Challenge Inside the Vault: Unity 3D Environment Art Contest w/ Asset Store & Substance

Seems like a nice contest, I'm just disappointed that Unity seem to have forgotten about the Indie and hobby developers, who can't afford Substance Painter. Having a contest rely on an expensive piece of 3rd party software seems against Unity's goal of inclusivity for all developers...

 

Hey @space928! You're able to get a free trial of Substance here, and if you've already claimed a free trial then you can contact substance to get an extension for the contest. We hope that helps!

 

Do we need to post the submission only the last day or we can update it on multiple days during the challenge?

 

WO yao cai jia

 

Can you clarify that Allegorithmic are changing their license conditions for this competition? Their Terms and Conditions would seem to not allow this use case:

"Evaluation License" means a License granted to the User for a limited version of the Software ("the Evaluation Software") for a limited duration, generally of thirty (30) days unless agreed expressly otherwise by Allegorithmic ("the Evaluation Term"), to enable the User to evaluate the Software in connection with the User's internal business purposes to determine whether to purchase the non-evaluation version of the Software. Commercial Use, publishing or redistribution of the Software, the Substances or the Licensee Content is strictly forbidden under an Evaluation License.
...
"Licensee Content" means textures, images, Substances or other content otherwise called derivative work that You developed from Your Use of the Software or the Copyright Assets.

https://www.allegorithmic.com/legal/general-terms-and-conditions

It would seem like uploading content created with this license to the Asset Store puts the user in violation of that clause? Are you also able to give some clarity as to if students using the student Substance license are able to participate? That license explicitly allows entry in contests, however by uploading that content to the store it could then be commercialized which again seems a violation of the license.

 

Hey, Vincent from Allegorithmic, in the context of this contest, we are making an exception: you can use the trial license during the contest, then put the produced content in the Unity Asset Store (even for commercial purpose)

 

Thanks for the clarification.

 

Thanks for chiming in @cgvinny!

 

I just found out about this contest yesterday, and I've decided to throw my time at it.

Its hard to find reference though.

Theres only a few, low resolution beauty renders through the asset store. And that pre-rendered video..

Sure its enough to jumpstart the creative minded, but youre judging also based on technical skills...

I cant look at the topology, i cant get close enough to anything see the consistency of details nor observe the shaders used.

Its difficult to determine the 'scale' of the scene, the dimensions of the vault, the shapes of the vault door and landmarks...

I dont want to buy the icon pack 1 for $150, though, if I want to do a great job.. I need to.

The sample assets provided, are not very helpful, theres only 2 and from a material standpoint they are the same object.

The scene is a beautiful mix of concrete, scifi steel, hanging wire, and organic shapes, all with beautiful carvings on all of it.

None of that is in the sample.

Can you give us a non commercial copy of icon pack 1 to study?

One must never do art without reference.

 

The difficulty with this challenge is indicative of how difficult the concept of buying art asset packs off of the asset store is, in general:

Its hard to copy the visual appeal of another artists work.

If you're a 3D artist and you're making a game by yourself, at least you know all of the art will be visually consistent..

If you're copying someone else's work you literally have to be as capable of an artist as they were in order to match and expand on their body of work.

Its still early in the contest, but I think how varied the art styles of the other submissions are speaks to how difficult matching visual aesthetic is.

If I wanted to create one game using the art of the icon pack 1 and the submissions to this contest.. I think the result would look noticeably inconsistent.

But... I'll try anyways, yeehaw.

 

Agreed, with some of these points. I am happy that i joined this competition, and so far am having a lot of fun with it. I as well was also curious about the particular details of the exterior vault that has been shown.

It is nice that they do have the picture of the character standing outside near the entrance to help judge a bit of the overall sized of just the vault, alone. And it is nice that they give us free roam on what we are able to create, be it any size scene, etc.. Which is good so that we wont get "down voted" if its not exactly similar to whats shown in the promotional video. Having free roam is nice.

And yes, there are many different styles going into this competition which is nice. I also wished (at first) that i can have a larger sample of even just the vault door itself to play with, as i would not buy such an expensive pack just to play with one item.
But as my plans and concept ideas have been created, I've leaned away from needing the exacts of the dimensions and overall texture appearances, and kept it similar (from an eye view standpoint) in my own way.

Even without the "references" that we artists like to have when creating. Its still nice to just create it how you see it, in your own way. Even with my submission, things are a bit more "shiny" and less "old." But as the competition is, who knows exactly what is inside, or how long its been there?

Its interesting how our submissions are to be made into asset packs, and can even be charged for, to make extra income. I like that. And it gives me just that much more passion to really make this pack work, and match close enough with the styles, in my own way. (Plus I'm already a modular artist, so this is a passion in its own as well.. I love creating modular packs!)

I'm happy to join, and i thank you Unity for this event. It'll be a fun one.

Cheers,
- Aquarius Max -

 

@AndrewAssetStore
--------------------------------------------
"12. Additional Terms and Condition.

