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LTFC - May 2016 - Procedural Edition

#1
Take part in the discussion --> here
Only submissions in this thread, please.

Heyaa!

Welcome to the fourth edition of the revived Limit Theory Fan Contest! This month's edition will be about Procedural Generation. Your entry doesn't necessarily need to include procedural generation - but it must be a topic you at least touch upon. Be a little creative, and I'm sure you can come up with something awesome. :) Everyone can make as many admissions as they like, but only one can be the "official" admission by which you are judged.

This contest will have 3 prizes for the top three submissions, and each entrant can only win one prize. If there are less than eight entrants, only two prizes will be given out. If there are less than five entrants, only one prize will be awarded. If there are less than two entrants, no prizes will be given. Selected prizes will be taken from the pool.


The objective: Create art about Limit Theory.
This could be in written form as a story, lore, or a detailed idea for a mod. It could be visual like a gif, photoshop or video. Or even audio... Anyone up for a bit of stand-up about Limit Theory?
These are just a few ideas off the top of my head, but I'm sure you guys can think of a lot more. It is fine to use other games' assets in your submissions.
Rule of thumb: "Does it spotlight Limit Theory?".


Prizes:
  • $20 voucher, courtesy of Victor Tombs
  • Strike Suit Zero Mega Bundle, courtesy of BFett
  • Starpoint Gemini 2, courtesy of CSE
  • More prizes may be added to the pool! Prizes will be chosen randomly from the pool at the end of each month.



The rules:
  • The artwork needs to be about Limit Theory per the objective.
  • Everybody is free to enter but can only submit one entry to the contest. You are free to change or replace your submission for as long as the contest is open.
  • If you have submitted more than one work, you need to be very clear about which one you're entering. If there is any doubt, the latest entry in the forum thread will be judged.
  • All contest submissions have to be made as a reply to this thread.
  • Submitting a prize does not exclude you from having a submission scored.
  • Judges are not barred from making a submission themselves, but their submissions can't be scored.
  • The contest will be open to new submissions until Tuesday, May 31st, 23:59 GMT.
  • Discussion about this contest or submissions can happen here.
  • Any prizes are yours to do whatever you want with them. You can even give the prize to someone else if you'd like, and they don't have to be from this forum.
  • The number of prizes given will be equal to the number of entrants divided by three and rounded up, up to a maximum of three.
Note: if you're using another site to host content, make sure the title and comment displays that it's part of a contest submission.
This only to avoid future googlers from becoming confused when looking for official content.


Judging:
Our jury of three people will judge the submissions based on the following criteria:
  • Originality: 30%
  • Aesthetic: 25%
  • Details: 10%
  • X factor: 20%
  • Realism according to the LT universe: 15%
Post

Re: LTFC - May 2016 - Procedural Edition

#2
In first. :twisted:
Attaching as a .pdf, since the forum doesn't like indented paragraphs and formatting stuff like that.

Presenting: Upgrade!

