[Dan Hill]

First off, cool down. We have rethought our plans since I posted my comment a few weeks ago.

-We realized that our team is no where near rich enough to gain a license for lightwave. Zeinin works with lightwave at his work, while the rest of the animation has been messing around with inventor to see how we can convert it to mesh for 3ds max. We were hoping for sponsor to help us out but that has not worked.
-we are behind on the animation because inventor crashs every 5 seconds when working with a large file.
-Also, I can bet that every single team is using a piece of software not developed by autodesk (editing programs like paint and ) so basically no one will be allowed to enter.
-we have not broken any rules in the competition because we are far behind and have not animated anything


I'm sorry if my comments were not very clear, because at many times, I do not sound very clear. Many things and plans have changed since I posted the comment. Here is what I meant:
-I do not like some of the rules, similarly to everyone else. I'll propose something about solving this later.
-If we can only use autodesk products, then the animations would not be produced (unless autodesk makes an OS and a paint program).
-Many people on each team spends hundreds of hours working on the robot. If that is not love and determination, then tell me what it is?
-where have I "clearly indicated" that we have use programs in the animation this year?
Zeinin has commented in our plans and has made designs for the animation at his work but that is because he knows the program better.
We said that we are using 3ds max and inventor to make the robot and animate them.
-if we did obtain a license for lightwave, I bet that we might have used it to get our animation done. We realized that we already have several copies of max (from previous years) which we could work on and make the animation a lot faster than one person could do working on the animation at their work.
-I think that the robot should be "the biggest, baddest, 'best' robot we possibly can build", but I do not know about the rest of you guys.
-We don't know what material we are putting in the animation, so we have not violated any restrictions
-Heck, if our animation does violate the rules, then we do not have to enter a competition, big deal, but we will be showing it down at nations in front of everyone so they can see what we did. We like what we do. For example, last year, we entered an animation that was focused on a woman running through the woods and the robot is chasing after her, and we still entered it, even though FIRST did not like it. We liked the concept and so did most people, it was not FIRST's taste, but that did not stop us from making something that we liked.

Sorry if I sound harsh, I'm not trying to put down any of Dlavery's observations. Dlavery seems to be serious about animation, and I respect him. I hope their team produces an awesome animation. Dlavery does make many good points about the competition while trying to clarify information.
-teams are using some expensive stuff which they don't even own. (I think that there may even be a team represented by pixar but I could be wrong).
-I think that Dlavery does not like the restrictions either. Next year I hope that I can find other animators, and we can produce our own student awarded animation award, just between students. It can be any length, any thing you want it just has to be made by students on the team. Many teams run over the time and may have to cut pieces off their animation that would have made it more understandable. I hope that fellow animators agree with me on this.
-"And in some cases, behaving as a professional means that you have to make a choice between playing within the rules of the game, or finding another game." I like this quote a lot and agree with it, and that is why I have been commenting that we are still not certain if we are even going to enter our animation in to the contest (FIRST probably will not like this years animation either). The only problem with being professional is that it is not educational, fun, or correct. Many teams try to act to professional and get their sponsors to design, make, and drive their robots, which is about as professional as a team can get, and FIRST allows it to happen. I hope that dlavery's team is not one of those teams because then he might disagree with me.

I'm sorry if I have given any person on this thread the idea to break rules to make a great animation. Next time I will try to make my comments clearer.