MCParradox
Well-Known Member
This sounds very handy, that's often the part I struggle with most! Looking forward to what you have to say about it!
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The Imagineer's Workshop
- Thread starter englanddg
- Start date
This sounds very handy, that's often the part I struggle with most! Looking forward to what you have to say about it!
spacemt354
Chili's
Thanks! Maybe I will just write it now
spacemt354
Chili's
Got delayed -- over ambitious haha though I will get it up within the next few daysThanks! Maybe I will just write it now
Sephirenn
Well-Known Member
Truly amazing! This is basically exactly what I was wondering about. Thank you so much for giving an explanation and even providing so many screenshots!I did indeed! I started with a pen and paper sketch, based on a google maps screenshot of the area, just to get an idea of where we wanted to place everything:
Then, in Photoshop, I imported a google maps screenshot, and on a new layer traced around the important details with a thin black line:
Next, I blocked in the various colours on different layers, using the eraser to clean up the edges and make sure it fit within the lines:
Working from the pen and paper sketch, I began sketching out layouts of the new additions, before again outlining them in black:
And then to finish it off, as before, I added the colours on multiple layers:
Throughout the process, I worked a layer at a time, and most new additions were added on their own layer so they didn't interfere with anything else. This makes it very easy to clean up edges, and to toggle off things you don't need (such as to produce the images above for this post!). I worked with Photoshop CS6 and a Wacom tablet, but a while back I was able to produce very similar results (below) with Krita, an open source tool, and a cheap £20 tablet, so it's not about the tools, more about how much time and effort you're willing to sink into these things! Hope that helps
I got quoted! Weeee
He did a wonderful job....exactly the sort of thing I made this thread for.
<sniffle>
I haz legacy...
spacemt354
Chili's
I'll title this...
Brainstorming Tips and Tricks
(Guide to working on imagineering concepts in groups and individually)
*And I'll also preface by saying I do not have all the answers, nor is this the sole philosophy for brainstorming, these are just some tips and tricks I have learned over the years, and hopefully it will help everyone around here in their creations.
Let's start with (in my opinion) the most challenging, yet most satisfying and enjoyable form of brainstorming - working in a group
And to give some context - I will go over past projects, a variety where I think group brainstorming could have been better and we can learn from it, and compare it to projects where brainstorming went smoothly - to see the difference in results.
We can begin with an example of: What happens when you rush brainstorming, aren't efficient, and when style trumps substance.
This project was Challenge 4 of the Sorcerer's Apprentice Season 3, and was done in a team of four - Matt7187, DSquared, MonorailRed, and myself. The challenge was to design a new ride for Frontierland (at the time there were rumors of a Frontierland expansion) and you needed to use those rumors as the backbone of the project.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Challenge 4: The Wildest Ride in the Wilderness
For this challenge, we were tasked with designing a new ride for Frontierland, fresh off the rumors of a Frontierland expansion. The prompt requested that the teams "adhere to the notions suggested by insiders about the 'New Frontierland'." Our team researched the "Possible Frontierland expansion" thread on wdwmagic (http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/possible-frontierland-expansion.901759/) in order to facilitate our brainstorming...
Upon investigation, we gravitated towards the notions of two prominent insiders of wdwmagic, whylightbulb and Lee, for our attraction:
whylightbulb: "Looks like the major Frontierland expansion is about to be approved. The plans call for one E Ticket." (page 1)
Lee: "Highly unlikely it would be Geyser. My money is on the raft ride, if we're talking an E in Frontierland." (page 13)
With that information at our disposal, in particular the underlined portions, we present to you our new attraction for Frontierland:
Pine Creek River Rafts
Backstory:
Near the tiny town of Tumbleweed, Rocky Ridge is a successful oil drilling community. The two communities typically trade goods back and forth via rafts along the Pine Creek River, which separates the two towns. Despite the growing trade route with the discovery of oil, Native Americans in the Rocky Ridge Mountains are frustrated at what the oil has done to their water supplies. Nowadays they are typically seen attempting to send the trade rafts back to Rocky Ridge and find another means of transportation. In addition, bandits are also known to prowl the water's edge as the try and steal the oil for personal profit. As you board your trade raft towards Tumbleweed along the Pine Creek River, don't be surprised to run into some harrowing adventures along the way!
