Thanks for all the compliments. Our animators, like many other teams, really put a lot of thought into the communication of our message.
As an Inventor designer, I also feel the lack of recognition for Animators and Inventor designers in FIRST. In the upcoming months, team 75 will be launching an online community for FIRST animators and inventor designers to promote, recognize and award exceptional animations/renders. Works wil be judged by both your peer animators/inventor designers as well as (hopefully) a panel of professionals. The lack of recognition for many animations at regionals and at championships is alarming; we need to encourage and reward all the animators and inventor designers whose work was left unnoticed. Besides giving out awards, we also plan to provide better ways to showcase these animations through television networks as well as securing an area of the pits at every regional to set up viewing booths (yes, with quality sound and screens) so that anyone can view these little animated wonders.
As Xavior mentioned, we need to start a sub-organization that caters to the needs of Animators and Inventor designers: mostly people who work hours upon hours behind the scenes.
In the upcoming months, I will be working with Autodesk's ADA (Autodesk Design Academy) program and I will lobby Autodesk support for our organization.
If it is impossible for Autodesk to better award/recognize all the great animations and are unwilling to make a greater effort, then I feel that we must be responsible for recognizing eachother and creating our own awards, prizes and ceremonies that we can present at regionals and/or championships. The fact is that most animators are involved in the autodesk animation competition because they truly love animating and wish to become better at it, not just for some autodesk award, but for a reward in the likeness of being "noticed" and complimented upon. What difference would it make for a team to win the "FIRST Animators award for exceptional 3d animation" compared to "Autodesk Visualization Award" if both winners were called down, their animations shown and given nice trophies?
As far as online resources go, the FIRST animators yahoo group has pretty much died off in terms of activity. CD boards are good for resources, but not properly suited for the needs of animators to post, rate eachother's animations and create custom tutorials.
If your team is interested in assisting team 75 in establishing this community, and wish to be involved in shaping the future of this organization, please send an email to:
JP Ren -
jpren@rcn.com
Greg Liebowitz -
greg@itmediaco.com