Art Event Submission Policies and Guidelines

[Yoshi155]

Na fam this is too much. Too much words and too much rules and who knows what it all means anyway LOL please calm down this is not boot camp art contests should not be so serious like I said for the reject entries in the egg thread that was just cold

There needs to be some kind of regulations for something like this. Some people on this site are really passionate about art, and it wouldn’t be fair if there were people who are actually putting effort into their work had to compete with people using AI generated images.

At least, that’s why I think they have to have a lot of rules for this.

 

[Mistreil]

I was hoping I'd have time to make revisions before people start commenting here again, but I haven't had a chance to, and probably won't for a little while longer! So a really informal status update just so you all know this hasn't been forgotten!

My plan is to restructure/reword things quite heavily -- I think I've addressed most of the comments that I could, but there's definitely a lot that can still be clarified to make it 1) more readable, and 2) less daunting. The current plan is to include a very brief summary at the top, add some clarifications, and just leave a lot of the more formal wording as something we can point to as needed.

Since we tried this policy out with the Picture Perfect event, I got a lot of insights for things that need to be done! On my end of looking at submissions with regards to the policies, I mostly noticed the following:

• People tended to err on the side of adding references (even when their submission might have been fine without it): this isn't bad, but it does imply that it's making you guys do more work than we intended, which isn't great either.
  • I'm hoping maybe a very simple flowchart or something might help as a bit of a summary, to save you all some of that trouble with deciding whether it's needed or not. i.e. Does it look like you traced something - No -> You don't need to include a reference)
• I'd like to think that allowing tracing/heavy referencing has opened the doors to some members for art contests...? In terms of allowing you all to copy assets/screenshots/etc. without worrying that it won't be accepted.
  • On that note, though, I do definitely feel I need to add a huge disclaimer that says "We'll let you know if we feel a reference needs to be added" (i.e. you won't be disqualified or anything for forgetting)

That's my perspective, though, but I'm imagining it's probably different from your POVs! If anyone's keeping up with this and participated in the Picture Perfect event, your insights would be helpful! In particular:

1. Did you trace/reference assets that you wouldn't have before we allowed tracing/referencing?
   (i.e. if you would've normally avoided tracing an icon/screenshot/etc. but felt OK doing it now, that'd be good for us to know!)
2. If you included references: was the process annoying/tedious/daunting?
   Was it hard for you to decide what to include and what not to include?

And any other thoughts you have would be appreciated -- positive or not!

I think to summarize a bit again, the main goals of these policies were to:

• Explicitly disallow AI art
• Explicitly allow people to trace/heavily reference assets in their submissions
  • ... with the hopes of both reducing worries about "does my submission look too similar" and giving people who aren't as skilled the ability to use existing assets to help them
• Hopefully not create too much work on either end (for members who have to include references, and for us who have to check them)

Any thoughts on whether things worked as intended(or if it did the opposite) would be good.

As you can see, being brief for formal stuff isn't my strong suit. so please be patient with me and the wordiness of the policy lmao im trying my best to make it more concise.
i also just think having you guys see the thought process/intentions behind this might help in case you have suggestions. intentions are harder to communicate through policies and stuff.

 

[.: Meri :.]

1. Did you trace/reference assets that you wouldn't have before we allowed tracing/referencing?
   (i.e. if you would've normally avoided tracing an icon/screenshot/etc. but felt OK doing it now, that'd be good for us to know!)

No real changes here for me! I tried to recreate a few of the New Leaf medals and a MEOW coupon for my Picture Perfect entry, but my art style doesn't lend itself well to super clean-cut and/or geometric shapes why I hate drawing architecture and machinery like a lot of official AC assets have, and tends to have kind of a "handmade" look even if I'm referencing something closely; I mainly included the references to be safe. Tracing would be less fun for me, but I like that if I do manage to pull off a fairly close recreation, I don't need to worry about it as long as the references are included.

If you included references: was the process annoying/tedious/daunting?
Was it hard for you to decide what to include and what not to include?

For the medals and the coupon, I don't think it added that much extra work; I just hung onto the reference images for a bit longer than I normally would have, and temporarily bookmarked them so I wouldn't lose them before it came time to post.
I do remember fretting a bit over whether I'd need to include a plaza/town tree reference though! I wound up trying to not copy the leaves on the sapling too closely so I wouldn't have to worry about it. If this sounds contradictory to what I just said about the references not effecting my inclusion of the medals/MEOW coupon, and adding them not really being any extra work/actually being less worry... I worked on the Picture Perfect entry across a few days so it's probably a matter of what mood I was in at the time. my brain is just fickle like this I'm sorry LOL

I also remember I was briefly concerned if I'd need to add something to the medals/coupon themselves for it to be considered additive enough, but if I'm understanding correctly, since they were just small parts of the larger scrapbook page as a whole, the rest of the page is the "additive" part? o:

Generally though I'd say I've tried to err on the side of not doing much differently from how I used to. I'm prone to overthinking rules and getting confused over where lines are drawn exactly, so the reassurances that the new guidelines are intended to be more lenient are very appreciated! c: You mention struggling with conciseness and conveying intention through writing the new policy, but personally I think you did an excellent job of that right here:

[...]the main goals of these policies were to:

• Explicitly disallow AI art
• Explicitly allow people to trace/heavily reference assets in their submissions
  • ... with the hopes of both reducing worries about "does my submission look too similar" and giving people who aren't as skilled the ability to use existing assets to help them
• Hopefully not create too much work on either end (for members who have to include references, and for us who have to check them)

I'd suggest maybe even including this (or something similar) in the policy itself. The tone may be slightly informal, but tbh I don't think that's a problem! At the end of the day we're a relatively small, close-knit Animal Crossing community, competing for play money and/or tiny decorative digital squares (even if we can get a little passionate over them sometimes), so I think a semi-formal tone for contest guidelines is fine, especially if it helps to communicate the intention behind the policy.

I've written a lot here and probably rambled a bit, but I hope it's been at least somewhat helpful! Once again I want to say that I appreciate the time and effort that's been put into this.

 

[oath2order]

IMO in regards to AI art, you say "Using AI to generate your submission or parts of your submission.".

I think it's important to include comments about "touching up", or "fixing" just to preempt a possible loophole.

 

[ezcrossing]

Ai art is awful. I tried it once. NEVER AGAIN. (it couldn't even identify a PIKACHU.) thankfully, I didn't save any of my prompt images. SO GLAD we aren't using it.

I tried to make an image of an animal crossing human villager. didn't even look like animal crossing!

 

[Reginald Fairfield]

At one point I was thinking about asking if I could submit an MS Paint doodle. I believe that has been addressed.