Low-Tech Sports (Let’s Play & Photo / Design Competition)

Killrob · 19 January 2020 08:47

Based on my new Let’s Play (coming soon!), in which I bring affordable low-tech sports cars to the Fruinan masses, I am running a design & photo competition for the company’s milestone cars.

For each milestone car, participants visually design their version of the car that uses the car body defined by the challenge. Once happy with the design, the goal is to take the best photo possible. That photo will be the competition entry. No cars need to be exported and submitted.

Judging

The sole judge of the competition will be myself, which means judging will be rather subjective, but I’ll try my best to score competitors consistently within my set of biases across the competition. It will be judged in two categories with the same weighting, which gives a combined total maximum score of 20 points:

Category A: Quality of the car design on display, 10 points.
Category B: Quality of the photo presenting the car, 10 points.

In Category A I will consider how well executed the design is and if it fits the context of the car as shown in the let’s play. The more of the car I see, the better I can judge it. Does the car seem era correct, is it consistent within itself? How much attention to detail is there, without making it look like an… expensive car? I suggest that either front & side, or rear & side are visible in the shot. You can put more than one car into the photoscene however, to show off the whole thing. The photo should “sell the car” and its design!

In Category B I will consider the composition, lighting, use of color, and “measured creativity” in my ruling. How good a job does the picture do at selling the car? Does it make the car look desirable? Would a fan of (sports-)cars or… dare I say art… put that picture on their wall?

Rules

Ia) You are allowed to only use vanilla fixtures for your designs, no mods. Try to make the best of the limited resources the game offers you. This rule encompasses photoscene mods too, you can’t use photoscene mods. There is a single exception to that rule and that is rims. You are allowed to use rim mods because they are not being marked as being mods within Automation.
Ib) You are allowed to morph the car, but need to stay somewhat close to the way I set the morphs in the playthrough. I will keep them simple.
IIa) You are allowed to use an image processing software to alter the image after it was taken in Automation, but that does not include changing the actual physical properties of the car or scene. No compositing / layering in of other images (that are not taken with the same car and or in an illegal scene) is allowed.
Example: You can change contrast, put filters on, blur, change color mapping, etc., but you cannot remove / replace that one weird spike that one of your fixtures is causing or remove that dildo on the desk in the background, or make windows transparent, or layer in real life wheels. You may however take several images of the car in legal photoscenes and blend them in post. Only image processing software used for anything but resizing is considered post processing.
IIb) If you are using post processing, you need to submit the Automation original, as well as the processed version, both in 1920x1080. Post processing does not lower your score, unless you fuck it up. I just want to see the original for the purpose of transparency within the competition and for potential use as marketing material for the game outside of the competition (see V).
IIc) You are allowed to put more than one copy of the car into the same photoscene before taking the picture. You are allowed to clone your design and put a different color on it to use several different colors in the shot too. You can choose any or all of the body variants that I used in the episode, so if I made a coupe and a softtop convertible version, both can be in the photo.
IId) Text and other additions to the photos will not disqualify you but is not desired, you are the company photographer, not the marketing department!
IIIa) Photos needs to be submitted in 1920x1080 as a maximum quality .jpg.
IIIb) Photos need to be named [Model Name] [Your Screen Name] [Edited].jpg, where the Edited version is the post-processed one. Example: “Saturn Killrob Unedited.jpg” and “Saturn Killrob Edited.jpg”.
IV) Photos must be submitted to competition@camshaftsoftware.com within the given time limit to be considered. Only one entry per contestant per category! That means only a single photo in either one version (just the unedited one) or two versions (one edited and one unedited). Title the email [Category Name] [Your Screen Name], for example “Saturn Killrob”.
V) By submitting the photos (images), you agree to Camshaft Software Ltd. using the submitted images for marketing purposes, without a) the need to mention the author specifically outside the scope of the competition and b) without further need to ask for permission to be allowed to use it for the purpose of promoting Automation.

Prizes

Every category winner will receive, beyond the prestige and honor of the win itself, one V16 supporter pack key. This will be delivered to the sender of the winning photo in an email reply to the original submission.

Episodes

All episodes will be posted on KillrobPlays, the first episode will be mirrored on the AutomationGame channel. All let’s play and judging episodes will be posted at 3:30 AM NZ time.

Ep.01 Saturn - Mimas
Ep.02 no car
Ep.03 no car
Ep.04 Jupiter - Callisto
Ep.05 no car
Ep.06 no car
Ep.07 no car
Ep.08 Mercury - LSP
Ep.09 no car
Ep.10 Phobos - LS
Ep.11 no car
Ep.12 Deimos - LS
Ep.13 no car

Judging

Ep.01 Saturn - Mimas (Part 1)
Ep.02 Saturn - Mimas (Part 2)
Ep.03 Jupiter - Callisto (Part 1)
Ep.04 Jupiter - Callisto (Part 2)
Ep.05 Mercury - LSP (Part 1)
Ep.06 Mercury - LSP (Part 2)
Ep.07 Phobos - LS (Part 1)
Ep.08 Phobos - LS (Part 2)

If anything is unclear, please ask below and I’ll clarify and edit this OP.
Happy shooting!
Cheers

Boiled_Steak · 19 January 2020 08:59

By low-tech sports cars, do you mean stuff like Caterhams?

Killrob · 19 January 2020 09:01

No, how would I mean that with no such bodies being in the game?
I mean highly affordable sports cars and “sporty” cars without fancy high-quality stuff thrown at them to be competitive.

MGR_99 · 19 January 2020 09:19

Yooooo, it’s that time again!!!

Riley · 19 January 2020 09:32

Ah yes, I’ll remind myself to enter this. I did ok last time, but now I’ve improved a lot I want to see how I can really do. Can’t wait

machalel · 19 January 2020 09:58

So like a Mustang?

/ducks for cover

Ezdmn · 19 January 2020 15:45

Ohohohohoho yes

abg7 · 19 January 2020 17:50

I’m guessing that they will have very few driving aids or none at all, even into the more modern eras.

BF94387 · 20 January 2020 04:34

Aye it’s that time of year again!

Maxbombe · 20 January 2020 05:21

Should we get a bit RP in our design presentation? Like we are some of your company designers.

Killrob · 20 January 2020 07:23

No, this is the photo you would provide to the marketing department you’re the company photographer, not the marketing department!

Ezdmn · 20 January 2020 11:29

Anyway, just because I don’t think it’s been totally clear in either the video or the brief, I gotta ask;

We’re allowed to morph the car in any way we see fit, yes?
You said we can’t physically alter the car via photoshopping, that’s clear enough. But is making it more realistic (mainly speaking: making the glass translucent and adding silhouettes, giving it photorealistic tires, etc) allowed? To me, that doesn’t sound like a “physical property” of the image, merely enhancing the immersion. Though it does alter the impression of the game’s graphics, so I understand if it’s not within the rules. Hope you can clear this up.

Slyo_vom_Pluto · 20 January 2020 20:14

So just for clarification:
We aren’t allowed to use any scene but the stock in-game ones.
But are we allowed to add any additional graphics or text?

Killrob · 20 January 2020 21:33

Within reason, yes, try to stay somewhat close to how I morphed it (i.e. not much in most cases).

No, that is physically altering the car and breaks the compositing rule IIc) I shall put that into a better place for added clarity. (Edit: ok, reshuffled)