BEAVeR

I'm happy to bring you some very exciting news! As you might have noticed in the updated first post, there will be some amazing prizes. RoyalBrickCustoms (Flickr, Bricklink Store, ), expert producer of customized minifig cloth accessories, has kindly offered to sponsor this episode. This means the best builders (the best one of each faction and one picked by the sponsor) will receive some one-of-a-kind SoNE-themed cloth accessories for their favorite minifigs, so you can make everyone jealous with your coming builds. Note that the specific details are still subject to change, and you'll have to be a bit patient to see what the prize looks like, but we'll get back to you with updates. So everybody say thanks to RoyalBrickCustoms and be sure to check out his amazing work. As an appetizer, he's a poster he made for this challenge: SoNE Poster [Challenge IX] by RBCustoms, on Flickr Glad you guys like the episode. The Xizor minifigure is entirely custom-made and (alas!) digital. However, I made sure it could be made in reality, although I wager it would take an expert customizer. The hairpiece is a slightly modified Aurra Sing hairpiece (92471), with those little spheres removed and the top filed down, and dyed in black. The head is grass green with custom printing. The shoulder piece is the armor of the CMF football player (93565) of which the bottom part is cut away, dyed in dark purple with custom printing (the hardest part to get right IMO). The cloth is the CMF judge's (97690), colored in DBG (no doubt RoyalBrickCustoms could make something more interesting ). The torso is dark grey with custom printing (I only designed the printing on the front), with dark purple arms and grass green hands. The are dark purple with custom printing, and the hip piece is DBG, without any printing. That's probably more information than you were after, but let me make things right by giving you the full render of the minifig (click for large version): Yes, take your time! We made this episode last pretty long on purpose, so that people on holiday still have a decent amount of time to participate, so that you can take a while to come up with a great story, and so that we can have the next episode ready right when this one ends, so that you won't have to wait so long this time (thanks for your patience, everyone!).

