12th CGEmpire Music Competition

Sponsored by:

Theme: Score the following animation short

Alone in Space by Ilias Sounas (Big) in QuickTime format, 77 MB
Alone in Space by Ilias Sounas (medium) in QuickTime format, 25 MB
Alone in Space by Ilias Sounas (small) in QuickTime format, 16 MB
Alone in Space by Ilias Sounas in PC (avi) format, 35 MB

This is a lovely animation short, created by animation artist Ilias Sounas. He has given permition for you to take the animation short (raughly 3 minutes) and make music for it (or sound if you feel like it, this is totally up to you)!

• The entries are anonymous. You will need to PM Nikolas, or e-mail at nikolasideris@hotmail.com, or nikolasideris@yahoo.gr. Please make sure that your entry is anonymous (eg. no name, or nickname, or member nick on the title, or anywhere in the video), and that it has a bit of individual name. We might have trouble with 10 videos all named ‘Alone in Space’. Necessarily we will number the entries in front, so there is something different, but just saying…
• you may use any method of sending your entry, may it be your own ftp website, or yousendit, rapidshare, etc. Remember that since the video is a bit large (around 20 MB, for 3 minutes), it is going to be a bit problematic sending it as an attachment in various e-mails. Most clients do not accept such a large size attachments.
• The entries can be in MOV, AVI and MPG format.
• The competitions deadline is on Saturday 1st of December 00:00 London time.
• One entry per member
• You need to be a registered member in CGEmpire.com in order to take part on the competition. When you send your entry, note clearly what is your CGEmpire member name, in the PM, or e-mail you send.
• The entries will be posted as they are sent, anonymously.
• The creator, Ilias Sounas, has given permition for all entrants to use their entry in their portfolio, after the deadline of the competition has passed. Two conditions on this. You need to give credit to the animation artist who created the video, Ilias Sounas, and you need to note that it is from the CGEmpire Music Competition.
• After the deadline a new thread will open and the secret, public voting, process will start. More details will be released when it’s time.
• Keep in mind that one rule that has been decided for the voting process is that all entrants who vote, will automatically receive a vote for their own entry.

The winner of the 12th CGEmpire Music Competition, by public voting, will win a free copy of SIR2 Reverb.

SIR2 is an easy to use native audio-plugin to use for high quality reverberation. It offers zero-latency processing with low CPU-consumption and non-destructive audio processing of impulse responses. SIR2 includes high definition impulse responses (HDIR) of *real* places produced by Pinguin, Hamburg. You can also use various impulse responses from free or commercial sources.

Features of SIR2

* Zero latency processing
* Includes Pinguin’s High Definition Impulse Responses
* "True Stereo" processing (a stereo convolution takes place for every source channel (left + right))
* High-quality internal sample rate converting
* imports WAV, AIF, FLAC, BWS, OGG file formats
* linear phase FFT-EQ
* no dongle required/no challange response copy protecion
* free non-destructive amplitude envelope
* free non-destructive filter envelope
* Predelay (0ms - 2000ms)
* Stretch control (high quality resampling)
* Forward / reverse switch
* Stereo In / Stereo IR Control
* preset-managing
* separate dry/wet control (-60db .. +20dB)
* Auto-gain
* signal routing options
* HDIR-Direct On/Off switch

For demos of SIR2 please visit this page.

SIR2 is retailed at 149 euros.

A big thank you to Christian for contacting me and accepting to sponsor the CGEmpire Music Competition.

* Don’t send your entry too early. You have more than a month to work on it, to think things over and to decide if you like it or not. It is not acceptable to have your entry posted and then want to change it. It simply isn’t fair.
* Just that really. Have fun. This animation can be a great addition to your portfolio! It’s not something that everyone will have, like any borrowed film choped up and silenced, or anything too old to be copyright free. It is unique…

Woot! Now here’s a real challenge ;-)

Hopefully this will be a great scoring study lesson for everyone even if they don’t win.

