QCAwards

offonoll's picture

Hello to everybody! First of all, I would like to thank you for your support on quartz Composer Award event. http://www.vimeo.com/groups/quartzcomposerawards

I am gonna start explaining that I came out with this idea 3 weeks ago and I created a group on Vimeo. There are already 41 subscribers and people seems to be interested on celebrating QCAwards events. I also start to see that we need a file hosting and some other decitions. Some of you gave me your opinion that I really appreciate. Then I thought that having a DB file directory it will need a full website so I create a WordPress. ( quartzcomposerawards.com )

From 4 days ago I haven't open QC to create this site. I also tried to find some sponsors for the awards but this is not yet decided.

Also, I would like to point, that QCAwards could be an extension of Kineme Forum. I mean, here we have all feedback from developing a project or idea. On QCAward will be presented these ideas and projects and it would be even better if you save a link-forum-conversation to post it next to the project. It is a way of organizing QC sites on the net.

I already spend 4 full days tring to figure out how WordPress works and intalling all plugins we need. I am not an expert on programming sites so here I am calling for help to set a RATING POST. Here is the best plugin for rating posts: http://www.gdstarrating.com/ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gd-star-rating/ ... and its already the third time I install it to make it work.

I can't find out how to create a ranking 'post' list by categories in a page. Something with templates that I can't understand.

I want to remark that this site is for all of us and I am not making money from it. I also offer a hosting for the WPress.

So if you know about this plug in, you can set it as you think is better used. Here is an administrator name: barcelona pass: kineme You can play posting and set the GR START RATING.

I hope we can have an event soon!!

Again, thank you! Oscar.

leon's picture
Re: QCAwards

thank you for your efforts, Oscar

smokris's picture
Re: QCAwards

Oscar -

On kineme.net we already have a place set up for QCAwards submissions to be posted --- in the left menu, click "Submit Composition", and from the "Composition Category" list, you can select one or more QCAwards categories to submit the composition in.

These compositions are shown in the "Composition Repository" (link on the left menu), and there you can filter by category.

We also have a multiaxis voting system already set up, so users could vote on different attributes of each composition (for example, in a recent awards competition I helped administer, we had five axes: Narrative, Originality, Practicality, Effort, Overall Production Quality).

offonoll's picture
Re: QCAwards

Man!!! this is new!!

ohh!! are you sure u don't want a full site for this. I am gonna get crazy!

psonice's picture
Re: QCAwards

Sounds good, and I think some kind of kineme tie in is important. It's easy to embed vimeo videos and upload comps now too. However having an external site is good too though, would it be possible to somehow expose the qcawards bits on an outside site?

psonice's picture
Re: QCAwards

Vimeo for videos, kineme for forum/files, link them all up on the site. Take the best of everything :)

cybero's picture
Re: QCAwards

I can make space available via a sub domain.

dust's picture
Re: QCAwards

sounds cool, i have a web server that i don't really use if you need virtual hosting, im using a dynamic dns solution its great i can actually run a website off my ipod, i think thats pretty cool...

my web server is just a intel mac book plenty fast for me. i like setting up content management systems, that is so people can manage it them selfs or thats the idea anyways. don't really have any clients. i run apache, mysql, php, etc... i want to learn oracle i guess its like java know my aunt is their politician. so yeah i like joomla and drupal like kinemes site. i have yet to try word press but i am liking the content managmenst systems in my old age i used to have to do everything from scratch, wow what a chore that would now a days.

anyways thought i would offer, it seems kinemes repository is great but if you want your name quartz composer awards to point somewhere you'll need a host i don't see chris changing his name anytime soon but who knows a place holder isn't to hard to do.

i got tb of space, i can set you up with an admin account if you really want to do some experimental quartz websites and what not just don't mess with my web phone is all i ask or hack my server. im getting 26mb/sec on roadrunner.

