Okay, short and sweet. There are just too many exceptional entries in the monthly challenges for JUST one to get the spotlight. Here's what you are voting on, as of right now; How do you want the monthly challenge voting and the winners to be setup/done? 1.)First, and Honorable Mention 2.)First, and Runner-Up 3.)First, Second, and Third There are one or two other ways that humorix wants to suggest, I'm not really clear on it, so I'll let him explain, at some point below. Feel free to voice your suggestions also, we need to get this all ironed out to what would be best. AgentSmith

Well I was suggesting awarding points. One whom you feel first you award 3pts, second (runners-up) 2 pts and third (honorable mention) 1 pt. Finally all points are totalled and the highest, second highest and the third are chosen from the lot. You might feel two are exceptional and divide your vote between two. A simpler way is choose a first (who gets 2 pts) and a runner up (who gets 1 pt). Again the top 3 are chosen after totalling. The reason I suggest this is I have found various entries which are exceptional and choosing just one, seemed to do injustice to another. With 4 images within the first page of this forum itself (Beer, CD case, study and watch) I have this feeling that the coming months challenge is going to throw up a huge amount of entries and quality ones at that! Comments?

Well, if we have to choose a way of doing it, I'd vote for 'first, second, and third'. It does all feel needlessly bureaucratic though. The whole voting thing is always going to work in favour of those who have been using Bryce the longest and have most time to devote to it - that can be pretty discouraging to newer people, those who could presumably gain the most from being challenged. Much more productive, I should think, to get rid of the voting completely and use the 'final display' thread as a Q&A forum to discuss the techniques we've learnt. ka-ching - .02

3 pts. for the first 2 pts. for the second 1 pt. for the third I think it is the simplest way to vote

I think cambert has a point about discussing all tht we hv learnt! I'm all for such a thread! Shall make it a point to post such a thread by tomorrow. What say the rest of you? Also do we have a voteless challenge? Looking forward 2 inputs.

My vote goes to this system: 3 pts. for the first 2 pts. for the second 1 pt. for the third It might also be nice to make a gallery where all the winners, runners-up and honorable mentions of the chalanges are posted. That way the really good 'brycers' can get some more publicity in a gallery where just the really good pictures get in. That would be a reward to all the people that have been working on their image for days, or even weeks. And a winners gallery is also a great source of inspiration for the newer people to bryce. I also think that voting adds something to a challenge. If people just say 'yes, this is a nice image,' than after some time you might get the feeling that not all people are looking to your image from a professional perspective, and with the challenge people make their best images, and if many people think that your image sticks out between the other images, than that gives you a better idea about how good your work really is. The people that view your image can compare it directly with the other pictures.

If we must change the system, humorix's point suggestion seems most viable. But I'd do it a little differently: Every voter gets 3 points to assign as they wish, the artist with the most total points wins, the second most is second and on down the line if you feel like tallying votes for second to last place. For example: in the last challenge I could have voted: 1 for Alleycat169, 1 for Rochr and 1 for humorix. OR, I could have voted 3 for me, OR 2s for Alderan and 1 for vasquez.

I think the point system is the best. (i.e. 3,2,1)

I vote for the point system too. ( I give it a 3. lol )

I vote for the point system too. And I agree about winners gallery.

Yeah, if you haven't caught it before, let me tell ya about how the entries are going to done/shown.... ALL entries from all the upcoming challenges will shown in a gallery in the Bryce Backroom, with each month being archived. This way you can go back and look at any month at any time. These arcives will be permanent.

I think that the idea of johnpenn is also good - first because one can give a weight to his votes, so he can tell the audience that he judges ex-aequo 2 images, or that an image is one step beyond to the others. - second because he put a vote for me in the example. ;P But... maybe this type of voting is too complicated and the poor AgentSmith will have a lot of work.

lol...that was on my mind also...