BTW Nikolas, I’m involved with a lot of indie film and animation over-achievers, and I might be able to hook you up with some very talented people for some excellent quality shorts or excerpts for future scoring contests.

Good luck everyone!

Glad you like it. And in addition there is no set theme. Just go about scoring the short.

Cheers for the idea and the people you know VR. I’ll sure to let you know when the time comes. Just don’t want to turn it every month into a movie scoring competition. But ’tis a great gesture, a great idea, and will be used soon.

Here, have a on me!

BTW, you are completely free to post any comments about the competition here. Feedback is most welcome, as long as it is polite and not degrading or anything.

So the entrants don’t need to vote after all?

It’s a sad video

sorry didn’t put it on the rules. Yes, it’s still public voting, which will happen after the end of the entering deadline.

Dan, yes it is sad. Sorry for two sads in the row. I promise next will be happy and big, and all that. (But previous competition was epic and huge, so… it’s ok I guess! )

totaly agree, this is gonna be nice

Heh dammit! its not Mac compatible!

Lol I’m on a UB mac as well so even if it was I probs still couldn’t use it.

DaZ

DaZ do explain. There are 3 QuickTime files. QT is the native Mac format, doesn’t it work?

Now, I’m gonna have to watch lots of cartoons for getting the grasp on how things like this should sound. To bad I recently blocked Cartoon Network for my kids…….

Your kids probably deserved it, sneak it behind their backs–cartoons: What your dad doesn’t want you to see.

You are a criminal!

My kids watch everyday Disney movies. Winnie the pooh, Aladdin, Fantasia (that’s a nice film for all the family), Jeanna Jameson (whhops), The artistocats, Lady and the tramp, and the odd bugs bunnh here and there.

The amazing thing? When the ywatch Bugs bunny they desperately ask for carrots and they eat 3-4 each time the movie plays. For me DVD=carrots=vitamins, so DVD=vitamins.

Watch out when they watch Winnie the Pooh, Nik!

What a great competition idea, and I love the animation, plenty of ideas spring to mind already. It will provide a real challenge; i’ve never tried anything like this before, remember I just make music for the love of it, not as a pro. The prize would be perfect, but i’ll be realistic and aim to just get a vote this time!

Definitely a cool contest here Nikolas! Hopefully I’ll be able to take part.

Well i’ve finished my entry and would love to know how we should go about uploading? Just as mp3 then you put to video or upload the whole video…..

Oh and the prize is not Mac compatible the videos are fine!

DaZ

Sorry, more off-topic now..

Well, I told my kids I’ve hadn’t payed the CN-bill lately, and they bought that one! They still have Disney Channel, though which is plenty enough. Honestly, I think the conflict-level at home has dropped about, say 30 % after I removed it (the worst combination is really two hours Cartoon Network combined with lots of sugar).

Take a big breath and relax. I would suggest that you hold on to your entry a bit and see if you feel different about it after a few days. Remember once you submit your entry you can’t change it anymore, so if you get new ideas, or whatever you’re not allowed to change it.

Other than that, no, you need to compile a movie file (mov, avi, mpg) with the video and the music. The how to, varies from person to person, from software to software etc. Once I find a bit of time (over the weekend hopefully, but not definately), I’ll make a tiny tutorial about it and a few links, with shareware/freeware programs.

lol.

Yes indeed it is not. I actually didn’t notice that, so it’s good that you mentioned it. Thank you!

This Ilias fellow sure is talented. He´s website is great, and so are his animations.

I won´t be able to participate this time, as I´ll be working with MCameron and Shade on their upcoming title.

After all, I´m still a bit traumatized for not having any votes in the last competition

Good luck for the entrants

This is gonna be a hell of downloading for the voters.

I have technical question about video format, avi for one is just a container, are there any restrictions on the actual compressor? I tried xvid mpeg4, I’m familiar with after archiving my family videos. The avi version shrinked from 34 to 7 MB, there was quality loss visible, but it was watchable.