http://d0cut0uch.no-ip.info/index.php/quartz-composer.html

this is my site actually just made in a few mins before this post, i will be making sub directories of the quartz composer menu with cool things right now i just have the root directories set to a twitter keyword. but yeah forum-wiki-social-blog-map etc... i can also host video but embedding vimeos all good as well ?

not trying to pitch you any services just trying to help i have a web server i don't use it, i don't have time to organize all my compositions and screen shot them but soon. if you go wordpress i have some templates. i like joomla don't know why drupal is pretty tight as well there is another one that runs on oracle that is a bit older as well. i got sprout core etc.. can do lots of other things pod casting etc... webkit bla blah

http://d0cut0uch.no-ip.info/index.php/quartz-composer.html

cybero's picture
Re: QCAwards

your mac book server loads much quicker than I expected it do when I first saw the no-ip.info address and remembered my using a similar approach a couple of years ago.

dust's picture
Re: QCAwards

yeah i used to use dyndns but they erase your domains if you don't use them, im about to go buy a couple of domains and point them all to my webserver. i finally got 2 of them but havent got around to setting up my own name server, im residential getting bizz speed cause i payed for it all last year and never got the speed advertised so they flashed me some good bin files into my modem. something to do with 20 thousand college students needing internet all at one time or something not sure what the node problem is up where im at. its funny i look at people who uncap their modems and they are only getting 15mb/sec i get 26 capped residential ????

offonoll's picture
Re: QCAwards

Hi guys! After thinking for a day. I decide that I can't organize this. It has get to a point that, eather the community developes the idea itself with all members help, or just one person takes the idea with its own porpuse.

if kineme wants the domain. I can sell it for the price I bought it. I think it was 9$ in godaddy. just contact me.

Personaly, I don't want to carry a website, takes time and mailing ... something I don't want to be envolve, so in one way, thank you to take it. and I hope we can make it bigger and nicer looking this composition repository. By the way, there is no need best boinxtv layer. they didn't say anything.

thank you for your time.

dust's picture
Re: QCAwards

i just got boinx haven't tried it yet messing around with MSA remote ;) hey how do i add a video to the qc awards vimeo i uploaded a video and joined the group but either my eyes are failing me but i think i joined the group not sure how to make my video go to the group, to many things im figuring out twitter, vimeo, i should just focus on my own site.

offonoll's picture
Re: QCAwards

Easy! just go to add tab from your videos and add it to the group list you have subscribed to. once you add it, you need to go to the video you just add and again, add tb and you will find a list of albums. :)

cybero's picture
Re: QCAwards

Nice speed, however, I would be able to make available a sub domain of the main backbone in Canary Wharf - speed limit - not theirs, but ours 26 MB , 2Mb or whatever, I don't think we can compete with a main backbone server - especially if subject to a load of hits.

Not saying it couldn't prove useful, possibly even underestimating the usefulness of your laptop server.

gtoledo3's picture
Re: QCAwards

Ok, I've been really occupied and haven't had the time to weigh in on this at all...

Firstly, Offonoll/Oscar Font is a very cool person, and I have the pleasure of chatting with him via internet text stuff. I like the thrust of the idea, and the thought that competition leads to innovation (though I could go into a long drawn out discourse on my reservations about ranking systems).

I have some thoughts, in no order of importance:

  • I don't think it's a great idea to have a bunch of stuff spread out, and the more obscure, the worse.

-The repository here, and the potential for interaction with an already established setup is a good thing. The idea of possible plugin interaction with the repository here is pretty mindblowing, imo.

-I don't see myself going around to 3 or 4 different sites, or really even 2, and doing duplicate posting, etc. Even posting something here, and on my own personal blog is a bit much.

-Would it make sense for the Quartz Composer Awards site to kind of feature whoever has actually "won" awards in a given time period?

-I don't think that the idea of the "award" and a source file should necessarily have to go together.

-I would actually kinda like to see Quartz Composer Awards just lead to a section here!

offonoll's picture
Re: QCAwards

Thank you! Glad to hear that!

For me its fine if Kineme people take it to this site, it will be in good hands. I trust on you kineme! I also agree that to many sites is confusing.