But, I think it is just me that is not understanding it, (fully). Every once in a while my blonde shows through and there is a simple something I can't grasp withou the help of a Kindergarden Teacher and a million volt cattle prod. Basically, as I see it?... 3 pts. is the same as saying "first place" 2 pts. is the same as saying "second place" 1 pt. is the same as saying "third place" If that's the case, I'm fine with the points, it's much less typing for yoou guys. BUT...humorix, what do you mean by "You might feel two are exceptional and divide your vote between two".? Want to understand this forwards and backwards AgentSmith

AgentSmith Actually the point system work a little different than 1st, 2nd and 3rd place voting. Example if an image got 7 first place votes and another received 8 first place vote, well the eight would win. But then another received 7 second place votes. Which one would receive second place? 7 first place votes or 7 second place votes. With the point system all the points are added up to determine the winner. So in reality an image that didn't receive any 3 points votes, could still be the winner if they received a whole bunch of 1 and 2 points votes.

Well Stephen definitely elucidated the way point system works. What I meant by "You might feel two are exceptional and divide your vote between two" has been explained by Jhon penn. What it means is that the voter has say 6 points and its left to him/her what to award to which participant. He/she can award a maximum of 3 to any one and a min of 1 and divide it between 3 people maximum. Is it getting too complicated? Lemme explain. One can't give all 6 points to any one person not 1 point to six people. So you might divide your point by giving 2 points to 3 people, or 3 point to whom you think is first, 2 to second or 1 or none to anybody else. But whichever way you look at it, A.S. will have his job cut out. But I guess I can help there. My maths isn't too bad, my connection might be. Wonder where Aj(tooley) is? We need him to simplify things! :-P

how many people actually voted? sorry i missed all this and it seemed to me looking on the thread that we're only talking about 20 votes why is it not open for more public scrutiny between the other forums and vice-versa.

Do like we do in the Lightwave forum,have a newbie catagory and a experienced catagory...........;)

Airflame, the number of votes are approx 50 each time for the last two challenges. Am not sure what you mean by public scrutiny. Any renderosity member can vote here I guess, as long as they visit/frequent this forum. But going a little further on your thought, I guess we could post a message in the challenge forum as well. Also both last and this time there has been suggestions towards having a newbie and an experienced catagory. Given the universality of this month's challenge, do we try it out this time? We leave it to participants as to whether they want to post it as newbie or experienced. What say you folks?

If it were a truly competitive CONTEST, I would say a resounding Yes to the Newbie and Experienced catagory. But, this is a Challenge, just a friendly show of rendering, while cutting our teeth on deadline pressure and Bryce itself. Also, Lightwave is almost in a another world in how different it is to Bryce, the learning curve almost demands a newbie and experienced user catagories. I understand the type of voting system you guys are talking about now. I wanted to make sure it wasn't the simplified version I first made reference to. 6 points to the voter. Maximum vote equals 3, Minimum vote equals 1, and then divide said points amongst three choices. (Thanks Stephen Ray & humorix) I think it's a FINE way to vote! I'll be great with the numbers, no prob at all. And, MAN...I can't believe I never thought of posting a message in the Challenge Forum for people to vote on our Bryce forum entries! (thank you airflamesred!) The contest voting has always been open to ALL Renderosity members. Very good, all...very good. AgentSmith

It ... It's ... all so complicated. I'm so confused - boy the lightning sure is getting close. If only SuzieQ were here - she'd know what to do. Can't we all just vote once and meantion who came up next. Was that a tree floating down my steeet? Lightnin' - Thunder more lightning. heavy rain -- in the distance I hear, "it's alive!! alive!!" - hey I gotta go - me and the other villagers got invited to the Stein's for a barn raisin' or sumpin'. meantime I say "one mouse one vote." Suzie, Where are you??

So what is the link to the Backroom again?

Lol...been getting I.M.'s about where the backroom is. I think it used to be linked at the top of the forum, but was taken down way before I became a Mod. Older - http://www.renderosity.com/~bryce/ Newer - http://www.renderosity.com/~bryce/newsite/ I will be uploading the version I have been working on, in a couple of weeks. Definetly, before the voting anyway. AgentSmith

Add my agreement to the 3-2-1 system of voting