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Thank you to all that replied :) I think the replies all show what a great community we have here on the Carrara forum.
At a count we had about 21 (? ) respondents. Here is a quick tally of suggestions.
I added my own vote as well when appropriate I read them all and appreciate all the kind and intelligent responses.
I think they all point to a better way of running the challenges. NB: This is only my interpretation of the replies.
SIMPLER RULES
11 people feel we need simpler rules
HAVING TO HOST NEXT CHALLENGE
9 people cite being scared of winning (myself too) and having to host makes them hesitant to enter.
4 people suggested that the winner be given a chance to off load the hosting. To either Daz or having to share the hosting with the second place getter.
LACK OF TIME
10 said no timeto enter, and 5 said would like longer time eg 2 months.
The successful Bryce challenges have s 6 weeks for a challenge and a 2 week gap.
SPONSORSHIP
sponsorship good 6
sponsorship not necessary 4
There was the suggestion of random sponsorship by randome pa's.
Also two new prizes suggested :
Special prize for best new carraraest
Most helpful Carrara forum user award
COMPETENCY
feels lack of competency so hesitant to enter -3
harsh critics on this forum, so hesitant to enter -1
but on the other hand 6 people felt that the wips were helpful to newbies.
INCREASE CARRARa USERS WOULD INCREASE CHALLENGE NO'S
3 people suggested we need more forum members.
3 people indicated the use of canned products can attract ds users
ANIMATIONS
3 members suggest allow animations
THEME
lack o f interest in theme 1
one way around this could be to vote for a theme 1
VOTING
Keep cararar users as voters 3
have anonymous votes 2
independent voting not carrara users 2 (eg judges)
members vote for favourite entry 1
[u]DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF A CHALLENGE
eg one aspect could be using a specific tool
the other could be making the best render
SUMMING UP
These are the most obvious conclusions I garnered. There were lots of other great suggestions as well. I couldn't get them all into the summary but I encourage future 'hosters' to read them .
SIMPLER RULES - need less rules
LACK OF TIME - perhaps we could follow Bryce model - 6 weekly challenges, plus 2 week buffer
HOSTING OBLIGATIONS - need to removed, not sure how. Perhaps a Daz staff member would be kind enough to take over where necessary?? (ie when winner doesn't want to host)
SPONSORSHIP: The majority feel it's a good thing, so it's worthwhile keeping.
INDIVIDUALS FEEL A LACK OF COMPETENCY - feeling of harsh critics on the forum, newbies feel unwelcome or out of their depth, especially in vertex room (?)
Solve this by a buddy system, and/or different prizes for best newcomer, and/or abandoning need for two objects changes in Carrara.
KEEP WIPS REQUIREMENT - 6 people felt that the wips were helpful to newbies.
VOTING - there didn't seem to be a dominant feeling about this? Personally I don't think the voting system stops people entering.
IN CONCLUSION
So..... if we make the rules simpler, give people more time, get rid of the hosting requirement, encourage new Carrara users by making the challenges more ' new people friendly', then I think we are well on our way to making the challenges more successful and entice more people to take part.
Thank you to everyone who responded !!! :)
Hey, headwax! :)
I agree with just about all the conclusions above. (You count good, heh, heh) Besides the ever increasing length of the rules, I feared winning the most. Very stressful. :)
Also, very few of these challenges are announced anywhere else. Every now and then a Challenge is announced in other places. Since I don't visit here often (for the same reasons many others don't), I never know when a Challenge begins or ends.
Anyway, the three(?) Challenges I have participated in have been very enjoyable. They have, in fact, been a challenge in a good way. They pushed me in directions I would not have gone normally and challenged me to explore parts of Carrara I normally shy away from. The experience was very much worth the time.
I haven't been around or posting much of anything because my entire life is falling apart. I have been sick, my car died a violent death, and the woman I love has been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. They said she has less than a 20% chance to survive a year after the surgery and chemotherapy is done.
