ConceptartCohesion - Discussion Thread

[Fozzybar]

Summing up the 1st round...



Is the campaign a good idea?

What can we make better?

What's good what's bad?

Ideas?

Suggestions?

Share your thoughts, so we can see how it turned out and what to change for the future... ;)

[brokk]

First off, thank you guys for organizing this.
Yes, the campaign is an excellent idea.

Maybe if the campaigns were monthly events there would be a chance to have them more regularly, and still have the normal weekly rounds.

Thanks again guys, it was great fun : )

EDIT: About the monthly thing, I don't know if it would be better to have the campaigns last the whole month, or a week every month or every few months.

[seba_boi]

1. Is the campaign a good idea?

2. What can we make better?

3. What's good what's bad?

4. Ideas?

5. Suggestions?

6. Share your thoughts, so we can see how it turned out and what to change for the future...

1. I think it's a fabulous idea... :cheerleader:

2. I dunno... Get more people to participate?... No idea...

3. The Good: The cohesion... How it all ties up together... It's kinda like teamwork but not... Hehe...

The Bad: If it's all going to be about one single campaign, it's hard to imagine the varieties of topics you guys have at hand... So I dunno...

4, 5, 6... No comments so far...

[ebonny]

ohh this one is an excellent idea!

Is there a lot of participants?
If yes wow! this one is really a team work tho!

[Firefly]

I like the idea of making it a month long activity. That would give people the time to put together really strong pieces.

[masque]

the overarching theme idea works well, i think, but there was too much ambiguity in a couple of the briefs in terms of how things relate to one another; the brief writers have to be more specific about characteristics that will affect how a design is approached and evaluated for the polls.

specific example for clarification (not a gripe): the use of the term "hunter" (or related words) in both the CohCOW and CohChOW briefs seems to have led to a number of artists assuming a connection between the predator and the SFJU hunters that the writers apparently didn't intend. this connection was referred to in a number of initial posts but the mods did not clear up the misunderstanding early on, so it carried through to the finals, leading the mod to state that no one met all the requirements of the brief. a sentence to the effect that the predator was a commercial product directed at public, civilian markets would have cleared up all ambiguities.

i also think the mods need to be tougher in terms of adherence to the briefs, but that's an ongoing concern i have regarding all the weeklies, not just for the Cohesive Campaign.

re: month-long activity, i wouldn't recommend it. the results on a ChOW project of that length were not particularly better than the weeklies (weaker in some ways), and many people will still leave it 'til the last minute. the one-week deadline is more "realistic" and forces a participant to pace him/herself accordingly.

[Fozzybar]

the overarching theme idea works well, i think, but there was too much ambiguity in a couple of the briefs in terms of how things relate to one another; the brief writers have to be more specific about characteristics that will affect how a design is approached and evaluated for the polls.

specific example for clarification (not a gripe): the use of the term "hunter" (or related words) in both the CohCOW and CohChOW briefs seems to have led to a number of artists assuming a connection between the predator and the SFJU hunters that the writers apparently didn't intend. this connection was referred to in a number of initial posts but the mods did not clear up the misunderstanding early on, so it carried through to the finals, leading the mod to state that no one met all the requirements of the brief. a sentence to the effect that the predator was a commercial product directed at public, civilian markets would have cleared up all ambiguities.You are right about not having seperated the 2 topics in the description clear enough...but i cleared it up 1 day after starting the campaign in the main thread of the campaign (post number 7!):
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=62480

But still it was confusing and not everyone visited the thread i assume...


i also think the mods need to be tougher in terms of adherence to the briefs, but that's an ongoing concern i have regarding all the weeklies, not just for the Cohesive Campaign.as i stated in the COW round, i would have probably disqualified 50% of the participants...though i decided to be more strict i thought it was too hard and would have disappointed to many people who really put effort in their entries...yes i am too soft sometimes :)

re: month-long activity, i wouldn't recommend it. the results on a ChOW project of that length were not particularly better than the weeklies (weaker in some ways), and many people will still leave it 'til the last minute. the one-week deadline is more "realistic" and forces a participant to pace him/herself accordingly.No way of doing this monthly...at least not with me involved...i want to keep this idea weekly just in line with the activities...
I am watching communities for a long time now and for activities the best time period is 1 week...daily activities are too short and time consuming for a mod to take care about the rules and entries...monthly activities like Thunderdome have a short attention span...artists and watchers will lose interest and you don't need that long to make a nice entry...2-15 hours are enough and that's guarantedd for the weeklies already.

Only challenges like on cgtalk which last 1-3 months are in a size which requires this time span...there are also very valuable prizes so it's a completely different thing and also has a different audience/target.

[Orion9282]

Fozz,

I agree that month long is no good, but multiple, week-long competitions are pretty sweet. So, one month's theme is broken into 4, one-week, competitions (as you guys have been doing). So, even if some people only have time to participate in one category a week, (character, creature, enviro, ID) they'll have 4 pieces to show for that storyline. For example:

Week 1 - Can only do creature
Week 2 - Can only do enviro
Week 3 - Can only do char
Week 4 - Can only do ID

4 pieces at the end, which is cool. If they want to do more, or are able to, then they'll have a butt-load of concepts.

Also, the worry is that someone won't like the storyline for that entire month. But, you guys have answered well with the Enviro category between week 1 and 2 for the current campaign: Polar opposite enviros.

