Another RAD Contest Proposal

[diafero]

Congratulations to all of the contestants, there are some more really nice ages out there now

Tre'bivdil indeed is great, and it's also unique in that it does not look similar to any other Uru age I ever saw. Simple and beauty. The wavesets don't work on my Linux machine which destroys parts of the ambience, but it's still very nice.

I also liked Eder Bahvahnin a lot (the waveset doesn't work here, too). But in my opinion, the bird sounds are too loud and intensive, I always have to switch the sound off when I go there as these loud and high sounds get annoying with time. The visual part I really like. Some of your plants and other models are very similar or almost identical to plants, bridges or statues which can be found in Oblivion.

Eder Licinius also immediately reminded me of Releeshan, and I'm always looking forward to seeing a day-night cycle and a working gondola there

Tahm Hehvo is really your first age? Wow, that's impressive. Go on that way, it looks very promising!

Bimevi also has very nice colours, and it's great to see these rotating colourful stones reflecting in the lake. I completely agree that this age and the ones by andy and Lontahv are the best ones from this RAD.

Ulteemah seems to be very small until you encounter that this rotating thing is actually an elevator . The time you have to wait is very long, and when you jump while you drive up, you often sink into the ground. The textures are great though, one can tell that you put much work in them.

Gairdin Grianmhar immediately reminded me of the closed door in Kadish which you can not open - I always hated that door and going through it was the first thing I did after installing flymode. I hope you will one day add the possibility to open all of these, Trylon . I liked the surprise of being able to ge out of the building. However, somewhere inside the building near the top, colliders are missing for the railing.

[SeanMc74]

I had shadow buff turned on for every object. I think that's what caused it to be a system hog. I have corrected that as I continue to work on the Age.

[boblishman]

I have some comments about the score sheet ... in particular the scoring in the sound catagory ...

Trylon's Age has NO sounds whatsoever (not even footstep sounds) but Mark DeForest gave him 7 points for sound .... ? ? ? ...

... but he only gave Sean 6 points - when Sean had footsteps (land and water) and ambient (insect) sounds.

This seems very unfair, especially when it says clearly in the contest "rules" ... 'on a scale from 0 (non-existent or terribly broken) to 9 (absolute perfection). '.

Maybe Mark DeForest could explain his scoring ?

In fact, there are other judges that also awarded Trylon marks for sound.

Maybe they could explain why ?

It is also worth noting ... If you remove those (against the "rules") awarded points for Trylon's (non-existant) sounds ... then Sean did NOT come in last place ... Trylon did ...

(This does seem extremely unfair to Sean ... especially as it is his first Age ... )

I can't wait to read the relevant judges explanations for these points ... ...

[Nynaveve]

And I want to make a comment about my scoring, before I post my remarks on each Age. I have had some people ask me WTF I was thinking giving Bob a 0 for his scripting/animations, etc. Simple answer: I'm an idiot and never saw the elevator. It was after the fact that I was informed there was about twice as much to the Age as I originally thought. So I've sent Bob my revised scores and comments and I want to publicly let you people know what happened since I'm feeling like a total dork right now. At any rate, I am sorry for all that. Bob deserves huge kudos for the first functioning Fan Age Elevator. And I need some serious Judging 101 classes. LOL

[Chogon]

Well, alls I can say is that we judges are human and there is no instant replay. (and good help is hard to find )
I also did not see the elevator (and upper area) in Bob's Ulteemah age. Unfortunetly, the Thanksgiving weekend was greatly compressed and I only had a couple hours available, otherwise I would have non-phys'd up that shaft just to see how far you modeled it. Heh... Sorry.

As for my scores, I always score on the high end and I just can't put a zero unless the age is just not there. Anybody who takes the time to create something deserves lots of credit and everyone's ages were really great and all should be proud! But anyhow, each score is extremely subjective and the main thing is that each judge should try to be consistent with themselves. But alas, even that is hard to do.


BTW, I had to go back and look, I did give Sean a 7 on sound.


Chogon

[Tsar Hoikas]

I have some comments about the score sheet ... in particular the scoring in the sound catagory ...

Trylon's Age has NO sounds whatsoever (not even footstep sounds) but Mark DeForest gave him 7 points for sound .... ? ? ? ...

