In my opinion, team 192's animation should've taken the cake... it was just beautiful with a great message which related to FIRST. But, not much we can do about that now :) However, Autodesk shouldn't be looking for an excellent commercial... that's not what the Animation competition is about.

regional awards
 

What is given to a team if they win a regional award? The reason I ask is, is it really balancing out if you give on national award that gets software and a lot of regional awards that just get like recognition? (This is posted before I know what the regional award is)

Re: regional awards
 

I heard at some regionals they didn't even show the animation. I also cannot recall anyone getting anything for winning.

Sensel...I thought I would never hear or see you again...

We animators have got to stick together because we're the only ones who even bother to care about the award. All of you who are here should join up. At the very least the students.
Strength in numbers.

some stuff
 

I'm from 967 and the points you all have made are valid. but..... for those that keep calling the award an animation award please understand that the award is Called the Autodesk Visualization Award, not the autodesk animation award. As for only Regional winners getting into nats,(like the chairmans award.)
the judging at the regionals was done by students, the chairmans award is done by the actual representatives of the award. Maybe next year but then they probably won't have student judging. In my own opinion I believe we won because the narration, camara angles, animation, and a good story line all contributed, not just a sweet animation or cool sounds. You need a little of everything.

I think what we are all finding out here is that this year's award was unorganized and unsupported by Autodesk.

I have do disagree with T967's post about the award. If you look at the first line of the award specifications in the rules it says animation

6.0

Purpose of the Award - Honor excellence in student animation

6.2

Award recognizeds 30 seconds of student animation...

These are just some of the instances in the rules that say "Animation." I know that you read further and found instances where it said other things could be used, but did you really compile you "video" in an Autodesk product? Does anyone?

This award became a joke this year. I know many people are dissatisfied and changes will come. Let's hope they are for the better, rather than the worse.

Re: regional awards
 

The winning regional team is given one of the FIRST regional winning trophy things.... as do all the teams that win quality awards, or things like that, it just says "Autodesk Award For Visualization Award" on the base.

I dunno, t967 is partially right. We used live video in our animation 2 years ago, and it fit in pretty well... but I do think the animation should outweigh the video. I guess we just have to find out what Autodesk's definition of the word "Animation" is.

Re: some stuff
 

First of all congrats to your animation, to people who are ripping on it, please stop what is done is done, how would you feel if you get the same criticism.

Here is my only beef with your statement:

If you go to the awards documents under where the Autodesk Award for Visualization is, read what the purpose of the award is:


Purpose of Award:
Honor excellence in student animation.

Also

6.2 Award Description
The Award recognizes 30 seconds of student animation that clearly and creatively illustrates
what FIRST means to your team...........

Now i believe that it says animation, not live video.

I believe that using a little live video to mix in with the animation is great, however stand alone video i believe is a no-no and i will be talking to Ted about this this upcoming Saturday.

Like i said that I do not mean to rip on you at all T967, i believe that your presentation was very good, however I believe that a lot of teams are not following the rule criteria or the spirit of what the award is supposed to be. I believe that a lot of teams incorporated in their animation what would have been on their chairman's award submission had they allowed video.

My 2/1/2 cents

- Tyler

hi,

I'm from team 114. One thing I want to say about the Autodesk is that the topic of the award and the rules are not consistent. The award says "visualization award", which means it's for both animation and movie. and the rules repeatedly say "animation". I'm surprise to know that 967 has won. I have heard that their project is mostly composed with movie clips. I still have to see their project to look at their quality. I think Autodesk has fooled us into thinking that this award is only for animations, because their rules repeatedly say "animation"

I will not critize 967's work, because I think taking movie clips that can present an excellent message about FIRST can be very tough. But of course I don't know how much effort they put into. The fact that they have won made me think of some positive ideas about Autodesk. I was thinking Autodesk picked them because they want us to understand that a clear message is extremely important. Fancy things will not make an animation better. For kids, it might be. For professional though, the message is the most important. Last year, we won the national champ. We were curious about our score, so we asked Autodesk to send it to us. They said that our animation has a great quality, but the message did not emphasize clearly. Same thing happen with this year's animation. We did not have a narrator to emphasize our theme clearly. The quality is great, but without emphasizing the theme clearly, the animation will not score high. One thing I am very unhappy with is the lack of time, and we can do way better if we have more time to work on it. Let's learn their strength and not bashing them. I'm sorry for team 967 for receiving these critizism about their way in presenting their work.