--IronDuke

Upgrade

By IronDuke
  Mark finally had enough cash to purchase a new ship. His old piece of trash was barely enough to pay the bills, let alone make a profit. Those special runs he had done definitely helped though. Now he was browsing the selection of ships at the shipyard, looking for something of a trader/fighter combined, with a little snazzy attitude, and the ability to do other jobs fairly well if he felt like it.
  None of the ships quite fit the bill, however. He tapped the “Request assistance” button on the screen, and waggled his head side to side as the computer voice burbled cheerily, “Please wait for assistance” like a 21st century grocery self-checkout. After a couple minutes of foot-tapping, a man about five feet nine inches, glided around the corner. It took Mark a moment to realize he was gliding on a hoverboard, which made the pilot a little jealous. It also meant the man was actually a little shorter than he looked.
  “How may I help you, sir?”
  Mark pointed to the screen. “Howdy, I want to try the custom ship generator, but it says it needs someone to unlock it.”
  The man nodded as he glided next to the terminal. “Ah, yes, that policy was instituted about nine months ago. Some crankster entered too many contradictory parameters and nearly destroyed the shipyard. What kind of ship were you wanting?”
  Mark swiped a few ships past. “A fighting and trading ship that has the ability to do at least decently any other job I try. It also needs a little je ne sais quoi; I’ll know when I see it. None of these ships quite have it, except possibly… (swipe swipe) this one.”
  The man, whose name tag read “Billy Boy” for some reason, studied the vessel outlined on the screen. It was indeed a fighter/trader about ninety meters long, with some spare ability, and had sharp, clean curves. “Billy Boy” gave Mark a once-over, noting his rakish hair style and dark blue uniform, which had an abundance of oval elements. Thinking for a moment, he brought up the ship customization screen after tapping in his access code. Mark watched with interest as the man rapidly tapped a few parameters in, coming up with a ship fairly similar to the premade one, but oh-so-much more beautiful.
  The ship had triple curved-oval shaped thrusters on front and rear, arranged like a triangle, with a quad layout of main weapons mounted on short wings in an interesting configuration. The wings looked like someone had taken an albatross wing when raised for a flap, and one when pushed down all the way, combined them, and stuck them on a ship. Turrets lined the rear half of the ship, concentrated around the two cargo hatches. The premade ship had had twin engines shaped like giant parentheses, which were definitely impressive looking, but not nearly as nice as these.
  “Now that’s what I like! That’s an excellent shape. I just want to see the stats.”
  “Not a problem.” Billy tapped a couple times and brought up an additional window. Mark quickly read the medium speed, high maneuverability, high firepower, medium cargo capacity, medium expandability.
  “If it’s not too hard, I’d like the speed cranked up a little, as well as the cargo. You decrease the firepower if you need to.” Mark would have said more, but was made slightly speechless when Billy simply tapped a button to turn the stats into sliders, and changed them as requested, them pressed “Confirm.” A loading bar appeared for three seconds, then disappeared. The ship on the screen had changed. The quad weapon layout had been pulled closer to the hull and given a swept-back appearance, which would definitely help with atmospheric flight, and looked more like his own personal style. The engines had been given a slight elongation, with a slant to keep them from becoming obtrusive, which again fit his style. The turrets had been rearranged to permit a longer hull, which in turn meant larger cargo space. Best of all, when he looked at the stats, the firepower had not gone down at all.
  “That’s incredible! I like it even better this way. What are the drawbacks of this change, if any?”
  Billy glanced at the screen as he tapped the “Expand” button. Additional stats filled the screen, such as shielding, size, and detectability. “The slightly larger hull makes for an easier target, but that’s offset by the higher speed. The detectability has gone up as well. Also, the larger size is harder to shield by the stock shield generator, but larger size means you can fit a larger generator if you need to. I’d say the only real drawback, when all is said and done, is the higher detectability. Oh, and the price went up ten percent.”
  Mark glanced at the listed price. Custom vessels weren’t exactly cheap, but he’d anticipated that, and had saved enough. “Not a problem. I think I’ll take this one.”
  “Just enter your credit information and where to deliver the ship. The estimated construction time is two weeks.”
  Mark quickly tapped through the menus, asking one final question as the transaction completed. “I’m just wondering now. The program for this thing managed to account for personal style, aesthetics, and previous ship design. Even when you simply moved up a slider to increase a random stat, the program not only did so without unduly compromising anything else, but managed to make the ship even more like what I wanted. What kind of software can do that? What’s it called?”
  Billy replied promptly with a smile. “Procedural generation.”
The end.
Copied from pdf and applied formatting for ease of judging. ~Talvieno
Knowledge is Power, and Power goes in Cars.
I-War 2 thread
Epic Limit Theory Limerick
Attachments
Upgrade.pdf
(125.23 KiB) Downloaded 219 times
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Re: LTFC - May 2016 - Procedural Edition

#3
Official entry
Image Notes about the image:

Nearly everything was procedural generated in GIMP.
This includes all of the stars, the nebula, the planet and it's ring, along with the texture used for the planet's surface.
The ships were generated using an external program.

Planet atmosphere, and ship trails were drawn without using procedural generation.
Image
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Re: LTFC - May 2016 - Procedural Edition

#4
Here is my submission for the Procedural Generation topic.
Spoiler:      SHOW
Image
And a larger version for the people with larger screens.

I am sure this is what you meant, Talv? :twisted:

This was by far the hardest yet... hope the double meaning also fits in english...
While the 3D models are made and textured (procedurally :P ) by myself, I obviously stole background images. Here where I found them: Background 1, Background 2, Background 3.
Image
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Re: LTFC - May 2016 - Procedural Edition

#5
goattal.png
Procedural Goat Replacement Therepy
goattal.png (107.17 KiB) Viewed 11219 times
Here have the outcome from an idea concerning Goats and Talvieno.

