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2011-05-08 15:10

v3to

Registered: Feb 2005
Posts: 150

Double Screen Compo Voting

Okay - all entries are in and it is time for voting.

Take your time and check the pictures properly. If you like to check it on a C64, I'd recommend to turn off the volume, because music tends to alter atmosphere. Now here come the rules:

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CHOOSE 3 FAVORITES - NO MORE - NO LESS
SEND YOUR CHOICE VIA PM TO ENTHUSI OR ME
OR BY MAIL TO << COMPO[AT SPAMSUCKS]C64PIXELS[DOT]COM >>
PLEASE DO NOT FORGET YOUR HANDLE/GROUP OR NAME
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Deadline for voting is June 7th 2011 (know it is a long term but c64pixels-visitors are watching random)

Good luck to all contestants !

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Looking Outward by Celtic, code by Zielok
Additional content according compo rules: Music
Format: MultiColor

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Monroe 6569 by Diggr
Format: Charmode

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Asteroidmine by Grass, code by Cruzer
Format: MultiColor

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The Raven by Dane
Additional content according compo rules: Dark red and dark grey are laced
Format: MultiColor

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CARGO by Twoflower, code by Cruzer
Additional content according compo rules: Music
Picture format: MultiColor, 4-colors, Colorscheme is matching Charmode

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A Kind of Magic by Yazoo, code by Axis
Additional content according compo rules: Music, scrolltext (can be disabled by pressing spacebar)
Picture format: MultiColor

... 195 posts hidden. Click here to view all posts....

2011-05-17 19:52

Skate

Registered: Jul 2003
Posts: 490

Quote: Shadow: http://www.tineye.com/

offtopic. tineye is for completing your favorite porn image series. please don't use it for other ugly things like that.

2011-05-17 21:01

Dane
Account closed

Registered: May 2002
Posts: 421

Jazzcat recently emailed me and asked for a comment on this compo and the debate for the next issue of VN. This is my comment on the Raven.

Vermeer, Van Eyck, Caravaggio - all great artists who used scientific methods to achieve more realism in their art, at least if you believe the Hockney-Falco thesis. But what does Renaissance art have to do with C64 graphics? Well, whether you use an optical device, a camera obscura, a grid method, rotoscope or Paint Shop Pro - it's means to an end.

I've always been a sucker for realism (and faces, but that's beside the point). For me C64 graphics has always been about making stuff look cool and to achieve as much realism as possible. During the years I've tried various methods (most of which are probably explained in depth by others in this text) to get a good result. Definitely more handicraft than artistry, I agree, but countless hours in front of the screen either way.

When the double screen compo was announced I was attracted by the challenge to make a larger or wider image than usual, and also by the format restraints. This goes back to pixeling the abstract graphics for Andropolis (don't tell anyone but there's some original artwork), when I had a lot of fun with the limitations of the Koala format, and really liked the way one of my shading techniques turned out. So I wanted to reproduce that somehow on the Karen Ellis image.

One of my main heroes is Mirage, and I really admire the way he works with original sources and always improves them somehow. The best way, I've found, to get decent proportions and an idea about shading is to have a rough wired image to work from. Some people prefer using layer methods - I have more fun repixeling. Basically I ran the cropped mirrored image through a crappy PSP-converter and then repixeled the girl in the interlace-looking line style. The idea for my image was to add a few more birds (since the background is so dull) and I had an idea for her to cry blood (which would not be interlaced red/gray). But that's the thing about deadlines, I ran out of time.

My one and only regret is not finishing the image the way I wanted to before I sent it to the organizer (and the deadline was extended, doh). Obviously some people are very upset that I have used an original source and entered a competition for graphicians. If this had been stated in the rules I wouldn't have participated (and probably wouldn't have bothered about making a double screen image).

Anyway, thanks to c64pixels.com for dragging me out of a scene coma. Everyone who participated did a great job, especially Digger, who was my personal favourite this time. Also, thanks to JCB and Mermaid for quickly posting the original sources. I wonder though, what would have happened if I had photographed a friend instead and used that as the reference? Original art or 1:1 conversion? Don't worry, I don't plan to enter any more competitions ever again I think.

Finally, I'm no Vermeer, Van Eyck or Caravaggio and I never will be. But I enjoy all of their paintings no matter how they were produced.

2011-05-17 21:22

Jazzcat

Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1044

Dane: oh, I was hoping to use than in Vandalism. :D

Dudes, anyone wishes to have a comment in the mag, let me know in PM.

I will run a chapter to try cover different angles and air out the subject to try cover all points of view. Ultimately, people make their own minds up.

