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Thanks, all, for the entries and voting!

ildu appears to have made the elevator most folks want to ride, and will have the honor of running the next Background Blitz.

Hi! Can I quickly add a late entry ?

Absolutely. I'll add it to the list of entries.

Thanks, guys and gals, for all the great entries. Now open for voting. Here are the entries:

TheManInBoots



Racoon



Cassiebsg



Jack



blur

[imgzoom]https://files.catbox.moe/cibjam.gif[/imgzoom]

blur's image was smallish, so I offered the zoom option. Voting criteria listed in first post. Voting until the 25th.

A late breaking entry by ildu

Three entries! About four days left. Hoping for a few more entries to vote on.

A long time ago... About the same time this piece came out of South Africa, I served aboard a US Navy Fleet Tug. We made a port visit to Port Antonio, Jamaica. As the day settled into a warm tropical evening, a nearby night club began belting out this song, complete with the cow bell:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp_S3QOJk90

Not long after we returned stateside, I started hearing this version on the radio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjYrski71II

I like 'em both, but only one version takes me back in time.

Rockin' Sidney:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUpGasYfkJY

Video has a slight glitch in the second song. Interesting artist that I missed along the way.

Didn't really give Blur very long to claim his rightful position, but I had a thought about elevators, so here it is:

Make a Background image involving elevators. Some examples:





And for those AGSers in Nebraska, or Kansas, who have never seen a "lift," here's another possibility, a grain elevator:

\

Judging criteria as normal:

Concept - Does it match the subject matter?
Play ability - Are there things in the image that make your mouse finger twitch?
Artistic merit - Is it "pretty?"

Current plan is to take entries until April 20. Followed by five days, or so, to vote.

[jwalt]

And the winner is.......jwalt! With blur a very close second.

Spoiler

To be fair, I added the votes for jwalts pics together, if not for that it would be blurs win. But I wanted to honor that jwalt did two entries. I hope everybody is ok with that!

[close]

Thanks to everyone for participating, I think it is important to keep this fun contest alive

Congrats jwalt, you can choose a new theme for next month.

Blur, in view of my two images being combined to knock you out of first place, I have no problem if you want to pick the topic for the next Background Blitz. The few times I've won one of these, the topics I pick haven't generated a lot of interest.   Let me know.

I was not sure how to deal with jwalt's entries, if the second one does compete or not, and whether they count as separate entries.

Yeah, my apologies for throwing a monkey wrench into Racoon's Blitz!

Concept: blur
Playability: blur
Artistic Execution: TheManinBoots

And I liked both of the others, as well! Hard to make up my mind, and that's not a bad thing.

In Googling images involving "glowing," I came across the photo that motivated me to do the earlier entry. Also found another photo that captured my interest. Thought I'd give it a try:

Edit: Went ahead and reworked the tent. Also added the jukebox from RoN.  ;-)



The backdrop of the Milky Way is from a Photo by Denis Degioanni on Unsplash

Modeled in Anim8or, and rendered in Bryce. The Bum character is one of the RoN character assets.

Don't honestly know if multiple entries are allowed in the Blitz, but thought I'd, at least, share the image. Not overjoyed with my tent. May have to make a new one.

The lighting makes a greater impact in the first one, IMO.

I toyed with the lights a bit more, and replaced the image in the original post with the latest version. It's a compromise, but will have to do, since I've gotten tired of working on it.  ;-)

Nice, cool theme too.

Adding some more to the background's background should improve it.

I added some "clickable" stuff, and played with the lights.

https://i.imgur.com/dXMAlq5.png

Modeled in Anim8or, and rendered in Bryce. Foliage from Bryce, except for the Lilly Pads. The lantern sacks are being problematic; they're not quite doing what I'd like them to do. Lighting seems a bit more realistic in this version than in my original, at least to my eye.

Gave it a go.

Edit: Original version: https://i.imgur.com/dSUNFgV.png

"Finished version:"



This may be a WIP, since I'd like to do a bit more with it. Not sure I'll have the time to do it, at this moment.

Modeling in Anim8or. Rendered in Bryce. Trees are from Bryce.

Concept: Lorenzo
Playability: Racoon, with stylez75 a close second.
Artistic Execution: Racoon

Edit 1: After posting an initial image, I realized I had a smoothing problem with the plane. Fixed it. Try this one:



Original below:


Had a free Saturday to mess with this. Found a picture of a vehicle scale at a Kansas landfill. Also, to work in another play on the scale topic, I dumped a pedal airplane on the "flight deck."



Probably not going to work any more on this. I might try to figure out an odd coloration near one of the arms to the scale pad, the center one. Green color bleeding all over the place around the thing. Found out it was the Bryce texture I used. May play with other textures, if I can find time.

Modeled in Anim8or, and rendered in Bryce.

Edit 2:

Got to thinking you folks might like to see the photo I was working from:

https://www.chanute.org/ImageRepository/Document?documentID=5472

Googled churches and blundered upon Stave Churches. Made an attempt at one as a background:



Off the forum, CassieBSG made a number of constructive suggestions. I implemented a number of them, but not all of them. Any faults here are mine. It's modeled in Anim8or, and rendered in Bryce.

Edit: Playing with the fog in Bryce and created this image:



The fog would generate problems in a game, but I thought the image worth passing along.

Also, those pixel animations look incredible, you really are the master of wind and water, no matter the art style.

Don't know, but I may have stumbled on someone who is better with locations and water.  ;-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7CvUxB20LM

Haven't been following the legal issues, but I'm always blown away by AnasAbdin's images.

As for the use of pre-existing open source graphical assets, it feels like something that could improve the turnout but I'm not convinced if using RON resources for this purpose is a very good idea unless the MAGS entry is an actual RON game. It is a free to use library, but a library dedicated to a specific series so using it for random MAGS games *kind of* defeats the purpose to me. But then again I'm hardly an expert on RON policy, someone better versed in the subject might want to comment should this option ever be seriously considered.

I'm not a RoN expert, either, but at some point in time, before the establishment of a RoN Canon, folks began offering up characters and backgrounds for public use. I can't help but feel those folks would be sad that the canon was preventing the assets from being used to tell any story, be it one for the RoNiverse, or one for the more general worlds of MAGS. If the MAGS entry doesn't lend itself to a Zombie Mayor, or Death and an Alien building sandcastles, they can be left out. It may be up to the denizen lurkers within the RoNiverse to decide whether it's a RoN game, or not. Just don't kill off any existing character, unless you made it.  And even then, someone may just resurrect him, or her, or it.

[any]

A passing thought that allowing RoN assets in any Monthly Mags competition might increase participation, as well as make more folks aware of the RoN assets. I've always thought/felt that, unless it was specifically a RoN anniversary game, using RoN assets violated the MAGS rules.

Got the original Mount and Blade game from Steam. It was on sale, at that time, for less than five bucks, US, and I've been spending a ungodly amount of time playing it. Any M&B fans around here? I've tried to get cassieBSG to try the game, but she's been busy entering MAGS, or knitting socks for Tabata's Coloring Ball. Like to hear your thoughts on the game?