"T-MEC" Logo Letter Collaborative Redesign Competition!

[ZeroGravitas]

Edit: Competition is now closed. Thank you.

Spoiler: Final Winning Designs

Thanks to @Vortechz for a quick rework on some of the transparency of the M.

And some cute half-sized versions (in case some of you wish to mesmerize the forum with an annoyingly awesome animated signature (seriously, that is a terrible idea! lol ):

I've had this notion on my mind for quite some while. With 1.3.1 soon to land perhaps it's an odd time to kick this off, but it's something to do instead of twiddling thumbs waiting, and people will probably be too enthused with various new things to want to build competition entries, for the first month or two of excitement. So now, why not?!

The aim: a group logo with each letter design by a separate member, to signify the collaborative nature of this "Corps". I'm thinking of a kinetic statue, kinda Rube Goldberg style, or rather, just independently cycling actions for each letter.

I'm looking for some mesmerising dynamic functions, as well as being statically pretty. Mechanisms do not have to have fully real game purpose, but should tell some kinda of narrative or demonstrate some principle(s). Featuring all the available wiring mechanisms (triggers and devices) would be amazing, but realistically, just as much variation and coverage of different principles as possible (between the entries). So [as starting suggestions]:

• Various traps and (adapted) trap firing engines (where possible).
• (Mob) statues.
• Actuators, (hoiks).
  
• Liquids, pumps.
• Minecarts.
  
• Traps, farms.
• Wiring general principles, or just a pretty looking wire outline, even.
  
• Even 'outdated' mechanisms from 1.2 (or before), boulders, even!
• Curiosities, whatever, fireworks, explosives, bubbles, doors... Go bananas!

Submissions: I'm currently asking for one letter per submission. You could submit multiple, but for the moment they should be separate entities, so probably focus on making one great one, rather than a full set. Post a shot of your submission bellow, still and/or animated Gif (e.g. embedded here as media, hosted from GfyCat, Imgur, etc, shot with 'ScreenToGif' or Gyazo, for example). Each entry should:

• Very clearly and look like it's corresponding letter. Easily readable, but please deviate from the exact 'font', as convenient.
  
• Be approximately the specified dimensions [of the banner image], to line up reasonably with the other letters. Plus/minus a couple tiles is fine and good, giving an assorted, collaborative feel.
• Be build-able in (unmodded) game and can be built in a reasonable amount of time, by hand. [Also not get in the way of other adjacent letters.]
  
• Be all killer, no filler. So as little non-functional block structure or empty space as possible.
• Be self-contained, if possible, but out-of shot mechanisms may be acceptable, say, if the letter itself is pure display mechanism... (I'm nervous about having a massive hoiktronics build or such running this, though. But might be able to convince me otherwise.)
  
• Use diverse, colourful, building materials, not just cogs, so there's good visual variation between each letter. [There need not be solid block outline at all, maybe a wiring loom, or other feature makes (part of) the shape.] Bonus points for integrating anything growing.
• Possibly be open to slight modifications/refinements [I'm pushy, sorry, no hard feelings if not following suggestions ].
• Should consider the submissions so far, to maybe aim more towards missing letters, but generally just go for it with any great ideas you have!
  
• Probably should look good presented in front of diamond gemspark back-wall: my usual method of illumination and Photoshopping in transparent areas.
  
• Should be made in the next week or two, such that there's a some chance that we can get this nailed down before the update drops [sorry this is vague].
• Should be clear enough to copy from visual inspection, including separate wiring shots if necessary (although not strictly essential until you win ).

Entries will be judged by myself on a basis of creativity, compactness, visual appeal and how well it can be integrated into a final, gestalt build. Mostly this is because I'll be the one creating the final product (as far as I know) and will have practical considerations to bring together. But I'm very enthusiastic for any constructive input and opinions from others, and may well ask for other member's help judging if there's fairly close calls.

What I'm currently unsure of:

• How many entries we will get here. The structure of the competition might need to be tweaked, depending on this. Also, I'll try to make up an entry if there is a short-fall, but otherwise won't be submitting. (A deluge of workable submissions might make multiple logos, used in monthly rotation, maybe...)
  
