Foundry Authors Academy

cerberusfilms

Hi there,

I'm Cerberusfilms and this thread is for Information and Discussion of the Foundry Author Academy "Courses". If you haven't read the Article, please click here.

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Click HERE to go to the Stream Page!

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Click here to rewatch the First Weeks Livestream on YouTube
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-Week 1 (Saturday 23rd of March 1PM PDT/ 8PM GMT)-

Join experienced Foundry authors in a live streamed Q&A session as they guide you through how to create a Foundry mission and listen to as well as see the various design methodologies used. No question is a stupid question, not even "Where's Sulu?"! (well.. maybe that one)


-Week 2 (Saturday 6th of April 1:30PM PDT/ 9:30PM GMT GMT)-

Building on the previous weeks experience, attendees for this 'lecture' will have the opportunity to speak directly to experienced Foundry authors in a smaller group setting; allowing them to follow along with individual authors and ask questions.


-Week 3 (Saturday 20th of April 1PM PDT/ 9PM GMT)-

It's Competition Time! You've seen how it's done, you've asked your questions, now it is ?Kobayashi Maru? time.
On the Friday before, April 19th, participating authors will be provided a brief from which to create your missions. Participants will then have twenty-four hours to build a mission from scratch. In the final hours of the competition PrimetimeUGC will be livestreaming the event, featuring special guests, including authors from the community, podcasters and maybe even a Developer or two.

Once time has elapsed, PrimetimeUGC's guests will go forth and play the published missions in small groups. You'll be able to watch each of the groups and listen to their feedback as they play on individual livestreams. They'll rate the mission based on various criteria, and after they have all been played the scores will be tallied and awards given for different categories. The winners will receive prizes provided by Cryptic and generous community members. The winning missions will also be honoured by the Foundry Spotlight*.

(*Must meet certain criteria.)

Click here to register your interest for the events (This is completely OPTIONAL and purely so we can gauge how many people to expect)

FAQ

Q. What topics will be covered during the 'Lectures'?
A. Anything and EVERYTHING! These Tutorials are for you, so if there's something you'd like for us to add to the 'Curiculum', let us know! A lit of Topics can be Found below.

Q. When will the Brief be given for the Competition?
A. The Brief for Week 3's competition will be made public at 10am PST/5pm GMT.

Q. How can I sign up to the events?
A. Signups are entirely optional, feel free to just turn up on the day. However we do have a signup survey to help us gauge what you want to learn, and how many people to expect. You can access that here

Q. Where will the Streaming take place?
A. You can watch the main stream and participate in the chat at this address http://cerberusfilms.net/Live

Q. How can I be a Foundry "Tutor/Teacher" for Week 2?
A. You can visit this link on StarbaseUGC for instructions, or this link to go directly to the Signup Survey.

Q. What sort of prizes are there for the winning missions?
A. In addition to having your mission be Spotlit, we have prizes ranging from Costumes to Ships and even Zen Promo Points.

Q. You mentioned that we would be able to speak to the Foundry Authors, how can we do that?
A. During Week 2, you'll be able to speak directly to the Foundry Authors via a free Skype Group Call, whilst watching your authors video stream.

Q. What if I don't have a microphone?
A. You'll still be able to join in the group Q&A via text form using Skype.

Q. Who will be giving the Tutorials and be attending the Final weeks 'Entertainment Broadcast"?
A. The full lists of both those who will be conducting the 'Lectures' as well as the Guests who will be attending Week 3's Broadcast, can be found listed at the bottom of this Post

Q. Will we be able to watch the Livestream again as a podcast?
A. Yes you will be able to watch the Main Livestream again on YouTube almost instantly after the stream ends (all being well). Individual streams being available will depend a little more on the streamer (if they want it to be in High Definition).


If You have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them in this thread.
Or you can tweet us @Cerberusfilms @StarbaseUGC @PrimetimeUGC .
Or if you do not have a twitter account, feel free to send me a PM here on the forums.