Location:
Outlined in red and nestled in-between Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Pine Creek River Rapids will use land beyond the brim of the Walt Disney World Railroad. After you pass under the Fronteirland Station, you will be able to stay right and head towards the new attraction. Backstage cast member break trailers will be moved further out onto Caribbean Way. Any utilidor entrances we have been assured can also be pushed back to make room for the expansion.
Queue:
As you meander through the town of Rocky Ridge, you veer left and approach a large boat house at the edge of town. Inside there will be a FastPass+ Queue and a Stand-By Queue. On the walls there will newspaper articles about the oil discovery and the increase in trade. There will also be hints at the Native Americans who live in the territory, as well as various interactive artifacts from the Rocky Ridge Mountains when prospectors heard of Tumbleweed's ghost stories and tried searching for gold in other towns - which will give guests more depth to the Rocky Ridge story as they wait to board their raft.
- Example of a newspaper article in the queue
Ride Vehicle Concept Art:
The vehicles will have 4 rows of 4, for a 16 person capacity. The vehicles are themed as trade rafts used to transport goods back and forth from neighboring towns. In the back of the raft is the oil that you'll be transporting to Tumbleweed on your journey.
Pine Creek River Rafts Simulation:
Here is a virtual tour of our attraction via Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. Below you can read a detailed scene by scene description of the ride.
Ride-Through (Scene by Scene):
Scene 1 - As guests leave the loading area, they float into a forest setting, with trees and animals on the sides of the river.
Scene 2 - After traveling for a little bit, on the horizon you see some smoke rising from a group of trees near an entrance in the mountain as the river heads in that direction.
Scene 3 - Once you approach the mountain opening and enter, you see a large Indian Reservation. AA Native Americans warn us of the grave danger we are in, and that we must turn back immediately. But before we have the chance, bandits show up on the left, trying to steal the oil being stored on the back of our raft.
Scene 4 - A Shawman is seen standing on the edge of the mountain. Waving his arms and raising his staff he says: "Water Spirits, reverse the river!". He continues in another language as the river gains water and begins to flood (from a hidden tank to the side). You can see one of the large oil drills in the distance. Your raft turns to the right as you approach a small drop.
Scene 5 - As you dive down the rapids, you realize that the river is shifting to the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, with a near collision in sight! Luckily, you swerve out of the way in time as you hear the sound of a train whistle to your left.
Scene 6 - As you turn along the river, you heard the sound of Native American war drums in the distance along with gunfire and horses galloping to try and reach your boat.
Scene 7 - After going through another small drop in the rapids, in front of you there is an explosion caused by the bandits use of dynamite! A fire begins, and your future is looking grim. Nevertheless, the Shawman again calls the Water Spirits "Water Spirits, extinguish the flame!". He again changes language as a splash of water puts the fire out.
Scene 8 - As the raft turns again you catch a glimpse at Thunder Mountain in the distance. The rapids begin to slow down as you pass a jailhouse, and you see the bandits being handcuffed by the sheriff.
Scene 9 - The river becomes very calm. As the bandits retreat, the Native Americans can be seen living peacefully, with Shawman watching at the village's end. You see the town slowly approach as the ride comes to an end.
Scene 10 - Unload at a trade raft maintenance area near Rocky Ridge where guests disembark.
Conclusion:
The addition of the Pine Creek River Rafts to Fronteirland will hopefully give the Magic Kingdom its first E-ticket since 1992, and further flesh out the Frontierland backstory. We will end our project with this...the "New Frontierland" mountain range.