"Report on the status of the infiltration in the Black Sun. Have we been making any progress?" "Almost none, Sir. It is as if they know what we're trying to do..." "So it is as we feared... Very well then, time for a different course of action. The reports form the field have convinced us we could greatly benefit from an alliance with the Black Sun. Imagine the intel we could gather about the plans of the Empire and the whereabouts of captain Solo. The problem is we have very little to offer in return. So tell our men to be of good use to the syndicate, and somehow show who the organization has to thank. But be cautious! The enemy is everywhere and we don't want to give away our plans! "It will be done, Sir" "I just received our new orders. Instead of trying to destroy the Black Sun, we have to befriend them. Good. We haven't been making much progress anyway." "Such a sudden change... Who knows what has gotten into Lord Vader's mind this time. I suppose something has become more important than Vader's distrust for the organization..." "My orders mention our construction project. We're already behind schedule, and could use some extra equipment. So make haste and don't let the Rebels get wind of it in any circumstance!" Later, in the office of Prince Xizor, head of the Black Sun: "So our friends have stopped being annoying and started being useful... Perfect. Let them toy around, let them sweat, thinking they can make a difference. Soon, they'll all ask for my help. I will become the most powerful man in the galaxy without ever having to ask for it..." Bith: Okay guys. Now that you more or less know how things work here, it's time for a real job. And you're in luck, because I can offer you three different jobs. Pick whatever suits your bricks best. Mon Cala: These things we're supposed to do, are they safe? Bith: Believe me, this isn't some kind of trap. Just keep to the shadows. Don't ask any difficult questions, and you won't get any nasty answers. Building objectives: A small note in advance: this episode has no special rules. Each player can only submit one entry. That entry should depict your character trying to achieve one of the following objectives. All entries will be regarded as usual, independent of which category they follow. So choosing which category to build in can be done freely, without any tactical considerations. Just choose what is most interesting to you. Your build should represent your character being involved in one of the following branches of the Black Sun on the designated planet: Equipment: Using the Black Sun’s specially modified freighters, you must smuggle goods to the Hutts on Nar Eurbrikka. Don’t worry about the payload. Just get it delivered without any questions. Intelligence: Distrust has risen among the leaders of the Black Sun. Follow them to where they go from the meeting on Coruscant, and find out where their allegiance lies. Foil their evil plans, and report every single detail back. Military: The Ororo transportation company failed to obey its orders from the Black Sun. As a message to remember them who is in charge, join the off-the-books but immensely powerful army to utterly destroy one of their bases located in the Vergesso Asteroids. Leave no survivors. The Prizes: From the Core Rules: Your faction will receive points based on two factors: Points: The average number of points per builder. Builders: One point for each builder. Attention: Note that we changed the Core Rules: where each faction previously got two points per builder, it now only gets one in the end. We hope this results in a better appreciation of quality of the builds in contrast to the quantity, in response to the numerous remarks in the feedback thread. [*]These two totals are added to each other, and the faction with the higher total is the winner. [*]All the players on the winning faction will receive this tag to commemorate their victory. You can only have one of these tags or one of the Community Build tags at a time, but a log will be kept of all the tags you've earned in your profile in the Characters topic. [*]The player who receives the most total individual points, regardless of team, is guaranteed a spot among the next set of the blog's Showcased MOCs. (This member must still be able to provide a picture big enough and of suitable quality to be used in the Showcased banner.) [*]Thanks to the generosity of RoyalBrickCustoms (link), we will be able to give away some unique SoNE-themed cloth minifig accessories. The player with the most XP earned in this episode on every faction will receive a pack. Furthermore, there will also be a separate sponsor's choice award for the person RoyalBrickCustoms thinks has incorporated the theme best. (Details subject to change) [*]You will receive XP equal to the number of points you are awarded from the judges. [*]Other prizes to be determined The Rules: All rules in the Core Rules topic apply unless otherwise stated in this explanation. The Empire's goal and the Alliance's goal is to depict their character doing one of the three stated jobs for the Black Sun, meanwhile trying to win the Black Sun over for the faction without the enemy noticing. So while on the job, it's possible to track down enemy infiltrators, eliminate them, give them false information... Remember to make your story appropriate for your rank. There are no restrictions on the size/form/content of the builds, as long as they follow the above described goals and represent the respective location (underlined). The Episode will run from July 25th to September 19th 26th. As long as it is still September 26th somewhere in the world, you can still enter. Entries posted after the deadline will be disqualified from the episode and will not be eligible to receive points or XP. Entries will be judged according to the Core Rules: Your build will be scored in two stages, to make it easier on the judges by lessening the number of builds that must be scored in greater detail: In the first stage, the judges will award a score from 1-10, with a '1' being "Minifig on a Plate", a '5' being "Your Average MOC" and a '10' being "Flawless Concept and Execution". In the second stage, the top five builds of each faction (so ten in total) from the first stage will be scored based on basic predetermined criteria: up to 10 points for the concept and appropriateness to the objective, up to 25 points for your execution of the build, and up to 5 points for your presentation of the entry. For builders who make it to the second stage, their second stage total is added to their first stage points, and that total is divided by two and a half. You can earn a maximum of 20 points in each episode. [*]The amount of points you earn is also the amount of XP your character earns. [*]This episode/contest is open to all players of Shadows of Nar Eurbrikka, even if they joined EB or signed up for the game after the episode has begun, with the exception of the Star Wars staff, who are not eligible to win XP or prizes; the EB admins and moderators, who are not eligible to win prizes but may earn XP; and the episode host, who is not eligible to win prizes but may earn XP. [*]All entries must be new creations, not posted anywhere else prior to being entered in the episode. You may be asked by a staff member to change your entry if it is too similar to an earlier creation. [*]All entries must be built from real LEGO or with Lego Digital Designer. No clone brands, no third-party custom parts. [*]All entries must be posted as a new topic in the Nar Eurbrikka subforum, the title prefixed by, "[soNE Ep. IX]". (For example, "[soNE Ep. IX] Shady Deals".) There's no need to state which one of the objectives you're following. [*]Post pictures no larger than 1000x720, as specified in the EB Member Guidelines. [*]You may do a 'full-blown photo edit' with all the text, effects, background compositing, support erasing, and other effects on one picture. All your other pictures may have no editing other than color adjustment or background removal for a solid-color background. For obvious reasons, any photo editing that changes the shape, functionality, or color (not tint or adjustment, but actual color) of a LEGO piece is prohibited. [*]All entries are considered WIPs (Works In Progress) until the deadline passes. Until the deadline has passed, you are allowed to change and improve your MOC.

