You animation will NOT be judged...

[dlavery]

Your animation will NOT be judged if you didn't read the rules and submit it in an acceptable format.

I have been perusing several of the animations that have already been sent to Streamline. Of the 51 animations I looked through, 24 of them - practically half of the entries - use illegal codecs, have improper image size, exceed the file size, or exceed the time limitations. Half of the entries are not in compliance with the submission requirements and are probably going to be disqualified by Autodesk. Based on past practice and what we have heard from Autodesk, they will be absolutely ruthless this year in ensuring compliance with the submission rules.

To have half of the entries submitted not even make it into the judged portion of the competition, just because the animation teams didn't bother to take the simple steps involved with reading the rules (http://www2.usfirst.org/2006comp/Manual/9-Awards_RevD.pdf) and submitting in a proper format, is tragic. Some otherwise fine animations are going to be completely ignored because someone on the team made a stupid little mistake like using a MPEG-4, animation, Sorensen 3, or H.264 codec instead of the required DV-NTSC codec. Or they sent in an animation with a 640x480 frame size, which is explicitly prohibited. Or they submitted an animation with a file size of 700+MB, when rules limit file size to 250MB.

If you don't want your five weeks of very hard work to be completely wasted, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make sure that you understand the submission requirements and send in a legal animation! There is still time to re-encode your animations and re-submit them to Streamline before the deadline.

-dave

[animator1]

i'm not sure which ones you looked at, but is it possible, that team 1312's is not good?

[dlavery]

I don't have the full list in front of me right now. But you should be able to check your animation file directly to ensure compliance. Since all submissions have to be Quicktime moves (NOT .avi files!!!), use the Quicktime Player (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/mac.html) to display the movie. Do a "get info" on the movie, and see what codec, image size, and frame rate show up in the info window.

The best advice that I can give to every team is, once you have uploaded your animation, immediately download it again from Streamline and make sure that the version stored there is complete and readable. There are a number of uploads that have a file size of "0" indicating that the upload did not complete, but the teams never bothered to check their submissions and correct the problem.

-dave

[animator1]

ok, thanks for this reminder and help tip. I rechecked and everything is ok. Can't wait to see everyone else's animations. :D

[Tyr]

Can you have a still image on the 5-second slate?

[animator1]

yes, i know i do, and i have seen many teams have it. especially in past years too.

[Tyr]

thanx

[LBK Rules]

How can I check the dB of the audio? I have no idea how.

[animator1]

it depends on what program you are using. it should say with the audio settings in the editing program you are using.

[DinkyDogg]

I just realized that our animation is 30 fps, rather than 29.97. It's DV-NTSC, and seems to fit all the other requirements. Is this liable to be a big deal, and is it too late to fix it?

I'm a bit worried.

[Morgan Gillespie]

Honestly I don't really know why they use such an odd req framerate, I like 25, because it leaves it very easy to calc time with frames but with 30 and 29.97 it is a pain in the... er rump. Anyone know why 29.97?

[steven114]

29.97 is NTSC standard. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC

[Nuttyman54]

Anyone know why 29.97?
in short, it has to do with the fact that our wall outlets (AC power) operate at 60hz, or 60 cycles per second. That means all lights using an AC power source are flickering at that rate, which is too fast and too subtle to be seen. if the framerate (and thus the screen refresh rate) is exactly 30, it essentially produces a visible harmonic flickering, which is often disturbing and uncomfortable to watch. In Europe, AC power is on a 50 hz cycle, but I don't know if they use the standard 29.97 framerate or if that's what DV-PAL is for.

[steven114]

PAL runs at 25fps (50 half-frames/second)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL ;)

[stevek]

This is off subject for the Thread, but to keep in the tradition of most other threads, I will post any way.

RE: 29.97 Framerate.
Not sure about that whole light flicker think, which was very creative at worst (maybe technically accurate- somewhere) but my understanding of the Framerate is this: 29.97 framerate is called drop-frame. 30 FPS is call Non-Drop. What this means in 29.97 framerate- you lose .03 of a frame everysecond. This allows the frame rate timing to keep up with "Real time" or clock cycles. (That's Clock as in tell time with a... not CPU Clock Cycles). So for non-broadcast video it doesn't really matter, but when things need to play on TV at a specific time and the time needs to fit into the Show format and not go over time for fear of a portion of the show cutting out mid sentence while the station goes to commercials and such, you need to compensate for true time. I'm not sure why true time cant be achieved with modern technology- perhaps there is a dark hidden closely garded secret in relation to the light flicker :). However, it is very similar to leap year as a method to adjust our clocks and calendar to the imperfections in measuring the length of the day.

[Nuttyman54]

Both may be true, and I found a third explaination here:

http://www.superdailies.com/html/ArriPulldown.pdf

[stevek]

Both may be true, and I found a third explaination here:

http://www.superdailies.com/html/ArriPulldown.pdf

The sync issues makes some sence. Not exectly related to the Pulldown. But that is explained at the site. I was always told that it was due to "real time" I'll have to converse with my Video Engineer Friends and see if they have a full explanation.

[stevek]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC
http://www.channel101.com/articles/article.php?article_id=22

Here are other links that explains some things. Seems I had it backwards- They use the dropframe standard to compensate for the Framerate v.s Realtime. Not the opposite.

However- It appears the additional bandwidth in Color images was the main culpret to the whole frame rate issues. The links above provide a few explanations and history of... sort of stuff. Hope this helps.

[darkstar]

Actually for the Las Vegas Regional a team used windows media player. I was wondering if you guys knew if their animation would be judged or not?

[Capt.ArD]

no it will not. or shouldn't. i understand that if an animation is not within criteria, judges should be giving it a 0, so it won't win even if it is allowed to compete.