2002 Animation Software

[Dan Hill]

I'm on the same team as Zeinin, and we are planning to use as many different programs as we can to produce the best animation.

We are modelling the robot in inventor in the most extreme of detail (which is enough to crash inventor in seconds). I know how to use both autocad and inventor, and for some reason, I prefer inventor more than autocad (it is probably the easy constraints, graphics display, and the nice cell shading).

We have been using Lightwave to model the scenes that do not feature the robot, because it turns out to make more realistics quality. When we get down to animating the robot, we will probably have to use MAX to import inventor correctly and it will allow us to animate the robot.

I checked the manual and I noticed that it does not say that any other software is not allowed, so they cannot restrict us from using other software.

I do agree with Zeinin on many points:
- the contest is not as open as most of the animators would like to have it. They should not have to make us make the animation have an "appealing aspect to first." We would not be spending as much time as we do if we did not care for first and the animation, and I think that the workers at First should see this.
- the purpose of the animations is not to necessarily to win any awards, it should be so that we can show our friends and family the animation and have say them say "Wow. You guys should be professionals", not "Wow. You guys sure do like to ...animate." Granted, if we do any awards, it would be nice.
-this should be experience with an actual animation software. If you look at any serious animation firm, they will never think about using 3ds max for anything that the general public might see, although they might use it to simulate movements for tests.
-without editing softwares like photoshop and premiere, do not even look toward showing the animation to anyone, because, chances are, it is not going to be pretty. We all suggest rendering the output to single frames and then compiling, editing, and compressing them later.

3ds Max is a good programmer for quick basics, but when you need something that can produce realistic graphics quickly, 3ds Max is not the best place to look for the average animators. Many people think that about 8 weeks is enough time to produce something in Max, but if you are looking to produce quality within the amount of time, make sure you are the greatest max user in the world. I also do not think that the judges can tell what is done in which program, because 3ds Max can produce the same realistic quality as lightwave and other programs, it just takes a whole lot longer to programming in effects in Max than it does to press a button in lightwave.

Everyone who has put down my team for not using programs that we do not think will save us time, should take a look at the true purpose of the animation, not the fact that there is an award that can be won. There was a lot of quality and a lot of corrections that need to be made in last years animations (my team is included) but I think that the judges made a good decision. The animation with the guy in the warehouse was hands down the best of the animations from last year and deserved to win. Hopefully we get more quality like that this year. You all know the point I'm trying to make so I will end it with one more comment. I do not know if my team will be going to nationals, but I hope that when I see the shown animations, I can say "Now that is some quality" not "Wow. They won an award."