By now, Wednesday has passed in all of the world, which means voting is closed. Johannsued, I'm sorry to inform you that your vote came too late and will not be considered according to the rules. We apologize for not putting this notice up earlier. All valid votes will now be counted, and we will be back as soon as possible with the results! In the meantime, you might consider participating in the other contests going on. The Expanded Universe contest hasn't seen a lot of entries yet, and still runs until July 4th. You only have a couple of days left for the Star Wars vs Marvel contest, that ends July 1st. Congratulations to all participants, and good luck!

Incredible work, Disco86, you prove once again that you can create very believable and stunning scenes from a minimum of source material. The combination with with your amazing building techniques make you one of the most creative Star Wars MOCcers I know. Every piece is a beautiful creation in it's own right. The generator is new yet familiar. The training site is incredibly original, with the Rebel dummies, the tires... I think the posing of the minifigs is the weak point here. The recruits crawling under that net seem really helpless. Of course you're very limited with the movement of the head here, you could try twisting the minifig as a whole to create a more dynamic pose. Also, we have no idea where they're going: I'd like to see more officers doing some 'motivational speeches', with some ferocious expression. I'd just like to see more of that training scene in Full Metal Jacket The middle building has a really unique shape that I terribly like, with the soft taper to the top, and the vertical lines that refuse to go off their mark. All of the decorating elements going up give the building a very tight and solid feeling. That loft offers a nice contrast with the rest of the scene, although it's not really clear to me why the highest ranking person in the facility isn't greeting the Emperor on his arrival. But all in all, I really regret that there aren't more pictures of this area. A minor flaw in this section is on the ground. Where you have perfect jagged edges in the ground in other areas, here you can perfectly see the large plates making up the ground. But I guess even your supply of parts is limited. That pitt really is the highlight because it is so unusual. You used the emblem perfectly, and added appropriate details to give it a sense of scale and mark the imperfections because of the way it's build. You'd really say all those gaps are intentional. I think you're one of the first builders who succeeds perfectly in that. And the solemn circle of black-and-white guards-to-be give it a silent but intense feeling. I really like the atmosphere that's going on there! Finally, the landing platform. I like it's functional simplicity. And is that an exit I see on the platform? I also really like the fact you included visible structural supports because they add to the realism and the sense of scale. The guns are also a great touch despite their limited range of movement. It's great how the platform in its whole manages to give the shuttle a majestic and sinister look at the same time. That's all about the individual components. To look at the build as a whole, reveals how you used the trapezoidal shape in a lot of places to give the place a sense of coherence. However, I feel like there's something off about the layout of the scene as a whole. Maybe it's because everything is on a straight line. However, that line of platform-pit-loft makes perfect architectural sense. To accentuate it more, it might be better to have everything facing the pit, the central place. So the platform would be turned 90 degrees, as well as the loft, to center all attention where it should be. You could put the training ground in another quadrant surrounding the pit, so you keep everything together. I doubt you'll be able to test these changes out, but I hope it gives you an idea how to make great individual builds work better together in the future, so that you can tell a story in a wide shot, without the need of details. Than your creations will be more enjoyable on more levels. But as I said, there's a lot of great subbuilds and details in this, and it's amazing you made most of it up yourself. I notice that while I'm building, I can't stop looking at a lot of references, even if I'm inventing something. So great work, keep it up and keep improving! And I can't wait to see what more amazing creations will reach us from IdS in the next couple of weeks, with the Star Wars Days and Olympics (a while back, you stated you wouldn't be participating in as much contests. So how about this one? I'd really like to write some double-feature blog posts with creations from you and markus ). And speaking of blogging:

