Silly Sprite Competition -- Yes? No? How? Huh?

Dr. Trowel

In the EVN Board thread for Steelix's latest "A Little Photoshop Fun" contest, I floated the idea of a "silly sprite contest." The basic idea would be that each contestant would try to implement something laughter-inducing using the EVN engine. There would be voting, and prizes -- karma if the mods feel it's warranted, something even more insubstantial if they don't. Everybody's entries would either be interoperable plugs, or would get combined into a single demented plug, the use of which would be about as harmful to mental health as a gibbon instructed in the use of sirens and strobe lights.

So. Does that sound like fun (the contests, not the lesser ape thing)? I'll post some rule options in a bit.

orcaloverbri9

Hehe. Definately. Not enough experience to make any entries, but I think it would be fun.

Oh no, captain! It's a clown head! We're going to have to fire the pie at him so that he turns into an elephant ad disappears! That's its only weakness! Otherwise, our clown car will be covered in pie and will disappear!

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Cunjo

time to dig out the southpark character pics...
OMG!! you blew up kenny!!! you B@ST@*D!

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Dr. Trowel

Inspiration for the overly sane, from Steelix's competition:
(url="http://"http://img23.photobucket.com/albums/v68/TheLoser/Donkey_Kong_against_Feds.jpg")http://img23.photobu...gainst_Feds.jpg(/url)
(url="http://"http://home.comcast.net/~drtrowel//misc/Frogger.jpg")http://home.comcast....isc/Frogger.jpg(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~chamot/SuperMarioVelocity.jpg")http://www.students....rioVelocity.jpg(/url)

Not that everything silly has to relate to video games, of course....

Thoughts on when to do this: Probably not for at least a couple weeks if I'm going to "run" it. I don't have to run it, though....

Thoughts on how to do this:
First off, I think it will be important that people declare what resource IDs they are using before they submit their plugs (also NCBs, contribute bits, etc., if we go to that level of complexity).

Next thing: How complicated do we allow entry plugs to be? The simpler they are, the more people will be able to enter and the more quickly we can wrap things up. The more complicated they are, though, the more glorious the insanity....

Small Contest: All entries are ships. Each entry consists of one shan, the RLEs called by the shan, the ship resource that calls the shan, and a shipyard desc. No shipyard pics, small or big.

Medium Contest: Each entry can add a small shipyard pic and one weapon with sound, sprite, and outfit.

Big Contest: We calculate how many graphics and sounds would be needed for a carrier with fighters and two custom weapons; each contestant gets that number of graphics and sounds, plus a limited number (say 10? 20?) of non-graphics resources -- but entries don't have to be carriers, or even ships. If a contestant wants to use their graphics to make animated spobs and landing pics, fine. If an empty system with two battling fleets of non-carriers is funny, fine. if you want to do missions with QuickTime movies, fine.... but we'll need to have an archive file size limit.

There are a million other possible scales and arrangements, obviously.

Another thing: Do we make the plugs work in the standard EVN universe, or do we use a smaller TC as a base so we're less cramped? EVO is smaller than EVN, and EVC is smaller still... or do you want to wait a month or two until I can make a tiny nigh-empty TC custom-built as a holding pen for our lunatic creations?

Another another thing: Would people rather have a "silly sprite contest" or a "cool sprite contest." I vote silly, obviously!

(This message has been edited by Dr. Trowel (edited 02-28-2004).)

Jules

Heh heh heh! I got a good idea for this one!

// Runs off and fires up Wings... mwa ha ha!!!

-edit-
Do we have to enter it in plug format? Cant we just submit the pics and rendered out sprites? I know that I for one would prefer it that way
-edit-

ewan

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'It's only when you look at an ant through a magnifying glass on a sunny day that you realise how often they burst into flames'
- Harry Hill

(This message has been edited by Jules (edited 02-28-2004).)

Dr. Trowel

Inspirational Reading: _
Our hero wakes up one morning to find him/herself in a universe that no longer makes sense. Looking down, s/he notices two tattoos, one on each arm. One reads "Property of Magrathea Planet Works," the other, "Copyright Megadodo Publications." Is one tattoo true, and the other false? As our hero explores the galaxy, it becomes very apparent that things are seriously disjointed -- planets, ships, technologies, and even peoples look and act ridiculously differently from one region of space to the next. The strangest systems may be those between the inhabited star clusters: Naboo fighters and X-Wings spew forth from Auroran carriers. Frogs fly, and WWII planes and tanks fly with them. Sailing ships battle Starfleet vessels and Mobile Suits, as Miranu freighters ply their routes unconcerned.

Is this universe some sort of giant catalog or sales lot -- and is anyone minding the store? Is it all an electronic simulation for testing or research purposes -- and who is at the controls? Is it all too, too real, the outcome perhaps of madness among the gods, or of some horrible Pan-Galactic Improbability Incident? Is our hero the human s/he thinks s/he is, or some sort of artificial sentient construct? No one s/he meets seems overly bothered by the state of affairs. Is there any point in worrying, or should our hero just take sides in a couple small wars, carry some trade goods to a few interesting marketplaces, get rich, and buy some really expensive drinks?_

I've posted that before, but it seemed worth repeating.... It's nothing that should be taken as any sort of guidance for the contest -- just something to free your brain from all remaining constraints on creativity....

