STILLS:

TC-RTC FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

The following is our Frequently Asked Questions section

If you still have not had your query answered, click here to ask us directly.

Member Count: 135 Cheppers

Challenge Start and End Dates?

All new Stills and Animations challenges will be announced two weeks prior to the end of the present challenge. This will in effect give a two week period of grace for raters to rate and comment on an Image or Animation or both before the Challenge ends and the winners are shown on the home page.

All Stills and Animations challenges will end using the GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) convention. This does however present a minor problem for participants outside of this convention whereby the participant will either be some hours behind Europe, or some hours in front depending on where the participant is located in the world. If you are outside of this convention, then please submit your image earlier to make sure it is accepted.

 UPDATE: You will now see a floating countdown timer at the top of your screen for the Stills Challenge. This was introduced to visually aid you with the end of the upload time left to enter a Challenge. If you click the close/cross, the countdown timer will disappear for the browser session that you are presently in. If you don't click the close/cross, the countdown timer will appear on every page that you visit on TC-RTC. (Many thanks to Robert Hashemian, the author at http://www.hashemian.com - sincerely appreciated Robert). 

Forum

 Please use our forum located on the link bar on every page to ask your questions. We have a very knowledgable and friendly team of experienced members who may be able to help you with your 3D ambitions. We look forward to seeing your work.

So, how does the rating system work?

Rating, voting, scoring, (call it what you will), is a tricky subject at best in the computer world. There is no definitive way of being able to vote in a way that might be fair to all. One can only hope that what is in place will work and that everyone is happy with the way that it works. For instance, you can give everyone the same method of voting where in our case, a participant will be able to vote a score out of 60 points where the criteria for the image is; ARTISTIC (20 points), CONCEPT (20 points), and TECHNICAL (20points). 

PLEASE NOTE: The total score of 60 is 'per member' when rater's score an Image/Animation - 10 members rating an Image/Animation will give it a total value of 'rate/600' and so on.

What's that "Image Status" checkbox in the edit section of the Rating Area for members?

This checkbox arrangement allows the participating member to remove his/her own image and update it with a new one, or, if you accidently uploaded the wrong image, you can delete it by selecting 'Suspend' and then uploading your correct image. You would then select 'Make Live' and the image will then replace the incorrect image. PLEASE NOTE that all comments and ratings will also be deleted along with the image when doing this, so make sure that you upload the right image in the first place! If however, you don't mind losing your scores and comments, then by all means, please continue.

Headers: New: Not used. Make Live: After upoading an image, make it 'live' on this website. Suspend: Suspend your image. Archive: Not used. Basically, a user would only use Suspend and Make Live.

Huh? What's that 'Overall Results' page?

In the "Overall Results"of the Rating Area, the headers Overall, Technical, Concept, and Artistic will be seen. These are headers that when you click on any of them, will bring the highest score for that Image/Animation criteria to the top if it isn't already in place.

So, who picks the winner?

Simply - You do!
As mentioned above, the ratings will determine the winner at the end of the challenge period. The results will be reflected on your member homepage and your 'Image Library' page. The results will be shown on the website homepage the day after a challenge ends. This will also be when the next topic is broadcast.

Who picks the topics and what are the topics likely to be about?

Simply, you do! From your member account, you can go to a page where you can vote for the topic that you want to see for the next Challenge.

! UPDATE 23/2/2009: We have updated the topics section. When you log in, you can still vote from your member area for the next topic, but we have now added a long list of new single word subjects, (I believe around 100+ subjects). Check the list out, there are some really good subjects there!

What's expected of the topic?

Participants are expected to take the chosen book title or single word topic and convey/express their artistic licence resulting in a 3D rendered image that depicts that book title or topic.

BOOK TITLE TOPICS:

You don't have to literally read the book and then convey the story in your image, (of course, you can if you want to), but you would be expected to submit YOUR *depiction* of that title. For example, if the next book title topic is "The Fortunate Youth", then you could depict a young boy or girl winning a teddy bear at a fair. It could be that a young lad/lass has caught the biggest fish of the day, whilst his/her father only has a tiddler. :o)

SINGLE WORD TOPICS:

Depict the topic in any way that you want as long as it is related to the topic. 

What's allowed, and what's not allowed...

ALLOWED: A nice 'clean' image depicting the topic. *Mild* nudity will be allowed ONLY IF the image *really* conveys the topic - any image submitted that leans in any other way at all will be removed.

NOT ALLOWED: Any image where racial hatred, porn, vulgarity, abuse, (whatever is deemed 'bad'), is submitted, will be deleted. Please note: The appropriate authorities WILL be informed if necessary.

Who is TINA CHeP?

TINA CHeP started because we were all fumbling around looking for something positive to do with our various graphics programs and rendering software because after 12 years of the official IRTC, it had somehow been embedded into us that we HAD to do something! The craving was overpowering and something had to give. So, a couple of our very talented PoV-Ray enthusiast friends, Thomas de Groot and Martin (Verm) suggested a topic of "This Is Not a CHeckered Plane" - and lo and behold, the beautiful TINA CHeP came to fruition.