A work of Art: A new Series

[Mr.H]

Welcome to the work of art map series main thread! ;D

Today(30/11/2011) I had this sudden brain surge, whilst I battled hordes of creeper in the My first attempt map. I suddenly got struck by lightning(not literally!). I thought of this new idea for creeper world 2, something noone ever thought of before. A new gamemode if you please. The idea was that instead of fighting creeper, or collecting artefacts just before they are destroyed. That we could show our creativity instead. Thus a work of art was born. I opened up the editor and went to work... It had to be fair, so i created a 30 by 30 block of terrain, with a 16 by 30 space above it for moving around and such. Then I created the 'toolkit' where I placed one anti creeper emitter with a maker on vacuum mode next to it. Then I created ten creeper emitters which give the same amoutn of creeper emitted as the anticreeper emitter, so you can have a creeper anti-creeper stalemate, if properly executed. The toolkit done, I gave the player near infinite energy, max technytes, and some remenants. The player's arsena of tools done, I was thinking of a background, it had to be plain but not white and definetly not distracting. So I thought, maybe a soothing colour would be nice, one plain block of colour which covers the full 56 tile height map. Thus I opened up paint and choose the soothing colour of brownish orange, I don't know the english name, it's Beige in Dutch.
 Background and tools done, I had to invite the player. Giving a brief but thorough introduction while making sure that the player didn't skip it, as it's essential. First of to make sure they didn't press that devious 'skip all' button I had admiral abraxis shout that they shouldn't  :P . Then I proceeeded to write a dialogue for each character all concentrating on something else, Cmd Joven to introduce tools and the concept. Aliana to go through the screenshooting. Thrade to advertise the forum suggestions thread. Thrade again mentions that the toolkit is not part of the judging area. Then the styglek consortium to finish it all up with a pat on the back and good luck(ironic  :P ), and to tell them about future plans , and the competitions.

A Work Of Art, How it Works:
The work of art series, as explained in intro is centred around creativity and NOT plain fighting, although creativity may weave around that.
 There are absolutely no rules as to what you no limitations except for the limits of your imagination.
Top tips:
1.If your wanting to get that specific moment of screenshot just right. Press pause and use the n to slowly get the exact moment, alternately you can use the new slow mode, but this is less accurate.
A work of the art series maps so far:
*A work of art 1: Plain tiles:
-Contains a 30 by 30 plain 3 tile area with the basic version 1 toolkit.

Plans for the future:
*Depending on the popularity, start competitions. Winner will be awarded a position in the WOA hall of fame
*Depending on popularity and ideas I have or others have given: create more WOA maps
*Ask Virgilw very nicely if we can create a small text on the CW2 main page for this week/months WOA winner
*Come up with new variations and upgrades of toolkit, What else can i add, fields, phantoms, drones?
*Create custom art, or visit that custom tile thread and ask nicely if i can use the tiles.
*Add a story/background to make the WOA series lore-freindly
*create special mod maps, I.E. WOA maps which only allow the player to use makers and shields or only launchers.
*Im busy creating tutorials and startup ideas for people, I've allready finished my Creeper nexus example, Next ill do a base settup related one, then ill do my imagination of a whirlpool.

Updates to toolkit:
Version 1.0: One anti creeper emmiter of 1000k in center with 15 interval. 10 creeper immters, five on each side. All contained within 2 by 30 area, openable with a 3 unit tile. Maximum energy, techyntes and remnants. All techs unlocked.

Tutorials and Idea Suggestions:

Not too creative? Need some inspiration? Don't feel bad we all have our anti creativity days, and we all need some inspiration.
General 'Themes':
1. Base construction- create a functional, nice looking connected and defensable base. Start making cities today  ;)
2. Creeper wars- set up a nice creeper battleground using your weaponrary and excavation skills, and make screenshots of the epic creeper vs anti creeper wars.
3. Creeper wizard- Use repulsors and shields, and show your skills of dazzling creeper control. Make fountains, whirlpools... whatever you want!
4. Expert miner- Create shapes of real-life things, by using your excavation tool and carve nice looking, shapes into the terrarain. Want to spice it up? Fill it up with creeper, or give mix in some anti-creeper and take some screenshots!
5. Stalemate- Create a cool 'stalemate' effect by either havening a permanent battle between creeper and anti-creeper or having a small base surrounded by a horde of creeper, you have enough to hold it back, but not enough to gain victory.
6.  Got more theme ideas, tell them at the suggestions thread. If i like them ill post them here :).
7. Packets Matter- Create an amazing visual using the packet distrubtion. How it splits up and works to melodicaly, wise to place ship at center. You can also try some techniques to make it more... intresting.

Tutorial 1-Anti-creeper Faux Nexus(thanks to ETF for the faux nexus inspiration :D )

If you know how to screenshot the whole map and then upload it on a thread please pm me on how to do it.
Used spoiler so it takes up less space, not an actual spoiler.

