Don't know tbh - I stopped with the overlay because at that time I hadn't enough knowledge to do it. It was a long time ago. I managed the motive changes and skipping the privacy check but got stuck with the overlay and stopped (classic - I must have dozens of projects like that). And never took it up again because I didn't use the set at any point since. Then I came to make Petra and thought "I know, I'll use that set from Parsim that's been sitting in my project folder forever."

Sunburn and the hairdressing station allow for overlays, as does getting burnt (and other effects). The trick would be to direct the game to use a custom overlay. I wanted to change the water too. There is somewhere a mud bath with mud water.

My scores are in. :D

My scores are also in. Good luck everyone!

And...I will put them up tomorrow due to the fact that I have stormy weather here so am on phone.

Thank you, all of you. I will post my feedback regarding the competition after the scores have been posted.

Ooh I am looking forward to seeing the scores and feedback! Thank you judges and Gdayars

Thank you gdayars and the judging team. Really enjoyable contest. Congrats, maxon, on being the overall winner - well-deserved!
All the entries were really great - congrats to everyone!

Congratulations to Maxon, our winner! The entry for round 4 really was outstanding and certainly worthy of winning with.

Now to the selfish side of things, there are a bunch of lots I really really want to snag for my game. The mayors of Three Lakes, Twikki Islands and Takemizu Village would like to know how people would prefer to get their humble requests for contractors contracts, by pm or publicly in this thread? :lovestruc

@yavannatw modyourpanties is down at the moment (along with a couple of other things) so therefore the pictures are temporarily absent

Whew! I wanted to admire them again.

There are a few that I would love to have as well, and I don't care about the CC, I would accept them bundled up with the CC that comes over on LJ, Tumbr or someplace.

Thanks to gdayars on running a great contest! Thanks to all the contestants for putting up lots that I could only dream of building, as well as to the other two judges.

Thank you so much Judges for all your hard, which I know is not easy to do! Thank you gdayars for hosting, that's not easy to do either!

Congratulations to @maxon! Your Round 4 entry is amazing!

Congratulations, @maxon, for a job well done.
I will post my feedback shortly, I have to go to town first (it is morning over here and I have run out of milk. Need coffee).

Double Posting in order to post my feedback. I have some very positive as well as some negative feedback and some suggestions that may or may not be accepted by future hosts.
@gdayars @gummilutt @Red Sonja

I have now been a contestant in 5 building competitions and 6 competitions overall.

I am going to start with the negative feedback. Somebody has to.

In a contest, one thing contestants should be able to count on is equal treatment. What happened to me may have been missed by most, since most people do not read entire threads and some may not have seen the connections.I do not believe anyone is to blame here, but I think there should be some measurements to avoid it happening again.

Floor plans:
I encountered some problems in Round 2.
First, I was told that I failed to post a screenshot of a floor plan.
Fine with me - although I did post it, I was quite ready to accept losing a point, because I did fail to post it in the thread and under required screenshots (it is in the thumbnails though). I felt that the rules stated that it should be under required screenshots, so I was okay with that.
But in the next round a judge tells a contestant that she has forgotten to post a floor plan.
And in the last round, a contestant is asked where a floor plan can be located.
I regard this as grossly unfair - either everyone is docked points for failing to post floor plans under the required shots tab or everyone should be asked/reminded to post it/asked where it can be found.

In Round 2 I was also docked points (I did get some back for playability) for the so-called open toilets.
I did explain this and am thankful that i got half a point back from one judge (one has not replied to those posts, one did realise that the toilets were not open).
However - in the last round a contestant is asked about open baths.
Now I have no idea who in their right minds would build open toilets on a family lot at a swimming pool - but I was NOT asked. I was just docked points.

Playabillity points:
Deductions here make no sense to me despite explanations from judges.
However, I was docked points here in each and every round, which makes me wonder how much some judges actually play the game.
However, they have a right to deduct points even if I don't agree with it and even if it is for something "unlikely" to happen but just "in case it happens".
But when another contestant just says she did not encounter any playability issues - voila, points are restored at once?

Extensions:
I don't see the point of a deadline if it is simply going to be extended in every round. In 5 building competitions, I have always made the deadline. It is NOT always easy to do - we all have personal lives and problems and things that interfere, in my case, I also have to deal with an inept municipality and lots of electricity interruptions. Some of us go to a great deal of trouble to get our entries in on time.
In at least one previous contest, entries were accepted after the deadline but docked half a point (I think it was half a point) per day - this seems fair to me. There should be some reward for making the deadline.