To fix those transparent decals, what you could do, would be to use the decal as a mask. So plug the image into a brightness/contrast node, and plug that in the 'fac' of a mix shader. This mix shader should have as inputs the transparent material and the opaque material (with image texture). Hat way, you'll hae a material hat is transparent everywhere, except where there's the decal. If you'd like a node setup, please point me to the decal file so I can play around with it.

Thanks for calling that out, ACPin. It has been changed, so be free to cast your vote!

I imagine Nick Fury and Mace Windu might get along pretty well as well...

Fun set, Lord Tyrus! It's fun that you presented it as a real set, however, can you please remover the Lego logo? You see, TLG doesn't like their logo on MOCs, because they wouldn't want to be directly associated with something they can't guarantee the compliance with their srandards of. So no matter how good your creation, we'd like to avoid any problems. It's enough if you remove the "LEGO" text, for example, and maybe replace it with "SWBP" or something similar. That's your creative decision. I'd like you to know we put this in the rules, so as long as you don't fix this, this entry (and any entry that uses the logo) won't be elegible. And that would be a shame for such a nice creation. Good luck!

Awesome looking renders, Scruvs. I'm very impressed with the last one, it almost fooled me.As for the bevel shader, I assume you're using the one piotr posted on the Blender forum. That means you have to rendrr with your CPU. So how long do your rdndrrs take? I ran onetoday and it took 3 hours... I'm also curious about the logos on the studs. Are they actual geometry,or could you conjure up somethung with a bump map? Anyway, very interested to see your setup! I've been working with the LDR importer myself, and discovered that those weird coloes are due to the fact that no famma correction is being used on the colors thar are pulled from the LDConfig file. Now, I can get very decent renders. I'll post the code on the project on github, but it's not very pretty, so I'm not sure it will make it. If you really want it, I can send you my code though.

What an exciting race! It was so close that it took a long while for the race's judges to make out who the winner was. It wasn't helped by the fact one of them went missing, possibly abducted to another galaxy. But at last, here are the results: LucasLaughing - 19 XP goatman461 - 19 XP WickNole - 19 XP MstrOfPppts - 18 XP Jannik - 16 XP Commander Beltar - 16 XP Jacob Nion - 15 XP Donnie Bricko - 15 XP Graham Gidman - 14 XP Lord Tyrus - 14 XP Jakorin Swiftsword - 7 XP Kodan Black - 6 XP MontyPython - 5 XP Tariq j - 5 XP Dragonfire - 2 XP MKJoshA - 8 XP (out of competition) So congratulations to LucasLaughing! If there seem to be ties, that's just due to the rounding of the scores. Tariq j and MontyPython are the only ones to be truly tied. So now that you know the outcome, it is time to validate your bets! Out of the 105 possible combinations, the Rebel Alliance guessed 47 correctly, while the Galactic Empire proves its cunning and manipulated the race almost to perfection, with 87 correct bets. But is that enough to convince the Black Sun? And what does this mean in the greater war going on? The total scores are: Rebel Alliance: 7 participants Average score of 13 47 of the 105 bets correct A total of 2*7 + 13 + 25*(47/105) = 38 [*]Galactic Empire: 8 participants Average score of 12 87 of the 105 bets correct A total of 2*8 + 12 + 25*(87/105) = 49 This means the Empire wins its third victory! All Imperials that participated on this episode can now claim this tag . It will be added to the logs of all Imperial participants in the player index, and all of them that don't have a SoNE/Community Build tag already will receive this one. The ones that do can request this tag in this topic.