So if you need ideas for new things just need to ask. :)

usefuldesign.au's picture
Re: QCAwards

Just looked at the final categories as posted in Repositories> QC Awards.

Noticed Marcos and Plugins lumped together. Can I have the honour of awarding cwright the Award today b/c any macro I make isn't going to cut a flesh wound into Kineme 3D or GL Tools (or his next best 20 plugins for that matter).

Maybe we can rule them all out because smokris has input and submission form says they have to be your own work??

Seriously, I'm entering for the hope of a wooden spoon.

psonice's picture
Re: QCAwards

What I was trying to say before is pretty much what George said. We need a bit of simplification is all:

  • Having different parts of QCAwards in different places makes it confusing
  • Vimeo isn't so good for organising, voting etc
  • Kineme isn't so good for hosting 500mb videos
  • Setting up a complete website to handle it well is a big, time consuming job

What I was trying to suggest was just this:

  • Keep the qcawards.com site, but keep it really simple. Just a front page explaining what it is.
  • Link to the repository here for the comps
  • Link to the forum here for discussion
  • Ask people to upload videos to vimeo, and tell them to embed it in the page here with the [ video : ] tags

Ideally, the kineme sections could be embedded in the qcawards.com site somehow, so it's even less confusing.

I think that should be: - least amount of work - pretty clear and easy for people to find stuff and use it - all in one place - nicely branded with the domain name

offonoll: sorry if I come across as a bit pushy or anything btw.. I just think this is a pretty complex competition to set up + run, and it's important to get things right at the start if it's going to work. E.g. counting the votes using the vimeo 'Likes' system could be impossible - it's better to fix it now than 2 days before the deadline :)

I actually ran some mac demoscene competitions some years back ("rushed metal"), so I know how hard it is. What I learned then was this: make it as simple as possible, and get lots of advice.

I decided to just have 1 category, a short deadline (3-4 weeks) so you can keep people's attention, and just a 1 page site (you could download the entries and vote for each, nothing more).

For this of course you need a bit more (like the categories and videos of the comps) but simple is definitely better.

Advice is important, people suggested lots of things I didn't think of, and people helped to do the work too. The bad part is you end up with too much advice, too many good ideas, and different people wanting different things (for me, some wanted a long deadline like 3 months, others wanted 7 days or less so there is pressure to make something fast). If you get that, just listen to both sides, then do what you want and let them complain about it ;)

gtoledo3's picture
Re: QCAwards

psonice wrote:
If you get that, just listen to both sides, then do what you want and let them complain about it ;)

I love that.

psonice's picture
Re: QCAwards

It's strange, but it's the only way :)

You feel really pressured to do what people want, but if you do, you'll make somebody else really angry. It's always the way. But once you just decide to do what you want (well, so long as you're prepared to justify it at least) it feels good :)

gtoledo3's picture
Re: QCAwards

I agree, it seems that's the only way that life ever works out well. I just love how you phrased it... more modern than "be true to thine self".

usefuldesign.au's picture
Re: QCAwards

Yes, I just learned to say "It's not what I want" without fear of retribution/anger last week. Was so easy once I had decided. The explosion I had previously feared came and I just observed it and it past away. So relieved to have learnt that.

My whole life I've been bending for people just to make myself uncomfortable and compromised. :)

cwright's picture
Re: QCAwards

psonice wrote:
You feel really pressured to do what people want, but if you do, you'll make somebody else really angry.

^^^ Kineme's #1 dilemma of all time :)

offonoll's picture
Re: QCAwards

I haven't read these last messages from now.

Ok. Here I mention something that we missed and it might help. QCAward isn't a project different than the projects and compositions we work all the time. Like creative comons says: from one starting, others can improve it if those improvements are better for the community. So lets say, that everything started on Vimeo group. Then I decided to improved to Beta 2 ( quartzcomposerawards.com ) ... I got stocked for the ratings. but smokris thought that would be much easier introduce QCAwards inside Kineme. For some reasons are logical, so fine!

