Welcome to Sensei Challenge #6

[Sphynx]

The Sensei team are please to announce Sensei Challenge #6...

“The Chair”

Welcome to the start of the new sensei challenge. This challenge is all about command...or at least, somewhere from which you can sit down and shout orders very, very loud...

What we want to see

This challenge is all about chairs in use to 'command' or 'control' something – whether that's the command chair of a huge starship, the gunnery chair of an defence post, the virtual reality console of a gridder, pilots chair of a fighter cockpit...well, you get the idea.

We are not going to be restricting you to genres here – if you fancy doing the command chair of a Trek ship, or the pilots chair of a rebel star fighter, we are not going to stop you. As always however, originality impresses us far, far more.

We will be evaluating the entries on a range of things - originality, concept (2D and 3D), progress towards your goal, modeling (3D), texturing (3D) and final rendering (2D and 3D).

What we don't want to see

• While we may go there in the future, this challenge is not about furniture. Stay away from the everyday things, and concentrate on the command or control element.
  
• We don't want you to reproduce something that already exists. Don't give us an exact match of Picard's chair from the Enterprise, impress us – give us your own interpretation.
  
• We don't need to see the environment in which it sits. If you are doing Trek, we don't need the whole bridge; If you are doing a pilots chair, we don't need the entire cockpit. It would be nice to see the context, but keep your focus – the chair is the important part of the challenge, and that's what you'll be judged on.

Sensei's Tips

The Sensei Team is here for a reason - namely to help YOU become as good as we can get you to be in the digital graphics world. We can't help you however, unless you help us. We can't pick comments out of the air if we don't know where you are having problems.

Starting in this Challenge therefore, we want you to approach you work methodically. Give us your sketches that didn't work out; give us your concept drawings that you think will work and show us how you are progressing towards your goal. The more that you show us, the more we and the rest of the community can comment on.

To this end, a requirement of this challenge is that at the very least we want to see one concept sketch that you've made that has set you on your final path. Remember however, that we are looking for a concept sketch - no matter how rough - and not a work of art in itself.

Also, if you've used a special technique or a feature of your software that you have never touched before, tell us in your thread - we and the rest of the membership want to know how you have progressed along your design route and in your personal skills.

Challenge Duration

You have TWO weeks from today, June 15th 2007 to come up with your final entry. The challenge will close midnight June 29th.

The Rules:

• You can enter either a rendering of a 3D model, or a 2D concept piece. The same rules on context apply equally.
  
• Your final submission must be no more than 800x600 but it may be oriented in either Landscape or portrait.
  
• You will post a WIP in the Challenge forum, you must show progress on your model before you submit your final entry, this, among other things, will allow us to make sure everyone is within the rules.

As usual, name your thread in the challange wip forum in the format:

Challenge #6 – MemberName – Title (if appropriate)

Prizes:

1st place - SFM Sensei Gold medal displayed under the winners avatar, your artwork shown on the SFM Header, and US$50 courtesy of Aceman.
2st place - SFM Sensei Silver medal displayed under the winners avatar.
3st place - SFM Sensei Bronze medal displayed under the winners avatar.

Most Honourable Member - Green Sensei Medal displayed under the winners avatar, awarded to the most helpful and contructive member in the challenge.

Aceman's Special Prize - This challenge sees a new prize that sits outside the usual placement. Courtesy of Aceman, this time around we'll be awarding a US$50 prize to the most improved member of the community who submits an entry to the challenge. Remember, that this is external to the usual places - this prize is an improvement award, not a winning award (meaning that you can't win and receive the most improved award).

You don't need to be a grand-master to win this award - what you need to show is improvement.

In the sprit of competition and dissemination of skills throughout the community, all members of SFM (inc. Moderators, Senseis and Admins) may create WIPs. As usual however, Senseis and Admin are NOT permitted to enter their final design at the end of the challenge and can therefore not win any prize.

If you have any questions then please ask them in this thread, otherwise:

Good luck to everyone!

-SFM Sensei.

[BorgMan]

A chair...

Right. Maybe I'll kick in too. Depends on how much time I have...

[DarthMaya]

Cool, this should be really fun. I guess I will have to take some time off and see what I come up with......unless jay-mo enters....he always makes amazing/unbeatable stuff....

Maybe I can just show the most improvement!

[lennier1]

Originally Posted by Sphynx

...
In the sprit of competition and dissemination of skills throught the community, all members of SFM (inc. Moderators, Senseis and Admins) may create WIPs. As usually however, Senseis and Admin are NOT permitted to enter their final design at the end of the challenge and can therefore not win any prize.
...

Translation: While Steve is allowed to take part in the challenge the rest of the community still has a chance of winning 1st place.

PS: Don´t forget to move the entries from the last challenge into a separate subforum.

[gonk droid]

the chair. i like it.

simple idea but hard to think of a winner.

[Sphynx]

Originally Posted by lennier1

PS: Don´t forget to move the entries from the last challenge into a separate subforum.

That request has already been made - I think those in appropriate power are a bit busy at present.

[JDR]

There, all done.

Nah, seriously, this is a cool challenge, and I'd enter if only I wasn't totally snowed under with work atm.

[spudmonkey]

800x600 could be an interesting limit for people going for multi-functional/positional chairs if you really want to show off its full range of motions, but I guess some nifty compositing would work within those limits...

[gpdesigner]

La Chaise . . . .
awesom I am all over it . . . . I am thinking opperational controls like "The It" . . . ..... JK
gp

[hal]

As I'm about to depart to the airport for my long flight back to the UK. I start thinking about those those god awful airplane chairs I'm going to have to sit in!!!

I'm in, good luck everybody!