Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

Anyone else find it unfair that some teams with the $$ can go to multiple regionals, giving them a larger chance of qualifying for animation nationals..., For example in regional X animation quality, is lower than Reigional Y, and losers from Regional Y who dont get to go to other regionals, well are just left in the dust, when if they were given the chance they would have won other regionals, qualifiying them :ahh: . My opinion is that ALL animations MUST be given equal chance, by being judged not on a "regional level" but rather on a national level all at once, and also im afraid eliminate student judging, because that system leaves much room for manipulation.

Those are just my two cents, anyone other opinions?

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

This argument, I believe, has been discussed before. Many teams have taken actions to solve this issue, especially those who felt similarly to the way that you feel. Getting more sponsorship in order to go to more regional competitions has been one solution. Another has been to select a competition to attend where you feel that your animation has the best opportunity to be a competitor. As to the student judging, I think it's actually quite a good system. While some probably are biased, chances are if you make a fantastic animation, no matter what their bias, they'll vote for yours because it's fantastic. This is another situation under which "gracious professionalism" comes into play! Hope that you are able to use these suggestions to excel in the coming years!

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

Unfortunately this has been my last year as a student in FIRST, but hopefully i will find time to mentor future students.

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

Well think about it this way.
Even if their animation does win at another regional, they have slim chances of beating the same animation (that it lost to in the first place) again at nationals. All's they are getting is a little plastic trophy.

I will admit that the student judging does have its flaws, but I think it is a positive thing because you're thrown in a room with a bunch of fellow animators, which is alot of fun. Its also a good time to chat about hardships, techniques, and other animation details. Furthermore, you gain feedback on your animation from your peers. Directly. Which is Very helpful.

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

Sorry Beth but for the most part I couldn't dissagree more. I just typed a nice point by point replay but the server dropped me and I lost the whole thing. So I only have time to mush it all together.

Raising 10k-12k to attend another regional JUST to win animation is not in the interst of any teams I know of. Animation is a very low prioity for FIRST so they really dont give any benifits to teams that win. AUTODESK does give some nice awards at the Championships, but that benefits the ROBOTICS area of the team very little. There is no weight placed on the AVA as far as FIRST is concerned. So that kind of money is not cost beneficial. If you have the money and your going for your robot anyway- Well thats another story. (Not that I think it should be a low prioity or anything)

Trying to attend a competition just because you think the competition is weaker so you can win, (which is what you are really saying) is a terrible solution. It benefits noone (except raising the bar at the other competiton if your animation is that good) but it teaches the kids, If its too tough for ya, just look for some easier competition. How about, learn from those other teams and get better next year. There is always the case of subjective judging and 2-3 animations being real close and only one wins- PROFESSIONAL (or simply DIFFERENT) Judges may score the 3 animation differently. The issue brought up is that those 3 animations may be the best in the country but they are in the same regional, so only one moves on. This is an issue that I have brought upto autodesk. Innitially they had runnerups move on too, I'm not sure why they did away with that, but it helped this situation. So the Championships may be loaded with 15 weaker animations than yours because you had tougher competition.

The reason everyone isnt judged at the nationals is then numbers are too big and its hard to get volunteers to do. Animations would het glanced over and not really get the attention they require. I have personally made sure we dumbed down the content in our animation to make sure it wasnt too complex. we did one 3 years ago that had layers and layers of content and symbolism, as wll as complex style and technique that really drove home the message. The more you watch it the more you see. The more you knew about our team and the more your were educated on design and invention process the more you see. But it was too much for the length of time the judges had to view 300 animations. The next year they changed the rules and regionalized the first-round process.

I could go on- but I will end with this. The studnet judges are a fine Idea. So Long as the students take the time to educate themsofves on the meaning and weight of the three catagories for judging. I make it a point ot brief the student on our team and make sure he reads through the rules.

I am in the process of trying to educate/train many local teams to help INCREASE the competition in out area. I can only feel proud of winning if I felt it was against worthy opponents. I hope I dont offend anyone- especially those at our regional, but I was told there was only 2-3 other animations that offered any competition. I'd like that to be 20-30 not 2-3. It make the win mean more and might make FIRST take it more seriously. I am not a 3DS Max expert, but I have done 3D animation Professionally since '94. I do other stuff too, not just 3D- so I know the techniques and processes that will assist other teams as it has ours. This year there was very little help I needed to provide, I mostly had to keep the team focused so we could finish it on time (and they'd tell you thats a tall order!- hense the AKA in my Profile :) ).
Sorry for dissagreeing so much Beth, but there need to be some changes and your solutions are bandaids not solutions to the bigger picture.

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

One good thing is that...

By this rule, even if one team with a good animation has the money to go to multiple regionals, teams that only attend one regional and have good animations have a reasonably good chance of moving on anyway. But if the team that won at that regional doesn't win at multiple regionals, that puts the one that lost at the first regional under two layers, which makes it unlikely to win at nationals. (i.e. say team A wins over team B at regional 1 but team C wins over team A at regional 2, C is probably better than B; but if team A wins over B and C, you can't tell how good each is in relation to each other, and all three of them move on)

However, this thinking:
isn't necessarily accurate...I think two years ago a team that hadn't won any regionals actually won the national award. The judging at nationals is significantly different from the judging at regionals even though the guidelines are the same.