Or finally, you can check out www.starbaseugc.com for more details and additional information on the foundry. (Please join the foundry community in SBUGC's IRC Chatroom linked through the site, introduce yourself, we don't bite, usually)
Don't forget, if you're tweeting about the FAA, please use the #FoundryAuthorsAcademy

-Curriculum-
(If you would like any topics added, please let us know)

How to Access the Foundry Toolset.
How to Create a Map and what the different types mean (Space, Ground, Interior).
How to place Objects and NPC's on the maps.
How to place Objectives/
What's the difference between NPC Groups and Contacts?
Selecting the Right Background!

And many more





-List of Authors who have confirmed their attendance to Week 1/2 Tutorials-

CaptPFDennis
Skydawn
Bazag
CommodoreBob
Cerberusfilms
Slickrick1701e
Castmodean
Kirkfat
Greendragoon

Check back regularly for Updates.


-List of Guests who have confirmed their attendance-

List TBA
Check back regularly for Updates.

pwebranflakes

Thread stickied

Cheers,

Brandon =/\=

gavinruneblade

cerberusfilms wrote: »

-Week 1 (Saturday 23rd of March 12 Noon PST/ 7PM GMT)-

Join experienced Foundry authors in a live streamed Q&A session as they guide you through how to create a Foundry mission and listen to as well as see the various design methodologies used. No question is a stupid question, not even "Where's Sulu?"! (well.. maybe that one)

Can someone do a transcript and put it online afterwards? Live events are great for some people, but I've never been able to make one fit my schedule, and it is just vastly easier for me to read a document. Also, once attendance gets up over 20 people I kinda lose all interest in participating.

But I love the foundry and would like to figure it out. So I'm sure the content of the event would be extremely beneficial to me.

bluegeek

Not sure about my availability to participate, but I sure hope I can at least catch some of the sessions.

Any possibility the sessions will be 'podcasted' for later viewing/listening?

ashtaku

Cerberus:

Please sign me up... this sounds like exactly the kind of 'career development' I need as a new Foundry author

skydawnknight

I'd love to see these sessions firsthand. Here's hoping that my schedule works in my favor. The competition sounds like fun!

cormactheblue

I have made a few foundry missions with some success. Most of my learning has been from videos and such from Star base UGC. I for one can't wait for this and look forward to attending. Working on clearing my schedule now..:D

celantra

Very interested in this unfortunately having the first installment during the final beta for Neverwinter weekend might make it difficult to attend. That said, I am following and hopefully will be able to participate.

commadorebob

Go ahead and sign me up as an "expert". I'll give my two slips concerning design efficiency as well as answer any questions related to what Cryptic told me they are looking for in terms of design experience (yes, the foundry does count).

aten66

So what are the criteria to join? And how do you join this competition?

malkarris

Sign me up as a guest please, hopefully I can make it to these or find the time to watch them later.

aten66

So how do we join the list for Author's who want to join? I want to do this, but do we have to sign up somewhere?

stardestroyer001

Although I have only published one official mission, I have tinkered around with several (without releasing). I can offer some insight into triggers/mapmaking, if you need more coaches.

thay8472

i'll pop along and learn what is learn able.. and share my foundry secrets with you.. (for the right price :P)

cerberusfilms

Hey Everyone,

We're now opening the Signups for the foundry "Tutors/Teachers" as well as General Author Attendance (The latter is purely optional)

I just updated the OP with the following information -

Q. How can I sign up to the events?
A. Signups are entirely optional, feel free to just turn up on the day. However we do have a signup survey to help us gauge what you want to learn, and how many people to expect. You can access that here

Q. How can I be a Foundry "Tutor/Teacher" for Week 2?
A. You can visit this link on StarbaseUGC for instructions, or this link to go directly to the Signup Survey.

kintisho

alas working for all of them.. I only need to know more about the foundry structure, tried to make missions.. failed miserably...