Start off by picturing what you want to do. I was thinking of creating an epic anti-creeper maker nexus in this one.  Here is me preparing, I need to get the creeper where i want it to go, so i excavated tunnels and built repulsors.

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After I broke open my tool kit:

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Notice how the creeper is under my control :), and it's flowing down nicely. I didn't activate the nexus yet, waiting for the right moment...

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Activating the nexus, here comes the dazzling stuff:P!

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Here comes the anti-creeper, creeper contact, my shields are starting to break so let's hope those repulsors hold.

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And finally my final screenshot. This would be the screenshot I would post as my competition entry, but as this is a tutorial Im giving all my screenshots.

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Hope this tutorial gives you an idea of how WOA works, It's not the most creative one but it gives you the basics.


Other WOA threads:
The WOA suggestions thread (http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=8886.0) :post ideas and give constructive critiscm
The WOA hall of fame ([urlhttp://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=8885.0[/url]) : A ongoing history of the WOA winners and runner ups, with screenshots
The WOA competition thread (will be created when popularity is high enough, so thumbs me up please): Competitors post screenshots here,judges(for now just me) will then go through at the end of the week and pick the best two, then put em in the hall of fame with the screenshot next to it.

Note: I am still creating the other threads(self:EDIT Away)

Please don't post on this thread unless your Granauid(might have mispelt that... ::) ) or Virigil, thank you.

Hello and welcome to...
WOA Suggestions

Here you can post any ideas, suggestions, and constructive critiscm. I will be visiting this thread often, and reply where I can. If I like your idea ill make a new WOA map and give you credit in the description.

A work of art...
Hall Of Fame

Greetings fellow creepers and welcome to the WOA hall of fame  :D . This thread is a running list of the winners of WOA, so please don't post any replies on here. With an exception of Virilw and graunaid, also any forum mods if you do find a reply that's not mine on here please feel free to delete it. If i ever get a fellow judge/buddy Ill put that
Here:
So you know you don't need to delete that person's replies.

Rules:
The Hall Of Fame works by you: the WOA competitor, posting your screenshots in the WOA competitor thread (link). By the end of the competition(The deadline is highlighted near the top of the thread), the judges(just me for now) will go through the posted screenshots and choose the winner and runner up. The winner will get a bolder and nicer highlighted spot, and the runner up will get a slightly smaller but still very significant spot. We will also post a small comment why we choose that person to win.



Note to karsten: I was actually thinking about where the comments would go last night, but wasn't able to finish it as it was getting late.
Ill attach, the maps here then,
also you seem to misunderstand the purpose of the WOA maps, instead of me making a pretty pretty map in the editor, which I could do if I wanted to. The player has to make a piece of art from the games perspective using the game's tools. Repulsors are your fields, the toolkit offers your 'resources', and the excavation tool offers the handling of the terrain. Also once again you misinterpret the purpose, it doesn't matter if my repulsors are 'failing', what matters is the screenshot and the uniqueness you can see. Anyway, im actually quite happy that the repulsors 'failed' as it made it look a lot nicer then a boring straight line of creeper. Finally, this is only my first version and mny things still need to be refined. Either or thanks on the advice on the thumbs me up thing. Since the community seems to ditch the idea though   :'( , ill integrate my other thread into this one until further notice.

[J]

Please post your map here (Addictional Options -> Attach:, for any further map you can edit your post and hit (more attachments))

[Karsten75]

I see your request to not post in this thread, but that confuse me. You started 3 threads, one is the HoF, where surely you don't want discussion posts, and the Suggestions thread - well, I think that will get killed or moved, since that is not a a good place for us to post high-volume threads. That leaves this thread that seems to be the "discussion" thread.

I'm actually unsure whether I even want to approve your posted map. For a number of reasons.

Maps in the queue is for gameplay. That map can be finished in 7 seconds with no game play and a lot of people will do just that. Asking for a map to be rated thumbs-up also will get a lot of people to do just the opposite.

On the artistic side, you are limiting people's artistic abilities. Look at the maps made by MadMag, for one - custom tiles, interesting scenarios, moving airplanes and a helicopter - that is art. The full gamut of CW2 stuff - custom fields that work as the artist designed it.

Look at map 141: Packet Journey. Again, that is a work of art.

Consider the in-game "Tree of life" map. The use of fields is the important part here to direct and shape the flow of creeper.  Compared to that your final image - a row of shields with repulsors failing to deflect the creeper - is pretty weak.

Eudrick made maps with interesting (if confusing) creeper colors. That too is perhaps artistic, and again something that you do not allow your competitors to be.

In your suggested setup, you limit artists. You pre-dispose emitters and colors. There is no option for the artists to use different colors, or fields to create special effects.

Much better IMNSHO, is to request works of art and allow artists to produce freely, without bounds or limitations.

Look at this early effort we did on CW1.  (On the level of a kindergartner, but you get my drift.)

Frankly, if you want to post a blank canvas, simply attach it to this thread. That avoids the 24-hour wait and it won't clutter up the queue of maps for those wanting to look for competitive maps.