Not much can be done about that by anybody here, and I hope the rest of the people not posting are doing so for other reasons (I'd hate to think that Carrara is a curse and those who use it will have their lives fall apart!).
As for generating more interest - that's easy. Just make it a requirement that every challenge's theme revolve around Cows! Or at least have a No Humans Allowed rule.
That would appeal to everybody and draw in new users by the thousands.
Maybe...
I saw several people mention promoting it in the commons, but I'd take that one step further and move it to there while promoting it here. And if the DAZ Staff objects tell them we think it's the best solution, and since we are the customers - we are always right! As noted by several people, this is a quiet and out of the way sub-forum. Maybe make one month a freebie themed contest and hold it in the Freepozitory. Heck, make a monthly freebie contest stealing whatever theme the regular freebie contest is having but limit it to Carrara Only since they don't allow Carrara in their exclusive little game. That may ruffle some feathers, but it doesn't break any rules and it could be healthy to ruffle those particular feathers. Ruffling feathers is a good way to get attention - as anybody with children knows!
I was going to try and make entries for a few recent challenges, but just can't seem to get things moving with life going the way it is going. I barely got anything done for the Annual Contest over at FractalForums this year (only 2 or 3 days left if anybody here wants to visit there and enter their fractal work!) (I just loves shameless self promotion - I can't claim impartiality on that one as I help run that site :coolsmile: ).
I'm sorry to see this place losing so much momentum. I had hoped it would be more active since I was away and people could talk freely without having their every comment twisted into an endorsement for The Millennium Cow. Which still hasn't materialized and thus is the most likely cause of the drop in interest and activity.
What else could it be?
so sad too hear about your lady (hugs)
yes a cow challenge sorely needed
So sorry to hear your news Sockratease. You have been missed.
Just one little thing about the Freebie challenge. It is an official DAZ sponsored challenge, and as such is the only challenge that will be allowed in the Freepository, as has been fact for the 7 years it has been running. You will have to wait till !st June for further news about it.
Oh and I agree DAZ needs more Cow challenges
Sockratease, truly very sorry to hear about that and I hope and pray that your Lady beats the odds on this and recovers.
Socratease, I don't recall seeing you here since I joined, so first off, hello, and second off, sorry to hear about your news. Best wishes and prayers that your lady beats the odds. Lots of people do.
A friend of mine was a cowman until he retired recently, and he has often regaled me with tails (!) of "his" cows and their, er, doings. But it wasn't enough to put me off milk. Or steak!
Do cows have to cover their udders on this forum?
Hi all.
Thanks for the kind thoughts.
Wendy - Yes, it is the saddest I have ever been, and of course more Cow challenges are needed!
I appreciate the concern.
============
Chohole - I missed being around here too. I just wasn't up to it :( And I suspect the attitude of Daz is a major part of the lagging popularity of Carrara. Not only do they leave Carrara out of their surveys asking what 3D Software people use, they limit it's ability to promote in other areas of the site.
I have run forums for a long time, and the most successful ones are the ones with the loosest guidelines about such things. I sincerely think Daz should just sell Carrara to somebody who will care about it, or at least give the impression they care about it - a thing Daz has failed to do at so many opportunities I no longer believe they do care about it. If the freebie thingie is indeed run by Daz, they should force the rule change and allow Carrara to be used. Perhaps we should promote Carrara in that contest by posting Carrara renders there en masse every month but make clear they are not entries and are only being posted in protest to them allowing Poser Pro to be used, a competing and never-was-free program, while forbidding their own high end software from the game. Unless that is what is being announced on June 1st - in which case ... Moo?
The way they treat Carrara around here is shameful and often truly makes one wonder what they are thinking, or if they even are thinking. If they want to kill quite a few birds with one cow, they should make Carrara 6 free for one day or week or something. Then it would gain a large influx of new users and it could be showcased in the freebie contest since they allow the super expensive software that had an ancient version free for a short period of time but exclude Carrara because it was never free (yes, I still get irked by that - I know it's petty and childish, but what's the point of being an adult if you can't act childish once in a while?).