Thank you for reading!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
On the surface, it doesn't look too bad right? I mean, there's RCT3, custom art, articles, etc...but when you look more in-depth, you will see that there is little to no substance. It's like Transformers or Pacific Rim
Looks cool! But where is the detail? Where's the elaborate backstory?It's very short, and while that can work for the One Sentence Contest, or maybe even an individual project, typically -- this length will not cut it in a team based project when you're up against stiff competition.
And why is it short? Well...it's because we rushed into the content. (granted that was due to this project only being 4 days) but still...what we could have done, is organize our thoughts more, and challenge each other to elaborate on our thoughts, rather than simply saying "hey that sounds good - do it!" and then don't follow up with each other throughout the week. Furthermore, this is what happens when one person bites off more than they can chew (me), which I will get into down below with some tips to learn from this. Lastly, @MonorailRed was not active for most if not all of the project, as she was away and left me hanging out to dry (kidding) -- so players being inactive is something that you can't prevent, however you can work around, which I will get to.
To learn from this project, let's try and redo the brainstorming process (with Red being absent) - and pretend you are the "Team Leader" for the challenge.
- When you first get the challenge, I have always thought that no idea is a bad idea in the initial brainstorming. Participation, and your teammates willingness to throw out ideas (without potentially getting blasted for them) is what you want. You want your teammates to be comfortable expressing themselves, as that is the only way you will actually get past this stage of the brainstorming. If your teammates simply follow one person's ideas -- then that person better be Tony Baxter or something -- because that's not going to work here.
- Asking your teammates if they have any components of the project that they excel at (if you haven't discovered it already) this will not only help cut down time deciding on who does what for the project, but also you're putting people in a position that they will excel in and enjoy (and that typically how you get the best content) Now...if you get a few wins under your belt, and you're comfortable with your team, then I think that having people try NEW aspects of the project, will help build their resume for the future. However, let's assume that this project is coming after you just lost the last project -- and need to win to stay alive, so -- everyone tries to find what they are interested in.
- Let's say after these two stages, a teammate (or teammates) are still inactive. If a day has gone by, you have brainstormed concepts with your active teammates, and have a rough idea what components of the project everyone is interested in, for the inactives -- it's their job to catch up. However -- as they are inactive, you can throw out possible small roles for them, so that if and when they return, there is something waiting for them.
For the challenge above, we did none of this. We went with one idea (the team leader's I believe) and while everyone was there for the initial brainstorming, we waited around to assign roles to people who weren't there. Pressed for time, that lead me to just do two people's work, and frankly, my mistake was I did my part, and then never checked up on the progress of others.
- A big tip for this - in my view, it is always best to have 1 person do a write-up for a ride-through -- do not have two people working on it. In the case above, I did the RCT3 (rushed because I waited around) and two other people split the ride-through.
That was a terrible decision.
If I was doing the RCT3 -- I should have done the ride-through descriptions, as basically the other two writers were trying to grasp my thoughts from the video, and it ended up with simply 1-2 sentence descriptions of the scenes, when they should have been much more elaborate with dialogue, images, and so on.
Instead of having 3 people work on the ride-through -- another person could have worked on an elaborate queue description, or the extended town of Rocky Ridge, or a giftshop, or maybe a new Frontierland restaurant to go along with the attraction -- anything!
But one vision (not three) is my preference for one ride. Too many cooks in the kitchen not only slows down the process, but it creates a jumbled mess or simply, in this case, no real substance.
This mistake, resulted in nobody being assigned really to the backstory or queue, because I was creating the RCT3 for it -- and it ended up with me simply putting the descriptions I had in the video, above the video, and typing up a letter that had little to no context -- to further describe the queue.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To summarize -- what we can learn from this is:
- Be efficient - if you have teammates... communicate with them consistently, don't all work on the same thing. Split up, but make sure everyone is on the same page with what the goal of the project is.
- Be conscientious - don't delay because someone isn't around, or - if you know something is coming up, then make sure you alert your teammates so they don't wait around for you. Red had done this, but for some reason we still waited for her...
