Sculpty Contest to Create the Matterhorn !!

Swissopolis is holding a contest for the creation of the Matterhorn peak, located in Switzerland. It is a 2 stage contest, so please read the instructions carefully.

1st Stage:

Swissopolis judges will choose 5 winners from all entrants. 2 runners up will receive $ 10.00 US dollars each, 3rd place will receive $ 25.00, 2nd place will receive $ 50.00 and the 1st place winner will receive $ 100.00 US dollars. It is the winner's choice that will be used for our marketing model of the Matterhorn for the Swissopolis project.

2nd Stage:

The pool of finalists will be requested to submit a proposal for how they will build, from sculpties, the virtual Matterhorn peak within the Swissopolis project. The judges will choose from that group one proposal. The chosen individual will be given access to the sims involved and at the successful completion of the task awarded $ 750.00 US dollars.

Deadline to submit entries:

12:00 Midnight, Sunday, October 14th, 2007 SLT / PDT

Where to submit entries:

Drop all your submissions on the avatar account, SculptyBoy Sideways. Do NOT submit more than one entry, take your time, within the deadline, and make your best shot at winning. Failure to comply with this rule will likely have a submission judged that you do not want judged.

Announcement of Winners:

We hope, depending on the number and quality of entries, to make a decision within the week, following the contest deadline. Winner's list will be posted in this forum thread, notified directly, the winning 5 entries will be displayed at our lands on the mainland, to be announced, and pay-outs sent.

The Swissopolis project team will then immediately expect receipt of proposals for the main virtual peak, decision will be made and project awarded. The selected Matterhorn peak builder will have about 2 weeks, end of October, to complete the task.

Manner of Pay-outs and Awards:

Winners will receive funds in the equivalency of US dollars. Funds will be paid by conversion to Lindens (day of rate), Paypal account, US cashier's check (US only) or international bank draft. Finalists will inform us of the preferred manner of payment. It is assumed that anything other than Lindens will require the real name and address of the winner at the time of pay-out. For US citizens, in regards to the winner of the $ 750.00 contract, an IRS required W-9 form will need to be completed and returned to Swissopolis.

Non winning entries:

All submissions, other than the winning finalist, will be disposed of to Inventory trash.

Guidelines to win 1st Stage and go on to 2nd Stage:

Quality and professionalism. To win you must demonstrate excellent skills in both Second LIfe and in the 3D application of your choice. You must be able to demonstrate that you can follow directions and be able to create a winning methodology of execution. But mostly your submission of the model Matterhorn must be instantly recognizable, this requires not only the shape of the mountain but its unique surface texture, windswept and rockbound. The Matterhorn is one of the most recognizable mountains in the world, to achieve its look will require a balance of aesthetics and technical prowess.

We do not want to place a limit on prims used in the model to make it effective but on the other hand you cannot be excessive in the use of them, good judgment here is another criteria for winning. Our early work has shown that one prim for the model will not work, not enough resolution, but if you want to give it a try, go for it.

The base of the model should be about 10 to 20 meters and be able to be scaled. The height of the mountain model should be scaled to the correct proportions of the base. The Matterhorn is 4478 meters high above average sea level but you will need to only model that section which is needed to communicate its identity.

The final winner's entry will need to have permissions at full Modify and Copy but make all submissions locked down to protect your work from accidental dissection.

Questions:

You may post questions in this thread and they will be answered, as soon as possible. If you prefer, you email questions to...

[email]sculptyboy@gmail.com[/email]

Although Loydin Tripp is posting this thread and is the Managing Designer of Swissopolis, do NOT IM or email him directly, they will be ignored. The SculptyBoy Sideways account has been specifically setup to handle submissions and questions, but you may post in this thread as well.

Further Information:

Swissopolis sims are currently closed to the public while development is being completed, if it is of some use, you may view the World Map by searching for Matterhorn, it occupies 4 sims. You will notice a plateau like flattening at top, this is the limit of terrain elevation in Second Life, 510 meters. The Matterhorn has been scaled into Second Life and into Swissopolis at a ratio of .14166667. As the terrain in Second Life will not exceed 510 meters (this is about 3600 meters of elevation in the real world) this leaves about 134 meters to finish the peak, thus the use of sculpties. Sculpties lend themselves to the look of natural stone, we have found the use of standard prims to be less than satisfying.

We made heavy use of Google Earth and several of its included tools to create grayscale elevation maps that we imported as RAW files to the sims for the current terrain. The linked photo images in Google Earth are a great visual reference resource as well.

Our ongoing project needs skilled individuals in the future, so even if you are not a winner of the 1st and 2nd stages of the contest you may be contacted about other work. So the best of luck.

Is this contest open to anyone?

I am located in Europe.

Yes of coarse, Ahlmadeen. The contest, both stages, is open to anyone, anywhere and in any country in the world. As long as we can pay you and we can communicate we encourage your involvement and participation.

Good Luck!

Yes of coarse, Ahlmadeen. The contest, both stages, is open to anyone, anywhere and in any country in the world. As long as we can pay you and we can communicate we encourage your involvement and participation.

Good Luck!

I wanted to add that because of the sometimes uncertainty of Second Life communications and some recent loss of inventory issues, I am going to send a message back to the entrant that we have received a submission.

To make sure that we get your original message please do not use the internal Second Life Im to email system but directly notify us of a submission at our assigned avatar account email:

[email]sculptyboy@gmail.com[/email]

Thanks and keep these great submissions coming!

One of the entrants asked 2 very good questions in an email that I would like to answer here.

"Specifically, does this mountain need to be climbable, and is the use of huge prims permitted?"

These questions are about the 2nd stage of contest, the large Matterhorn in the sim.

Climbing Matterhorn: Not really a high priority. Standing on parts of it yes. We would like people to be able to stand easily recognizable ledges and the peak but this not the highest priority as the visual accuracy is the highest goal in this project. You, as we, understand this means the clever selection of what shape and size of prims you use and their strategic placement.

The sue of Mega prims: This is a resounding yes and no. Confused? So are we. Recent statements by Linden Labs has been 50/50 and on the fence about Mega prims and their use in Second Life.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/10/12/the-big-prim-problem/

When Mega Prims are not used to abuse others they are are fine. When Mega Prims are well placed and not made physical, in others words set to phantom, they add no amount of noticeable performance problems and can solve problems in regards to large visual objects, like mountains.

But they present 2 challenges in the use for this project. One is solidity. If the Mega Prim is phantom, how do you stand on the mountain? Well the trick here is solvable by some well placed, invisible solid prims. The Mega Prims gets the looks and the invisible prims put the solid in the mountain.

The 2nd problem is more daunting, scale matching. There are, as I understand, no new Mega Prim scripts and that those out there are of fixed sizes. On the The Matterhorn sims now is an existing correctly scaled terrain, spanning 4 sims. 3 low prims and one high prim. The peak is centered on the corner of these 4 sims with the bulk slightly pushed into the high prim sim to allow more prim usage for the peak. So the huge challenge here is can the fixed size of the Mega prim script match the terrain of the existing Matterhorn, now missing its peak? Maybe.

So our policy is going to be... a clever solution that does not use Mega Prims would probably win the day, so you may want to avoid them. On the other hand, a pragmatic approach to using of Mega Prims to build the Matterhorn peak could win the day.

Clear as mother's milk? We have learned that it is better to guide rather than impinge upon unexpected solutions that designers may submit to us. Second Life technology is like a minefield but that does not mean we cannot learn to dance the waltz within it, just step lightly!