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Jonstark - Thanks. That is my hope too. I'm only back because she is sleeping a lot more and I have more time.
===============
Tim_A - Glad to see new people around this section of the forums! If anybody can beat the odds, it's Lissa! She is a strong woman and has a lot of support.
Cows are just such superior subject matter to humans that I don't know why they are not more popular than Genocide, who I really hoped would just go away, but knew wouldn't. Don't worry about eating cow products - they don't mind. At least not the digital ones...
And as for this question:
Here's a render from a couple years ago, but one which is still one of my favorites :
Maybe the way Socratease renders them! ;-)
So sorry to hear about how your loved one is doing. I hope that she does beat the odds and that she can live a long life with you, while you annoy her about cows.
Talk about well time cross posting!
I think I gave a nice example of my habit of walking right up to "The Line" and jumping up and down on it, but not crossing it.
Thanks for your concern. I waited over 30 years to meet the right woman - I would hate to lose her to cancer, or anything at all now that I found her.
Even cows give kisses if you're feeling down. They are a bit heavy on the slobber though.
I grew up with a 350 pound Saint Bernard.
Can't be much worse!
Sock rateable! Don't you height autofill! Sockratease. I'm very sorry to hear about your troubles , praying that your lady is fine . With a handsome intelligent cow lover like yourself I am sure she will. Man hugs from oz! We missed you by the way.
Evil, that pic makes me sick ;) the cow is not even wearing makeup ?
Booksbydavid, thankyou for your input :) I always suspected you were scared of winning. More advertising it is !
I think we do need a cow contest ;) cows with guns? In a temple wearing skimpies? And big horns? (Do cows have horns?)
Best wishes for your woman.. and yourself... sending cowpower to you all :-)
Ummm.... Yes. Unless it is a breed where they have been bred out of them or they are removed- a fairly traumatic process, which for a calf would be like getting your cranium circumcised- with one of those big cable cutters.
There is a chemical method, like nuclear Nair.
Then there's the burning method where the tool looks like a car cigarette lighter on a stick, that burns the horn nub off and leaves two holes in the skull suitable for potted plants. The holes don't go all the way through the skull, just deep enough to cauterize the vein that supplies the blood for the horn. Nonetheless, it does look alarmingly deep.
Did I mention you do this when they are calfs, and that if not, then you're stuck leaving them in place or sawing them off, which for some reason they don't like. Sawing them off I mean...
my area is where the famous Illawarra Short Horn was bred...
I can only imagine what would of happened if they had of bred a long horn :-x
Texas would sue over trademark infringement? ;-P
There are what we call, Milking Shorthorns up here as well. Sounds as if the breed you mentioned is derived from the same stock as ours- except since you're in OZ and they're from Britain, they were probably criminal and unsavory Shorthorns sent to a penal dairy farm down under, thus keeping respectable British cows safe from unsavory dairy elements. ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milking_Shorthorn
Of course we're no stranger to cows where I live:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin#Agriculture
Of course, we're probably one of the few states that could give you Australians a run for your money when it comes to your fabled love of booze:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin#Alcohol_and_Wisconsin_culture
;-P
One of my pigeon fancier mates is a cow farmer..
One day he bought a bull for $45,000AU .. filled his straws and then the next day he ate it!
That's one expensive bar b q :vampire:
Sockratease - you, and your cows have been greatly missed! Hoping and praying that your gal beats the odds, and that you stay well during the process (taking care of yourself can be difficult - but is also very important).
we don't love booze ... it loves us, we just go along for the ride to keep it happy :)
that's only 34 bucks a kilo ;)
Very little time here, so I haven't read anyone's response or even the first post yet - just the title of the thread, and decided to try and quickly answer the plea:
In my opinion, if there has seemed to be too much lack of interest, one might consider how many rules there are.
Perhaps not just how many, but what they are.
To someone who has a lot of time, reading through an entire W2 form(US Tax submission form) in order to find out what one must do to enter a render contest might not be an issue at all. But perhaps even that isn't it. One common thing about the rules for each of the contests so far seem to be pretty much the same.
