Login

Lazyeye · 01-14-2019, 05:24 PM

Hello friends, family, and distinguished guests. Welcome to the State of the Union: Graphics edition. I recently was appointed the Supreme leader of the graphics team and would like to talk about a few things that the team and I have been discussing, plans going forward, and other miscellaneous topics.

1) You must construct additional Pylons – More Graders
The worst kept secret in the SHL is how long it usually takes for your graphics to get graded. It’s been quite bad recently with the holidays, people getting new jobs in the league, and people leaving. It was a perfect storm with the double media week happening right during the holidays, but I’m not here to make excuses. In order to remedy the situation we hired two new graders, the beloved, especially by the HO, Kit and our resident reptile Geckoeygecko. This brings our grading team to a total of 7 consisting of myself, Dannymethane, Vin, Hewasajazzman, Kit, Gecko, and Karey the sig god. Hopefully this will alleviate some of the time it takes to get your hard earned dolla dolla bill for your graphics work. If you every have any questions about graphics, we are all open to help. My end goal is to have a 1-2 week turn around on graphics, but it is a work in progress.

2) Risk it for the biscuit – Grading Scale revamp
One of the biggest complaints of our current grading system is that the scale is too skewed towards the bottom, rather than rewarding the best graphics. At the same time we didn’t want to intimidate new graphics makers by giving them super low grades and barely any payment. Graphics should a good alternative to media for those who hate writing, such as myself. So in order to find a balance between rewarding high level graphic making, but allowing new photoshop users without being intimidated, we have come up with a new scale.

Code:
1/10: 100k

2/10: 200k

3/10: 300k 

4/10: 400k – Effort Grade

5/10: 500k  

6/10: 600k

7/10: 700k

8/10: 825k

9/10: 950k

10/10: 1.1 mil

Now let’s talk about the changes. The first one you notice is the “effort grade”. This is your minimum bare bones grade. A sig with a render background and text. It is meant for those who are new to graphics making. Now where the “effort” comes into play is for those who do not strive to improve whatsoever. If you continuously work to incorporate blending, lighting, depth, focus, and all those cool graphic terms into your sigs, then we will grade you accordingly, but if you just keep whipping up the same sig style with the basic render, background, and text with no improvement; that is when we will start to lower your grade below a 4/10. I understand that improvement takes time, I’m pretty sure the first sig I made was something straight out of deepfriedmemes. You will be given a few weeks (we are still discussing a rough timeline) to strive to improve.

The other change is the payment increase for the higher grades. This aims to be more inline with the time commitment it takes to make those high end graphics.
This new grading scale will be somewhat retroactive, it will apply to all submissions for the week of 1/13 and beyond.
I will be updating the former post made by King to reflect our new grading scale shortly.

3) My sigs bring all the boys to the yard – Subjectivity in grading
This is a topic I wanted to touch on shortly. I’m going to be blunt, there is not an objective way for us to grade your sigs. It will vary week to week, grader to grader, etc. We will try our hardest to be consistent throughout but with the current system, it is always going to be subjective. That being said, if you feel you were slighted in a submission, you are welcome to contact me via PMs or on discord to appeal. I will remedy the situation by explaining the grade you got, or by changing your grade. I realize I’m possibly throwing myself to the wolves here so it will be a trial. If it doesn’t work out, then I’ll stop and try to find another solution to the issue. Hopefully it will not come to that.

4) This is where the fun begins – Upcoming and recurring events
My favorite part of graphics is the community that revolves around it, and the best part of the community are contests. The first new plan will be going forward will be a seasonal sig tournament coinciding with each SHL season. Top places will receive a cash prizes, a custom banner and bragging rights for the entire next season. Tournaments will be a bracket format with a randomized bracket with all the particpipants (please don’t place me against Wasty RNG). Each round will have a sig making and voting period which is why it should last the entire season. Each seasonal tournament will be different from the next. Whether it be collab, goalie only, juniors renders only, etc. The first tournament will start this off season and run throughout the next season. I will be announcing the details soon, hopefully this weekend. Everyone get your pen tools and C4Ds ready.

The next is the ongoing and future rebranding contests. Speaking of which, GO MAKE A LOGO FOR THE CURRENT CALGARY DRAGONS LOGO CONTEST. I will reach out to GMs between seasons to see if any want a rebrand.

The final plan is in its infancy, and it will be a Sig of the Week/Fortnite/Month contest. It will be somewhat like the sig tournaments, just with less money, less prestige, and less time. You will be able to either submit an already made sig, or a new one every (Time to be determined) to be judged against all the other submissions. It will be all sigs in one voting thread with a small monetary prize. These contests are a way to showcase your favorite sigs you have made and see how they stack up against others.
Now, if anyone else has any contest ideas, shoot em my way and I will see what I can do.

5) Finish Him – Closing Remarks
That is all I have for today. My goal is to create transparency between the graphic leadership and those who want to make pretty pictures in photoshop or gimp. I hope I achieved some of that today. If you have any questions or concerns, let me know in this thread or PMs.

Thank you for your time.

Wheel Snipe Celly

Go Pride - Bork

*slothfacekilla* · 01-14-2019, 05:28 PM

Good stuff! Shoutout to Kit for offering a complete noob like me some tips on my future graphics too. Thanks graphics team!

ToeDragon84 · 01-14-2019, 07:00 PM

ml002 · 01-14-2019, 07:13 PM

All good stuff Lazy! Like that the new scale and agree that it's important to reward improvement over time

Credit to Copenhagen, Wasty, FlappyGiraffe, InciteHysteria, and caltroit_red_flames
[Image: MM4nqx6.png]

karey · 01-14-2019, 09:26 PM

Thanks for doing this. You've addressed issues and believe the new scale will help increase quality as well as motivation.

Too bad now we have to give @Wasty 8.8M per 2x weeks