Terrain Maker Competition 2012

[Mondkalb]

Hello,
we are happy to announce a new community event: a competition for map makers!

Beginning from today (13 December, 2011) everyone who is interested can submit a terrain that does not violate the competition's rules (see below) until 13 March, 2012.
The submission, if valid, will be evaluated by a jury consisting of renown community members and (lead) BI developers, each judging different aspects of a terrain.

The aspects are, but may not be limited to the following:

- Beauty: is the terrain pure eye candy or simply an eyesore straight from hell?
- Usefulness: does the terrain offer awesome possibilities for missions and gameplay?
- Technical quality: is the terrain and everything related to it properly set up and working correctly?

Winners will be announced on 13 April, 2012.

The main idea behind this competition is to interest people that have never before made a terrain, or tried to but then lost interest. To ensure people will make it through the entire project, we have limited the submissions to small terrain dimensions only.


The following rules apply to this competition:

1. The submitted terrain's dimensions have to be 5120 m × 5120 m or 4096 m x 4096 m.
2. Third party content is allowed if it was released before 13 December, 2011.
3. You are only allowed to submit a single entry.
4. You must not publicly release your terrain until the competition is finished (13 April, 2012).
5. Your terrain must use a fake tag for anonymity. We recommend using XYZ_ or TUT_ as addon tag.
6. Your terrain must not deliberately be able to reveal your name to the jury.

Prizes:
This is not a newbie vs. veteran competition. Prizes will be awarded in the following categories:

1. Best terrain overall
2. Best terrain by a new terrain maker
3. Second-best terrain by a new terrain maker

Each winner will receive a Steam version of Take On Helicopters and a Take On Helicopters T-Shirt (Size L).

Also every submission will receive jury's feedback and tips to help you improve your terrain making skills.
We are strongly encouraging you to share this after the competition is over, so all the terrain makers out there can benefit from this.

How to submit:
When you have created your terrain, store the .pbo file(s) in a .zip or .rar or .7z archive and upload it to any free file hosting service.

Then send this link to W0lle together with this small form that you fill out:

Nickname:
Terrain name:
Needed addons (if any):
Download link:


By submitting a terrain to this competition I agree not to release it to the public until this competition is finished to ensure that the jury will not be able to associate this terrain with its maker in order to prevent biased judgment.

Tutorials:
Since the idea behind this competition is to motivate new terrain artists, we've gathered the most recent and up-to-date community tutorials for developing terrains:

A full step-by-step guide can be found here:

• Mondkalb's Terrain Tutorial

For a detailed initial tools setup & Visitor 3 configuration...

• Bushlurker's Beginners Guide (1st Edition) & Source Files

... this tutorial will direct you to complete Sgt Ace's Tutorial at an appropriate point and should also serve as a basic introduction to the technical/structural aspects of the fileset you'll need.

The most useful resource of all, of course, is the Arma 2 & OA: Terrain (Visitor) forum section, together with the established mapmakers who hang out there...
A good search of that forum section will turn up answers to most problems and, if not, that's the place to ask for advice.

[SmokeDog3PARA]

sounds good ill be up for some of this got some islands on the go that are hush hush so should be well finished by the due date also got 2 more guys from 3para making maps now as well

[Darkhorse 1-6]

Third party content is allowed if it was released before 13 December, 2011.

Does that apply to currently released content that is patched after 13 December?

Also, is the competition only for individuals, or will terrains created by 2 or more people qualify?

*Almost forgot, does the "third party content" apply to content created specifically for the terrain, eg: buildings/roads/etc. that haven't been created yet?

[Mondkalb]

The idea is to prevent this from turning into a modeling contest, so the "No third party content" rule applies to all addons that are being modified or released from today on.

Only individuals may submit to this competition.

Please be aware that non-vanilla addons used on any submitted terrain will not automatically grant an advantage in winning a prize.

[askingmachine]

I'm making a new island (as a noobie) and it's 8km^2, so I'm automaticly out of the competition? Why is that?
Makes me sad

Why not for an example 4km^2 - 10km^2 size cap? If someone needs to make a bigger island, why to limit him? Big island doesn't automaticly mean better island... And what do you mean exactly by 'Public release'?
You can't post images from your project progress? I believe this will reduce the spirit of making islands if you don't have a change to get any feedback during the process like island makers normally get...

Thirdly, the terrains which are started before this competition started (new terrains, not patched) are automaticly out? How are you going to prove that the competitor X hasn't started making the island
two years ago and just have been silent about it?

Please, check your rules, these doesn't seem very fair or then I'm just not a good reader...

[Mondkalb]

Thirdly, the terrains which are started before this competition started (new terrains, not patched) are automaticly out?

It was never declared that "older" terrains are not allowed to be submitted.

And the reason for the map-size limitation is, quite frankly, that 10km x 10km terrains are quite a bit of work and are not simply done in just two weeks, while a 4km x 4km terrain can be finished well within three months time by someone who has never created a terrain before.

[Darkhorse 1-6]

Screenshots would make it where the judges could recognize who the creator is. As for feedback, maybe have a few friends who have nothing to do with the competition/who don't use the BI forums test for you and give you their opinions?

[W0lle]

Exactly that is the reason. It is absolutely important that the jury members do not know who made a certain terrain.

If you post screenshots somewhere about it, chances are good that your anonymity is blown. Sounds logical if you think about it.

[Slatts]

few questions, we are allowed use arma buildings? and it doesnt have to be a made up terrain like cicada, lingor etc?

[askingmachine]

And the reason for the map-size limitation is, quite frankly, that 10km x 10km terrains are quite a bit of work and are not simply done in just two weeks, while a 4km x 4km terrain can be finished well within three months time by someone who has never created a terrain before.

Yes I understand that 10x10 are quite bit of work but what I don't understand why there has to be limits?. Bigger but badly made terrains doesn't give any unfair advantage. And if somebody just is so fast that he can make for an e.g. 8x8km (pros?) why to disallow it? Only the players will loose with this kind of limits :/

I understand that the idea of the competition is just to get us some new blood to terrain editing as the old guys aren't leaving anyway but could the pro's have their own category without any size or other 'imagination' limits?
Would be really a bummer if a creator like a icebreakr should had to make a smaller island with no cool models just because he wants to be in a competition.

Best terrain overall should be _the_best_terrain_overall, not the 'best terrain within the limitations of this competition'

But anyways the idea of the competition is still great. We really need some new talents. For an example in my opinion icebreakr's islands are big and fun yes, but the visual quality isn't so great when compared to bis maps or podagorsk and some other custom maps so I'm sure the "best terrain overall" will be interesting. Let's just hope ppl in future will continue to discuss about their ongoing island projects and not just be quiet in fear of maybe-coming-competitions...

Thanks!