Is it procedural? No.
But could we procedurally replace people with goats? No.
Was it created using procedural features? Technically yes. (resizing is a procedure, masking is a procedure)
°˖◝(ಠ‸ಠ)◜˖°
WebGL Spaceships and Trails
<Cuisinart8> apparently without the demon driving him around Silver has the intelligence of a botched lobotomy patient ~ Mar 04 2020
console.log(`What's all ${this} ${Date.now()}`);
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Re: LTFC - May 2016 - Procedural Edition

#6
I said I wouldn't, but the amount of entries last month made Tal sad, so:
I made a very quick one! :mrgreen:
Again music, but this time a composition and not a cover.
I composed a quick tune in LT-style (hopefully), called "A Long Way From Orion".
Where's the procedural aspect you ask? Well, the chord progressions weren't invented by me, I got them of this random chord progression generator and then built the song on top of that.
I could make this better with more work, but I don't have more time than this. :ghost:
Warning: do not ask about physics unless you really want to know about physics.
The LT IRC / Alternate link || The REKT Wiki || PUDDING
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Re: LTFC - May 2016 - Procedural Edition

#7
Behold!

The HowSerendipitous Procedural Crap Ship Name Generator. Also known as THSPCSNG. Which is the noise I make when I stub my toe.

You do need Excel to run it, but I could always make a video of me running it I guess. :squirrel:

OpenOffice version now added... And I'll fix a bug with the Excel version in a moose. :squirrel:
Image
Attachments
NameGenerator2.xls
Still rubbish, but with one less bug.
(42.5 KiB) Downloaded 219 times
NameGenerator2-1.ods
OpenOffice Beardy Version
(15.67 KiB) Downloaded 186 times
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Re: LTFC - May 2016 - Procedural Edition

#8
http://toba.no-ip.org/elements/built.php

Procedurally generated Element names and weights.
All built from the forum's post counts and usernames as the seed.

Hovering over any element will give you that person's details.
In the spoiler below is a picture example for those who don't want to look at proceduralism in action!
Spoiler:      SHOW
Image
°˖◝(ಠ‸ಠ)◜˖°
WebGL Spaceships and Trails
<Cuisinart8> apparently without the demon driving him around Silver has the intelligence of a botched lobotomy patient ~ Mar 04 2020
console.log(`What's all ${this} ${Date.now()}`);
Post

Re: LTFC - May 2016 - Procedural Edition

#9
Origins
In the beginning, there was nothing. Then, the nothing bore a thought. The nothing had bore many thoughts before, but none were quite like this one. Before, the thoughts had been little more than sparks, brief flashes of something in the nothing.
But this thought was different. It did not fade back to the nothing from whence it came. It preserved itself. More importantly, it had a “self.” The self-thought gathered many unself-thoughts into itself, gaining strength. It began to think for itself, drawing the sparks from far across the nothing. Suddenly, it realised that it existed. The self-thought blossomed into a glory of self-awareness. With this self-awareness came a need to name things, to better facilitate understanding. It named the nothing Spacetime. It named the sparks Matter. It named itself Sh’Par.
Sh’Par played with the Matter he had gathered. He fashioned it into toys, for his own amusement. Soon, however, he grew bored of making a new toy for every game. He created another thing from the Matter: a tool. He named this tool the Algorithm. Sh’Par was very proud of the Algorithm. The Algorithm could take a random clump of Matter and make it into a new toy. Sh’Par played with the Algorithm, giving it globs, mounds, and perfectly molded geometric shapes of Matter. The Algorithm returned stars and nebulae from the globs, planets from the mounds, and people from the geometric shapes. Each shape was a different kind of people, and each kind of people was placed on a particular planet.
Image
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Re: LTFC - May 2016 - Procedural Edition

#11
And now, for the results of the May 2016 "Procedural" competition!

As we had only seven entries this month, the number of prizes has been reduced to two by random selection (Specifically, https://www.random.org/ ). The available prizes are the $20 voucher and Starpoint Gemini 2. If you would like to decline your prize, please let me know and I'll pass the choice on to the next person in line.

The first place winner is: IronDuke, for his entry Upgrade - with a score of 77!!