From now, we can just write what we think and suggest to kineme people.. and wait.

Cwright: If you want me to point forwarding quartzcomposerawards.com tell me where. QCAwards.kineme.net???

psonice: I like also your idea. I think it needs more visible and graphical style. Kineme is now leading the project so they need to make such rules for posting.

Guys! let's enjoy!!!

Gracias a todos! = thank's to all of you! :)

dust's picture
Re: QCAwards

i think the qc awards is a great idea.

  1. set up clear rules.
  2. set up deadline.
  3. set up voting time.

rules....

so im not exactly sure what the quartz composer awards is. but i think you should make clear rules like say 3 submissions per category. maybe team submissions is ok. i think making rules clear as to the compositions having to be original etc... would be nice.

so as far as the voting is concerned there would have to be a fair login method as to defeat the coge webkit plugin attached to a trigger on a lfo. meaning some sort of system that would only let registered people vote and only vote once. so no bots. those are my thoughts and concerns. like i said if there is anyway i can help i will do so maybe virtual hosting or something ?

cwright's picture
Re: QCAwards

offonoll wrote:
Cwright: If you want me to point forwarding quartzcomposerawards.com tell me where. QCAwards.kineme.net???

I actually don't control the fancy server stuff (TLDs and DNS stuff, etc) -- that's all smokris' domain. I'll wait for him to chime in with what's gonna happen (he's been fairly busy lately, so it might be a while before gets back with you?)

psonice's picture
Re: QCAwards

Hmm.. yeah, some visual style would be really good. A solid logo and a bit of colour would be enough I think. Anyone with good design skills and a little time care to chip in?

Also (although admittedly much further down the line): when the awards are announced, that should be done as a QC composition, containing highlights of the comps/plugins for each award, with cool music + design. Maybe I can help with that end, as chaining tons of stuff together is something I do for demoscene stuff. Depends on time though, I'm way too busy lately :(

Oh yeah, and really well done for getting this up and running offonoll :D Without your huge kickstart this wouldn't have happened at all.

usefuldesign.au's picture
Re: QCAwards

This is a logo I started working on speculatively for Kineme for Builder but was too slow or 'not quite us'. Happy to retool for awards if enough peeps likes it.

Was going to have an object come out of the hat or a wand or something. Perhaps could be animated in a basic way.









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cwright's picture
Re: QCAwards

I kinda like how that ties in with the QCAwards idea -- "What can the QC community pull out of their hats?!"

I think there was a WWDC demo that used a magic wand (from the infamous QC-Ogre video where "skanky SDK" was coined), so it makes sense on that front too.

gtoledo3's picture
Re: QCAwards

Yes! That wand thing from the early WWDC stuff is the first thing that came to mind. I think you can still see it somewhere on their pages.

psonice's picture
Re: QCAwards

o0

Have you guys lost your minds? The wand animation is what plays in safari while a composition loads in the browser! It's the default loading animation for .qtz files :D

usefuldesign.au's picture
Re: QCAwards

Yeah and that white glitter they used is a pretty neat effect and not easily appropriated it is sort of coloured flares with alpha. Think we can take one step away from that. Each Award could have it's own relevant (or not) little thing coming out of the hat — all stylistically connected if not thematically. I've just done an all-nighter so can't be arsed suggesting anything.

offonoll's picture
Re: QCAwards

Hi! I have an idea! ;) dangerous idea. We have reach to a nice point but this could turn everything to another direccion. or maybe it could fit in the whole experience!! What about to forget to post videos and we make an app Visualizer QCAwards. An application that loads qtz with a simple list interface and vote from it?? I don't think its that hard to create but I don't have skills to creat it. I image a 3D space museum which there are diferents rooms and everyone has a room to post his best composition. From the apps we could have a link to go to a kineme composition repository... and go to DB. Visulizer/museum/QCAwards

Its is just an idea but we can do that for a v.2, once we get a web done and couple events. I don't want to shake your brains, let's concentrate on first steps.