stardestroyer001

So when will we receive confirmation upon coach registrations?

ajstoner

I would be interested in helping out, drop me a PM if you guys still need people.

gwilson3

Sounds very interesting. I've been wanting to create some missions.

cormactheblue

cerberusfilms wrote: »

Hey Everyone,

We're now opening the Signups for the foundry "Tutors/Teachers" as well as General Author Attendance (The latter is purely optional)

I just updated the OP with the following information -

So when will we have the information on where and how to attend the event. I have a skype account and have signed up for the event and keep checking this post, but I see nothing about the where and how yet. Since it is tomorrow someone might want to post that info.

cerberusfilms

cormactheblue wrote: »

So when will we have the information on where and how to attend the event. I have a skype account and have signed up for the event and keep checking this post, but I see nothing about the where and how yet. Since it is tomorrow someone might want to post that info.

Hey there, sorry you would have just missed it this morning.

We finall got the streaming kinks out and site sorted.

You'll be able to tune in live tomorrow at 1pm Pacific/8pm GMT at www.cerberusfilms.co.uk/Live.

The playback will be available within a few hours at YouTube.com/Cerberusfilms

cormactheblue

cerberusfilms wrote: »

Hey there, sorry you would have just missed it this morning.

We finall got the streaming kinks out and site sorted.

You'll be able to tune in live tomorrow at 1pm Pacific/8pm GMT at www.cerberusfilms.co.uk/Live.

The playback will be available within a few hours at YouTube.com/Cerberusfilms

I managed to find the link and attend. I had to take a break (wife said so..lol) during costumes. I have not found the playback file on your youtube channel yet, I may be looking a bit early and will continue to check for it.

Thank you and the group very much for the information, I learned a bit and am looking forward to the next session.

p.s. one thing you might add to the next session: Write out your story line in a word processor or something. By doing so you get a general layout of your story and can catch many spelling errors. This also helps with the flow of the story. Just a suggestion, I know you all are the experts and I respect the work you have done.

stardestroyer001

I must say, this is poorly planned.

Players shouldn't be confused on when the event starts. Announcements should be made on every thread that is dedicated to Host-Participant communications.

Additionally, for those of us who volunteered to help, it would be courteous to at least respond to their application with confirmation that their help is requested, or not needed. There was a spot with an email address on that form, at least use it if you require it on the application form. This would have saved a lot of time checking and waiting for a response. A lot of us have other priorities other than this game, and it would be nice to be able to coordinate with workplaces on what times need to be booked off so I can assist here.

Finally, there seems to be no specific curriculum planned for this academy. Every educational institution has a curriculum planned, and in some cases is made available to students upon request, if it is not provided already. Unlike PVP Boot Camp, this Academy seems to have no page-by-page curriculum posted, nor were there options to contact the event hosters for such information.

Seeing what happened here, I will be staying away from this project, unless it is improved to address these significant gaps in planning and execution.

ashtaku

For future events, an itemized agenda (including estimated timeframes for each topic) might be a good idea. I significantly underestimated the length of the livestream and had to bail out part way through because of other commitments

pendra3780

stardestroyer001 wrote: »

I must say, this is poorly planned.

I partly agree.

stardestroyer001 wrote: »

Players shouldn't be confused on when the event starts. Announcements should be made on every thread that is dedicated to Host-Participant communications.

It started a little later, but that is acceptable when you organize lots of people.

stardestroyer001 wrote: »

Finally, there seems to be no specific curriculum planned for this academy.

What? Not that anyone will receive a Foundry diploma or something. This is about getting to know the foundry better in general.

I have to agree that it was way too long without breaks. The pace was hectic. Sometimes too detailed and sometimes basic points were left out. Like the snap to grid and its shortfalls, which comes up pretty often. Another important but missing aspect was the naming of object. Basic error was commited when building internal: Leaving the ceiling as the last object. Never do that, unless you want to TRIBBLE yourself.