... but he only gave Sean 6 points - when Sean had footsteps (land and water) and ambient (insect) sounds.

This seems very unfair, especially when it says clearly in the contest "rules" ... 'on a scale from 0 (non-existent or terribly broken) to 9 (absolute perfection). '.

Maybe Mark DeForest could explain his scoring ?

In fact, there are other judges that also awarded Trylon marks for sound.

Maybe they could explain why ?

It is also worth noting ... If you remove those (against the "rules") awarded points for Trylon's (non-existant) sounds ... then Sean did NOT come in last place ... Trylon did ...

(This does seem extremely unfair to Sean ... especially as it is his first Age ... )

I can't wait to read the relevant judges explanations for these points ... ...

This is why I awarded Trylon a zero for sounds

I am working on commentary for all of the ages and will post it when I am done. Might be awhile due to a winding-down-the-semester avalanche of work.

[Happy 500th post to me!]

[boblishman]

BTW, I had to go back and look, I did give Sean a 7 on sound ...

my apologies...you're quite right about giving Sean 7 points ... having just re-checked it was ME that you gave a 5 to ... (2 points less than Trylon ... but then I did only have two sounds more than his 0 sounds ...

oh well ... now it all makes sense now ...

... not ...

[GregW11]

Meh, if it weren't for the fact I had procrastinated judging until Wednesday I would have put flymode on as well... (probably will end up doing that just in case I need it again)
Then I could have done some REAL exploring with some of the submissions.

[andylegate]

Me thinks that you guys need to hammer out the details of judging a bit better before you do another RAD or any other contest.


Mark did nail it on the head: all the scores are subjective.

Try doing this: Objective / Subjective scoring

Make some scores that are nothing but Objective:

Following scores, you get either a 0 or a 10.

Does the Age load up fine? 0 or 10

Did the contestant meet the deadline? 0 or 10

Did the contestant register their sequence number on the ULM? 0 or 10

So on and so forth. Make sure these are things that HAVE to be Objective (Was the Age laggy? That's NOT objective, because that's not only based upon how well th Age was made, but the Judge's computer too, so things like that need to be considered)

THEN you have the subjective scoring, which are opinion based:

Was the Age textured well? 1 thru 9 (NO 0's! As Mark said, an effort counts)

Was the story good (if required)? 1 thru 9

Etc, etc.

Now you have 2 sets of scores.

The next thing for judging is: just prior to the judging period, you all need to get with the judges and make sure they understand the judging rules! And no "yah, yah, I got it" Try sending them a copy of the rules for judges the same day they start downloading to judge, etc.

Last, but not least: If the Judge fails to make the deadline, then just like the contestant, their results are thrown out!
If, when you receive the Judges scores, LOOK at them. If something seems funny, or doens't look right, pause the contest (yah, the contestants may whine a bit about that, but so what, you want this to be run right!), get back with the Judge on why something doesn't look right, etc, etc.

If the Rules say that you have to blah, blah, blah, then make it happen: even if it causes the contest to drag out. It's only fair to the contestants and the judges.

Simply disregarding the rules is not funny, and it makes people ticked. Technically, according to the RAD 3 rules, both my and Sean's entries should have been thrown out of the contest. Go back and read what it says: if it causes Uru to crash, etc, etc, after the 24 hour period if it still causes Uru to crash, the contestant will be disqualified." Not given 0's but disqualified.

So that's my recommendation for the future: plan ahead, get together and talk about this. Hammer out some better rules and scoring. It's not like we're busy with MORE or anything like that

[GPNMilano]

I don't really have a problem with the scoring. I mean I do, but lets face it, this is a contest of fun. There's no real reward other than people saying "Great job" and giving you compliments, of which most do that for every age submitted, not just the main winner. That being said the scoring for this contest was a little all over the map, IMO. two ages recorded zero scores from some of the judges. I feel mine was underscored by a few of the judges, but thats just IMO. I had my sounds controlled by soft volumes, and yet some of the judges felt that it wasn't "up to par" with the rest of the ages. I say so what. I don't build an age so that everyone likes it. I build it because I like it. Because I think it looks good and sounds good. And I do improvements on it because I don't feel its up to par with my standards, not other peoples. I'd rather write an age that a few people get and enjoy, then one i tweak and change and screw around with that makes everyone happy but me.