Submission & General Commentary Thread

[King Athelstan]

No worries mate, we've got patience

[Noif de Bodemloze]

Hello hello new and old art fellows! Glad to see this is still running since I have been retired/absent from TWCenter. I will try to post some pictures but unfortunately I haven't played any TW games so lack of them, but I have many new GPOTW pictures from past times while been away.

o7 Noif de Bodemloze

[Alexander78]

Glad to see and welcome you Noif!

[King Athelstan]

Hey Noif! Good to see you pop back in here!

[RafSwi7]

Guys, as for the winners thread, we are wating for Alwyn to cast his second vote in GPOTW. As soon as we receive this information, I will post the winners thread.

[Gaius Baltar]

Alright everyone, keep up the good work and those submissions !!! TWC will live and die with these competitions so its up to us to keep the dream alive!

[Septentrionalis]

When I submit a picture, it always shows smaller than with others. However, if I open it in another window I can see it in full size at the hosting site, Postimages. Is that a property of something that Postimages does, or do I just need to specify the size in tags here on TWC?

[Derc]

Seems like Postimages generates a thumbnail and gives you that link instead of the original image. You have to rip the url of the "zoomed" image, if you want to use the original size. Weird. If that's a hazzle, imgur is great too.

[Septentrionalis]

You have to rip the url of the "zoomed" image, if you want to use the original size. Weird.

I was able to retrieve that address but it doesn't work. As if they wanted to prevent its use. Also, it is possible that the forum has some kind of limitation. The original is 3840x2160, which is unreasonably big, but 1920x1080 would be nice.

EDIT: it worked! First reduce the image to 1920x1080, then upload and get the "zoomed" url. This is a game changer for me because nothing really looks impressive at all at 1024x768.

Thank you Derc and also Turk, who helped me through a private channel.

[Turkafinwë]

Glad to have helped!

[Septentrionalis]

This issue may have been discussed before in this long thread, but I would like to open it up nevertheless. Namely, how do you judge in between screenshots particularly in non-TW games (GPOTW)?

I have tried not to judge by the esthetics alone but by what kind of effort it takes a member to come up with the screenshot in actual gameplay situations. Such as voting for something unusual happening and the submitting member being alert enough to catch it on camera, so to speak. Or to look for the perfect shot in a game setting. I am especially concerned about how some of the entries look like cutscenes with nothing suggesting actual gameplay.

[King Athelstan]

Some games have in-built photo modes, and if that's the case I judge by the aesthetic composure and tone, rather than texture quality alone.

It can be very difficult to tell cutscene from game at time, which the photo mode in a lot of modern games helps confuse. However, I tend to see it as a photography, as an art piece in itself, and see what it conveys in me. I am just as likely to vote for an absoulte art piece as for a humorous moment - A screenshot has many ways of being impressive, and I try to look at each shot and think; "what does this mean, say, do, feel" rather than "Oh this one has poorer textures than the other"

[Turkafinwë]

I usually look at what the screenshot 'awakens' within me. What do I feel when I see it? Does it resonate with me? Of course the aesthetics are an important factor, I can't deny that, but that doesn't necessarily mean the best graphics win in my mind.

[ChewieMuse]

I usually take into account the basic tenants of art or proper camera etiquette. Then after that I look at the content of the photo. Something like texture work and shadowing is very important to me. If I see someone take a picture of say a troop and the troops is doing something cool, is the composition correct, how about the lighting, did they pick the best angle for lighting? Did they try to mask any kind of discrepancies in the photo such as clipping or low poly count. I usually judge mostly on fidelity because making a game look better fidelity wise is much harder and takes MUCH more effort than simply waiting for something to happen and taking a screenshot. I do that on the daily with the games I play and take pictures in and thats easy enough to do you just let the game play out. The hard part is making the game LOOK better than its supposed to either with photoshop or in game shader tools such as Reshade. Reshade is an art in its own that takes alot of learning to be able to make your own presets and you also have to have color knowledge and some sort of artistic bone or effort in your brain to make it look good. You cant just slap on over saturation some DoF with a bokeh filter and expect me to be impressed at all with your screenshot.

I do however understand not every player and artist is an expert in the field and hell my art looked like GARBAGE 10 years ago to what it is now, Ive come along way to learn the systems im working in and have become what I would feel competent while being completely self taught. I expect no less from anyone else though that brings me to my point. Im not expecting perfection and when I look at a picture I judge by the basic merits. though if I can see someone put effort into a picture and it turned out good but not amazing maybe compared to someone who just slapped a shader on and happened to get lucky with a good scene I will probably be voting for the person that actually put effort in their screens.