Wide differences between judges:
I know they have to pick a winner and I know they have to deduct points from the entries that they feel should not be in the top.
But I have not learned much from the comments of the judges in this competition.
Telling me that a roof is wonky and would look better if the roof is lower - when there is no way that it will work - is not helpful.
I refer to the roof I made in Round 2.
I followed the instructions from here: http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=575365 and the post it links to. I actually tried to go a step further and made a back and a front porch.
Telling me that there may be stomping in case 2 sims walk there at the same time even though it is unlikely is not helpful.
Telling my that my interior should have tribal patterns - when I live here and the judge does not - is not helpful.
I did agree with the one judge in round 3 about the beds - i actually downloaded some bunk beds but they refused to show up in my game (Interestingly, they now do show up after the last update from Origin).
One judge questions the placements of the toilets in Round 4. Of course, most of those old houses don't have any - plumbing was not around in the 1700's and it also made sense to me since the point of the central walk through is to see everything at once - and putting them anywhere else would interfere with that. She also mentions empty spaces - well, I wanted to make sure that sims do not have the tiniest chance to walk anywhere and perhaps cause stomping.
Getting high points from one judge and low marks from another consistently is really confusing to me - perhaps that means that there should be better guidelines for both judges and contestants. Being a tough cookie or being nice does not work for me - it does not really equate to fairness.

In the end, perhaps the requirements for the location (mountain, country, tropical, whatever) should be set out before the contest - because as far as i am concerned (and I think I mentioned that) living in a subtropical area in a country town in a mountain, fireplaces in houses are not all that uncommon and here we do not do floral wallpapers. We don't, in fact, do wall papers at all because they do not last due to the wet weather. We do not build log cabins here either - it is against our building rules. And surely, if it is about travel and vacation, there should be some allowance for things that are different in other parts of the world.

Round roofs (Just a remark here)
I would like to inform our judges that they don't look neat by chance - It actually requires some work to get them to look good.
For one thing, they are not waterproof, so there absolutely has to be a ceiling. But if you just plop down the roof, the ceiling sticks out at places. Even if you raise that roof as high as you can, the ceiling still sticks through. So it requires some CFE and very careful raising (not lowering) of the roof to get it just right. I have looked through the judges' profiles and could not find any rondavel type buildings there. Simple is NOT always that easy. Those round roofs were actually a lot harder than the roof I made in Round 1 (which is actually very easy to make).

On the other hand, I really enjoyed the competition. The freedom to use cc and the generous budgets were great. I have been working on getting those Cape Dutch gables right for a long time (some of you may remember that from the previous contest) and it was pretty awesome to get a chance to build it in the last round. I love the lots that some of the amazing contestants have built and enjoyed looking at them in detail when I could. I am reasonably happy with my final score as well because I felt that I could, in a way, hold my own among truly more advanced and better builders. While I don't regard myself as a beginner any longer, I know I still have a long way to go before I will be in the same class as some of them.

Suggestions for future contests and contest hosts:
Beginners:
When something is said to be a beginner's contest, I do feel that beginners should have a chance to win. A separate category for beginners could work in my opinion. I know that beginners have won contests in the past, but it does not happen all that often, and I think it would be fair to give the best beginner a sticker too. Personally I would define a beginner as somebody who has not take part in a contest before and who has not been awarded something (picked, best of the best) on MTS. Perhaps that will lead to less contestants dropping out after the first round. (Personally, I was very tempted to drop out myself in this contest - for the first time ever - due to the fact that the scores in round 3 stopped any chance I ever had of ending in the top 3 and being in terrible pain due to my broken elbow and not-functioning shoulder. But that is not who I am, so I carried on. Yet - also for the first time - I could actually understand why.).

Those Moorish buildings
They are fabulous. And I know that it was something decided in the beginning of this contest - that it is "oriental" too. I decided not to say anything then, but keep it for after the contest.
But I am a stickler for details and I love Geography.
Morocco is an African country. It is situated on the North West of the continent. It is not only physically miles away from the Far East, it isn't even on the East side of Africa.
To me, it does not belong in the same category as Japan and China, but rather perhaps with Egypt (which, by the way, is an African country too) and perhaps with India, Pakistan, Saudi-Arabia, etc.
If you want to do things right, i think it should (and deserves) its own category in the future.

Requirements:
As I have said something about this before, I am just going to add that many previous contests had clear requirements and contestants either got some points for meeting those or lost some for forgetting things (like me). I just think it makes it a lot easier for everyone, including the judges.

Hotels versus vacation homes:
They are truly not the same thing - a house is a house and a hotel is a hotel.
In a former competition, contestants without BV and AL were still required to build a hotel/apartment - in the sense that those could work with the right objects and doors, but had to have the doors, fences, etc. placed at the correct places.
I personally tested AndrewGloria's apartment that he built way back and it worked perfectly, even though he does not have AL.
In another competition there were 2 different rounds, one for a hotel and one for a vacation home.
Since a hotel needs a lot more attention to a lot of things just to work than a vacation home does, I don't think they belong in the same round.

I really hope that my feedback will be seen as helpful rather than anything else.
Time for the end of the contest party then. Let us pop the champagne:













.

Justpetro, I agree with many of your points. Having half points docked for being late seems fair. I also worked hard to get my entries in ahead of time, anticipating busy periods of my life.
I also agree that as a beginner's contest it should be restricted to beginners. I felt this in the last contest which was my first. It's very daunting for a new contestant to be up against experts and so have no chance of winning.
I thought it unfair that some people put their name down as contestants, pushing the rest of us to playalongs and yet did not submit any entries whatsoever. The first playalongs should then have been made contestants.
Overall I was happy with the contest and think everyone did a great job. It's a pity many fell by the wayside.

Excellent point about the contestants who did not submit entries at all - I did not think about that. There were three contestants who never submitted any entries. Moving in the first playalongs into those slots is a great idea.

I agree that equal treatment is important. I don't agree that it has to be equal among all three judges, because that's borderline impossible to achieve, and kind of negates the purpose of having three to begin with. As long as a judge judges the same way between contestants and rounds it'll affect everyone in the same way, and therefore how one judge compares to another doesn't really matter when it comes to the total. In this case since the other two were often more generous than I was, giving lots of 30s which ended up giving my scores a bit more weight than they ought to have had, but in the end I think it actually sort of leveled out despite that.

Regarding round 2, you did not lose points for the missing floor plan which is why you didn't get any back after you pointed out it was in attachments. Not everything said in comments translates to lost points, at least not from me. Some things are feedback to help you present your entry better in the next round, some of it is explanations for point deductions. The build deductions were because of the wonky roof, and that over all the build was a tad basic. You say there was no way that roof could be lower, and I believe you that lowering it would have made some parts stick through another. But you chose to build that kind of roof, with three sections instead of just one solid one. You also choose to make one balcony three tiles and the other two, causing the wonky off-centerness of it. There were choices that could have been made that would have made it look less wonky and pointy, and learning to make the best possible choice is the whole point of a build contest.

The reason contestants were given warnings/questions ahead of time after round 2 was specially because of what happened to you, with the open toilets and floor plan. You got the points back, which meant that for the rest of the contest anyone else making a similar mistake would have to get the points back in order to keep things fair. So instead of creating more work for gdayars having to go back and fix scores we decided to bring up issues when discovered. And even in round 2 before we decided to allow that I tried to give you a heads up about the toilets, in my post reminding people to make sure pictures were okay and that any possible playability concerns were addressed.

I don't remember which contestant you are referring to where playability got restored by just saying so. If you say which round and which contestant I am happy to go back and check if it was me. As for the deductions over all, I choose to make playability include more than just "is this functional" because to me that is very easy to achieve and each point should mean something.



Whether or not those are reasonable as playability issues is a matter of how you view it. I think they are, because too much space and not enough space are often motivated with playability. A lot of people say they have empty space to avoid traffic jams, but it takes experience to know where that space is needed and where it's not. And knowing where things can be narrow and not is also an experience thing. If you study beginners lots a lot of empty space is a very common denominator, so in my book learning to build the right amount space in the right areas is an important part of becoming a better builder. And since it has to do with how easily Sims move around, I thought it belonged in playability rather than build.

I absolutely understand it can be frustrating to lose points each round and not totally understand why, but I did my best to convey what needed fixing by always pointing out narrow areas, empty space and inefficient placements of things. And if you compare playability scores in round one with following rounds the average was higher, which I believe shows that people did listen and learn and improve in that area.

I agree with you in the beginners contest though, doesn't make much sense to call it that when people who have won contests in the past are in the same group as people who never did a contest.

Thank you, Gina. Thank you, judges. And congrats, Maxon!

@Justpetro I actually asked about the point on the floor plan at the time. And was informed that it wasn't deducted. It was just commented on, so people would be aware. It was an attempt to make it more beginner friendly in the contest (mentioning, and then wouldn't deduct unless it happened again) at the time. As far as your toilets, I did go to bat for you, and I know you got some back, and I made a point of asking people to please point things out, and posting in the descriptions, things like removing walls for pictures. I realize that in some ways this didn't totally come out a beginner's contest. I had intended it to be far more beginner friendly, but just as all of you here, I was learning more myself, about how to host. I had hosted the photo contest for the calendar, and had participated as a contestant in Jo's contest, but frankly I still wasn't as prepared as I should have been, and in all fairness, only one of our judges had judged before, so they were learning too! it was indeed a beginner's contest, but not just for the contestants

As far as the play along thing, and people being moved up, I actually considered it, but by the time we realized no one was coming in, it would have been unfair to move people up. For one, the judges hadn't really judged the play alongs the same way, so going back to give scores to people would have been a bit unfair on them I think the REAL thing is, if people aren't sure they are going to participate, they should ask to be play alongs in the first place, as that was unfair to begin with! I am not talking about people who made it through half the rounds and life happens, I mean the ones who left pretty quickly straight out of the gate. So people in general need to be considerate.

As far as the being late and it being ok, I actually offered that up, to make it MORE like a beginner's contest. Hence the reason for the vacation homes/hotels as well, not only for those that don't have Bon Voyage, but to make it easier on the less experienced builders. That was why you got no foundations, a bit more leeway on lot size (often getting two, as you recall) a higher budget, and were allowed to use custom content. I also reminded judges a few times that it is a beginner's contest I may not have caught it every time but I did TRY to catch things, to ask about when I saw things that didn't quite jive. We are ALL human, and we all miss things. Also please be aware that as usual evidently with contests, that things happened. As SOON as I posted, my life went awol lol, and I know for two of the judges it did also. I am sorry, I didn't realize you still thought the lack of a floor plan shot was deducted the whole time, when in reality it wasn't. I did point out, in my own defense, that if you don't agree with something please point it out. Even if it means risking sounding like you are being a "b".

I accept the explanation about the floor plan. I was under the impression there was a point deducted for it because I did break a rule and I would have regarded that as fair. There is no point in having rules if points are not deducted for that. I have had plenty of points deducted because I forgot about a rule or a requirement.

@gummilutt - you have no idea how much/little experience I have with either building or playing. I have said before that when it comes to building skills and stuff, you have a right to your point of view - not everyone has the same taste and I will accept your judgement even if I do not agree with it. But I differ about the playability of my lots with good reason. If I test lots, it is always with a group of at least 6 sims - not one, like many others do. I certainly don't want the judges to be the same. But I have never seen such discrepancies in my personal points in the past. I could, of course, because of not agreeing with the judges, have thrown a tantrum and leave the contest like you once did, but I decided to rather wait to say what I have to say until after the competition. In the end I am reasonably happy with my points, as I have said.

@gdayars - please believe me that think I understand that it is very hard to be a host as well as a judge.

Re beginners : that is why I suggested a separate category for beginners in the future. I think it will be nice for a beginner to at least be able to win that category from the start and get a sticker and I also sincerely believe that a lot of contestants would be happier. While I no longer regard myself as a beginner, there is still no way that even I can compete with some of the builders on MTS - so expecting a true beginner to do that is imo a bit unfair.

Of course things happen in contests, we have all been there; but there I maintain that there is simply no point in having a deadline then. Beginners should learn to be in time as well with their entries. I got mine in on time in my first contest and so did yavannatw and a whole lot of others in their first contests - and as she says, she also make sure that it is in on time. So to me, that is something that should be adhered to, and you are just too damn nice. We all have our personal lives, and while I don't like to post about mine, trust me, I have those too and sometimes it is very hard to make time for building the lot and posting it on time (I have done most of my lots between 2 and 4 in the morning for all the contests I was in). I just think that in future deadlines should be taken into account.

As for hotel/vacation home - I built my very first hotel in my very first contest. So did other beginners in that same contest, like AndrewGloria(without BV) if I remember correctly. My first one ever - and I did reasonably well. I actually only learned that you can build your own hotel shortly before that competition - I used those two in the bin in my game (I actually still do). Nobody builds them everyday except perhaps those that regard themselves as builders rather than as players. Well, I am a player rather than a builder. My very first entry in that same contest was so awful that I actually felt a bit foolish after seeing what the other contestants came up with. I decided to try harder - and when I had to build the hotel, I simply did it as well as I possibly could. I cannot regard the choice between a vacation home and a hotel as necessary or even remotely fair to beginners, especially not when advanced builders are allowed to build the vacation homes as well. A house and a hotel is not the same thing and never will be.

I think that you can be proud of yourself for hosting the contest and I know you worked hard and did your best. I never doubted your commitment. But there is always room for improvement in everything. I actually took part in that Headlines contest - that is when Cat was a judge and told me that she hates orange but would not hold it against me . I was fairly terrible at taking screenshots back then and it was also my first contest, but it did help me in trying to improve my screenshots and I think I have improved a bit since then.

I have given feedback at the end of competitions before. After the first contest, even being a rookie and quite afraid to do so, I pointed out how difficult that one (because it gave bonus points for base game only stuff) was for a UC player, and that - at that time most were still using disks - the UC exists now and should be taken into account. And I have to say that it never happened again. So if I feel something can be better, while I am not one of the master builders here, nor a staff member, I think that after 6 competitions, I have gained at least somewhat enough experience to have the right to talk about things that I feel could be better.

Yo, congrats on the win, Maxon and thanks for hosting gdayars

My favorite parts were looking at what other people did with their themes, the CC they used and the creative structures/landscaping/interiors. There was so much eye candy up in here!

To be honest, I really stopped caring about my score after the third round through because I knew there was no way I would advance past other contestants at that point, even if I brought out all the stops and followed fancy CFE building tutorials. So I just started building things that I would like to see my sims in and play with wihtin my vacation hoods. I placed low again in a building contest but that doesn't make me feel like a *bad* builder, it's just everyone else is really damn good at it. I would call myself intermediate at this point. Give me an interior design contest, picture contest, or writing contest and that's where I think my skills shine. That being said, I still enjoy building

For feedback - it was a nice and new way to obtain contestants by having them say 'wanderlust' but by the end here, it really is obvious to me why so many past contests have the 'first entry is your application to the contest' mechanism. It guarantees the contestant is going to at least put up one entry and not take up a spot that someone else would get who actually can deliver an entry. People may sign up with all intentions of going through to the end but if they haven't built or worked on something to enter then they are less invested and it's so much easier just to drop a contest.

I'm not really going to gripe on judging, it's a tough position - I've done it twice on previous building contests and I often get really wordy about it too. I will still recommend it's very helpful to explain why points are being docked and I will try to remember that if I judge future contests. Some things are just so objective! I mean, subjective! For example, I still like my orange multi-paneled exterior on the vacation home, and I'm not changing it.

I think docking points for late entries is fair and should be a level of any caliber of contest. There's a deadline for a reason and if there's no penalty, what is the incentive for getting timely entries in rather than putting it off for a day or two after the deadline? I understand that there are reasons beyond a participant's control to cause delay, but personally if I was in that position I would know and accept getting docked a half point or however much for not making the deadline.

@ Petro - :lovestruc (Yes, you are right. Pretty much about everything!)

Thank YOU, GDayars, for running this contest. You have certainly earned that "Herding Cats" trophy.

Thanks also to the judges - a thankless job, I know, but ya'll really did a good job!
I truly appreciate that you took the time to write out comments for everyone. I know most of the 'flack' comes from the comments you provided (if judges didn't comment, contestants wouldn't know their thoughts) But, comments are so important for the contestant's growth. I've participated in 'no comment' contests before - and found them pretty much useless! When I judge a contest I do it the way Gummi said she did - I have a rubric that I follow with certain things that I look for. Usually the contest host provides the guidelines that I base my rubric on - I expand the guidelines to outline exactly what I'm going to look for in each entry. And, as Gummi said, each judge is going to have a slightly different personal rubric that they judge by. Here's my $.02: Maybe, in future contests, it would be helpful if the judging criteria were more apparent? If the contestants knew ahead of time what each judges personal rubric was, then they could build accordingly. Like me and my dislike of the color orange... I know, sometimes a thing just needs to be that color - the poor fruit can't help the color it is! However, if I'm judging a contest, I think it's only fair that if someone is building to impress me, they should know to use that color only when needed. Excessive use of orange might put me off your entry. Might. Maybe each judges personal likes/dislikes/peeves/etc could be included under spoilers with the requirements?


LOL! You go girl! Some things are just meant to be that color - I agree