• The dash between the "T" and "M" might be taken by either submission, or, make a fifth, separate entry (if someone jumps in with something really cool).
  
• How possible an animated logo image of final result will be... For one, it would inevitably be a large file. [I'm getting more confident that separate animated Gifs, one for each letter, will be the main end product.] More problematic is applying transparency around images that change in shape, with partial transparency virtually impossible to make pretty. Hence, a letter who's form is composed primarily of the flames from traps would be awesome-cool, but might also be limiting. We may end up with just a still, posed image, with a full animated version reserved for a separate video version will probably be recorded in addition.
  
• Containing the whole assembly within a solid block boarder would greatly mitigate the above issues, although perhaps look disappointing inert when embedded. A (fairly slim) design for the this frame would also be needed, in this instance.
  
• A separate animation might be made for each letter, enabling different loop cycle times (in which case the dash would be grouped with the "T").
  
• Size - I've currently aimed us at max width dimension to fit across the forum group header while retaining full resolution. Going bigger would probably mean having to halve the image dimensions afterwards (multiples of 2 are necessary to avoid wrecking the deliberately blocky pixelation of the game graphics). I'd actually be happier with a more compact native build size, as this my aesthetic sense is as minimal as possible, so I'd love a little, chiba logo (as below), or the intermediate size (at some future date), but I want to give your creativity as much room as possible to blossom, for now.

Spoiler: Intermediate size letters

• If the update pops before we have sufficient finalized entries, then I guess the competition will lapse and be revised to include the newer content. We'll just have to see how things go.

Questions and succinct suggestions also welcome below, but otherwise, start your building!

Additional notes:

Winning designs will be part of the official logo displayed on the group page's header for at least 2 months. Possibly longer and elsewhere too.

There are no prizes involved beyond fame and glory. As such, help each other out, refine and riff off of other peoples designs, collaborate. Joint credit might be allotted.

Deadline for competition entries will be Saturday 2 April (2016)!

 

[Lycos Hayes]

My first question, roughly how big are we talking in block size approximately per letter?

so for example, looking at the smaller image, it looks to be about 13 tall, but I can't quite make out the width. and the same for the Intermediate size being about 26ish tall.

If we can get exact measurements of the letters you're looking for, we can get the right neighborhood to have them the same size.

 

[Beezwax&Nectar]

Here's my entry for the E: Going through the history of engines:
...Just now realized this might be a bit big...

 

[ZeroGravitas]

how big are we talking in block size approximately per letter

OK, so I wasn't entirely clear, but I meant: let's aim for the big sized letters of the banner I've posted up. So the "T" is (I count) 14 tiles across, 16 tall. But there's wiggle-room there, of a couple tiles in any direction.

The mini logo is 8 tiles tall, 6 tiles wide (T, M) and 5 tiles wide (E, C). Intermediate is 12 tiles tall, between 12 and 8 tiles wide. But we'll mostly leave those alone, or purely as extra fun, I think.

...Just now realized this might be a bit big...

Nice. I'm counting 21 tiles tall. Looks like you could shave that down to 20, or 19 tiles, and just be 3-4 tiles over. This amount of extra can probably be accommodated, particularly if everyone else has difficultly keeping it down too...

Very pretty, colour co-ordinated materials there, and you win the race to first entry, good effort! So it's representing various mob engines. This kind of thing is a definite option. Will they actually operate, for making an animated logo? (Looks like the dummy could do with a waist height against floor hoik with the plates on top, or beneath.) Ideally, I'm imagining an actual set of rapid-fire traps, like darts spewing forth. Or spears rippling down from the top of the "C", killing (naturally spawned) mobs coming in from the right side. It might require water or honey to slow the mobs movement speed sufficiently to fit the track in the small dimensions (I guess I am asking for a potentially significant amount of thought and work to go into figuring things out and refining them ).

But it doesn't have to fulfill a regular functionality, it could be a bird, released in the bottom left of the "M", fyling up, through the "V" shape, and then down (towards a player standing in water, below (they track like this, I.... think, an odd behavior)). So it could set off traps incidentally, this way and that, lights, whatever.