I am afraid the requirement of submitting video will make some people to step back on this.

No requierments on the compressor, as long as it’s not any completely weird, in which case, at least provide the codec to play it (link I mean).

I was also afraid that some people might have problems with submiting a video, but:

I will, at some point, make up some kind of instructions, or mini tutorial on different ways to make the video. Also, since this is a friendly neighbourhood, why not help each other? If one has QT pro, which can add music to video, why not help someone else?

I have QT pro, but under no circumstances I would be able to make 30-40 videos, I just don’t have the time for this. If anyone is in deep trouble, by all means, but not before you’ve tried really hard.

Also, uploading it is not much of an issue, since after we get the videos, we will upload them to CGEmpire servers, so no problem there.

FCM, cheers for your comments cause it helps others. If your avi is indeed "watchable", and since this is a music competition, there shouldn’t be much trouble. But I would assume that the normal "decent" (without this meaning anything for your avi video) size would be around 20 MB more or less. Not that less is bad. Just, if you’re done, as I said to DaZ as well, maybe you should wait a few days, or a week to see if you come up with something else, or maybe someone else submits their entry first, and thus gives you an idea of the quality. but by all means the decision is yours.

No, I’m not done by any means, haven’t even started to think about it, I was just testing my technical abilities on video to see, if I can handle it at all.

Also I’m not concerned with uploading, but with downloading. Getting the small file with no audio took me 30 minutes and I’m definitely not on a slowest imaginable connection.

I have no quicktime at all, but I can handle avi. Muxing mp3 into avi, takes a couple of clicks and less than 5 minutes, so if anyone is in trouble here I can help.

I’m new to audio scoring but love the idea of these comps. Good inspiration to work to. Actually I’d like a much higher res version to work with, don’t mind the downloading. Is there a DV Codec version available? I’d imagine something like 750mb…
I could also suggest a dedicated youtube channel for the voting?

Maybe the server they are hosted on was being slow. It only took me a few minutes to download all quality levels on a bog-standard DSL connection.

The server the files are being hosted right now, is different than the one the actual forums are on. And that server is not dedicated, so chances are that it happened at an instant where other people were using the server.

Or simply everyone got SO excited that they started downloading, which seems fine to me!

FMC, I’ll ask, I’m sure Ilias will have a huge version lying around.

The voting WILL be a problem, I’m sure, but if all concerned parties do download in the passing of the month, and don’t wait for the voting to start to download everything, things will be easier.

Also, something really important that I forgot to put on the rules (will edit now):

Any entrant who vote will automatically get a vote for their own entry.

Hope this makes sense and will add it to the rules right now.

Gimme gimme gimme!

Hey, I don’t want to stir up trouble, but I don’t fully understand the point of the new rule. So that means we all start on 1 vote rather than 0 votes? I don’t see the point! I suggested previously that every competition entrant must vote, or face disqualification (and of course, not vote for him/herself)

You agreed with this when I suggested it.

Well, all the people who vote start on one vote… those who don’t vote start on zero.

I think it’s a neat solution that’s not as extreme as "if you don’t vote, you’re disqualified". After all, you could genuinely forget. It’s just a gentle nudge to do the decent thing.

you evil, evil man

Ah yes, I get it. Good solution. Sorry for being a bit slow on the uptake

I think it’s the most gentle way of saying to everyone: "It’s not only about taking part and winning/loosing. Be a part, vote, maybe feedback, maybe be the community!"

Although I have to say that I’m most pleased with all the new members who came along for the 11th CGEmpire Music Competition (yes, I have it constantly copy pasted, so as not to type it everytime! ), as most members have been here, totally active and shown great interest in the competition and the community in general, which is one of the very main reasons the competitions exists in the first place. (Of course, the chance of winning any of those prizes, for me personally, is also rather strong! )

In all, I’m just extremely pleased to see you guys talking to us about the competition and everything else and us trying to make it happen.

