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Unread 10-03-2003, 21:06
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Max3DLee Max3DLee is offline
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#0034 (Rocket City Robotics)
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Huntsville, AL
Posts: 9
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This is my third year involved with the competition. I teach 3DS Max for a local college.

Each year I complain about the utter indifference FIRST and most particularly Autodesk displays toward the animation portion of the contest. We are truly the "ugly red-headed step-children" of the competition.

A recent post here stated that while the conditions are not as good as they should be, they are light years from where they used to be. I beg to differ, seems to me they've nose dived since I started.

This year FIRST/Autodesk posted at best misleading, at worst completely wrong, suggestion on how to test your animation. I immediately emailed Autodesk and begged them to please contact Discreet.

Over the years I have attempted to contact Autodesk about 4 or 5 times about misleading directions, compressions, and other general goofs. Never before have I received a reply. This year I didn't hear from Autodesk, I received a call from Discreet.

I wont tell you here who I spoke to and the general tone of the conversation, but I will tell you one of the things Discreet and I discussed was compression. I've long held that almost any kind of compression (particularly Cinepak) will look like dog poop on any size screen, particularly on a 40ft screen like the one at Nationals.

Lev posted here that there was a lot of pixelization as well as flashes in the animations. My first inclination was, "Well, there's Cinepak for ya'" but then it dawned on me that Lev watched it on VHS.

In order to insure proper display of your animation on a normal TV screen, you should render to fields. TV video is "interlaced" fields (half a frame) or layers. If you do not render to fields, occasionally you get flickers, your materials look as tho' they are sparkling, etc.

Discreet gave me Autodesks reasoning for going with compression as being the best way more computers could view the animation - BUT THEY WENT TO VIDEO! So again, Autodesk dropped the ball. Someone should have known better.

Improper ballots, poor viewing conditions, omitted animations and redundant animations, poor quality - all of this, in my opinion, is simply inexcusable.

A fellow mentor said this evening that he couldn't believe that Dean Kamen is aware of these conditions and there's no way Kamen would allow this to continue if he was. Kamen strikes him as the kind of guy that wouldn't do something if he couldn't do it right. I agree. I dont think Kamen is aware of the generally disgusting treatment of our animations and the indifference flaunted by Autodesk.

Make yourselves heard outside of chiefdelphi forums.

I told Discreet I want the animation competition to be a stand-OUT, not a stand-ALONE. I personally spent many, many hours away from home (3 hrs RT) helping with the animation. I know many of you spent a huge amount of time yourselves; you deserve MUCH better than this.

Dont you agree?