One thing I want to add is that, animation and movie are two different things. I hope next year, Autodesk can open a new category for movie clips and have a separate competition for animations. SO there will be more awards for teams. Also, we should have more than 1 Honorable mentions for teams that are great. 74, 75, 103, 114, 116 and 192 are certainly great, and I think all of us should receive some sort of award. Compare with last year, there's a lot of more great animations. To encourage students in working hard, Autodesk should issue more awards to teams.

give some comments,
Brian

It's totally not 967's fault.

This year is too messed up. FIRST should support autodesk. Inventor and AutoCAD help robot building, I think FIRST should support some of those awards. THen Autodesk can focus on movie competition and animation competition.

adding to animation competition, teams can only use movie clips as support.

Brian

Great idea, but..........

Why dont 5 quality awards or 5 woody flowers awards than?

Five Woodie Flowers awards would take away from the prestige of getting it. But they should have honorable mentions for some awards, like the AutoDesk Visualization Award.

isnt winning a regional considered an honorable mention???

you can only give out so many awards, even though trust me more teams deserve awards than what ever will eb handed out.

I said I wasnt comming back here because I was sick of all the bickering. But then I kept getting email notifications on this thread so i figured I'd check it out and see what you were all up to.

As I said before its wrong of anyone who bashes team 967 or any other team. But that also goes for team 967. Face it- if you read the rules its not too confusing. I spelled it out in the very begining of this thread. I see others have done it more recently. Just because team 967 won doesnt give you the right to insult our intelegence by trying to justify the results. So please stop. Any other team that bashes another - please stop. Its not what this whole thing is about. I've been trying to keep quiet untill I can see the animation again- yet autodesk hasnt posted it yet and team 967 has ignored my several offers (including a PM) to host it on one of my web servers. I am actious to be able to see it again and see what me and the other 10,000 people missed when they played it in Houston.

As I stated before- there are ways to incorporate the video and ways that dont look too good. I work in the Graphic Design/Video Production Industry and there are many many many people who are considered professionals that just cant design to save their life. Thats what keeps people like me in business. We help all thos others look good. So the fact that "Professionals" judged these animations doesnt mean all that much to me. I was told that most of them were Engineers (not video pros). One comment I told to autodesk- and on other threads here- if professionals are so iffy in their abilities how could we expect students to do justice for the judging. As I also mentioned before- For anyone that was in the same conference as 967- you must have given them enough votes to get to the championships- so dont all you guys point and complain about autodesk. Dont forget that they donate a ton of product and resources to the participating teams. DONT BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU! My father isnt perfect either- you dont see me attacking him!!! Well I guess I'm not either- but theres still time!, But I digress...

Just get working on your skills. This entire exercise is not to win an award- Though I've had my own sights on it too. Its about getting you interested and giving you the resources to aquire these skills to decide if this is somthing you want to do for the rest of your life. I started doing 3D (exclusivly) almost 9yrs ago now I have my own business and produce Videos, CDRoms, 2D & 3D Animations, Web Content and a ton of other stuff- This is only the beginning. Just keep at it.

BTW- Architectual "VISUALIZATIONS" are 3d Computer Renderings- They don't call drawings or paintinfs or videos- VISUALIZATIONS- so please don't be misguided by thinking this could be anything. And dont take that out of context- it says AUTODESK VISUALIZATION - that implies using Autodesk products and if that wasnt clear enough- they mention that too!

Please dont complain about the time. Its more time than I get for 99% of the projects I work on in the working world. I've turned bigger projects around in 5-6 days. You had 6 weeks. Plus a month with the software (if you were a new team) and more if you had 3DS in the past.

Good luck to all in the off season and lets get on with it!

Trying really hard
 

Our team is trying to get the animation up on our website. time, memory, those kinds of things. Also an Autodesk rep told us that the video would be up on the autodesk website sometime. Not sure when. If you are really really interrested I can try to send you the file via e-mail but that could take a while since the file is kinda big. send a PM and your e-mail address and I'll try. The low res is about 6.5 MB. use windows media player.