To me, if you wish to have a render contest, I'm not sure why each month must include rules forcing someone to make something original in Carrara. Sure, that's what makes Carrara special. But why Every month? And then, why wonder why so many people don't participate?
I've read the caveat regarding "what makes something Greatly enhance in Carrara", and it is so lax that it seems that such a rule could be omitted entirely and still have the same rules with a lot less 'turn-off' to folks whom may not wish to create a vertex model - not reading through the fine print that says that altering your shaders to make a total store-bought piece of content a qualified entry.
These things don't turn me away from them, since I've read through so many month's rules that I can pretty much get the gist with a simple glance. But what about others?
What usually gets me is the requirements for this and that, like having to answer to the WIP thread. Sure... they turn into fantastic threads that have a lot of value. Encouraging contestants to join in the WIP thread seems a lot more friendly to me than requiring three posts with links to them.
Again, I'm not complaining, just that where I might be able to join a contest that requires a fresh render, it might be a lot less possible if I have a bunch of homework to submit in the process. If time permitted, and if the rules didn't make my imagination side of my brain shut off, I'd likely become ore active.
However, time away from my computer entirely has been the bane of my Carrara renders entirely lately. I did want to participate in this one and many before it. But I simply could not. Too much work. Perhaps if the economy was such that I didn't have to spend so much time working?
Thanks Dart!
To be honest I only ever read the rules after I finished my render :)
I can see that there are two things happening here.
The people not scared by the rules are scared of winning.
The people scared by the rules are scared of not getting the rules right ....
But seriously....
For me, I think that we aimed too high, because as old users of Carrara we assumed that new users would be able to pick it up pretty well if they asked us old blokes for hints and help etc. It's a trap that people fall into when they are familiar with a program.
Also being an old hand at shoving my work under people's noses I forgot how scary it can be.
I think if we aimed to attract new users in the challenge then we will be well on the way to fulfilling one of the original reasons for the 'challenge' (note not 'contest') .
As always, I/we really appreciate your generous enthusiasm with your feedback and beyond the call of duty sponsorship (as I do the other generous sponsoring pa's) - so thank you again.!! (note not 'we' in the royal sense - unless it is me and Socratease's cow.)
Getting ready for another long day of ... this.
Thanks again to everyone. No time to reply to all but your thoughts are appreciated!
Yeah, it's taking a toll on me too. Between taking care of Lissa and still doing as much as I can for my 93 year old mother... it's my Old Hippy Hair that is falling out while everyone around me still has theirs!
It's not fair...
I'll just add that I agree with Dart - too many rules at times to participate. I agree the WIP thread should be optional. I saw a few challenges while lurking, thought I might enter an old render, but didn't have any WIP stuff for it. Also I often spotted the challenges too late to hope to provide WIP stuff even if I did have an entry.
I am from an era when rules were few and mostly considered broad and general guidelines with nobody ever worrying about whether anything is "appropriate" and the only real limits were obvious things like profanity. I even question limiting disagreements and arguing over politics and religion - pretending you make a happier world by limiting such things is wrong and self defeating. Art always ends up treading into those areas, and should be allowed to do so even here (of course we try to abide by whatever rules our hosts impose - but if we find those rules stifling and counter productive it becomes our responsibility to let them know how we feel).
Maybe the next challenge should be about pushing the limits of the Terms Of Service without actually breaking any rules! I'm sure Chohole would like that. It'd give her a chance to get some use out of that shillelagh ;-P
Sockratease, I am sending every positive vibe to you and yours. I have definitely felt your absence from the forum and have thought of you and the (absent) millennium cow often. Please don't feel the need to respond to my individual post as it is meant to be an expression of support rather than a trigger of gracious duty.
