substandard.
(Now don't take this the wrong way, but these need some work)

Hermanns Christophe - it ran real slow , maybe to slow for just using sprites, a little dull.

Francisco Lopez - Im not even gonna comment this.

Philip Leszczynski - how can something simple run at so low speeds on my comp(i got a AMD 1800+/GFX5600), my guess is that you use way to many polygons per object, textures arn't all that exiting either.

The other ones might range from crappy to ok but atlest they where original enough to not be listed as the 3 worst.
Exept perhaps t^3 by Vincent David, it was neat but kinda offtopic.

[edited by - lc_overlord on September 8, 2003 7:32:28 PM]

I''ll be releasing the animation system i used in the demo along with the milkshape export plugins. Unfortunately one thing my demo didnt show was how the system interpolated between animations (easy to go from run to jump to run again...i was sort of hoping 2 show that in helms deep but...).

Right now im workin on speeding up rending speed using display lists. Next i''ll be working on adding collision detection and once that is done ill post everything online. That should make the return of the king contest a whole lot more interesting...

Im also proud to say that im certainly going to loose (despite the obvious fact that i didnt finish). You guys all did great jobs