Doesn't have to be enclosed or have back walls either (however much easier that would make my job later). But you could go crazy and have the shape of letter actually made out of negative space - a gap inside your build! Or dynamically, using falling liquid, some other moving part, or an LCD style segmented layout that springs to life....

Carry on.

 

[[Genesys] Doomdesirer911]

Working on the T, will have it done in a couple of mins
[doublepost=1458428107,1458426125][/doublepost]

Oh dear, activated my trap card. T-MEC Mimic trap.

[doublepost=1458428165][/doublepost]I posted a bunch for you to choose from. #5 is just the trap, 1-4 are the activation.

 

[Beezwax&Nectar]

Here's my submission for the -
Because the mechanic!

You can sorta make out a queen statue in the background... But whatever...

EDIT: This is what I had to do to get this to work...

 

[[Genesys] Doomdesirer911]

Working on the T, will have it done in a couple of mins
[doublepost=1458428107,1458426125][/doublepost]View attachment 101056 Oh dear, activated my trap card. T-MEC Mimic trap.
View attachment 101056 View attachment 101057 View attachment 101058 View attachment 101059 View attachment 101062
[doublepost=1458428165][/doublepost]I posted a bunch for you to choose from. #5 is just the trap, 1-4 are the activation.

Yay ZeroG liked my post!

 

[Vortechz]

I set up a T too. Dunno how good it is but uh..:


(See? T! For "Teleporter"... Yeah I know, dumb XD)

I did have a screenshot of the wiring, but the image corrupted somehow... bah XD

It might be too big or something but uh,.. I thought I'd throw my two cents in. When powered, the skeleton walks back and forth through the two teleporters, and the dummy ghost gets teleported to the bottom, getting teleported into a 1-pad teleporter loop.

Not really fancy, but just thought I'd contribute myself. ^_^

 

[[Genesys] Doomdesirer911]

Hey ZeroG, Just want you to know, in my new ultimate base, i implemented your simplified teleporter hub. I love it, it runs so smoothly and the way i arranged the wire, none of it crosses! at all!
I love it so much, stay awesome, and keep wirin'!

 

[Sonnette]

My entry for the -

 

[Mille Marteaux]

I've never really built anything before, let alone mechanisms, but I decided to take a crack at the M anyway. I feel incredibly silly though, since many other people are using Luminite..

Anyway, here's my thing. I call it "M is for Moon Lord" and I'm surprised it worked at all.

WIthout wires:

With wires:

The player has to use Discord to get into the teleporter loop, which from there on activates statues and gives a steady stream of mana and life. Knockback immunity is required so that Moon Lord doesn't push you off the loop.

Here's a video of it in action. Pardon my panic Prism usage near the end. I'm just happy it worked, even if I did use a healing potion.

 

[ZeroGravitas]

Oooh! A bunch more entries, woot!

Here's my submission for the -
Because the mechanic!

She looks a bit lonely. Maybe she wants a friend, or something to do, or look at....?

My entry for the

I like the sheer density of mechanisms in here. Purely decorative?

I set up a T too. Dunno how good it is but uh..:

There's an interesting predilection for martian conduit and luminite with these entries, heh. They do look all wiry and technology infused, in themselves. But don't be afraid to use general purpose materials, I really meant it when I said a diverse range. I use a lot of plain, early-game stuff (and haven't even beating Moonlord yet!).

I call it "M is for Moon Lord"

Hah, a moonlord machine in an "M". Including the new teleporter engine trick too, I see. Congrats on the kill! Although, I wasn't sure what was going on initially, just the lunar flair doing the damage with the mob statues for mana and hearts for health? You could have a Moonlord trophy (and/or other souvenirs) in the empty space, inside. Ideally other active components, of course. Would we ideally need a moonlord himself, looming in the background, with player in fighting position, to show this off to full effect?!

Oh dear, activated my trap card. T-MEC Mimic trap.

Decorative wire boarder there, make your entry look like a playing card, heh. Is that bonus material, or a possible to have around a letter (or around the whole logo?)? A somewhat 'voluntary' trap, with a lever. We might need an (apparently) hapless player to demonstrate a (PvP) trap like this, in an animation, to be clear what's happening. Not sure what you lot think about having players in the logo...?