Flopping back down to earth now.

Jules, if other people agree that sprites should be submitted without being RLE-d, we can go that route.... but myself, I'd rather that we didn't, since it centralizes burden on me, or whoever else acts as referee. Maybe there will be enough non-3D people interested that people will be able to find partners?

Orcalover -- I bet you do have enough experience to enter. Check out Cunjo's Southpark idea -- he may well be thinking 2D cartoon graphics, and that's no problem here! If it's funny, it's cool.

Hm. Southpark.... Sounds hilarious, but we may need to set some vulgarity limits.... "No photorealistic bloody wounds or nudity" only, or do people feel strongly about sound files that scream obscenities, too?

Cunjo

no real fun in that. especially for those of us that are finding our pics elseware instead of making them... eh. my suggestion it that each entry be simply a ship or two /or three that should be changed to use a different sprite. then we send in screenshots. (only ships/shans and RELD/REL8 rescources should be changed. and no more than 4 ships per entery. less is ok)

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(url="http://"http://img13.photobucket.com/albums/v38/rickz33/nova/hector_attack.gif")A warrior can shape himself to suit anything in the universe.(/url)
(url="http://"http://img13.photobucket.com/albums/v38/rickz33/nova/kill_hector.gif")A master can shape the universe to suit himself.(/url)

what_is_the_matrix

Quote

Originally posted by Cunjo:
**no real fun in that. especially for those of us that are finding our pics elseware instead of making them... eh. my suggestion it that each entry be simply a ship or two /or three that should be changed to use a different sprite. then we send in screenshots. (only ships/shans and RELD/REL8 rescources should be changed. and no more than 4 ships per entery. less is ok)

**

How about this: when a person submits a sprite, they publically post which resources they used so that if someone is crazy enough to combine this craziness together (as was sorta hinted and implied), they won't have to worry so much about changing resources and stuff.

I'd be interested... Maybe. I don't know how much time I have.

Matrix

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(This message has been edited by what_is_the_matrix (edited 02-29-2004).)

Steeley

"I fully endorse this product and/or competition"

Captain Bob

I'm willing to provide an image for a ship, accompanying weapon, and target info (and I want to, since I have a good idea). I don't want to take the time to make a plugin out of it, though. So hopefully that will be allowed, or else someone can take the graphics I make and add them into the plugin properly.

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Dr. Trowel

What if the contest has two stages, with voting for each?

For Stage 1, entries would be screenshots. There'd be no way to control whether these were actually taken in-game or were faked with Photoshop, so we wouldn't care. The winner would be the person who submitted the funniest plausibly do-able concept for a silly sprite.

Stage 2 would come later, and entries would be actual plugs. This would bring in people who had actually built plugs for Stage 1, plus those who "faked' Stage 1 and then either made plugs themselves or impressed people enough to help them, plus ambitious newcomers.

I don't think Stage 1 non-winners would necessarily do poorly in Stage 2, since Stage 2 would add the comedic possibibililities of motion, sound, and/or text descriptions.

(Yes, I saw a typo, and then I embraced it. Pay no attention to the dribbling loony behind the curtain. I can be sensible when it is called for. No, really. I just was, perhaps?)

Coraxus

I wonder if people with Flash skills are qualified to make sprite animations. Course, not only would this be a big task to do but not everybody owns a Flash program.

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Dr. Trowel

Quote

Originally posted by Coraxus:
**I wonder if people with Flash skills are qualified to make sprite animations. Course, not only would this be a big task to do but not everybody owns a Flash program.

**

If your Flash program can output 36 image files, each after a 10-degree rotation of your image, you can do it. You'll need to build a sprite graphic in a 6 X 6 grid -- this is easiest if you are on a mac and have a program that outputs Quicktime movies, since then you can use w00tware's m2s program. If you are on a PC, though, you can still build the grid using Photoshop; someone around here posted directions for doing that recently.

Now, if you want to go really low tech, you don't even need 36 frames. The "Worldship" in Polycon has all of 4 frames, all of which are identical so that the graphic is the same regarldless of flight direction. Four frames might be the minimum -- I don't remember for certain, but I think I tried to do one-frame sprites a year ago and failed in EVN (though I think I may have succeeded under the EVO engine).

Zacha Pedro

Quote

Originally posted by Jules:
**Heh heh heh! I got a good idea for this one!

// Runs off and fires up Wings... mwa ha ha!!!

-edit-
Do we have to enter it in plug format? Cant we just submit the pics and rendered out sprites? I know that I for one would prefer it that way
-edit-

ewan

**

I think it's funnier with plugs: we get to go silly ourselves by playing them in the very EVN engine.

Why the hell does Donkey Kong launches bananas? It's an old school Donkey he should launch barrels! I want him to destroy the Federation with barrels! Go barrels! Bananas are lame symbols of the lame 3D donkey kong.

I was about to say SMW was released in 1991 when I thought to check TMK, and the 11/21/90 is the japanese release date...

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Silly Sprite Competition -- Yes? No? How? Huh?