- 50/50 balance between style and substance - art, videos, and more are vital parts of some of the best projects on here. But the best projects still have substance. They have a purpose, not a vague idea. The idea is defined and elaborated on -- and is also something that is worked on and fleshed out before final presentation. If you have a 70/30 style/substance balance -- everyone will initially be like ...woah cool! ...but then will continue to read and realize that more effort could have been put into elaborating on the idea itself.
In the next part -- I'll look at what did go well (it will be a bit shorter - because there is less to say) and then go into some tips for working individually! Thanks you!
Last edited:
"Many times the hardest part of a project is starting it"Got delayed -- over ambitious haha though I will get it up within the next few days
(I know you go on in the later post to actually do it...but, still amusing)
As a general note to people who have contributed here, if you have taken media offline that you included as links, can you upload them to this site, and or edit your posts to have the content visible?
(ahem @spacemt354 )
(ahem @spacemt354 )
I'll title this...
Brainstorming Tips and Tricks
(Guide to working on imagineering concepts in groups and individually)
*And I'll also preface by saying I do not have all the answers, nor is this the sole philosophy for brainstorming, these are just some tips and tricks I have learned over the years, and hopefully it will help everyone around here in their creations.
Let's start with (in my opinion) the most challenging, yet most satisfying and enjoyable form of brainstorming - working in a group
And to give some context - I will go over past projects, a variety where I think group brainstorming could have been better and we can learn from it, and compare it to projects where brainstorming went smoothly - to see the difference in results.
We can begin with an example of: What happens when you rush brainstorming, aren't efficient, and when style trumps substance.
This project was Challenge 4 of the Sorcerer's Apprentice Season 3, and was done in a team of four - Matt7187, DSquared, MonorailRed, and myself. The challenge was to design a new ride for Frontierland (at the time there were rumors of a Frontierland expansion) and you needed to use those rumors as the backbone of the project.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Challenge 4: The Wildest Ride in the Wilderness
For this challenge, we were tasked with designing a new ride for Frontierland, fresh off the rumors of a Frontierland expansion. The prompt requested that the teams "adhere to the notions suggested by insiders about the 'New Frontierland'." Our team researched the "Possible Frontierland expansion" thread on wdwmagic (http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/possible-frontierland-expansion.901759/) in order to facilitate our brainstorming...
Upon investigation, we gravitated towards the notions of two prominent insiders of wdwmagic, whylightbulb and Lee, for our attraction:
whylightbulb: "Looks like the major Frontierland expansion is about to be approved. The plans call for one E Ticket." (page 1)
Lee: "Highly unlikely it would be Geyser. My money is on the raft ride, if we're talking an E in Frontierland." (page 13)
With that information at our disposal, in particular the underlined portions, we present to you our new attraction for Frontierland:
Pine Creek River Rafts
Backstory:
Near the tiny town of Tumbleweed, Rocky Ridge is a successful oil drilling community. The two communities typically trade goods back and forth via rafts along the Pine Creek River, which separates the two towns. Despite the growing trade route with the discovery of oil, Native Americans in the Rocky Ridge Mountains are frustrated at what the oil has done to their water supplies. Nowadays they are typically seen attempting to send the trade rafts back to Rocky Ridge and find another means of transportation. In addition, bandits are also known to prowl the water's edge as the try and steal the oil for personal profit. As you board your trade raft towards Tumbleweed along the Pine Creek River, don't be surprised to run into some harrowing adventures along the way!
Location:
Outlined in red and nestled in-between Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Pine Creek River Rapids will use land beyond the brim of the Walt Disney World Railroad. After you pass under the Fronteirland Station, you will be able to stay right and head towards the new attraction. Backstage cast member break trailers will be moved further out onto Caribbean Way. Any utilidor entrances we have been assured can also be pushed back to make room for the expansion.
