if you want to talk i have an aol s/n and an email address..im ready to talk about whatever you want.

Alright this thread has certainly got off track. Jim from team 108 asked to view our animation and I posted a copy. No reason to post about anything else. Unless you have constructive criticism about our animation then please keep your opinions to yourself. This whole flamewar got started because Devil's Kid started to brutally abuse our animation.

That is hardly a comment in the spirit of FIRST and I hope that you people can realize that. I understand your anger about the animation contests at the regionals, but seeing as you have not seen all the animations I kindly ask you to keep quiet. For all you know, our animation was the best at the Buckeye Regional. Personally I didn't think so but the majority of the voters did. Just drop the whole issue and stay on track. We'd love to hear some constructive criticism and suggestions that will encourage our team to do better next year and maybe submit an animation that would please you. Not a bad idea, eh?

If you people continue to bash our animation and the competition I really hope that Brandon or another moderator locks this thread. It really is uncalled for and inappropriate.

My final thoughts.

As this being my third year on animation, I know how it feels to start with 3ds max and be told to create "something". You feel terrified that you'll NEVER understand this software. All the animators here know what I'm talking about. It takes weeks to even learn it. Team 1038 did an amazing job learning modeling, cel-shading, and the like. They created an entire control center and space port as well as a futuristic city. I'd like to see the rest of you (myself included) pull that off as a first year animator. I know I wouldnt have been able to when i started in 7th grade. Give them some credit! It wasn't bad at all. I haven't seen the cleveland regional's submissions, so I don't know what they were up against. I also, agree (as you can see in the Joke they call regional animations thread), that judging was totally unfair. However, keep in mind, they did win based on the input of other teams. They're average score was higher than everyone elses, so lay off them! If you want to comment on how they could've improved it, fine. But no one on this forum goes around saying "you built a stupid robot, get out of this competition, you dont deserve to be here".

Personally, I understood their storyboard just fine. If you didn't get it, then take another high school lit class and learn how to relate things to one another. Just in case your still wondering, its showing how the future is here in FIRST. The same engineering principles you learn here, will help you prepare for the future, help you engineer the future. So get a grip, chill out, and be happy for another team that spent weeks working. We all spent weeks and many of the animators get very defensive when theirs dosent win. It happens, you lose sometimes...In fact, according to statistical odds, your NOT gonna win most of the time.

and TheFork, what's wrong with not hurting someone's feelings? I'll admit, there were things that could have been better in their animation. There are a lot of things that could have been better in my animation. Why do you have to tell them their animation sucks, why not say simply, "Well, the storyboarding idea could have been layed out better, with more intent on how the current state of first relates to the future". Did anyone ever learn anything from being told what they did sucked? FIRST is about learning, its about, as Cybersonics said in last year's animation, about preperation for the future. It's not about winnning, its about taking the skills you've learned here into the real world, and having some fun in the process of gaining these skills. I'll also admit, many of us have lost sight of these goals. I did too for a while, but take a minute to look at all this in retrospect before you come back and flame me for this.

Com'n everybody, show a little more grasious professionalism! I see most of the destructive posts are from rookie teams. When I first heard grasious professionalism, I too thought it was nothing to pay attention to. FIRST, however, has taught me to use it more. Take it to heart, think about it, and don't just blow me off and continue flaming me...Thats not why I posted this.


Sorry if these ideas aren't all that well organized. It irritates me when people completley disregard others. If you won, wouldn't you want people to be happy for you?