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volume 1, issue 38

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Thinking Outside the Box:
The Good, The Not-So-Bad, and the Really Ugly

By Maul Steed, Darth Modeler

Anything I say comes from me and represents my personal opinions, views and subtle plans for influencing society. Read, ruminate over and remember at your own risk. If I teach you something and it helps, teach someone else.

urphy Michaels from Ritual and I recently held a modeling contest sponsored by Pile over at Laming Insider, called the Low Poly Lovedoll Challenge. This began after some abnormal gushing from my favorite detractor, Flamefag, when he pontificated I was the best low-poly modeler in Dallas. The contest was for fun and the point of it was to see who could model the best low-poly female model and bring her to life with an interesting pose in under 1000 faces. We decided to make it an open contest to anyone, not just Murphy and I. Remember…he challenged me.

I won.

801 votes to 4 to be exact.

To be fair though, I know MM was pre-occupied with E3 pre dog-and-pony-show crunch so I forgive his poor showing. On a better note, there really were a bunch of excellent entries into the contest that I was genuinely impressed by. There were also some pretty bad entries I wasn’t as impressed by, but deserve at some praise and criticism. So on the eve of preparing myself for the trip to LA tomorrow for the cacophonous, highly convivial affair known as E3, I’ve decided to take this ish of TOTB and critique what I consider the better of the 1999 Lovedoll Challenge submissions.

And girls, don’t be sore losers or get your panties in a bunch if I give you bad marks. E-mail me for more thorough criticism if it matters that much to you. I was impressed with how serious you all were and how good many of the models turned out. If I do piss you off…well, submit a better entry next time ;]

I’ve rated the better entries on the following: Pose, Proportions, Texture Potential, Animation Potential and Overall Use of Triangles. The measurement standard for these categories are Steed-speak in syntax: Very Cool, Cool, Okay and D’ohh. I gave the rest a lump sum assessment and again, would be more than happy to e-mail you a more in-depth critique if you request it.

THE GOOD

These are the entries that stood out as the best of the contest. The modelers who submitted these are either pros or need to be getting paid for their efforts. Of course, I’ll start with my entry(s):

33. Miss North Carolina

This model is a knocked down, optimized version of my Kelly model that’s still under construction. I pushed her breasts together to give her weight and posed her in Character Studio. Her pose came from this pic I ran across while on an exhaustive reference search ;p

Click only if you're old enough!

I was going to give her mitts instead of fingers, but I really liked how the fingers accented her breasts when I was posing her so the fingers stayed. Of course this meant I had to optimize her legs a little too much and delete some faces in her palm. Overall I was very pleased with how she turned out and immediately got an idea for another entry...

Of course it was just a gag, but they would have taken third if they had been allowed to compete. Again, I had the models initially around 1150 faces, posed them in CS and then optimized them to be under 1000 polys. Just wait until I animate these two…WhoooHooo! Now on to the other entrants…

07. Miss Connecticut

Pose: Very Cool
Proportions: Cool
Texture Potential: Very Cool
Animation Potential: Cool
Overall Use of Triangles: Cool

Comments: This model is a Penthouse Pet to My Playboy Playmate. Very sexy pose and very nice model. The proportions are more European than I prefer and the faces are a little too unevenly distributed in the breasts compared to the rest of the figure, but I really look forward to seeing how she animates!

20. Miss Maryland

Pose: Very Cool
Proportions: Very Cool
Texture Potential: Cool
Animation Potential: Cool
Overall Use of Triangles: Very Cool

Comments: This model immediately grabbed my attention with its awesome pose and imaginative content. My only concern is that it will be a bit arduous to texture and need some more tris around the shoulders and elbows to animate well. Great job overall.

1. Miss Alabama

Pose: Cool
Proportions: Very Cool
Texture Potential: Very Cool
Animation Potential: Cool
Overall Use of Triangles: Cool

Comments: Aesthetically this is my favorite model since it is so artsy. It evokes this sense of a classical sculpture with the attention paid to the head. The single tie-in point for the lines at the clavicle bother me though and should be distributed to two points instead. Overall, nice job!

(Continued on next page)

Credits: Thinking Outside the Box logo illustrated and is © 1999 Dan Zalkus. Thinking Outside the Box is © 1999 Paul Steed. All other content is © 1999 loonyboi productions. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited, so don't even try it. We've got really big guns, and we're ripped, baby.