Queue:
As you meander through the town of Rocky Ridge, you veer left and approach a large boat house at the edge of town. Inside there will be a FastPass+ Queue and a Stand-By Queue. On the walls there will newspaper articles about the oil discovery and the increase in trade. There will also be hints at the Native Americans who live in the territory, as well as various interactive artifacts from the Rocky Ridge Mountains when prospectors heard of Tumbleweed's ghost stories and tried searching for gold in other towns - which will give guests more depth to the Rocky Ridge story as they wait to board their raft.
- Example of a newspaper article in the queue
Ride Vehicle Concept Art:
The vehicles will have 4 rows of 4, for a 16 person capacity. The vehicles are themed as trade rafts used to transport goods back and forth from neighboring towns. In the back of the raft is the oil that you'll be transporting to Tumbleweed on your journey.
Pine Creek River Rafts Simulation:
Here is a virtual tour of our attraction via Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. Below you can read a detailed scene by scene description of the ride.
Ride-Through (Scene by Scene):
Scene 1 - As guests leave the loading area, they float into a forest setting, with trees and animals on the sides of the river.
Scene 2 - After traveling for a little bit, on the horizon you see some smoke rising from a group of trees near an entrance in the mountain as the river heads in that direction.
Scene 3 - Once you approach the mountain opening and enter, you see a large Indian Reservation. AA Native Americans warn us of the grave danger we are in, and that we must turn back immediately. But before we have the chance, bandits show up on the left, trying to steal the oil being stored on the back of our raft.
Scene 4 - A Shawman is seen standing on the edge of the mountain. Waving his arms and raising his staff he says: "Water Spirits, reverse the river!". He continues in another language as the river gains water and begins to flood (from a hidden tank to the side). You can see one of the large oil drills in the distance. Your raft turns to the right as you approach a small drop.
Scene 5 - As you dive down the rapids, you realize that the river is shifting to the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, with a near collision in sight! Luckily, you swerve out of the way in time as you hear the sound of a train whistle to your left.
Scene 6 - As you turn along the river, you heard the sound of Native American war drums in the distance along with gunfire and horses galloping to try and reach your boat.
Scene 7 - After going through another small drop in the rapids, in front of you there is an explosion caused by the bandits use of dynamite! A fire begins, and your future is looking grim. Nevertheless, the Shawman again calls the Water Spirits "Water Spirits, extinguish the flame!". He again changes language as a splash of water puts the fire out.
Scene 8 - As the raft turns again you catch a glimpse at Thunder Mountain in the distance. The rapids begin to slow down as you pass a jailhouse, and you see the bandits being handcuffed by the sheriff.
Scene 9 - The river becomes very calm. As the bandits retreat, the Native Americans can be seen living peacefully, with Shawman watching at the village's end. You see the town slowly approach as the ride comes to an end.
Scene 10 - Unload at a trade raft maintenance area near Rocky Ridge where guests disembark.
Conclusion:
The addition of the Pine Creek River Rafts to Fronteirland will hopefully give the Magic Kingdom its first E-ticket since 1992, and further flesh out the Frontierland backstory. We will end our project with this...the "New Frontierland" mountain range.
Thank you for reading!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
On the surface, it doesn't look too bad right? I mean, there's RCT3, custom art, articles, etc...but when you look more in-depth, you will see that there is little to no substance. It's like Transformers or Pacific Rim
It's very short, and while that can work for the One Sentence Contest, or maybe even an individual project, typically -- this length will not cut it in a team based project when you're up against stiff competition.
And why is it short? Well...it's because we rushed into the content. (granted that was due to this project only being 4 days) but still...what we could have done, is organize our thoughts more, and challenge each other to elaborate on our thoughts, rather than simply saying "hey that sounds good - do it!" and then don't follow up with each other throughout the week. Furthermore, this is what happens when one person bites off more than they can chew (me), which I will get into down below with some tips to learn from this. Lastly, @MonorailRed was not active for most if not all of the project, as she was away and left me hanging out to dry (kidding) -- so players being inactive is something that you can't prevent, however you can work around, which I will get to.