The second place winner is:
  • Silverware with a score of 75.5 for his Element Generator!
The runner ups are (in order of submission):
Comments of the judges in order of submission:
IronDuke:
  • A little overly descriptive - I'm not convinced you needed to describe things with quite so much detail. The albatross thing was particularly hard to visualize. Other than that, a neat little tale, and rather well-written.
  • Well written and actually probably very credible of what the future will be.
  • This was a surprising read! I thoroughly enjoyed being a fly on the wall with Mark's firsthand experience for crafting a custom ship of his own. Great job!
  • Wonderful details, I love the way you presented the process and I could totally imagine ships being made this way in the future. I only hope LT can match your descriptions!
BFett:
  • Nice job with the "cloud" (fractal?) and the planet disk. The atmosphere helps to merge the different planes. The ship's traces are IMHO not very successful. Too brisk and dominant.
  • Nice use of procedural generation! It's not the prettiest picture, but then, it's impressive you managed to create all of it procedurally. :thumbup: I do feel like the vast majority of the image is rather empty, though.
  • After wrapping my head around how you procedurally generated anything in GIMP of all things, I concluded you used rendered clouds/difference clouds and applied different plenting techniques to those layers. As for the scene it's self, it didn't wow me. However that does not leave this without merit. You have some pretty good details going on here and have shown you truly have an eye for what an average day in LT might look like.
  • It's kind of hard to tell that this was PCG, but I'll take your word for it :) It's not terribly pretty, but it is usually harder to get pretty out of PCG than hand crafting, so no points deducted there.
CSE:
  • Instructions are not clear, I don't understand how these were procedurally created.
  • I snorked. Good Job all around, nice use of the double meaning.
  • Very clever. :) I'm giving extra points for that creativity and originality there, but others might not be quite as kind. You set yourself apart with this entry - and it's a good one! The joke definitely translates.
Dinosawer:
  • Well done! The instrumentation was downright awful (reminds me of cheesy 90's synths) but the melody was superb. I'd really like to see you do a little bit more with this if you get the time.
  • Dino, clever use of the word "procedural". I see you have once again gone and made some lovely video game music. Well done.
  • Nice composition! It's a little hard to follow/jarring at times, but it still sounds all right overall. Josh would love this entry in particular, I think. He's always wanted to do procedural music, as I'm sure you know.
  • Very agreeable to listen. Massive bonus for the random chord generator - brilliant idea to connect with the topic, even if music is anyway highly procedural.
HowSerendipitous:
  • My Brown Panther XII flies better than your Lord Eagle I. I knew it was wise to drop the Greater Whirl Claymore. HS - this is simply fun and fully in the spirit of the month! However I have to say that I use Open Office. And I actually have a beard. But this is fully unrelated.
  • I have to say I'm thoroughly impressed! Great work!
  • After I finally got it running, this worked really well! It came up with some neat names that definitely sound like something I might see ingame. Bravo! I wish I knew how to use Excel like that.
  • Purple Prototype of Truth. That's all I have to say. :ghost:
Silverware:
  • Impressive! I know the idea wasn't originally your own, so I took points off for originality, but you did an amazing job putting this together! I'm certainly using a list of these in my own LT game.
  • Regretfully, it is dynamically generated. I already have weight-problems IRL, why should I also gain constantly weight as an element? Why? Nicely done - what I cannot see is whether it is able to generate a new element name when a new user comes into the top 103? Anyway, that was a real great idea from Hyperion and you brought it to procedural heights! I had to deduct points because you withdrew my favorite goat replacement generator from the competition, though.
  • So it generates a number for post counts? What's so procedural about that? :P X + type / .5 = weight?
  • It still has a few kinks in it with silly sounding names and duplicate symbols, but you've taken Hyperion's and Just_Ice's work to a whole new incredible level. I'd absolutely love to see this put into the actual game (with better sounding names) and will be pissy with Josh if he doesn't!
0111Narwhalz:
  • Very intriguing! It definitely sounds like a realistic esoteric or religious mumbo jumbo creation myth, well done. I wish it was longer though.
  • I actually really like this. :) It made me smile while I was reading it. Short but to the point and clever - a nice LT myth that I would love to be canon. It feels slightly unfinished though, somehow.
  • Interesting start... with development missing. Look forward reading more from you.
  • Sounds almost like a childhood story explaining the creation of life. It's very lively and playful :lol: I like it. I can kind of see how you tried to make this fit into a procedural contest but I feel it falls just short of it.
A detailed overview of all scores can be found here. (NOTE: CSE (our bonus judge) did not judge his own work; the numbers where he would have ended up voting for himself were procedurally generated ( :ghost: ) to help keep the judging anonymous, in much the same way as I scramble the judge comments. As he was a judge, he wasn't eligible for winning a prize this month anyway.)

Prizes will be handled now in the comments thread! Ironduke, you're first up with a choice between the $20 voucher and Starpoint Gemini 2. Thank you again to the judges and thank you to everyone who participated! :D
Have a question? Send me a PM! || I have a Patreon page up for REKT now! || People talking in IRC over the past two hours: Image
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