I share some of the blame for how long the description of the rules has become. Bureaucratic nature, I suppose. The most common three rules can be summarized as
1- customize 2 things in Carrara (then a lengthy list of examples of what actions could count as customizing)
2 - render it in Carrara (then a lengthy discussion of postwork, leading to rule #3)
3 - participate in the WIP thread (in particular include the straight Carrara render before postwork)
Sometimes the host has specified a choice of features that must be used as a customization, such as either using a replicator or the terrain modeler.
From what I have read, the conclusion seems to be that interest in the challenges would grow if the only rule were #2 - render it in Carrara. Personally, I would become less interested.
I do agree that the description of the rules should be streamlined - such as the 3 lines above. But what I find interesting in several other Daz challenges is the specifics of the challenge. In the RRRR contests run by Totte, the rule is not "render anything you want in any program you want," the rule is "render something with 4 randomly chosen things in any program that you want." The freebie challenge has rules (including don't render in Carrara).
I like it very much when the host has a specific challenge, such as "the theme is gothic horror, and I challenge you to customize the realistic sky feature in the scene tab." That can be expressed in one compound sentence. Inevitably, there will be questions as to what counts as customizing the scene tab. Anticipating those questions makes the descriptions of the rules grow. I like how the PC Club Member's Challenge addresses likely questions.
Just my cents numbers 3 and 4.
I agree with everyone.
Keep the content rule(s) simple and very short.
Let people have FUN.
Load up the thread with as many images as possible.
They can talk about how they did it later.
Don't make the winner be host of next Challenge. I don't enter cause I don't have to host one if I got lucky and won.
Happy Rendering.
Regarding the WIPs, I usually post a crapload of links to my WIPs in the WIP thread, not because I have to, but because I have a hard time deciding which would be most helpful. I would certainly say that linking to a WIP in a challenge submission could be optional, but if I were to host again, I would require at least one WIP from a challenge participant in the WIP thread.
I really think the WIP thread requirement is an excellent idea because it can foster discussions on how to do things in Carrara and offers new users the opportunity to ask questions and even offer their own ideas. Not only that, it is really cool to see how an artist takes an initial concept and carries it through to fruition.
I'm all for simpler rules - I don't actually think the current rules are overly complex or onerous, but I can see how someone might think they are intimidating at a glance, and it's pretty obvious that a lot of people are misunderstanding the "created or modified in Carrara" rule to mean they have to model something. If you want to see some crazy overboard rules, check out the rules for the monthly freebie challenge! Someone mentioned that it didn't allow Carrara to be used (but you can use Blender!?) so I went and read the rules and wow, talk about involved and confusing!
I do think participating in the WIP thread should remain a requirement as that is by far the most interesting and rewarding part of the challenge for me - I really like getting a chance to show what I'm working on and get feedback and advice while it's in-progress, but maybe removing the minimum number of WIP posts/links would make sense.
And I definitely vote for not making the winner host the next challenge! I only did it once and my actual involvement was about as close to the minimum the host could possibly do and I still didn't enjoy it. I manage projects and timelines all day long at work, I don't want to do it with my hobby too - this is my escape from those things. Also, I am a very grumpy person and make a terrible cheerleader. :)
I've only really been using Carrara since October of last year when sukL's "Create a Pulp Cover" challenge caught my eye but since then these challenges have ireally inspired me to actively try to learn new things, so I hope they never go away no matter how few people participate in any given month.
Interesting conversation.
A few reasons why I don't enter:
1. Time. Some weeks, I just don't have enough.
2. The requirement to create or significantly alter something. That sounds like I need to create an original model and I haven't had much success with that. Model, UVmap, textures....just trying to learn one of those would take all my free time.
3. I see the WIPs and they look better than what I've go, so I get discouraged or realize I'm way off base with the theme.
4. I never realized the winner had to host the next one. What does that even mean? Now I'm glad 1-3 kept me out! :-)
That sums it up for me, but it doesn't necessarily mean I think you need to lower the requirements. Maybe try altering them from challenge to challenge until you get the results you want....how many entries would make you consider the challenge a success?
I also like the idea of including animations, but that's like apples an oranges....I think they would have to be separate challenges.