To learn from this project, let's try and redo the brainstorming process (with Red being absent) - and pretend you are the "Team Leader" for the challenge.
- When you first get the challenge, I have always thought that no idea is a bad idea in the initial brainstorming. Participation, and your teammates willingness to throw out ideas (without potentially getting blasted for them) is what you want. You want your teammates to be comfortable expressing themselves, as that is the only way you will actually get past this stage of the brainstorming. If your teammates simply follow one person's ideas -- then that person better be Tony Baxter or something -- because that's not going to work here.
- Asking your teammates if they have any components of the project that they excel at (if you haven't discovered it already) this will not only help cut down time deciding on who does what for the project, but also you're putting people in a position that they will excel in and enjoy (and that typically how you get the best content) Now...if you get a few wins under your belt, and you're comfortable with your team, then I think that having people try NEW aspects of the project, will help build their resume for the future. However, let's assume that this project is coming after you just lost the last project -- and need to win to stay alive, so -- everyone tries to find what they are interested in.
- Let's say after these two stages, a teammate (or teammates) are still inactive. If a day has gone by, you have brainstormed concepts with your active teammates, and have a rough idea what components of the project everyone is interested in, for the inactives -- it's their job to catch up. However -- as they are inactive, you can throw out possible small roles for them, so that if and when they return, there is something waiting for them.
For the challenge above, we did none of this. We went with one idea (the team leader's I believe) and while everyone was there for the initial brainstorming, we waited around to assign roles to people who weren't there. Pressed for time, that lead me to just do two people's work, and frankly, my mistake was I did my part, and then never checked up on the progress of others.
- A big tip for this - in my view, it is always best to have 1 person do a write-up for a ride-through -- do not have two people working on it. In the case above, I did the RCT3 (rushed because I waited around) and two other people split the ride-through.
That was a terrible decision.
If I was doing the RCT3 -- I should have done the ride-through descriptions, as basically the other two writers were trying to grasp my thoughts from the video, and it ended up with simply 1-2 sentence descriptions of the scenes, when they should have been much more elaborate with dialogue, images, and so on.
Instead of having 3 people work on the ride-through -- another person could have worked on an elaborate queue description, or the extended town of Rocky Ridge, or a giftshop, or maybe a new Frontierland restaurant to go along with the attraction -- anything!
But one vision (not three) is my preference for one ride. Too many cooks in the kitchen not only slows down the process, but it creates a jumbled mess or simply, in this case, no real substance.
This mistake, resulted in nobody being assigned really to the backstory or queue, because I was creating the RCT3 for it -- and it ended up with me simply putting the descriptions I had in the video, above the video, and typing up a letter that had little to no context -- to further describe the queue.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To summarize -- what we can learn from this is:
- Be efficient - if you have teammates... communicate with them consistently, don't all work on the same thing. Split up, but make sure everyone is on the same page with what the goal of the project is.
- Be conscientious - don't delay because someone isn't around, or - if you know something is coming up, then make sure you alert your teammates so they don't wait around for you. Red had done this, but for some reason we still waited for her...
- 50/50 balance between style and substance - art, videos, and more are vital parts of some of the best projects on here. But the best projects still have substance. They have a purpose, not a vague idea. The idea is defined and elaborated on -- and is also something that is worked on and fleshed out before final presentation. If you have a 70/30 style/substance balance -- everyone will initially be like ...woah cool! ...but then will continue to read and realize that more effort could have been put into elaborating on the idea itself.
In the next part -- I'll look at what did go well (it will be a bit shorter - because there is less to say) and then go into some tips for working individually! Thanks you!
A lot of truth here...and, I've encountered all of these things (positive and negative) in challenges in the past.
I'll just toss out, if you are a Team Lead...best to plan that things will fall through, and to clearly assign responsibilities and phases, but also have an eye on the schedule for the final project. I've done some great late night jam work with people, and it has even created what I consider to be some amazing results. But, that doesn't mean it is the best way to approach a project.