(BTW, all existing entries, feel free to add pics of tweaked designs to your existing posts (maybe archive the previous versions in a spoiler to save space), but for separate entries please make a new post. )

I've just added some other mechanisms suggestion to my top post: minecarts, boulders, (gemspark coloured) waterfalls. What about explosives or fireworks, even?! (If you can somehow keep their effects roughly within the logo foot-print.) Bubble machine?

Also, "actuated blocks" could be tiers of a mushroom (or crystal, etc) mini-farm, maybe with mini-collector... (Something like this I might be able to time-lapse growing, for an animated version, time dependent.)

Edit: also, also, seems weird that I'm seeing no dart or temple traps yet, here. I guess they aren't so much in the meta atm (especially for end game), but don't let that stop you. Check out my old 'list of resources' for a look at funky old ways of doing things (if it's really unfamiliar).

 

[Vortechz]

I've never really built anything before, let alone mechanisms, but I decided to take a crack at the M anyway. I feel incredibly silly though, since many other people are using Luminite..

Anyway, here's my thing. I call it "M is for Moon Lord" and I'm surprised it worked at all.

WIthout wires:

With wires:

The player has to use Discord to get into the teleporter loop, which from there on activates statues and gives a steady stream of mana and life. Knockback immunity is required so that Moon Lord doesn't push you off the loop.

Here's a video of it in action. Pardon my panic Prism usage near the end. I'm just happy it worked, even if I did use a healing potion.

Nice one there in my opinion. What's the M stand for? Mozzarella Cheese?... >w>...

...

That was just plain cheesy of me.

(Edit: That moment when you reply to the wrong person XD)

There's an interesting predilection for martian conduit and luminite with these entries, heh. They do look all wiry and technology infused, in themselves. But don't be afraid to use general purpose materials, I really meant it when I said a diverse range. I use a lot of plain, early-game stuff (and haven't even beating Moonlord yet!).

Well I was mostly trying to put my thinking cap on, and get something set up.. and the conduits ironically just so happened to be the block I had on my guy at the time XD.

 

[Mille Marteaux]

There's an interesting predilection for martian conduit and luminite with these entries, heh.

Honestly, I only used Luminite because I intended for my structure to be related to Moon Lord! I hadn't viewed the thread for a while, then I come back after making it and.. Luminite everywhere.

I wasn't sure what was going on initially, just the lunar flair doing the damage with the mob statues for mana and hearts for health?

Yeah, it's pretty basic. The Lunar Flare is almost invisible due to all of the particles from the teleporter engine, too! Just for fun, this was the initial design:

It didn't work as well though, since the statue-spawned monsters didn't drop hearts often enough to handle the Moon Lord's damage. I tried to fit in a dummy drop teleporter engine in as well, but it's just so cramped it wasn't viable.

You could have a Moonlord trophy (and/or other souvenirs) in the empty space, inside. Ideally other active components, of course.

The inside of the M is really, really cramped to begin with. I can't reasonably fit anything else inside it now, let alone a trophy. Maybe if it hung off the bottom with chains and a wall...? It'd be hard to make it look even at that point, though.

Would we ideally need a moonlord himself, looming in the background, with player in fighting position, to show this off to full effect?!

Imagine the possibilities. Why stop at just one Moon Lord? Why not... an upside down Moon Lord?!

Also, re: temple traps, that'd probably be best done in the E since there's a lot of room to show off darts and spears going off. You could also try to turn the "-" into a mob grinder destination as well if you wanted to.

 

[[Genesys] Doomdesirer911]

I could make a border for the entirity of the logo if you like! There is supposed to be a valuable item dropped into it, so that they flip the lever to get in, land on the plate, lock themselves in, and get murdered by mimics!

Decorative wire boarder there, make your entry look like a playing card, heh. Is that bonus material, or a possible to have around a letter (or around the whole logo?)? A somewhat 'voluntary' trap, with a lever. We might need an (apparently) hapless player to demonstrate a (PvP) trap like this, in an animation, to be clear what's happening. Not sure what you lot think about having players in the logo...?