You agree that this Contest shall be subject to and governed by the laws of the state of California.

You may choose to publish your Entry as a paid Asset on the Unity Asset Store, in which case you hereby waive your rights to payment by Sponsors, Sponsor Affiliates and Contest Partners for their use in connection with this Contest and any other contrary licensing restrictions contained in the Unity Asset Store Terms of Service and EULA."
--------------------------------------------
So does this mean that if i make this a paid asset, i will not receive any winnings from the prize pool if i do win top 3? I'm just curious about this, making sure i read this right, and don't want to get in trouble for anything or whatnot..

Thanks.

 

As a bit of followup feedback to Unity for this, I wouldn't be surprised if there are less entries for this competition than other similar ones. I've talked about this competition with a couple of our students and while they find it interesting they can't enter as they don't have time to learn a free modelling tool like Blender, and using other educational tools like Maya would violate their licenses due to commercially releasing the work produced.

 

@MJohnson24

Yeah I understand what you mean.

If I do this i want to do it in the spirit of which the competition was intended.

"
What can you create?

Create whatever you think would behind the vault door. Environment props, scenery, weapons, vehicles, or even characters. Or even a combination of things. Create a diorama containing all of your creations. The important thing is that your work fits within the technical and aesthetic requirements of the Yggdrasil world.
"

To properly execute on that directive, my reference needs to be on point.. Its an uphill battle for anyone who doesn't have that Icon pack, it's working in the dark.

----------------------

It's a pet peeve of mine when I import a set of models from online and I think they will look okay with another set of models, then I import them and they look like they were made by two different civilizations or cultures.

It's noticeable from a mesh level, but if you want to sell that two objects are in the same space together the materials/shaders have to be 1:1 in a variety of material properties, same consistency of detail, and reasonable wear and tare.

The culture that built the outside of the vault would have conceivably built the inside as well, so the inside needs to carry a lot of the same shape language, construction bits, carvings, lights, railings, base materials, even the connection point between objects matters a lot..

The insides of the walls and the outsides of the walls need to look like they were crafted by the same civilization, with the same tools, using the same construction materials, during the same time period..

That is to say.. For me to be satisfied with what I create / feel like I accomplished what was asked of me.

Sure, I could say:
"On the inside of the vault they were experimenting with alien technology"
or
"ancient primordial magics"

That would explain why the objects in the vault look relatively different, but it doesn't explain why the inside has no vault door, or it has the door but it looks crazy different. The inside of the walls need to be made out of visually consistent blocks and steel beams as used on the outside.

The devil is in the details, and I cant see the details

@Adam-Bailey

As I understand it this competition is specifically targeting established 3D artists who might otherwise not be utilizing the asset store as a way to sell their art.

 

I'd like to create my own replica of that Vault Door. I have not purchased the Icon pack, but will be creating it from reference point of the screenshots..

But i wonder.. Since this is our personal representation of what we think is inside the vault, shouldn't we also have that vault door in the beginning of our scenes?

So if i were to create that vault door myself as close as i can to how it looks in the display promotion screenshot, will that be considered copyright? or will that waive into this competition, so that we can re-create it without getting in trouble for "copying?" I really want the vault door in my scene, or should i just create my own door that looks nothing like this one?

Thanks

 

The vault door is just an example. I don't think I can explain in a way which you would understand. Oh well, I'll keep going with what I have.

 

Why the resident of the Province of Québec are excluded from such official Contest ? The Fee from Loto-Québec aren't big enough to justify these exclusions. That's sad that big constest like that are Closed to a Nation who helped alot the videogames industry by forcing others country to follow their steps on Tax's Cuts and Subvention into R&D.

''3. Eligibility. You may enter the Contest as an individual or as a team of two individuals. You are eligible to enter this Contest if each entrant meets all of the following requirements as of the time and date of entry submission: (i) you are at least 18 years of age (or older age of majority, if applicable in your place of residence); (ii) you are NOT a resident of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, or Syria, due to U.S. Export regulations and you are NOT a resident of the Quebec providence of Canada or the countries of Brazil or Italy; (iii) you have NOT won a prize from Sponsors or Sponsor Affiliates within the last twelve (12) months; (iv) you are NOT an employee of Sponsor, Sponsor Affiliates or any Contest Partner nor an immediate family member or household member of any such employee; (v) you represent yourself as an individual and are not entering into the Contest or submitting an Entry on behalf of your employer or as an agent for any third party; and (vi) you are NOT prohibited by an employment or similar contract or by any applicable law or regulation from participating in this Contest.''

PS : We Say ''Province du Québec'' or ''Province of Quebec''

 

I guess you're familiar with the laws you have there, so you already know that this is the reason: http://legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/ShowDoc/cr/L-6, r. 6
It does not worth the complication to allow people from Quebec to enter.

 

@AndrewAssetStore Hi, we are about to upload our submission soon, but there are some doubts about Asset Store:

- Asset Store rules says project should be max. 4 GB, but Painter files itself (even ziped) have around 8 GB in our case (it's a complete scene). Project itself is just 2 GB. Is there really a cap for an upload?