[/Romantic fool]

Nice addition tot he rules! Im quite happy with my entry I got a VGA adapter for my macbook so I plugged it into the home cinema system with the big speakers and watched my entry…..it was awesome.

One thing that was getting to me while composing was that the story was sad and in those situations normally the editing is really slow and prolonged to give that longing feeling, the edits in the animation were very fast so made getting the emotion across very challenging!

Best comp by far! Shame that if I win I cant use the prize, lol maybe I could sell it…..getting a bit ahead of myself lol!

DaZ

This is a beautiful animation! I hope I’ll find the time to participate!

Hi all, it’s nice to find this community. I followed a link from a relevant thread from makemusic.gr fourm, and I liked both the idea of the competition (wish I’ ve found it before) and the animation. Very nice indeed.

My (niewbie) question:
Will there be any 3rd party editing/reformatting of the submitted videos, or are they going to be presented exactly as they are sent (in that case is there a limit to the max file size? - haven’t noticed any, I’ll check the past competitions later).
I am more or less worried of what will happen to my audio after a "nasty" compression, so I would feel much happier if I new that the videos are going to be presented exactly as they are sent.

Sorry, if all the above have been covered already before!

I too, believe that the most important thing of the concept is that afterwards, we can use the result of our work in our portfolio (and youtube maybe , giving of course credit both to the creator Ilias Sounas and to the CGEmpire.com.

Hi urbanoid and welcome!

first of, when the entries (in video format, as mentioned in the rules) reached the CGEmpire team, it will be made anonymous and then uploaded as is in the CGE servers. So, no there won’t be any tempering of the entries. But then again if you plan on submiting a 300 MB entry for a 3 minute video, don’t expect tons of downloads from the voters, and thus not many chances of votes towards your entry.

As a very rough estimation, the 3 different sizes of the video, are roughly what I expect the entries to be. Ranging from 15 Mb-70 Mb. If anything happens to any entry, doesn’t play, too big, weird codec, etc, we will get back to the entrant and let them know.

As for the portfolio thing, it was one of the first things we discussed with Ilias. And he was extremely helpful thus gave permission to use it to your portfolio or youtube, or wherever (say you apply for a job or something), as long as you credit him. Our thoghts was, that if suddently 40 different versions of "Alone in Space" emerge in youtube or something, there would certainly be some confusion, on of the reasons for mentioning the CGEmpire Music Competition.

Good luck everyone, once again. I’m really looking forward to working on the film myself.

Thanks for the prompt reply Nikolas,
good luck to all and hope we all have a great time working on it!

I have just been to Ilias Sounas’ website and watched the animation. It is fantastic!!

I’ve just been playing around with SIR v1 (freeware version) and I’m impressed. These comps are definitely good value promo for your sponsors. http://www.knufinke.de/sir/sir1.html

I certainly hope so.

And, btw, I also use SIR1, but hope to win SIR2 or otherwise buy it.

I like the animation. Pretty cool.

Throws up some interesting problems… I can see it being scored as a cartoon, something kind of light hearted. But I can also see it being scored seriously with a tense atmosphere about it. Interesting. I think i’d probably have to go with the more serious side. Should be a lot of fun experimenting with different ideas.

Looking forward to getting to work on it.

- Rick.

I went serious

DaZ

I just want to mention that I already have 1 entry in my hands, but waiting for a second one to start posting. There’s still almost a month to go, so there’s plenty of time.

Let the comments begin if we please! (no bashing though )

We got our first 2 entries:
http://www.cgempire.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3754

I can honestly see that I was pleasently surprised by both entries. Excellent!

I’m doing my best not to take a peek at the entries before I finish mine.

Indeed… Good first comment!

Just got word from Ilias, who advised, to those who wish of course, since the competition is not judged on that, that the videos, the contestants make, should be 25 frames.