Honestly it could go around each letter, one of them, or the whole logo. I could make unique borders for each of them!
[doublepost=1458515999,1458515926][/doublepost]Plus martain conduit looks wiry too!, just not as much.

 

[Mille Marteaux]

Oh what the heck, here's an E too.

I originally wanted to be some sort of "powered by crab" mob chamber that things got teleported into, but.. well.. this happened, and I think it's far better for it:

 

[Bahamut2001]

I have a few submissions for the letters.

Originally , these were going to chain together to form a loop, But then I reread the rules...

I'm currently asking for one letter per submission.

..so I reworked them to function as individual loops. There was an 'M' too, but it wasn't good enough to stand on its own.

 

[Lycos Hayes]

you wouldn't believe how many times i had to rewire this effing thing.... got so frustrated, I just built 4 of them... what I wouldn't give to have yellow wire already!

Really wish I knew how to make a gif out of my gameplay so I can show the lights flashing.

 

[ZeroGravitas]

how to make a gif

Easy ways are either Gyazo (who record and host) or what I do personally is use ScreenToGif to record an actual Gif, then manually upload to GfyCat (for playback controls, or Imgur, without). And, to be fair, animations will help us see how your entry works and how it'll look in action. Should maybe have specified this? But pictures are fine if build is self evident.

Also, for those potentially put-off by the very high quality of entry presentation so far , you don't strictly need to cut out the transparencies and display all the wire colours separately, straight off the bat. This is more of a design competition, rather than your typical one-off picture submission type. But I should keep quiet, since as it stands I could almost cut and paste many of these straight into a final product! I just don't want anyone to be put off from entering or feel they've wasted effort on if we need them to tweak their entry a little.

So anyway, @Lycos Hayes, I like it. Looks like a 4 phase colour switching light show, switching every second: Red, blue, green, yellow. Have to have 4 timers, rather than 3, for it to toggle phases properly, right? (Timer chains are way more fiddly than most realise.) Can you set it for purely the base colours? Or is there a nicer effect or merging them? At any rate, we'll have to have the game's lighting mode set to "Color", to make full advantage, yes? Did you try having a diamond gemspark (or other plain) wall inside the letter (to amplify the colour changing effect)? Although, those super-brights will drown that out a little (was it particularly trying to wire the corners)? We could even record this one without illuminated backwall, so that doesn't dilute the torch lighting either. (I'm thinking each letter will definitely have to be animated separately now.)

I almost want to suggest trying a pure torch build, without the super-structure - a bolder design, but a little less readable, also impossible to cut around for a finished image(s)...Hmmm. [Well, maybe not impossible... In fact, we could back it with a rectangular plate of backwall, and cut at the edge of that. Very simple infact. (Or use @Jirachi's wire frame as a boarded, if it made sense to show your wiring too.)

Would rainbow brick walls just be tooo much colour?! (And probably clashing animation cycle length.) You could, perhaps, think about tucking the timers into the wall structure of the letter (horizontals), to have entirely torches inside (although, nice to watch them trigger in sequence adjacent?). You (and any others entering) are free to make the letter a bit fatter, so you could have a gap between the rows or torches (and wiring, more importantly) all the way around. Although, if that takes the challenge out of it...

I have a few submissions for the letters.

Wowzers, @Bahamut2001! Your full "T-MEC" logo must have put my natty old "HOIK" to shame. I'm now thinking even more that we'll need to continue on having a full logo design competition after this, perhaps monthly, even (make for some good creation compendium entries too, heh). So save the full chain for then perhaps.

You've really gone the extra mile in presenting these; did you paint diamond gemspark wall white there? You've not pre-made transparencies that GfyCat just doesn't show, have you? (Because I use Imgur for transparent animated Gif embeds.) Did you deliberately disable teleporter sparkles (with Mechmod) to made lighting/animation cleaner, too? (Or incidental?)

These all have nice, short animation cycles too, which is lovely. I'm definitely keen for ambitious mechanism builds, but a low frame count would definitely simplify matters. In fact, I took the opportunity to have a test run at cutting out the background: manually, frame by frame in Photoshop Elements CS6, tweaking the selection mask for each frame with your (anti)ninja outside. Suggestions of a better method are welcome!