I actually had an argument with a youtuber a while back on this. It may sound snooty and im not trying to be but I was getting a little frustrated browsing the mount and blade subreddit and seeing posts like this reach 3k upvotes when its literally just a bunch of dead bodies and a dude looking at them:



While something like this: (2) Here are some more screenshots from my campaign , you inspired me after all the Kind comments last time! : mountandblade (reddit.com)



Gets maybe 1.5k upvotes when the guy made MUCH more effort in his screenshots.

Im always interested to see how this happens. I have seen completely amazing screenshots get buried in the same day by low effort posts, I mean low effort posts that really anyone could do in their game that gets so much more attention than something that actually takes effort. And this shows an example of what I mean by sure one screenshot may look cool and would be ok but another's may not look AS good but has much more effort in finding a good angle/lighting/effects/editing to make the screenshot up to snuff. Not to say we cant have both but in regards to reddit and screenshot contests its about public opinion.

And im not immune to this. Looking back at my old work I cant see how anyone was interested in my old screens and edits haha.


I also agree with Turkafinwe, usually I examine every screenshot and the one that gives me that tingle vs the others is the one I vote for. But I always take into account the amount of effort one puts into their work.

[Septentrionalis]

Thank you Athel and Turk, interesting and mature ways of thinking about this. Since this competition involves TWC members and their effort instead of just how cool the game itself looks, I try give preference to what it took the member to come up with the (unedited) screenshot. But a human being is subjective, and it is hard not to be influenced by the properties of the game.

Chewie, I appreciate you taking time to answer at length and explain your process and thoughts. Seems like you have put a lot of thought into this. Referring to what I said above, I really like the principle of having edited and unedited competitions separately as we have for Total War games. Trying the find the perfect action moment or scenery in a game and enhancing those pictures are quite separate endeavors and cater to different members. While I respect both approaches and admire their results, I am not interested myself in doing the latter.

[Alexander78]

Hi friends! I stopped by to say hello to everyone and thank the competition team. Great job, guys. I am also glad that new participants are joining us (excellent videos in VOTM ) For a long time this contest remained untouched and it seemed that it was forgotten forever, but thank heavens, this did not happen. It's nice to see great shots and videos after a long absence, nothing changes for the worse here and that's great.

[PikeStance]

.....snip.

TBH, I liked both images.

[Septentrionalis]

Is there any support here for having a separate edited and unedited competition for the general (non-TW) category as well? I really appreciate the great work of guys like Alexander78, but it pretty much means that those painting-like works of art shadow everything else. Then again, I am not sure if there would be many who are willing and skilled enough to retouch their screenshots.

[Alexander78]

You flatter me

Sept, GPOTW and POTW competitions imply that you will demonstrate not only a beautiful screen, but also some special effects (if you want to, of course). If we go back to the very beginning, the participants demonstrated some special effects in almost every screen. If we talk about me, I usually use only a couple of filters from the built-in in-game camera. I also use Reshade in my games, I just love it when I can customize the image in the game to my liking. By the way, I always vote for the сonceptuality. In fact, a rare screen can fit the concept, even if a million special effects are used. I have a favorite at competitions who rarely uses special effects, but his screens are very conceptual and creative (for obvious reasons I won't mention his name)

If people voted only for special effects, it would be the most boring competition in the world. You have great screens, mate, don't go off the track.

PS The stronger the competition, the sweeter the victory.

[Septentrionalis]

Thank you for the comments, Alex! I should add that I do not play this to win, and I have a feeling that many others do not either. I play this because I like the great images and want to contribute with something of my own. Plus, I am an immersion gamer and usually care more about getting the feel of it than beating the game. I like looking at things and listening to sounds. This competition has given me more sense of purpose because now when I go on a scenic trip in a game, I know I can take pictures that others will see as well.

So my suggestion probably comes out as something a sour loser would make, but it is more about the fact that it makes to sense to have different classes of competition for different levels of dedication. I am an organizatory freak who always wants to tweak things if they are not optimal. Like I was once assigned to an extra leg room seat on an airplane although I am a short guy, and I noticed this basketball kind of tall guy sitting very uncomfortably in a regular seat. I just had to go and offer to switch because I felt that the blatant misallocation of resources was an affront to reason .

I am not going to stop posting just because I don't win .