It’s pretty cool how the two entries were entirely different in feeling, yet both fit the animation in their own way

The competition’s gonna be tough…

I just watched all the posted entries so far and I have to say that I really enjoyed seeing the feel of the thing change with the contrasting scoring styles.

It’s very interesting to see all the different musical scenarios people envision emerging from the same initial inspiration.

I’m very eager to see the last few entries as the competition deadline draws close - it’s going to be a very difficult selection to choose from.

Good luck, guys!

Yes, it is really interesting to see so many (well 4 so far) different ideas on what’s happening on the video!

Nikolas

I have finished with the music for the video and now am stumped.

All I have is windows movie maker and when I try to open the video to add my music, it says I need a codec, so it will not open.

The next problem will be gettin a file that large 15 mb to you.

I don’t see any tutorial yet, or am I looking in the wrong places?

Ron

First of all, you’re not looking to the wrong places. I’ve never had a chance to fix a bit of time and make these short tutorials!

Best thing I can suggest: Send to me the music (the wav/aif file, that is, which should be around 30 MB) through rapidshare.come or yousendit.com, both of which are realiable and rather straight forward, and I’ll make the a quicktime movie for you. Of course, do so, through PM, or e-mail.

Yeh this is a lot of fun watchin them all come in to land!

edit: oops!

Hey,

I’m having some trouble with the "Alone in the Dark" entry - I tried watching it, but the video plays and the only audio I hear is a series of clicks and pops which don’t sound planned…

I’ve tried it twice so far. Is anyone else having this issue or is it just me?

GREAT work so far, people, very impressive!

Marius, thanks for letting us know.

The video actually works on me, both when I got it, and I redownloaded it from the servers and it works fine to me. Probably a codec problem.

I’ll contact the person who made this entry and see what can be done.

If anyone has any trouble in seeing or hearing any of the entries, please let us know.

Thanks!

Also, if anyone needs an extra 12 hours or 24 or something really close to that, please let us know, once again.

I had the same problem, but I’m pretty sure that this issue can be solved by installing the proper codecs…

Mano, if you do find which codecs are required, do link them here, so that everyone can download them.

Thanks

Guys,

I got a new version of the said file, in AVI format, so it will be replaced really soon. Will post when it is replaced.

Thanks for the information Marius and Mano.

I feel that a recent version of quicktime player should do the trick. I’m going to check out the .avi version now!

Well, you will need to wait 10-20 minutes, to download (bloody rapidshare), upload (bloody servers) and post (bloody Nikolas… whoops. :P)

Bloody, bloody…arghkxmfff!

The entry named "alone in the dark", has been remade into a Quicktime file, so that everybody will be able to watch.

It is already posted. Go and watch please!

I’m having issues with Gone With the Solar Wind. Everytime it begins to play in Quicktime it tosses up an error and crashes. I redownloaded just to be sure it wasn’t some foul up the first time and the same problem occurred.

Is this happening to anyone else?

Stephen, it works fine on my computer.

I’ve had no problem viewing any of them why don’t you try downloading a codec pack or upgrading quicktime?
Download the K-Lite Codec Pack

Hope this helps.

just a note for the deadline.

The rules mention 1st Dec. 00:00.

Anyways, this can cause plenty of misunderstandings so it is central European time (London time) Saturday night, 23:59. Saturday night, not saturday very very early in the morning.

I hate world times

I have experienced lots of crashing when streaming the videos. This happens here with almost all of them. The workaround is to download them instead and watch from your hard disk (right-click and "Save as"). Works fine that way.

As I’ve mentioned before, I hope, it is better for those who wish, of course, to download the entries, now, that you have enough time, and not wait until the moment you wish to vote. This way you can spread the download time (which should be rather considerable with more than 600 MB worth of video, already uploaded in the CGEmpire servers.

Keep in mind, however, that when the voting process begins, the CGEmpire team will attempt to upload a zip folder with all entries, or even provide other means of easier download/streaming methods.

But, yes, save as always works better for bigger size videos.