Dropping onto a pad in the dash is clever. You "C" is elegantly simple, and I particularly like the "E"'s integrated fish engine powering the lift. Very tidy. Feel free to extend the middle height bar of the "E" to wrap up the entry pad, if you like. Please, no one feel you have to stick entirely rigidly to the style of my glass sketchup (at the top, or the old T-MEC logos). So does your design specify the use of that same nifty ninja character? Or might an NPC (town, skeleton, or dummy) work in-place? I wanted to avoid my character popping up in the finished article, but it would be fine to have you guys, or generic characters in there, as a community work.

here's an E too.

Woot! More statue mob engines than I've seen for a while - good times in my book! (Shame they are both in "E"s though!) Crab's speed is perfectly suited to this spear setup, and it's height to the space there. I do like that it's a fancy way to auto-kill the crabs, heh. And shows that mobs teleport. I'm wondering why you haven't got the (bottom) right traps firing too, though? Flames too much? Messy? Shame to have them sat twiddling their thumbs, though. (Also, do actuated boulders do something special?) The top darts too... You could have those (boringly) kill the crabs (?perhaps from the other end, to avoid killing the next one), spare the teleporters, and have the spears really laying into some mimics, from a statue... (a bit too formulaic, done before?).

The wiring loom is very pretty there, but we'd probably have to be able to keep it roughly within the letter's footprint, in order to physically build and run the whole set together. (That's not necessarily for the forum logo, but for video purposes.) BTW, is that little stray blob of green wire left there on purpose to see who spots it? (Do I win a prize?)

I'm now wondering if this, or very similar spear trap engine might fit nicely into the legs of the "M" ...? Would crabs activate plates while walking down/up the slopes of the insode of the "M" (made blocky-flat)? Or a bat rainstick in one side, with the spears of death on the other... Or spears down the one leg of the "T", with mobs being flip-flopped out alternately to either side of the top, using actuated blocks like a bunny flip-flop, giving more time for the dart trap mob terminators to cool-down, possibly using water to slow the crab/mob still further for even more compact timing... Sorry... Carried away...
[doublepost=1458626833,1458625065][/doublepost]Oh, and in general guys, sorry that I seem to have failed to communicate the vision I had in mind initially: the exact shape, structure and dimensions of my glass T-MEC banner were just meant to be a vague pencil sketch placeholder, rather than a specification template. I was worried that I'd have to reign in you crazy cats, and we do need each latter on roughly the same scale and within a specific (total) width and reasonable height, so I wanted to give some numbers. But I might have gone with a banner more like this, if I had thought of how leading the design was:

Absolutely not to worry, though! I know it can be more fun to work within fairly tight constraints and I'm liking the precision of what I'm seeing. Does make things easier. It's nice to be surprised, have a vision evolve and have the input of unexpected aesthetic convergence (conduit and lumite blocks, etc). But here are a couple of quick google image search results to give a more of a gist of the spirit of my initial thinking, and maybe inspire later entries...

Spoiler: Open image dump...

 

[Bahamut2001]

did you paint diamond gemspark wall white there?

Those are actually cloud walls painted white. They give a sharper white than gemspark, but you have to work around the time and weather. (It rained 3 days in a row while I was trying to get everything done. lol) I did do that for easier transparency, but didn't know how to actually make it transparent. (and I forgot to look it up before I posted).

Did you deliberately disable teleporter sparkles

I did do that purposefully. With the 'T', there were enough teleportations happening is a short span that I felt it looked cleaner without them.

tweaking the selection mask for each frame with your (anti)ninja outside.

I totally didn't think about that being a problem. >_< The original idea I had was to have the mechanic running through the loops, but I had trouble keeping her in. That was for the whole logo, though, so I might be able to make the shorter loops work.

structure and dimensions of my glass T-MEC banner were just meant to be a vague pencil sketch placeholder, rather than a specification template.

I took it as a challenge to fit as much stuff in there as I could. I would have adjusted the letters if needed, but I surprisingly didn't have too