Post what you think should change next year for animations.

[Tyler Olds]

I have started this thread because I have seen a lot of good ideas thrown out about how next years animation competition can be improved.

My first (no pun intended) sugestion is scholarships for animators. I talked to Ted Boardman (of you don't know who he is, he is an animations god) about it and he said that he did not know of any. I feel that this is wrong and I am going to see if Mr. Boardman would be interested in helping out getting scholarships for animators.

[Koko Ed]

I still like the Multimedia tent idea for showing not just the animation, but team websites and the Chairman's award submissions (for it supposedly being FIRSTs most important award it's an afterthought at the competitions) so people can really see that FIRST is more than just a high school Battlebots competition!

[CAD-Demigod45]

I dont know if it would be reasonable to have scholarships for animators. Do they offer scholarships for any other specific team roles?

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally posted by CAD-Demigod45
I dont know if it would be reasonable to have scholarships for animators. Do they offer scholarships for any other specific team roles?

Not exactly, but sometimes. A scholarship geared towards mechanical engineering would probably go to a person more interested in mechincal engineering, which would show through their application. It'd be the same for people who work w/ graphic arts.
Anyways, scholarships could be made for the "graphics arts" field, not necessarily just animation.. because I know people on our team that don't do animation but do stuff w/ just Inventor and other programs.

[Dj Danni Boy]

There should be scholarships for animators! I am a senior, and next year i will be attending the art institute in San Francisco. the 3 year tuition in media arts and animation is $66,000. I do think that its a bit extreme. It shows that animators do need scholarships. The other scholarships are generally based on engineering.

What I would change in next years competition, no live video. it cheats out other teams who work really hard for the animation, whereas other teams put few pieces of animation and use the video as filler. there should be more emphasis on creativity, and story. i also saw that many teams were confused about the conference thing. i myself am confused. Make the animation longer so that teams can develop a more exiting story. I'M SO SORRY FOR THE RANT, but holding emotions inside of yourself is not a good thing.

Dj Danni Boy

[Tyler Olds]

Originally posted by AnimeRaul234
Not exactly, but sometimes. A scholarship geared towards mechanical engineering would probably go to a person more interested in mechincal engineering, which would show through their application. It'd be the same for people who work w/ graphic arts.
Anyways, scholarships could be made for the "graphics arts" field, not necessarily just animation.. because I know people on our team that don't do animation but do stuff w/ just Inventor and other programs.

This is what i was more or less shooting for, thank you Raul for clarifying this for me.

Also thank you Koko Ed, I should have also put on here what you did like, that is just as much important as what you feel should be changed is.

[Soukup]

If you guys looked closely there was a scholarship for animators, I got lucky because it is probably the college I'm going to. It is called the College for Creative Studies, and it's a $@#$@#$@#$@# good animation school, as well as an art school. But I agree, if FIRST wants to convince me that FIRST is more then just robots, they need to work a little bit harder to give recognition to animations and websites.

With that, Ideas for next year.

Hopefully Autodesk reads this, it would make a huge difference.

It's obvious that many of us are upset over the winning animation, there were several that believed that wasn't the best one. And we need more student input on the judging. SO here's what could work.

1st, recalculate the scoring. I think more emphasis needs to be put on technical execution. If I could do the scoring it would be 30 for techincal, 30 for content, and 30 for creativity. The remaining 10 would be from the highest finish in you conference. If you won a regional animation you got 10. Second, you got 6. Third you got 3. That actually puts some emphasis on the regional animation, and really takes into account student point of views on animation. For example, 967 would have been 10 points down in that category, because I believe that they never got 1st, 2nd, or 3rd. But My team would have had 10 points, because we did win a few regioanl animation awards.

I believe that this way would be able to be the only way to actually get animators input on the winner. Technical execution definantly needs to come up because it's worth nothing right now. Teams that display awesome skill need to be rewarded, because the winning teams all have good content and good creativity, So it should come down to how seemless it is.

I'm graduating, so this really doesn't apply to me anymore, but I still believe that I want to help you guys out as best I can.
Let me know what you guys think on this process.

[Koko Ed]

One thing FIRST should do is the Autodesk award and the "People's chioce award" because it's obvious Autodesk has a different idea of what make a great animation than the animators. If they didn't trust our choices then why did they even bother to ask?

[Tyler Olds]

Originally posted by TEAM_74


I believe that this way would be able to be the only way to actually get animators input on the winner. Technical execution definantly needs to come up because it's worth nothing right now. Teams that display awesome skill need to be rewarded, because the winning teams all have good content and good creativity, So it should come down to how seemless it is.



Here is my only beef with this..........

A lot of team have professionals or mentors that know what they are doing on their team to help them with animations. Though I have seen some fantastic animations that are entirely done by students, I do not believe this is fair to teams like mine who have a student lead and thats it.

I believe that that is why FIRST has kept that scoring the way that it is.

