(Unofficially) Vote for the Best Animation!

[Kevin Thorp]

We have 5 great finalists in the Visualization Design Contest:
http://firstbasefrc.autodesk.com/?nd=finalists_2009
Autodesk will announce the overall winner at the FRC Championship Event in Atlanta.

Lets do an informal vote, based on the criteria specified by Autodesk:

Concept (Maximum: 35 points)
Distinction in the use of design and animation to illustrate and communicate a clearly defined message of this year’s theme.

Measured in terms of how well your team:
• Identifies and executes on a concept
• Organizes the content for your 30-second animation
• How well your animation follows your storyboard

Creativity (Maximum: 35 points)
Distinction in the use of design and animation to make your entry visually exciting, arresting, striking and memorable.

Measured in terms of how your team:
• Creates a compelling, creative and distinctive animation – one that stands out from the rest.

Technical Execution (Maximum: 30 points)
Distinction in the application of Autodesk software.

Measured in terms of:
• How skillfully your team uses Autodesk 3ds Max to create a technically impressive animation.
Some examples of technical applications are modeling, materials application, lighting, camera motion and angles, sound effects, texture mapping, color, special FX, character animation, editing technique. In addition to using the features of Autodesk 3ds Max, judges will review how well you have incorporated elements such as voice-over, music, photography, or live video into the animation.

[BuddyB309]

GOOD LUCK TEAMS!!! Whoo!! I'm so excited even though I'm not even in the competition!!

[Akash Rastogi]

Although 1746's animation is awesomely hilarious and well animated, I gotta hand it to 2996.

[keehun]

I, too, would give it up for 2996. It's so well done and good rendering throughout.

Though, to be honest, all of them are pretty good

[Zholl]

Hey, thanks for the good reviews! I'm not going to vote, because even if I didn't vote 2996, I'd still feel slightly biased...
Anyway, I'll be sure to let the animators know that you guys liked their work.

[boehmz]

1720 and 2996 seem to stand out the most. If I had to pick just one, I would vote for 2996. Great use of lighting and modeling. Even though the lamp fish was only shown for a few seconds, there was still a lot of detail to its textures. I would also like to give a shout out to 1716 for using a human model with mouth movements that look very natural. Human animation is tough to pull off, I see you guys spent a lot of time getting it to work out.

[Mark Holschuh]

I like 1716's animation as well.

[BuddyB309]

AARRRGGGHHH!!!!! I can't freaking wait!! I'm so excited to meet all the teams and see old friends at the competition this year!

[Magiciandude]

All of them are excellent, but I would say other than ours(biased of course), I like Team 1099's the best. It's just so hilarious and well done! I personally like a bit of entertainment value .

...but...I don't think I'm going to vote just to be fair...

Also, thank you Akash for your kind words! We spent so much time on all of the small details that were destroyed by the web player . Of course, that is inevitable for a streaming movie XD. You can see a much better representation of ours here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgWYLXxBDBo&fmt=18

Anyhow, great job everyone! These are all fantastic, and every team that entered should be very proud

-Chris (Team 1746's Animation Team Captain)
I guess I'll see all of you hanging around the Autodesk Booth XD

[rfolea]

How odd ...

Does anyone else think it is weird that our animation team did a video about items getting crushed in shipping, and then 1 month later, Fed-Ex drops 1/4 ton steel sprockets on our robot completely destroying it?

See attached pictures.

Talk about art imitating life imitating art ...

Weird ...

[rfolea]

oops! Here are the pictures here and here