I think we should have at least 2 scenes to pick from (one with water, another without) since certain environmental effects may make more sense on a particular type of scene.
We could make some default scene(s) perhaps… but I don't think you should HAVE to use them. However let it be clear we'll judge the effect, not the scene.
llama said:
We could make some default scene(s) perhaps.. but I don't think you should HAVE to use them. However let it be clear we'll judge the effect, not the scene.
I fear that may taint the ability to judge effectively.
darkfrog said:
llama said:
We could make some default scene(s) perhaps.. but I don't think you should HAVE to use them. However let it be clear we'll judge the effect, not the scene.
I fear that may taint the ability to judge effectively.
I agree.
renanse said:
I agree.
I shall mark this day on my calendar. ;)
he doubts about his own judgement 
does that mean he has doubts about his doubts? XD
What if the effect requires making a change to the scene… like for example someone wants to do rain… but not just regular rain, rain with attitude, lots of wind, gusting, pushing trees around… or would that go outside of what would be considered an effect here?
I would say that exceeds what the intent is here, but I may be alone in that thought. :o
If someone wants to make that why not? Though, I guess it's realistic to except less. We could limit the contest to a certain scene, but it would be a limitation. Eg. what if someone wants to do an underwater effect, or something else we can't think of in a default scene, that'd be a pity.
The more leeway you give the harder it's going to be to actually judge these things? How are you planning on determine which is better? A killer underwater refraction effect or a killer volumetric cloud effect?
If you don't have a common goal, judging them is going to be far too difficult.
I think for this we'd need some sort of rating system anyway… Since we can have a decent amount of judges it doesn't come down to one single subjective look.
If you want to narrow it down what would you suggest? making an effect for a predetermined scene, or making a specific effect? (I'd think that last one could be pretty hard to judge too).
Subjectivity in judging is ok (think about chili cookoffs and so forth,) just as long as the contest is defined enough that everyone feels they submitted on equal footing. So either a fixed scene or a chosen effect seems best.
I'd go for the fixed scene. This should provide enough ease for judging the different effects and enough freedom of choice for the participants, too.
The advantage is, that you should get more than one effect that can make it into the engine.
And even though they may not be perfect, they would at least be existent.
I'm fine with a fixed scene, if people think it will help. As long as people are allowed to adapt it to show of their effect.
Anyway, are there any people intrested in participating in a challenge like this, and how long do they think it should take?
I think a fixed scene is best because it leaves it open for creativity in addition to providing the best benefit to jME. We can potentially get several good effects like Camael said instead of having to choose the best out of several nice implementations.
Time-frame I think should be quite a bit longer than the last time and we can end the competition early if everyone intending to do something has finished already.
How does a 2 month window sound? The developers can use the rest of July to implement the contest framework.
sounds great. that also gives me some time to learn GLSL 
i don't think it's important that contests take place often, but that the results are worthy to be merged into jme (or at least to be put on a "technology demo" webstart section on the main page)
I've got a tool I wrote that graphically lets you assemble JARs and build a WebStart from it. I would be happy to contribute this if it would help?
renanse said:
How does a 2 month window sound? The developers can use the rest of July to implement the contest framework.
That sounds good to me.
Sounds like something that'd be useful on it's own, darkfrog.
Okay, posted a new topic about it here: http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/jmeforum/index.php?topic=3586.0