[Tyler Olds]

Originally posted by Koko Ed
One thing FIRST should do is the Autodesk award and the "People's chioce award" because it's obvious Autodesk has a different idea of what make a great animation than the animators. If they didn't trust our choices then why did they even bother to ask?

I think that is why they had the students choose the regional awards. However do agree with you that there should be an acknowledgment for what people in FIRST think of the final animations.

[Chris Nowak]

I dont think students should be allowed to judge the national awards. However, I think that Autodesk should MUCH more clearly commmunicate our objectives.

[Ryan Dognaux]

I really don't like the idea of students even judging at Regionals either. Here's why - 1) many people get confused and don't know when to go vote, then they miss the whole voting process altogheter 2) many times, people will give the highest scores to the best looking/flashiest animation. This may be okay given that the animation has something to do with FIRST. I like the idea of autodesk people judging the animations... that's just my personal preference.

I do like the idea of a people's choice award though. If it sounded like I want the people's opinion to be completely ruled out, I didn't meant to, but I just don't think they should be officially judging the winners of the regionals.

[cyberbro85]

I was very unhappy with the winner for Nationals...

It wasn't an Animation, it was a video with only a few seconds of actual animation in there. And that could all be done in Inventor.

The whole Animation competition this year seemed to be thrown to the side, as if it wasn't important. The regional judging seemed like it was tacked on at the last second.

It was in the pits, for pete's sake! The pits are the WORST place to judge animations! The winners at the two regionals I saw was the flashiest animation there. Because no one could hear a thing the others were saying.

(Btw, 103 won at both I went to... There's was very flash, with little dialogue). Dialogue-intensive animations were screwed.

I know that the Granite State Animation judging for next year will be in its own room somewhere away from the noise. My sponsor is BAE, they told me this. I hope it's the same way every year.

btw... i have no objection to students judging it. Animators should know what to look for in an animation. They just need to be able to hear it as well as look at it... Or maybe we should just use subtitles...

[Ryan Dognaux]

I don't have a problem w/ some people judging animation... I just get paranoid that people just will judge so much on looks and not enough on context, however now that I rethink things, if most of the animators are like you people on these forums, then I shouldn't have to worry. :) But somewhere along the line.. I think there needs to be some adult-judge doing something.. I dunno what though. Maybe the students would have some influence and the adults have some influence...

[Ryan Albright]

well, Since we have conquered the carpet i would like them to try a whole new surface. Maybe like a sand pit or something. that would be fun. Hmm or ice(i know not possible but wishful thinking). Or even changing the thickness of the carpet like making more thick.

[Chris Nowak]

Originally posted by Ryan_team710
well, Since we have conquered the carpet i would like them to try a whole new surface. Maybe like a sand pit or something. that would be fun. Hmm or ice(i know not possible but wishful thinking). Or even changing the thickness of the carpet like making more thick.

I think this has happened about 3 times now in the animation forum. Please read the whole title of the thread b4 posting. This is about animation

You might also try reading the posts before yours, just to hear others opinions and to prevent this sort of thing from happening

[Koko Ed]

See! This is how little respect animation gets!:rolleyes:

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally posted by Koko Ed
See! This is how little respect animation gets!:rolleyes:

Heh everyone makes mistakes... I know I misread things when I'm in a hurry; he prolly just didn't see that key word... animation. lol :yikes:

[Tyler Olds]

Originally posted by cyberbro85
I was very unhappy with the winner for Nationals...

It wasn't an Animation, it was a video with only a few seconds of actual animation in there. And that could all be done in Inventor.



Do not post your opinions on the winning animations on here, no offense but how do you think the people who won feel about all of you bashing their animation. I am sure they tried equally as hard as the rest of us. You people should know that live footage gets a better rating when it comes to the nationals judging. SO back off!!

Do it your self that way if you really want to, I am not in animations to win the prize, but to teach myself and my fellow peers on my sub-team about animation.

[MBiddy]

I think the animation shouldn't have to be about FIRST. They could have an element that evey entry must incorporate, like an armadillo. You'd probably see armadillos doing things you never thought an armadillo could do.

[Ryan Albright]

hey sorry guys the last word on my computer so i automatically thought it was open sorry about hat. I did read the other post i just thought the animators where feeling sorry for themselves :p j/k

[Brian Yip]

I true think that Autodesk and FIRST should work together to encourage more students on animation.
I think animation is extremely important in engineering field. Just pick NASA as an example, I do not believe that Congress will give money to NASA without knowing what those engineers are trying to do. Animation will serve that purpose. It will present the project to people. It also gives people an elementary idea of how the finish product looks like.

Sponsorship is one kind of encouragement. Adding more awards will also encourage people working on animation. I believe that this year has a lot more great animations than last year. It's more and more competitive. If Autodesk removed the awards, it will discourage students that had spent a long time working on their animation.

animators are awesome, that includes me of course :D . most of us spent great deal of time on the animation. That's a great leap in our lifetime.