Hero Contest #2 - Artists & Coders Unite!

HERO CREATION CONTEST #2

ARTISTS & CODERS UNITE

You may remember WC3C's successful first hero contest, well now we're holding the second one! This time around though, we're kicking it up a notch and trying to involve multiple aspects of the site in one tremendous contest of skill. Both artists and coders will unite together to enter into this contest: the artist will choose and create one aspect of the hero's graphics while the coder will provide the hero with spells. With good teamwork, the end result will be worthy of taking the last hero spot in the WC3 tavern!

Reward:

Contest Rules:

• Two people per team, one artist, one coder.
• No entrant can be a member of multiple teams.
• Everybody is allowed and encouraged to enter, as long as they follow the rules.
• If you are both a skilled artist and coder in one, you cannot perform both tasks and be your own team. Choose to team up with another individual who needs a partner and do that part of the tasks.
• One entry per team.

Hero Requirements:

• The hero must have only 4 spells, no innate abilities.
• The hero must have a distinct theme. This theme is an important part of hero design, your artwork and spells must fit into its theme. There is no defined theme for the contest, but your team must create your own theme.
• The hero should be balanced qualitatively and quantitatively as if it were a tavern hero in standard WC3 melee games.
• Your hero must have one ultimate and 3 level 1 skills.
• Your hero must be designed with a max level of 10 in mind.
• At least two of the hero's skills must be trigger enhanced, but you may trigger more than two of them.
• Your hero must have at least some synergy between the hero's abilities.
• You are not allowed to make purely cinematic spells. This means you cannot pause the hero, use cinematic mode for any spell, or anything of the sort.
• You are not allowed to use the spellbook ability as any of your spells. Heroes have 3 normal abilities and 1 ultimate no matter what, no bypassing it.

Specific Requirements:

Artist Rules:

• The artistic team member must choose to do one of the following:
  -- Create a custom texture for an in-game hero (or unit) model.
  -- Create a custom hero model using in-game textures and in-game animations.
  -- Modify an in-game model with a fully custom animation set.
  -- Create custom special effect models using in-game or custom textures for any number of the hero's spells and/or the hero's attack.
  -- Create custom icons for the hero's spells.
• All hero art other than the one chosen from the above list must be from the in-game MPQs.
• No matter what you choose from the list above, you are allowed to make a custom unit icon for your hero.
• No matter what you choose from the list above, you are allowed to import an attachable hero glow effect model for your hero.
• Your hero is allowed a single attached special effect to multiple attachment points based on the criterion of your artist entry type.
• If you pick to texture or model a hero that is already present in the melee game, you may reimport the model with different texture paths to prevent model and texture collisions.
• If you make a texture, it has to be at least 90% freehand.
• You must post at least one WIP shot of your artistic contribution to the contest before deadline.
• All artistic work used in this competition must be made exclusively for this competition.

Programming Rules:

• You can use any type of coding method you'd like (JASS / GUI / vJass) in designing your spells. (Specify in the entry topic)
• All spells for the hero must be designed specifically for this contest, there will be no previously made spells allowed.
• You cannot use a previously made system (Even if you made it) except those of the storage type. Examples of allowed systems: Handle Variables, CSCache.
• You are allowed to import and use a dummy unit model with a single bone and the 'origin' attachment. This can be useful for some projectile spells and therefore it is allowed. (Pitch dummies with 180 vertical rotation are allowed as well)

Submission Rules:

• When the hero is complete, submit it to the pastebin in its own thread with the prefix [HERO2] and send me a private message with a link to the submission thread.
• The map you submit your hero in should be set up as a melee map so the hero can be tested in a standard melee game.
• Triggers should be provided to allow a single player to test the hero individually with ease and without having to build an altar and gain experience.
• All submitted entries must use (4)TurtleRock.w3x as the test map. (Modified as necessary, but not with any drastic changes)
• All submitted entries must have a filename in the format:
  <MyHeroName>.w3x
• All submitted entries must have an in-game map name in the format:
  <MyHeroName>
• All imported content may be no larger than 500kb.
• Submitted maps may be no larger than 750kb.

Judging Method:

• If more than 3 teams enter, the contest will enter into a public poll where users can distribute two points among the contestants. A person can put 1 point towards two different teams or put two points towards any one team, it is the user's choice.
• The teams with the highest points after the public voting stage (Up to 5 teams, depending on how many entries) will move on to be judged based on code, art, and overall hero design by a team of judges.

Deadline:

The session ends on May 5th. (24:00 [Midnight] GMT-5) This gives users a little more than a month to get everything going. Potential extensions are possible if lots of teams need them.

Links:
Artist Thread
Matchmaking Thread

Let's make this contest as successful as the first one was!

It's go time.

Shit I want to enter as a coder but no one's even heard of me - I doubt I could find an artist. Either way, sounds great. Probably I'll need to make a hero, and then try to get people to model or texture for it...

Don't worry, I made a matchmaking thread. I will go to extreme lengths to find and coordinate people together. Check the other stickied topic in this forum and post there.

When you say 'no pausing', that means I can't, for instance, make a dash spell where I pause the hero while he is dashing (which I guess would be less than a second) so that he doesn't look like he's just standing there?

Or do you mean, 'No pausing him as he plays his death animation, and then after he dies, the ground around him quakes violently and then explodes, dealing 1000 damage with each explosion, and finally, at the end, a beam of light comes and lifts the hero up, and revives him.'

To me, the second one is a cinematic spell, and the first one is just to avoid making it look retarded.

One question... Can we use WoW icons?

Holy shit! (He says, as if he didn't know a thing.)

I'll need a coder, though.

...why? Doesn't the "artist" have to do that?

If you need to do that, you should instead have a dummy unit cast a dummy storm bolt on the hero so that he retains commands after the spell is complete. Still though, this rule only applies to cinematic skills. I'm going to disqualify any hero that shows up with a channeled skill that removes the hero's command card, for instance. However, if you pause a unit for the duration of a jump parabola, I can understand and allow that.
Aye, I think you understand.
Not unless your artist decides to make custom icons for the skills and gets lazy and uses WoW icons instead. The keyword in the competition is that all art other than the chosen one must come from the in-game MPQs. You can get creative with in-game icons though, don't be discouraged. :p
Advertise here!
I doubt you'll have a hard time finding coders, we've got an overabundance of strong coders here.

I'm pretty sure that refers to the Warcraft III in-game MPQs.

im in but i need a coder, also is it ok if i use a model i am making for another competition for my hero?

as long as both you and the coder like it, I guess

I'd like to enter as a coder, even though I am not well-known since my big project is about 85% to the beta phase. I'm well-versed in JASS, and currently have 11 unique and almost fully triggered heroes in my project. If any artist is interested, get in contact with me and I can show a demo of my work.

Awesome idea Dusk, thx alot for hosting this. Should be very fun.
Now to find an evil artist to create a Diabolically Evil Hero.