For the record, the best team lead I ever worked for was @Zweiland, in this respect.
But, I'll also state that, good ideas sometimes come out during the creation of a project, so whilst initial brainstorming is key to get the tone and direction of the final project, it shouldn't be the end. The balancing act (and it is hard, for everyone) is learning when to cut rope and say "this is good enough". And, if the team can't reach consensus on their own, that is the role of the Team Lead...to keep the project on track.
The best person (we were both "team lead" on that project) that I worked with in this respect was @Voxel on the DLP Marvel challenge. He was very keen on making sure we had well fleshed out content for all of our areas, even though the challenge only called for a single ride.
Also, if you are a Team Player, share updates so your team knows your section of the project is progressing on schedule...and, if you fall behind (real life has a way of doing that), try not to hide it.
Everyone should be accepting of real life taking precedence over a creative game.
Last edited:
spacemt354
Chili's
Odd, the images show up when I went to quote it, but have a red x in the post -- luckily I still had them saved on my media - so uploading them now!
Did you copy/paste it from the original post?
If so, I've seen that happen on the forum before (internal referenced media links not carrying over in a copy paste). Happened a lot during comps when I would take a "final" post and copy paste it from the team PM to the main comp thread...only to find out, I needed to do another hours worth of editing due to lost content and formatting! GRRRRR
That makes sense...I just was poking fun. Though, @RMichael21 has a dead video on an earlier post...
spacemt354
Chili's
Should be fixed now -- lemme know if its back!
Yep, works for me!
spacemt354
Chili's
Awesome! I found the issue -- I had the album on private
spacemt354
Chili's
Great feedback!
Another thing I've learned over the years is detail isn't everything -- sometimes you can overwrite and it can bog down a project...
Especially because a judge is going to get bored reading through tons and tons of content - to the point where while all of it might be great stuff, it blends together and is just overwhelming.
So even if you're a team player who is busy -- but has an idea for a backstory or some sort of shop for a land challenge -- a 5-10 sentence blurb with an image might be one of the better parts of the project! You don't need to write on and on to be a great asset to a team.
Especially because a judge is going to get bored reading through tons and tons of content - to the point where while all of it might be great stuff, it blends together and is just overwhelming.
This is an issue many have (including myself).
I mentioned @Zweiland 's management earlier, and I want to give you an example.
http://63.135.165.8/dcl/
For this project we had a LOT of writing to do.
But, we also had a lot of audio mixing, video work and art to create.
He was very good at breaking down what needed to be done, which content needed to be written out first, and basically taking the project into smaller bite sized parts, with us focusing on the main framework first (graphics and site), and then taking turns writing and editing our internal posts.
So, basically, it went something like this...
"I'm going to take Deck 10, you take Deck 9"
(we go off for a while)
"Ok, now I'm going to read what you did, and you read what I did"
And, changes made (for the better of the project, imho).
Next decks.
spacemt354
Chili's
I can't get enough of that project you guys did -- easily still one of if not the best project in competition history.
What I think helps is -- while there's a lot of content -- there's plenty of gadgets and gizmos to keep the reader immersed and entertained.
For instance when I get to Deck 6, I've read a lot of content...but, when keeps me going on towards Deck 7 and beyond is...well, first I want to hear what the next Disney Cruise Line radio song will be
But also -- it feels...real...like I'm exploring an actual cruise ship. Graphics, custom videos, custom fonts, and 'life' that many text based projects don't have.
Now it's also on the host of a competition to not have every single project have to be this detailed -- that'll burn the contestants out...but if the contestants want to really wow a reader and keep them interesting -- unique features to the project helps out a lot
For instance @kmbmw777 just did a Dr. Strange attraction with a Google docs presentation
Different presentation styles also makes your projects stand out among the pack too, which as a reader would catch my eye at least!