Please note that, due to several people asking me, I have extended but this is the final extension the final deadline to Sunday 2nd of December 2007, 23:59 (so Sunday night) London time. After that, no matter who has managed to take part or not, I will be forced to close the entry thread and put up the voting process.

Thank you for you patience.

I was just browsing adobe looking to upgrade to cs3 production suite and look what was right there on the main page… a Space Alone production still!

Adobe - Solutions: Broadcast and media

I noticed that one of the entrants has modified the movie that they had scored. I know that it is not in the rules, but is that allowed? I feel that lengthening or shortening the movie shouldn’t be allowed.

-Mike

Yup,

I’m amazingly happy with that for Ilias! He’s a really talented chap! Well find Shar*Chi!

Mike,

The said entry has credits in the end and a title in the begining. We didn’t feel that it was violating any kind of rules and the anonymity goes up to a point, the meaning is not that these are exams and the entries should be completely anonymous with no marks or anything, but that it is difficult for random voters to know which is which…

In addition, there is another entry with a bit of gap in the begining and end as well, and many entries are 3:09, others 3:08 and others 3:07.

If any entry had cut any length from the score, we wouldn’t have allowed it.

Hope it makes sense,

Nikolas

Yep, that makes sense I guess. I understand the ones with the gap at the beginning and end, because the music isn’t playing in those spots. But the one entry has music where it is extended, making his/her music longer than 3.07. Everyone is restricted to 3.07, but the said video was extended, and contains more music.

I guess I’m just making this more difficult that it should be. I enjoyed all the pieces. Maybe that should be considered for future competitions?

Also, are we judging these scores based on if we like them, or how they sound? Or are we basing it on how well it fits with the movie. Some scores can accent a lot in the movie, but might sound bleh, and others might sound awesome, but don’t fit at all.

Thanks,
Mike

It is something that will be considered for next competitions. But do keep in mind that this competition is "special", since it’s the first time that you have to score an animation short and is not something that will be repeated very soon. So, big chances are that next competition won’t have any time restrains.

Regarding the voting it is really up to you.

Voting is open to all true members of CGEmpire, not anybodies friend who joined to vote his entry (so with a few restrictive rules) and it is personal, anonymous (except to me, who I accept the votes), and secret. One can vot for any reason and I wouldn’t like to restrict it, or dictate how to vote. I, personally, will vote, and I will put equal weight to most things, composition, orchestration, where applicable, production, mood, sync, etc… All that I think counts for this competition.

But thank you for your thoughts and as most (older) members here know, we try to take into account all considerations, options and suggestions.

Thanks nikolas!

The deadline was extended for Sunday right?

Yes it is.

Thx, making sure.

This composition is so vivid..matches almost perfectly

Wow now I noticed it’s on front page @ adobe.com - in the advertisement for Flash itself!
Adobe I wonder how he landed that, and it makes this comp all the more exciting, you’re actually scoring adobe’s flagship flash animation!

Such a beautiful little film! It was fun to score!

I’ve no idea how he landed there (probably because he deserved it and he’s won numerous prizes already with this and other videos), but keep in mind that the said video already has music (and I don’t know what arrangements Ilias has done with the composer), so I don’t know if he will choose any entry or use the older music.

Just to make something clear: Winning this competiton does not mean that Ilias will use the entry. There has been no discussion towards that. It’s 100% up to him and I repeat that the animation short already has music. He has been kind enough to strip the music and give it to CGEmpire for scoring, which is brilliant, imho.

Yeah I just think it’s awesome he’s allowing entrants to use the clip in your personal portfolio, it’s win / win for all entrants imo

Exactly!

This is something that I’ve been discussing with him, prior to the competition. With all competitions, with every competition, all entrants can do what they wish with their entry afterwards (e.g. use it in their portfolio). It would be a real shame to do all the work and then not be able to use it.

I am, personally, thrilled with the turnout of this competition! 20 e