
Welcome to the Screenshot Of The Month contests for 2016. Temporary me and BIGzee will be hosting the first two months until Silent1Unknown be able to continue hosting this contest. Hopefully many people can participate. With new Features attributing to everyone's want for something new, we bring you the Tags Feature under the Free Theme which doesn't enforce anyone to submit only what they're subjected to, like in a Fixed Theme. The Tags / tag words mentioned are only suggestions and are to be taken optional as per the contestants' free choice. Hence, Fixed Themes are now rare. And Prizes are back ! They could be Pre-Release betas, Previews or possibly SOTM dedicated Final versions. Anyway you're in for surprises along the way.
A lot of the rules are the same as before, and if you are already familiar with them, just read the new ones that are highlighted below:
THE RULES:
**These rules are subject to change at any time with prior notification.
- The screenshot may include only publicly released addons (cars, cities etc.). No private addons, Work in Progress or Cancelled mods / Alphas / Betas which aren't publicly released, UNLESS the Free theme Tags mention that these can be used. HOWEVER, you can use your own basic mods that edit the public addons (such as tuning mods, texture mods, camera angle mods...etc.). No 3D model or .pkg file edits of any kind are allowed and will not be tolerated.
- Prize Winners must not use their Prizes at later SOTM Monthlies, UNLESS the Free theme Tags mention that these can be used.
- In the case of Free Theme, it is suggested that you mention when submitting, which Tags you have based your entry on. This causes less confusion and voters will be more likely to understand the theme your entry is based on.
- You must be a member of these forums. No bots allowed.
- You must submit your own work.
- You can only submit 1 final screenshot per month.
- The screenshot must be a still picture taken from MM2. No videos or animations allowed!
- If there is a theme, your screenshot submission should follow it. Otherwise, it may be excluded from voting.
- The screenshot can be edited or unedited. No software limits.
- The screenshot editions may include cut&pasted editions from photos not related to the game (i.e. new sky picture collected from Google Images...etc). However, majority of the final picture should be from the game.
- The screenshot must be appropriate for the general community. No porn, no blood, no freaky, creepy or illegal stuff. Violation of this rule may lead to banishment from these forums...or worse.
- The screenshot dimensions should not exceed 1600x1200 pixels.
- The screenshot file size should not exceed 1MB.
- The screenshot file type (format) must be either BMP, JPEG or PNG.
- When you decide to enter your screenshot, post it here in this topic after the "Stage 1: Enter Your Screenshots!" announcement has been made for that month.
- Use common image-hosting sites such as ImageShack, MediaFire or PhotoBucket.
- You are allowed to change your screenshot submission only once and within three days of your original submission date.
- No submissions allowed after the last day of the month the contest is designated for.
- Voting will start on the 1st day of a new month and end on the 3rd day of the month.
- Vote after "Stage 2: Vote Now!" announcement has been made.
- To vote, just post using a sentence like " I vote for <name>". PLEASE DO NOT make ambiguous votes such as "kunal's SS is nice" or "+1 to Silent". These will not be counted as votes.
- You cannot vote for yourself.
- You can change your vote only once and only on the first day of voting. You cannot change your vote 24 hours after the Voting announcement has been made.
- The winner will be announced shortly after the voting period ends with the "Stage 3: Winner announcement".
- Winning screenshots will be entered into the SOTY contest at the end of the year.
- A few other top screenshots that didn't win may also be entered into the SOTY contest.
- New contests should start on the 4th day of a new month or when the new "Stage 1" announcement is made. Remember its taking place in the same topic (topic title will be changed).
- You cannot re-submit an old screenshot or modified form of it.
- Please keep spamming to a minimum. Commenting on other's screenshots once in a while is ok, but making one-word posts every time some submits a screenshot is unnecessary and annoying as hell.
***Any participant may be disqualified with / without notification if in violation of above-mentioned rules or for reasons not said above.
PRIZES:
**The following rules can be edited later. Rules last edited on March 8th.
- The winner(s) of each monthly contest might receive a prize, being a MM2 mod created specifically for such purpose.
- The prizes might be only announced on the winner's announcement post, before or during each monthly contest.
- It's possible no prizes are given to the winner(s) on a monthly contest.
- Prizes are sent to the winner(s) through personal message, linking to a cloud hosting website, after the winner's announcement.
- Once delivered, the prizes are property of the winner(s). It's asked if he/they allow it to be released on mm2x.com locked or unlocked, but he/they can freely refuse and keep it to themselves and either give it to whatever they want or edit it and release on the Internet (always crediting the original developers, listed on a file coming with the prize).
THE RESOURCES:
If you are in need of image-editing software, try:
- Paint.NET
- The Gimp
- Photoshop Express
- Photofiltre
- Pixlr Editor, Pixlr Express, Pixlr O-matic
Or you can search google for other free programs.
If you want to learn how to make edits to your MM2 screenshots, there are some tutorials available:
- How to Add Cars to a Screenshot
- Making Dynamic MM2 Screenshots V2
- How to Add Custom Light Effects
- How to Make a Stationary-Camera Mod
- How to Add Reflections to MM2 Screenshots
You can also search Google for other tutorials and apply them to MM2 screenshots.