Avid kick-offs the SOFTIMAGE|XSI Mod Tool Lock & Load Challenge

[Chris D]

Just a few hours ago, I received the following press release from Jennifer Goldfinch, the Senior PR Specialist for Avid Computer Graphics:

Over $25,000 in prizes for the most creative characters, props and scenes[br]Tewksbury, Mass. – April 4, 2005 – Avid Technology, Inc. today announced the “SOFTIMAGE®|XSI® Mod Tool Lock & Load” Challenge. The challenge – sponsored in part by HP, NVIDIA and Gamedev.net – gives gamers the opportunity to win over $25,000US in prizes for developing “mods” - modified content for popular video games - using the SOFTIMAGE|XSI Mod Tool v4.2, the freely available version of the company’s professional 3D animation software. Setting a new standard for gamers and modders alike, the SOFTIMAGE|XSI Mod Tool extends the life of popular games by giving users the power to produce their own characters, props and environments for export directly into a game. Current game engines supported by the Mod Tool include Source™ by Valve and Epic’s Unreal® Engine.[br]Judges will be looking for original, compelling characters created with the SOFTIMAGE|XSI Mod Tool and exported into supported games like Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source and Unreal Tournament 2004. Criteria will include visual excellence and quality of animation. Quality and efficiency of the geometry, texture maps and animations will be taken into consideration. Credit may be awarded for unusually creative or original character ideas, provided they work normally in multiplayer gaming scenarios.[br]The top three winners will receive an HP xw9300 Workstation with a professional license of SOFTIMAGE|XSI software. The HP xw9300 Workstation provides customers with the company's most powerful 64-bit personal workstation delivering advanced performance and visualization for compute intensive environments. Supporting, for the first time, dual PCI Express x16 graphics and dual AMD Opteron™ processors, the HP xw9300 meets the combined needs for computational and visualization power and I/O performance while helping to lower total cost of ownership.[br]Additional prizes will include NVIDIA Quadro FX 3400 graphics cards, copies of XSI Foundation, Softimage® training DVDs and books. The “SOFTIMAGE|XSI Mod Tool Lock & Load” Challenge begins today, and entries are due no later that 12am EST, July 1, 2005. Judging will take place between July 11-22 and winners will be announced on stage during the Softimage User Group meeting held during SIGGRAPH 2005, and at www.softimage.com on Wednesday, August 3, 2005.[br]The panel of judges includes:

• Carey Chico, Art Director, Pandemic Studios
• Paul Marino, Executive Director, Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences
• Garry Newman, Founder, Garry’s Mod
• James Rogers, Games Specialist, Softimage
• Ben Sawyer, Founder, Digital Mill and Serious Games Summit
• Mark Schoennagel, Sr Demo Artist, Softimage
• Danny Scot, Content Manager, Planet Half-Life
• Tommy Tallarico, Host, writer & co-producer, Electric Playground

A multitude of online communities exist around the world made up of thousands of interactive game development enthusiasts – known as “modders” – who regularly use the software development kits provided by game developers to customize the games they play, and share their non-commercial versions with other players. Modders develop their own rules, characters, and environments to alter various games, and game developers are offering increased access to their material to support this community. Softimage has been predominant within the Mod Community since the release of the SOFTIMAGE|XSI EXP for Half Life 2, and the follow-up version the SOFTIMAGE|XSI Mod Tool v4.2. Based on the professional architecture as SOFTIMAGE|XSI software, the Mod Tool includes multiple toolsets for creating, texturing and animating props and characters, designing and previewing real-time effects, and outputting the results.[br]For more information and official contest rules, please visit: www.softimage.com/challenge[br]The Mod Tool and add-ons are available for download at www.softimage.com/products/Mod/v42/downloads/.

All very exciting stuff there with some top prizes. For more information on the contest please follow the links above. Good luck![br]

​

 

[Dodo]

OMG..

 

[bigdeezy23]

I'm gonna win

 

[agentbob00]

with mad skillz right?

 

[RaBiD WeAzEL]

I'm gonna 'pwn'... Except for the fact that I suck with XSI...

 

[Dodo]

im gonna win with my eyes closed... *haahahhaah ha*

 

[dassbaba]

Why the monkey didn't they announce this when the mods started developing, around the HL2 release. A lot of people debated what tool to use around then.

Is this a bad time decision or just marketing i don't understand...

 

[GonzoBabbleshit]

marketing

 

[bgesley426]

So basically they are asking us to make a one character machinima for source/deathmatch or ut2k4

 

[Morganhahaha]

3DSM > XSI... at least I think so, hell of a lot easier to use max (I could just be used to max though I guess)

Wellp, theres no way they can tell if you made something in max and then imported into XSI, so all you max guys out there get to work

 

[63]

Why would Garry get to be a judge?

 

[blandead41]

cooool lets speed up the mod making process

 

[bgesley426]

Why would Garry get to be a judge?

Probably because he single handedly created the best playable 3rd party mod for source so far?

 

[63]

Probably because he single handedly created the best playable 3rd party mod for source so far?

Yeah, but he didn't model anything...

 

[Geogriffith]

It would take $25,000 in prizes to convince people to try and model in a crippled demo version of a program. I just hope we don't lose too many modelers to insanity.

