Cave Mapping Contest - Results, the judges have made their decision! Options

[GoldenGriffon]

Despite the confusion halfway through the contest about re-submission and transferring files, the second official RRR mapping contest has been judged! A hearty thanks to all those who entered and made the contest workable, and an apology to those who, for some reason or another, could not submit their entry.

And, without further ado, the winners:

[Show/Hide] 3rd Place: Kojika

Judges' critique: With a many-layered cave done in RPG Maker XP, Kojika's entry was judged third place! Excellent work on the different layers of the mountain.

[Show/Hide] 2nd Place: X-Snake-X

Judges' critique: Great use of the RPG Maker VX RTP here. The map is well-balanced and fits the "cave" well.

And, finally:

[Show/Hide] 1st Place: Nortos

Judges' critique: With a masterful touch, Nortos has constructed an intricately detailed cave map that benefits well from the use of lighting effects and fogs. While the cave area is not in the least boring or lacking in material, it is certainly not cluttered either. This is an excellent piece of work!

Congratulations to our three winners! (Signature badges will be PMed as soon as they are finished.) And again, a "thank you" to all the others who made this contest something, and better luck next time to those who didn't make it into the top 3.

[C7Edition]

Dang I wish I knew this contest was going on I would of entered anyways congrats on the winners.

[Oceans Dream]

I didn't even know this went on.

Well, congrats!

Mind if I critique them?

3rd place: Kojika:
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/9242/kojikaentryti8.jpg
The wooden bridge would have been a really great thing to play up. Unfortunately, it looks like it's lower than the cliffs, then suddenly going straight up to it. If you had shown the beginning of that bridge connected to a cliffside the same height as the one it connects to, then it wouldn't seem weird. More of these bridges would have been nice! I feel the cave could have been enclosed a bit more, it feels a bit empty. More objects/tiles would not have been the solution to that though. Could be a really nice map with some changes.

2nd place: X-Snake-X
http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/5679/oidz3.png
Solid map. I think there's a bit too many big stalactites, but otherwise I can't complain, other than that it's pretty easy to make a good map at this size, so it's kinda unfair to the others that made bigger maps.

1st place: Nortos
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj304/N...cavecontest.jpg
Fair job at mapping, but you hid it in a horribly dark overlay so I can't really see much of it. And I could have sworn I seen this map in RMXP.org somewhere in the mapping tutorials. Actually, I'm sure it's not the same, but it looks very much alike, so you might have used that tutorial. If it's an independant development, then forgive me. Get rid of the overlay would be my main suggestion.

Kojika and Nortos, I'd recommend both of you to take a look at either Chrono Trigger or Seiken Densetsu 3 or FF6's cave maps. I'm sure you can find them helpful. X-Snake-X, RMVX RTP tile users may instead have to refer to FF3 for ideas. While I don't think your maps should be carbon copies of commercial game maps, learning from them could be very helpful.

[woratana]

Thanks GoldenGriffon for your effort to finish this!

The 1st place has fairly good skill in mapping, and the fog looks great.
But, yeah, I think it may looks pretty empty when take the fog out.

However, nice job everyone, and thanks for participate in this contest!

[Nortos]

thanks for the critic i know i still got a lot to learn about mapping , first job with cave tileset actually only been using xp (or any rpg maker for that matter) since December, i only looked at a couple tuts i found on the original cp site cnt remember who it was wrote them. That map is actually one from my project and thats what the rubble mainly for to make the hero have to go through a hard dungeon instead of an easy pass

EDIT: it was Zhuges, he has some great tuts

This post has been edited by Nortos: Apr 11 2008, 12:26 AM

[The Shadow]

Nortos@ Im glad you took time and readed the tutorials. Zhuge is one of my other nicknames, so Zhuge over at CP is me. I used to be called Zhuge here as well, but it was a long time ago. If you don't belive me, maybe you recognize this tutorial:
http://rmrk.net/index.php/topic,18735.0.html

Congratz to all participant. It was great maps, and I was impressed by your map Nortos. Keep up the good work.

[Oceans Dream]

Yeah, Zhuge is The Shadow's secret identity.

I got the medals!






Blah, forgot to make transparent background. Oh well, if you're going to use this for your sig or something, you can go to Irfanview, save as PNG, and select to make the background transparent.

[woratana]

Oh! I didn't know that Zhuge is shadow.

Nice tutorial btw.

[SeeYouAlways]

Would be nicer if the name of the contest could be on the badges too. Well done everybody, and thank you for your participation - we really appreciate it. Hope to see everybody at the next contest!

[Ember]

They all look wonderful.
Damn, I missed it too. I didn't even realise it was going on and caves are amongst my favourite things to map on RMXP.
Oh well.

First place made me go "Wow" out loud. That just looks awesome.

[GoldenGriffon]

Indeed it does.

All those who missed out on it: pay attention to the pinned topics, that's where the next contest will show up!

[Kojika]

Ocean. Thank you's for the comment. >_< i guess it was rather "empty" and missing a bit. i'll >_> i guess it's a bit of an awful habit i need to fix. I tend to want to make everything look original with the mapsets >_> =P

#1 i was like... O_O wow.. and then kute they're sleeping so neat.

#2 was rather cute. ^__^

Congrats to Nortos though you helped me quite a lot on my questions, and i'm truly greatful for that. *Pounce... huggles*

o^.^/` *woot* alright i'll try my best next contest. so i'll be keeping a look out.

[Rockman]

You'd best tell me about the next one of these, I'll kick all your collective asses! </gauntlet throw>

Fair job at mapping, but you hid it in a horribly dark overlay so I can't really see much of it.

This is an absolutely valid point, and an issue which I've noticed blights a lot of XP mapping.

[Luelen]

I never knew about this contest! I should've entered...anyways congratulations to the winners to the winners.

[Nortos]

Thanks for the compliments

About the dark overlay, Wouldn't a cave be that dark anyway? I mean it only has one light source the entrance and the fire and they light the sourounding area, but I've been in caves before where just after a couple of metres they are almost pitch black it just swallows the light up

[Rockman]

It's already a dark chipset, why darken it impractically? Remember, this is a game. I'd rather be able to see where I was going than have absolute realism. Realism will only get you so far, it'll look nice but play terribly.

[puisihatiku]

Wow, fantastic! I wish I can have the skill to create good maps...

[Kojika]

It's already a dark chipset, why darken it impractically? Remember, this is a game. I'd rather be able to see where I was going than have absolute realism. Realism will only get you so far, it'll look nice but play terribly.

You have a point.

But i myself don't think it's that dark truth fully. A lot of games (even movies) out there are pretty dark sometimes. and the best way to view em is to also darken your own sorounding, but i guess not everyone likes to play a game or watch a movies in the dark.

Right now it's 11 in the am and the sun is high and the window is wide open the sun at the screen.. but i can still make out the map. I think everyoene has their own points and that just happens to be mine. You have yours. No one is right or wrong. >_> and when it comes to enjoying something you can't always call up hollywood or some game maker to comeplain.

You have view things the way thats best for you to fully enjoy what it is that you're looking at. but you're heart and mind has to fully be in it or you'd feel annoyed like "whats the point" and tire of it easily. >_> then again the developers and directors also have to try and see things from the viewers point so that way ratings would likely to be higher... each person no matter how has their own sight of things.. also our duty to try and see things from their point as well.


'' (my apologie if i made no sence at all)