- We would like to include Project Settings and Packages, as our project relies on specific version of HDRP and ShaderGraph. Is that possible somehow?

Thanks a lot for your help!

 

Nah, I think Unity should smack Allegorithmic for the abysmal way Substance has ignored migration issues with existing sbsar assets (gotta go find download and install ancient Unity just to upgrade migrate any of the thousands of existing sbsar assets in the store or on the web).

That, and I would not trust the little "exception" to the EULA above without it being a lot more officially explained than a one-liner from a non-lawyer on a forum post. Especially now they've "joined the Adobe family," a notoriously litigious company. They had a software developer jailed for writing legally and morally defensible tools and daring to speak at a security conference about Adobe ebook flaws. No, don't trust. Verify.

 

Thanks a lot for an advice - external link will do the work. Hopefully we won't be disqualified or something? Maybe something worth mentioning on the main contest page for others too? Painter projects are hungry.

As for the "project", we found a workaround, as we would need it only because of one shader in the end.

Cheers!

 

hi after install
Inside the Vault: Contest Sample Assets
my substances be broke snif

I have Unity 1028.3

 

Can you provide a link to back up this? I have not been able to find a single verifiable news source on this. This sort of thing would have made the news somewhere if it had happened so right now I am extremely doubtful of this claim

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Elcom_Ltd.

 

Okay, I know that case but the way you phrased it made it sound like something else entirely.

You said "They had a software developer jailed for writing legally and morally defensible tools and daring to speak at a security conference about Adobe ebook flaws". Which just isnt true. They took legal action because their copy protection was circumvented and he spoke about such in the open, it also was a landmark case in that everything about the way those cases are handled changed after that and it sparked national and global debate on the issue of what is legal in one country but not another and how to deal with legal proceedings over these issues.

So its not really they sent someone to jail for doing nothing, its that they filed legal proceedings against a company in russia to protect their assets, and he was released on bail not long after.

Take it from me, I hate adobe with an absolute passion and hope they go under (no chance but we can hope), but I also hate misinformation.

 

It's exactly true.

(1) The tools he wrote allowed people to access their own ebooks in other ways (legal backups, blind audio readers for accessibility, etc.). They were also completely legal to create in Russia where he made them. The company did not infringe protection, they made tools. If you made tools to access .assetbundle files in a way useful to game development, but some people in another country decided that this was a blasphemy to their King or religion or copyrights, it would be an analogue. Legally and morally defensible - the jury found company and person not guilty.

(2) Dmitri informed Adobe of the flaws in the ebook encryption but they did not act on it in any technical way. And then he prepared a talk about the topic, traveled within FBI jurisdiction to speak on the topic, and was arrested at Adobe's behest.

This is getting off-topic but my point stands. I don't trust Adobe on any sort of legal issue. I also don't like the way Substance has not supported their own product and user, so the two companies belong together.

 

I need build settings so that i can take good quality screenshots for assets store. Any suggestions?

 

i am using that sample. But i am not getting high quality screenshots. How can i capture the little detail.

 

"Its hard to copy the visual appeal of another artists work."
-
Its an amazing idea. Imagine a feature(AI) that would try to create a similar visual appeal of another artist work

 

Done.

 

This is helpful, thanks. My package total with all substance files included hit around 4GB. and the project itself is only 1GB which is good. but to help with the sometimes slow upload process of Asset Packs, it will be much easier to just include the readme link for all the files, rather than in the pack..

Thanks.

 

OMG is the server Off Line.....? Someone Help. @AndrewAssetStore

Error fetching metadata: Error receiving response from server (403): The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.
UnityEngine.Debug:LogError(Object)
AssetStoreManager:<RenderMenu>m__12(String)
<GetMetaData>c__AnonStorey1:<>m__1(AssetStoreResponse)
AssetStoreClient:<Update>m__F(Pending)
System.Collections.Generic.List`1:RemoveAll(Predicate`1)
AssetStoreClient:Update()
UnityEditor.EditorApplication:Internal_CallUpdateFunctions()

 

Problem solved

 

Hello,

I wrote an article last night to submit my #InsideTheVault project.
This morning I see that my article is in my drafts and that it is not possible to modify it because there is a review of the contest. But on the contest page I do not see my submission, is this normal? My submission is ok? Help me please.
Thanks.

Rémi

 

Hi, is it possible to edit the article (blog) at this point? Or is it locked during judging?

 

Hi, my asset store submission is rejected because the metadata need to be more detailed and specific, also problem with folder structure. Can i still fix this and resubmit?

 

@AndrewAssetStore
Hi there, ive noticed now that youve posted an announcement saying:
"Be sure to update your post with a link to the Asset Store page for you submission once it is approved."

But at this time, there is no longer a button to "Edit Submission." My package is now live on the store, and i'd like to post the link there as asked, but i see no way of doing so?

Thanks

 

Hello @AndrewAssetStore is there any news about the challenge? I will welcome any update.