2011-05-17 22:18

PAL

Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 269

Dane... I think your framing of the picture is good... fits the c64 good... but man I see software generated patterns in all of the background, in the hair and in all and so on... I just think it would be fair to say it were a convert... maybe you did say so I do not know... but again... I think the enteries were all in all just ok... I do not mind that much the copycat purr purrs... I just want higher quality in a compo in a way, you understand what I say here... Just maybe I just got it all wrong but to me it seem like a convert... I still like it in a way but it sure looks like software layered alterations and then rendering to layers with different types of patterns or so on... I love you doing art, want to see more but for me this one were a rip and you just got busted... Again I personalley do not care that much but for me it is what I see and think of it stright away when looking at it... I see that this is not made by mind... but more software aided craft.

Yazoo entry is original and his own, and also show the best work in pixels and workload very clear to me... so he is the winner of this I think, personally.

Do we all agree here?

1. We think it is ok to copy or redraw or even convert, but then the source must be included?

2. We can all agree that if the source provided let one with ease convert our self with thimantes or the like and it gets the same that it is abit lame?

3. We also agree in a way that original art by the artist is a greater, if the image is great?

4. We all think it is lame to pretend and hope for no others to spot the image converted or altered?

5. We all love the scene?

Come on... we are strange, let us be strange together and just have fun together inside our special little sphere...

2011-05-17 23:21

PAL

Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 269

I have to post this one: Gollum

Sit did just a marvelous image on the c64 again, and to me this image is so incredible... it is just plain hands down one of the best I have ever seen on the c64! And it is a copycat, but I do not mind... it is just so much better than the normal standard and it really blew me away this one... is it really possible to reproduce an image this way... not many can do this... WOW... should have won at X in my opinion...

The absolutely best image have seen in gray scale colours on the c64!

2011-05-17 23:30

Alias Medron

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 39

If we want to make things simple we should divide gfx compos into "free" and "no copy" ones.. simple as that.

Afterall scene is about fun.. not bitching.

2011-05-17 23:41

PAL

Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 269

why? let us be true to the scene and just let it be there and then... the best rippers or original artists get the most out of it in a way... if you get away with it it is an achevement on its own... ha ha... LOL! I still think the gollum is one of the best c64 images I have ever seen and want it not to be in the looser category in a way... I just find it that great!

I also find hammerfist to be one of my absolute fav on the c64, it were done from another source, I do not mind, for me the hammerfist image is the c64 one! Also one of the best for me...

2011-05-18 05:50

lemming

Registered: Oct 2009
Posts: 44

Dane wrote:
>Don't worry, I don't plan to enter any more competitions
>ever again I think.

Right, that's just how much fun and constructive it is when "true artists" start demanding others to explain themselves about something they've worked on hours, days, weeks, months.. and suspecting their techniques or just generally putting their work down as "boring and pointless" if there's eventually nothing else to complain about.

I suppose certain people are happy now. I certainly am not :(

2011-05-18 07:00

ptoing

Registered: Sep 2005
Posts: 271

Wow, some serious discussion going on in here.

I pretty much agree with Mermaid on this because if you just copy (in any way) a picture you are reducing yourself to a xerox machine with a human brain but you are not being original.

The thing is that when copying something someone else made you are copying the composition, the colours (if possible) and get a good result without necessarily having even a fragment of the skill of the original artist.

This means you are competing with content that might be very good in both composition, general execution and even motif but none of those are because you are skilled, it is because the original artist is.

So this makes it pretty much ver unfair imo towards other people who are entering a compo with original art but who might be less skilled than an industry professional someone else might be copying from. This is just sad, especially if the copier does this to get some kind of gratification. It's like showing someone a photo taken from the top of a large mountain saying you climbed up there and took it when in fact you did not.

Of course it is a bit different if you state what you copied from, but the problem here is that most sceners do not care (especially not at parties where most who vote are drunk anyway)

Comparing copying stuff from other artists to what Vermeer and other artists might have done is also a pretty bad analogy. Vermeer and those other dudes still used their own sources, they posed their models they set up their scenes, they made their own compositions, they thought about the subject matter and what they wanted to convey with it. I would venture a guess that most demosceners who copy stuff just think, "This is a cool looking picture, the other dudes will love it, so I will copy it" or perhaps "These colours would be easy to transfer to the C64 palette, good copy material"

Without wanting to sound whiny, these kinda circumstances are why I do not feel to enter a compo again when I have to compete against copies and the majority of the audience does not even care or does not have the enough knowledge about art or pixelling to be really able to care.

The main problem is that a big part of the demoscene is about the childish notion to wow everyone by any means not caring about any kind of integrity. I can see why this would be something that teenagers would do to get gratification and shoulderpats from their peers, but seeing grownups still doing the same things after more than 15 years or so is sad.

2011-05-18 08:34

Frantic

Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1627

EDIT: Second thought.. better not enter crappy discussions like this. :)