The warp-space transition with triggers was a real waste of time at that point. It would have worked much better as a teaser for the next episode. Like, tune in next time an see how to create this effect in 2 minutes. Also, while the flying around was impressive, that, too wasted plenty of time.

It may be just my point, but the Video - Chatbox layout was not too good. Either the video was too small to see or I could not see the chat. It would have been much better to have the video up and the chatbox below.

In general, I think it was useful for newcomers. I don't think it lived up to the expectations as a self contained video guide. But hey, you can't expect to get it perfect on the first try .

cerberusfilms

Hi there Everyone,

Sorry for the delay but YouTube literally took days to process the 3 Hour Video into 1080p resolution.

You can watch the stream here.

I have to say we certainly learn't a lot from the weekend, and we've taken on board both positive and negative feedback. Seeing as it was the first time something like this has been attempted in the Foundry, we're quite pleased with how it all went.

I thought I should address some of the comments and questions that have been posted here.


We almost were not able to stream at all, about an hour before the stream was due to go live, one of our main hosts suffered a tragic loss, it was a small miracle and a testament to their professionalism that we were able to stream.


The event times had been posted for at least 2 weeks (provisional times had been there since the thread was made). The stream page had not been finalized until then due to the time constraints on some of our hosts and our Technical Testing.


We never intended to have a Page-by-page curriculum posted, it was decided that that wasn't conducive to the events.
On every thread (and the original article), contact information has been posted.

If You have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them in this thread.
Or you can tweet us @Cerberusfilms @StarbaseUGC @PrimetimeUGC .
Or if you do not have a twitter account, feel free to send me a PM here on the forums.

Efforts have been made to contact those who have applied to help out. If you have not received an email from us, please check your spam filters. If that also fails, and you are still interested in taking part, please either send me a Private Message here, or email oliver@cerberusfilms.co.uk with the heading "Foundry Authors Academy". I apologize for the inconvenience, and hope you're all still interested.


A massive thank you to all who turned up, we look forward to the next saturday.

Like I said, we've learn't a lot from last weekend, and we're using it to make the future events better.

Finally, the details for the next weekend will be posted tomorrow.

cerberusfilms

The Competition Brief for the Third Event has just been released, check it out here http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=9314631

The spirit of Trek has always been one of harmony and co-operation, peaceful exploration, however we all know that unfortunately, it isn't always the case when dealing with political espionage or an unknown threat from deep space.

As such, your task is to create a mission that deals with a conflict involving the Federation, and/or the Klingon Empire.
Your mission could deal with the lead up to the conflict, be a war story during, or deal with the aftermath. This conflict could last 10 years, or simply be a few hours long, that's entirely up to you.

cormactheblue

Mission Name: Distress signal
ID: ST-HRZY8PA45
By: cormactheblue
Faction: Fed
Level requirements: 31+

Mission Brief: Sometimes things are not what they appear, nor go as planned. Sometimes the simplest task can cause the greatest of catastrophes. You are tasked to investigate a possible distress signal in the Alpha Centauri Sector Block, in the Sienae System.

I hope you all enjoy the mission. Unfortunately, I will have to miss the discussion. My sister-in-law had a baby this week and I really need to get out and visit with her.

I wish I had more time for some fine tuning, but we do what we can.

gwilson3

Mission Name: Bleeding Heart
ID: ST-HMHKMPQEM
By: gwilson3
Faction: Fed
Level requirements: Any Level


Mission Brief:
Starfleet Intelligence has found a very rare and valuable resource in the Klingon neutral zone. The only problem is that there is already a small Klingon settlement there. If Starfleet goes in guns a blazing it could spark a war.

This module is a mix of story, planetary exploration and some combat.


Extra:
This is my first Foundry mission. I had a lot of fun doing it and learned so much about how missions work. I really enjoyed watching the first class. Glad it was available to rewatch since it has been a while. Hope to make more, and better missions in the future.