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

Ahh yes... I too agree with the flaw in the student judging. I made our animation this year and it was the first time i have ever touched the program. Sure there is an award for rookie teams that havent submitted an animation but not for those that have no training in it. Team 967 must have an awesome animation team because I said and I quote, "The animation was awesome. It was Shrek worthy." I had so much hope for the animation that I worked on on myself (with a little help with music and movie maker). My parents were sadenend when I told them that I gave them the best score.

I will be at Chicago too but I don't have as high hopes as I did in St. Louis. Don't get me wrong I love animating and FIRST, in fact I was just accepted TODAY to the Illinois Institute of Art - Schaumburg, but the system is flawed. Although, I have no cure for this problem I do hope that it gets fixed so that my predecessors (spel?) have a chance. I hope that I will not be able to be back to mentor, that's a good thing b/c I would be able to afford college, and my fellow partner in crime should be able to learn it over the summer and mentor next year.

There's some cents, a little more than the $0.02 I should have.

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

That has been scrapped. Team 955's animation won BOTH the Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Portland) Regional this year. I'm not sure whether it's because the regional officials didn't know the rule, forgot the rule, or ignored it altogether.

I think there's a slight difference. At the Regionals, students tend to pay more attention to the WOW factor of the animation rather than the Concept. The national judges tend to weigh the Concept aspect heavily, moreso than the quality of the animation.

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

It is indeed true that the national judges rank storyline above looks. From watching winning animations from past years, I’d assume this ratio to be close to 75% content, 25% looks. (My personal preference is a 50/50 split, but *shrug*) Anyways, I like the student judging, but think it should not completely decide the fate of the winners. Perhaps the student judging could be used in conjunction with mentor-based evaluation? (Granted there aren't enough mentors to go around as is)

But long story short, I’d like to keep the student judging in the mix. It’s a great way to get feedback instantly from your peers, and it saves FIRST some headaches.

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

This is just like saying it's not fair to those teams who go to multiple regionals to compete with their robots, which is not true. It is the team's responsibility to raise funds to attend multiple regionals, not FIRST's.

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

But we arent talkin about robots here, we are talking about animation, and animation is judged differently in regionals than national, as Li Jianliang said:

"I think there's a slight difference. At the Regionals, students tend to pay more attention to the WOW factor of the animation rather than the Concept. The national judges tend to weigh the Concept aspect heavily, moreso than the quality of the animation"

so even though we lost regionals, doesnt necessarily mean that one is ought to lose on a national level. But with robots, its well understood who the better man/robot is :p

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

There hasn't been a comment that has flattered me more; I am the animation team. I sacrificed a lot to get that movie done. So far it's paid off.

If this is your first year doing the video, I wouldn't worry. It's a huge program and there's more than that, too. Voice overs, sound effects, and comp all take time and experience.

As far as unfair judging at regionals; I don't see it as a big deal. All animations are pre-screened by discreet and qualifying videos are automatically sent to Nationals (this is how we won two years ago). Winning Regionals is nice, don't discount it, but Nationals is where it's at. I can't decide whether content or technical aspects are more important at Nationals. I do know that if you create a video that truly moves you, invokes some sort of emotion, you stand a good shot. This simply must be done with a video that looks professional. And it needs to have a good story line. It has to be something that you can show anybody and they'll say "Oh, cool!", which, in my opinion, all of the past Nationals winners are.

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

Quote from Zing:

"As far as unfair judging at regionals; I don't see it as a big deal. All animations are pre-screened by discreet and qualifying videos are automatically sent to Nationals (this is how we won two years ago)."

are you positive that this is true, that there is no need to qualify for regionals to go to national level animation, if so, YEEEEEHHHHAAAA!!!!

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

So no, only regional winners advance to the National judging according to the manual.

It is essential to have a screening process for the animations. There is no way Autodesk would be able to professionally judge every single one of our animations on a National level. The current system is great, and whether we like it or not, it's pretty much the most fair system we're going to get. I'm sure some of you can remember back to the days of having animations randomly judged... but by non Autodesk people at Regionals.

Thank you Autodesk and FIRST for the current system.

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

No, this is not how it works. Things have changed since 2 years ago, you must win a regional (or be the highest ranking animation that has not won a regional if there are teams that have already won) to advance to nationals.

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

heh, thats kind of disappointing now that i understand ;)



This isnt going to nationals :*(, after so many hours/days of render time LOL :D.

its been fun animating for FIRST, i hope i can mentor future animators.

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

Yeah, I think the one major flaw in the system is that only the Winner advances. If there are 2-3 good animations in one regional, only the tp moves on. The way they had it two years ago made sence to me- I give more chance that all the good ones will compete. Other than that, I think its a good system. It was getting to be too many entries to handle on the Professional Level.

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

If only Regional Winners advance, then how do they award the Rising Star? The Rookie Award ("Rising Star") is only given at nationals, and from the viewpoint of a rookie animator, none of us are going to win a regional, not mine, or any of the other rookie animations I've seen. Poor FIRST, life must be so difficult for them (referencing the Sacramento regional losing the animation DVD).

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

I'm not sure how the rising star is chosen. But a "rookie" did win the animation competition at Boilermaker Regional - team 868. The team is obviously not a rookie, but it was their first animation submission. So it can be done. Great job guys.

Re: Animation Judging and qualifications.
 

All rookie animations are viewed for the Rising Star Award, it should explain that in the Awards Section of the documents on FIRST's website.