And the last thought is... maybe alternate one month: COHESION, one month: normal weeklies. (6 months outta the year=cohesion, 6 months=normal) That way, you guys get a break and have the month to dream up crazy storylines. Also the artists have more freedom of interpretation with more loose descriptions (i.e. "Portal Opener", "Drifting Wildwood", etc.). Personally, I really enjoyed putting a unique twist on the "two-word" brief, and I liked seeing the variation in designs as everyone interpreted it differently. I love the richness in the cohesion descriptions, but I also love the freedom in the simple, open-to-interpretation descriptions.

Just some thoughts....

[Fozzybar]

all point valid Orion...the main problem is synchronizing the mods timing...as for me i really want to let the capmaign idea rest for a few weeks...it's too much time consuming...

But we will come back to this from time to time for sure...:)

[Fozzybar]

and btw i have a new idea for the next COW round...it will bring more "life" to the activity ;)

[Jonoy]

Yay...life...
Ahem, er, 1week is plenty of time, any longer and I know my attention span would have been long gone...
What were we discussing again? OH! right...
These activities give me something to do each week, if it was fortnightly or monthly I'd have far too much time on my hands b/t classes and work... or maybe it wouldn't be 'time' that was on my hands...

[Fozzybar]

i am with you Jonoy!

[imp_pixel]

Hi Fozzybar, just wanted to say I really enjoyed the Conceptart Cohesion effort. The idea of filling out a world motivated me to contribute whereas I never have before. I also learned a lot doing it, and found the ideas when thinking of character/industrial/creature resonating off of each other and leading me in a more interesting direction. My entries may not have necessarily been qualified with the other fine talents contributing, but I came away with a lot from giving it a shot. I would definitely like to see more of these.

The only thing I could think of in the future would be to form teams to competing against other teams to flesh out a vision of a world in all these areas, akin the to the T-Dome but involving something of a cohesive effort. This would be hard to do since you'd need 2-4 people, and I know I wouldn't want to drag anyone down but would still want to compete. Anyways, just my 2 cents.

[llothcat]

i got buried with other projects..once they're completed I'll be happy to join in:D

[MegaData]

Concept Cohesion brought me out of lurking, if no one noticed. Yay, me! It was something new and I thought it was a great concept. I was really excited about this. At first, I wanted to see if I could do more than one aspect, but I found that difficult, given the timeframe. With more of these presented, I might be able to nail down how to do that. So it gives me something to shoot for -- a new goal, if you will. It's a great exercise and deadlines are definitely something I want to work on. So, a week's time may seem difficult for me right now, but that's part of the challenge.

That said, I was thinking that you would have a week of voting, without actually having another campaign going at the same time, since it's a larger project. Also, some of the threads were not closed, and voting still hasn't started immediately after the close of entries. So, that seems like a better plan for the mods, to have the campaign closed during voting. If I were part of the planning team, that's the way I'd handle it. 8)

The descriptions could become more accurate in the future, but that's such a very minor thing. Sometimes, being more open-ended is better, but trying to make everything mesh together is just brilliant. :yayca:

[Fozzybar]

the only thing you need for the polls is clicking on a button and posting comments...it will take about 1 hours if you read through all entries and participate in the posts...

This is no reason to stop the progress of creating art...so there will be always a poll and an on going round at the same time ;)

[johnny78]

I think that the Concept Cohesion is a very good idea. And I wouldn´t let a round last more than 2 to 4 weeks. I guess that more time could let it die out.

I hope that there will be another one... maybe I´ll be fast enough the next time to participate :yayca:

[Fozzybar]

Hey people, i have a guest at the moment who will stay for 1-2 days and some stuff to do within a deadline at work...

And i don't want to post just a normal thread for the campaign sum-up...so i ask for patience, things will be up when i have some time again ;)

[Keng]

As a suggestion for a future Cohesion, Discovery channel recently did a show showing what scientist think is really out there (in other words, some concept artist created a world and scientist dicussed the functions and relations of the animated creation with comments such as "the gyrosprinter is a really intresting creature. It can be seen that it likely evolved from a four legged creature and you can see where it's legs have been fused togeather." speaking as if the thing existed.)

Anyway, the documentary was called alien planet. The intelligent beings of it looked nothing like any humanoids and were only begining to evoolve. Think caveman like stage.

There were diffrent plants and stuff. There were two probes also called leo and ike who where collecting data and sending info back to a satelite orbiting the planet which then sent the info back to earth.

Due to things like a thicker atmosphere meant that winds were more powerful but less gliding surface was needed for lift.

Maybe we could create something similar. Just a thought.

[Dragonspit]

I really liked the cohesion thing. I thought it brought out some very cool work. for a first one, I am not so sure it needed more folks. Maybe. not sure, seemed like lots of stuff going on to me.
I was biting to get busy and get something in, but my schedule just didnt let me get involved. I still came by almost every day and looked at everything involved. where as I might not go looking at the creatures thread so much. So I think there is probably enough interest. Its just depends on what folks got going on, in alignment with what the subject is.

I was dissappointed not to see another one almsot right away. I shouldnt talk as I didnt participate, but thats what I thougt as it developed.

Great job by everyone and it sounds like everyone appreciated the time spent in organizing.

my 2cents.

[Tyranx]

its a cool idea, lets do another! :pirate: