Themed contest entry: Mad Scientist

[shbaz]

Over the weekend while studying for my finals I had to do something to keep my mind from wandering too much.. so I worked on a 3d scene between studying. I probably only spent a total of about 2 hours on it, but it was still an important diversion.

Anyway, it was an entry for a Weekend competition at elYsiun with the theme "Mad scientist." I didn't get many votes (not over, but I'll be lucky to reach 3 right now), but I don't know what makes the other entries so much better than mine. No one seems to want to tell me in the Finished works post I made because the elYsiun members have a habit of replying only to senior members (who coincidentally don't reply to much work at all either).

So this is where you come in.. I know what's wrong with the image visually (the bunsen burner's hose looks thick because of shadows, the text is too perfect, metal doesn't look real, etc), but what is there about it that makes it so much worse than the other entries?

Here is my entry (thumbnail) 138kb at 1280x1024 resolution:

"After consuming one of the chemicals he normally treated with great care, the professor went mad, he turned on all of the faucets, filled the board with his ramblings, and then passed out on the floor beneath it!"
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and all of the other entries can be viewed from here

[Ashen]

It's kind of ... uninspired. It's a very competent rendering of a school science lab, but that's not what the competition asked for. More chaos - burning things, beakers bubbling over, etc., are what spring to mind, rather than a lab with the taps on. Some of the other entries aren't as well executed, as you said, but it's more in the composition, I think.

[Hollister Man]

Very nicely done, but the only thing I see that really looks interesting is the refraction of the beakers.  I would expect colors, bubbles, bright reflections, and most importantly, NOT perfect writing on the chalkboard.

This is a stupid bad paintover, you could to a much better job.  At least its an example of what I mean.  Oh, and the "perfect writing" joke at the end of the chalkboard doesn't really help.

[shbaz]

Ah, but it had to be pure Blender. I probably should have UV'd some text from Gimp on there, but that would take longer than just typing it through Blender's text addition. Nice paintover though! 

[Hollister Man]

Never tried Blender, but I just know you could have figured something out, Shbaz.  

Oh, and it looks like all your beakers are refracting as if they were filled with water, even the ones that are lying on their sides.  Plain empty glass refracts differently. Thought I'd tell you.

[shbaz]

Never tried Blender, but I just know you could have figured something out, Shbaz. ;)Ã, 

Time constraint.. UV mapping does the trick as well as a non-repeating texture map with a translucency channel, both of which take considerably longer than just typing the text within Blender. Also, making the image the proper resolution and size is a problem since you don't want it to distort or be placed on the board improperly, also part of the time issue. I just wanted a quick funny image, I think I'll refine this later, after the second round of finals is over and I'm home free for the summer. If I didn't, I'd feel like a hypocrite since my sig at elYsiun is "Your ability to grow as an artist will depend soley on your ability to adapt when given negative critisism rather than your ability to make excuses for your mistakes." haha.

[Phemar]

I agree that the text is too perfect, but isn't the 2 in 0H2 usually smaller and at the bottom in science?

I don't know what I'm talking about, but I think it's like that...