 

[Hazar]

It would take $25,000 in prizes to convince people to try and model in a crippled demo version of a program. I just hope we don't lose too many modelers to insanity.

it's the best free thing, 'cause most high-schooler's don't have $1200 sitting around to buy 3ds max.

and 6-3, I'm with you. Garry has nothing to do with modeling

 

[ppeanut]

Hmmm... I doubt 3DSMax users will be able to import their work to XSI and say they created it using that program. It would be too silly if Softimage ended up giving the prize to a 3DSMax modeled entry. I'm a Max modeler and I don't really feel like participating since I have no intention of learning XSI.
This contest will end up giving the prizes to the best XSI stuff only... I'm sure a lot of people who don't use XSI feel like me.

 

[mrlangenakker]

it isnt a demo it has practically everyhting the proper version has but you cant export scenes, its just you can only model for half life 2 or any game. no 3d artwork

 

[GonzoBabbleshit]

it isnt a demo it has practically everyhting the proper version has but you cant export scenes

or use more than 8000 polygons, and the renders are watermarked

 

[CommandoSR]

Hmmm... I doubt 3DSMax users will be able to import their work to XSI and say they created it using that program. It would be too silly if Softimage ended up giving the prize to a 3DSMax modeled entry. I'm a Max modeler and I don't really feel like participating since I have no intention of learning XSI.
This contest will end up giving the prizes to the best XSI stuff only... I'm sure a lot of people who don't use XSI feel like me.

Max users can import their to OBJ format and import the OBJ file in XSI. Also, there is a .3DS importer for XSI.

or use more than 8000 polygons, and the renders are watermarked

nor you can customize the interface to fit under 1280x resolution or suit it to your preferences. What If I wanted to make a prerendered cutscene with XSI mod tool for a mod? That would be a no-go due to the annoying restrictions.

 

[Resvrgam]

--rant--

Someone mentioned "marketing" and it's a sad-but-true fact that has soured many trying to MOD for games with processes that impede the indie developer/MODder by forcing them to use only certain *crippled* tools.

Anyone remember how easy it was to MOD for Quake 3? Notepad, WinZip, Photoshop & MAX were all anyone needed while Q3Radient and the .Md3 importers/Exporters were freely distributed across the web for anyone to snag. Today, MOD developers are drowned in a sea of proprietary and somewhat bug-ridden apps released as the ONLY way to modify games. "Program Unavailable...please try again later." --excuse me? How is an application on my own hard drive "not available?!" Oh yeah; because certain deals were made to force me to connect to the internet in order to access my development tools.

How are MOD project leads supposed to deal with their team members delivering excuses like "Sorry, mate. The SDK wasn't available when I had the time to use it so this is why the deadlines on my assignments haven't been met." ? I think that's the cue to move to a different engine...unfortunately, games these days corner the virtual MOD-market and have us MOD-developers by the man-berries.

Despite me being one of the few honest (see: more money than brains) MOD-developers in this industry who actually purchased legitimate copies of all of the software used in content-creation (I have the financially-devastating receipts still burning a hole in my bank account as proof to anyone of my naive good intentions), it's a pretty obvious fact that most MOD content creators have circumvented their financial limitations via the more unscrupulous avenues on the internet to achieve their end-results.

It's no big secret that pirates have helped many amateur developers into their ranks of employed members of the industry. Until we start seeing these ungodly over-priced software suites descend into consumer-level prices, we're stuck with these stripped-down and handicapped 'special editions.' I wonder how well games like HL2 would look if they were forced to use the same tools they're 'marketing' ventures promote? 8000 poly models? Good luck.

Now that companies realize there's a market to modify their products, we're starting to see this trend of game developers and tool makers imposing these horrible limitations by forcing MODders to 'exclusively' use their product to MOD that particular game (regardless of how suitable that application is or not).

This screws over the people capable of purchasing/acquiring the professional versions of the same tools and generally adds more complications when 'exclusive deals' force game developers to shy away from officially acknowledging the existence of the superior, professional applications.

I'm not particularly referring to the HL2/XSI, UT2kX/Maya or Dungeon Siege/GMax deals... I'm just trying to explain that, with the way these things seem to be going, I wouldn't be suprised if we start seeing crippled games themselves being sold to consumers who will be forced to buy additional 'content creation software' from Avid/Discreet/Alias just to be able to 'complete the product to their specifications.' (e.g. make an actual game out of the tech-demo that shipped...*cough* Doom 3 *cough*).

"You can only play other people's user-created MODs by buying our partnered XSI-Plugin in addition to Half-Life 3." --If we hear stuff like this, it will truly be a sad day for this industry.

Fortunately, this isn't the case with HL2 (as it was with my project's previous engine incarnation). I just hope that developers realize that 'exclusive applications' are a bad idea before it gets worse.

--/end rant--

 

[CommandoSR]

I wonder how well games like HL2 would look if they were forced to use the same tools they're 'marketing' ventures promote? 8000 poly models? Good luck.

Another thing, XSI MOD cannot import ZBrush models, so if you wanted to make your own Ant Lion or high detail organic model made in ZBrush for generating normal maps, it wouldn't work.
According to Raising the Bar, Valve used ZBrush for modeling the Ant Lions which then they imported to XSI.