GFXZone coop compo 2000 - Compo rules

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The GFXZone is organizing a graphics compo in which graphicians will cooperate in pairs to create graphics. The idea and final implementation for this compo is a direct result of ideas and suggestions that we received from visitors to the GFXZone. This is a compo by and for the scene. A lot of the ideas started on the GFXZone forum, especially in this thread about the coop compo. Thanks to all those people that participated in the discussions on the forum and over private email sessions. Your input has been invaluable in the shaping of the rules for this competition! Note: The registration periode has ended and it is no longer possible to participate. You can expect the results of this compo on the GFXZone after the 12th of December. If you would have wanted to participate, you'll have to wait for the next GFXZone compo :-)

The Idea:

For the next couple of weeks upto the deadline (see below) we will have a registration period where graphicians can announce their plans to participate in the competition. The names of the people who want to participate will be collected by the GFXZone and will be published on the news-page. Once this registration period has passed we will use a random generator to create pairs of graphicians who will participate together in creating their coop entry for the competition. This means that you do not know in advance who will be your partner in this compo! Once pairs have been generated we will mail both members of each team personally and tell them who has been assigned to them as their coop partner. The composition of the teams will not be announced on the GFXZone until the final results are known, so nobody but you and your team-partner will know what your team looks like, but you also won't know what teams you will be up against. Then it is up to the graphicians in the teams to do their magic and cooperate in the creation of their entry. We hope that this original idea will bring a cool blend of competitiveness and scene spirit to the web, by letting sceners participate in a compo without the need of going to a party. You will come into contact with people you would not meet otherwise and maybe you can teach each other a thing or two! Think about the possibility of being teamed up with a graphician you admire and actually working with them on a picture...

The Timeschedule:

Graphicians can register for the competition until 23:59h on Saturday the 11th of November 2000 (11/11). This is when the registration periode ends and when random teams will be generated. The competition will start a few minutes later, when each participant will receive an email which will inform them about their coop partner and all other information needed. Finished pictures can be send to us as soon as both team members are satisfied with the result, but all entries will have to be in our possession no later then 23:59h on the 12th of December 2000 (12/12). The pics will not be spread by us before the final deadline, even if they arrive earlier. The final gallery with all the pictures from the coop compo will be available on the GFXZone no later than one week after the 12th of December 2000.

The Rules:

This compo will only have a few rules, compared to a regular party compo. The teams can decide for themselves what techniques they want to use, whether they create a palette-based or a 24bit picture, use 2d or 3d or any combination of techniques. Resolution is also free as long as you will keep it within sane limits, but this is purely a pratical limitation as it is unpractical to spread multi-megabyte pics on the web. But there will have to be some rules set for this compo. The most important rule we set for this compo will be the topic. The GFXZone will set a topic which will remain a secret until the start of the competition, but rest assured that we will select a topic which can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. Another request we have addresses the always hot topic of copy pictures. Let's be very clear about the fact that we prefer to have no-copy pictures in the compo, but this is not a requirement ofcourse! We encourage you to send us in-between stages of your team's picture that shows us how you created the picture. This will help our team of judges (read below!) when they are giving scores to the pictures and it will show the rest of the scene what you both are capable of. The last limit we set is that you should not a lossy format like JPG, but I think that most graphicians have realized by now that this is not a good idea in the first place. Our advise is to use a well-known lossless format like TGA, BMP or PNG. If you want to use another format you have to know that we will use the latest version of ACDSee to convert your picture to a more common format.

The Judges:

We have confirmation for a team of qualified judges. These judges are all sceners who are very capable graphicians themselves. They are 3D Addict, Cyclone and Saffron! These three people are all known for different reasons in the scene so they complement each other perfectly as judges for this compo. 3D Addict's field of expertise is ray tracing, Cyclone for 8bit pixelling and Saffron has 24bit covered. Nobody knows which participating graphicians make up a pair, so the judges don't know this either! They will all vote inpedendantly without knowing which team created a picture. The judges will rate the pictures on fields like for example technique, color usage, composition, cooperation effort and interpretation of the subject. The average of their scores will decide which picture wins the competition. Because the judges are qualified in their task they will judge the picture on graphical qualities and not on content only. You don't have to be concerned that the picture that shows most femaly nudity will automatically lose (unless it really deserves to lose ofcourse ).

The Pictures:

As with all scene-productions the pictures will be freely available for everyone. Ofcourse the pictures will be published in a gallery on the GFXZone. This means the whole cosmos will be able to look at what you and your coop-partner have created and eternal honour and fame will be yours! The idea is to publish a gallery on the GFXZone as soon as the deadline has passed. This gallery will contain all the graphics that entered the compo, and this gallery is what the judges will use to rate the pictures. You will be able to see exactly the same as what our judges see, there are no secrets! In this gallery the names of the authors will not be known, so you'll have to send us a version of your picture without signature as well. If we don't receive a version without signature, we will block out the signature(s) with a black box. This gallery will be replaced by a final gallery as soon as the results are known (at most one week after the deadline). In this final gallery the pictures will all be fully credited ofcourse.

The Reward:

There are no rewards, as we have no means of sponsoring any. But hey, we all do it for fun, because we like it, because we enjoy it. We hope you will participate for the same reasons! This is a cool opportunity to take part in a unique, never done before event - an online GFXZone coop graphic compo. GFXZone is frequently visited by most scene graphicians, and is a natural gateway to the demo scene world of graphics. If you participate, your graphics will be seen by most, if not all, of the gfx conscious part of the scene (and many other casual visitors). This is a great opportunity to make new contacts, create some fame and maybe even get a job. Remember that this competition is not about creating the most pixel-perfect picture known to mankind, but just about having plain old-fashioned fun!

The Future:

We have lots of ideas about variations on the idea of an online GFXZone coop graphic compo and we would love to keep on organizing. All we are lacking at the moment is your cooperation, so let us know if you are interested! If you want to make some remarks about these competition rules, you can send us a mail or post a message on the forum. Your friendly GFXZone crew, October 2000

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