Cheers!

usefuldesign.au's picture
Re: QCAwards

Sounds nice but would it be a barrier-to-entry for viewers who aren't contributing apps just to take a squiz. I guess the high ranking stuff could then be posted to a Kineme page with Vimeo window boxes.

As far as my proposal for award icon goes just got this in the mail:

This sort of thing has happened to me all my life. I even proposed a film about Ants years before Antz, who'd of thunk it. I must have a leak in my head.

I liked the Top Hat as an icon (for Kineme Builder app) because it has layers of meanings as any great icon must. First there was the cheeky reference to QC's icon itself which was deserved given the "Skanky" comment as cwright already pointed out. Then there was the sense of formality and a special occasion of top-hat and tails which kind of meshed with app builder but does for Awards too. Also the marriage of QC app/framework magic with developers Magic.

So the literalness of something(?) surprising appearing from the magician's hat leads in to the subtle meanings (which are always more powerful).

Finally there is Fred Astaire (who always rises to the top with a "Top-Hat" image google). One of the best Dancer/Singer/Choreographer/Entertainers to ever live (apologies to MJ) and our comps seem to be more about that kind of stuff than about other programming stuff. Possibly Top Hats only make +me+ think of Fred, admittedly.

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gtoledo3's picture
Re: QCAwards

smokris,

Somewhere in one of these threads, you commented that we could ask about converting old posts into repository stuff... that seems cool, so that's fairly well taken care of (if not automagical)...

One thing that keeps coming to mind, and actually inspired by the comp SuperGRAPHIC by you, Steve, is that it seems to make sense to have some way to kind of nominate stuff that the author may not have thought to put up... maybe kineme example compositions, or someone's plugin, or whatever, that they haven't actually put up themselves.

For example, I would nominate SuperGRAPHIC because of the big impact it had on me understanding some concepts (how QUICK texture translate is compared to some other methods, and the javascript powered text scroller)... it illustrates more than one clever trick. Another thing is something like Chris's recent Particle Metrix stuff... I don't think he would be likely to submit it, but it really deserves high praise. I can think of a bunch of Kineme example comps that should be in the repository, imo. Also, stuff like psonice's 1988, or old Futurismo example comps, etc... there are a lot of things outside the realms of Kineme that could really deserve accolade, and it would be good to have some kind of consideration to that stuff, as well as things people might not think to submit themselves...

I would even go so far to say that I think MAYBE there should be a category for best Apple example comp/plugin code/X Code App project, etc. I have a feeling they lurk, and it can't be a bad idea to show what WE like most and appreciate out of what they are doing. THEY deserve high praise as well!

It's almost more award worthy if no one was able to submit stuff themselves at all! :) (I say that AFTER having tagged a bunch of stuff into the vimeo group!)

Another thought, is that someone might submit something for a type, but maybe it would be cool if people gave a run down of what it is that they think makes it award worthy (informally?), if it's a scenario where we definitely are just submitting our own stuff for the group.

cwright's picture
Re: QCAwards

I suppose there are 2 different models at play here (well, maybe 3):

One the one hand, there's the "submission model" -- the is for contests, etc (irtc.org, for example). In this model, users submit their own work, which is created for a specific purpose. We could do themes (create a composition that conveys the idea of "cold" or something vague like that), and have users rank submissions. I think this makes sense only if the theme isn't really known in advance, and we have strict timelines. We can have something like a top 3, with technical merit as a runner up or something.

On the other hand, we have the "oscar model" -- this is where a person creates a work (without any specific theme in mind), and someone else nominates it for an award (technical mastery, visual appeal, whatever). This would also need a specific timeline to be meaningful.

On a third hand, there could be a "hall of fame" model, where the N highest rated composition live (or, alternatively, where compositions that acquire a sufficiently high rating go to live forever, immortalized in web.archive.org or something)

gtoledo3's picture
Re: QCAwards

yeah.... That rundown sounds like IT. That's a great model that hits on all sides.