Taking the animation problems a step further...

[Penguin]

Okay, so here's the deal. I'm the animation captain for team 166, Merrimack NH's Chop Shop. We attended the BAE regional this past weekend, and also will be attending the Buckeye Regional in week 4.

When uploading our animation two weeks ago, we kept getting error messages, and had exchanged emails with the people at Autodesk, but their responses were by and large neither helpful nor really informative in any way.

One of their emails said our file on the Streamline server was corrupt, so if we brought a working copy to our regional on DVD, it should be able to be judged. I responded saying our team was not in possession of a DVD burner but we'd do our best to bring it on CD if they'd just let us know where we needed to submit it and when, but received no response.

So I went wandering to try to find out where partway through the competition on Thursday (during our longest break between matches), and after being sent to about six different places-- including the information table... who said they didn't know, ironically enough-- I ended up at the room and... surprise! they'd already started judging.

Apparently they'd announced the beginning of student judging in the PITS but not in the stands-- so that they could prevent as many animators as possible from finding out, I guess.

So I gave the lady there the CD, and she said to come back in 20 minutes so we can judge. 20 minutes later, we walk down and go into the room, and she tells me the file on the CD was corrupt (which I'm sure it wasn't, because I opened the file from the CD on three or four school library computers and a laptop), so it won't be able to compete, but we can still judge... and then she says we need to have our ballots.

I was never given a ballot, in fact, our team never received them. When we signed in at our regional, there was absolutely no mention made of the animation competition or anything remotely related to it. So in front of everyone else in the room doing judging, she told us we had to leave. Because it's our fault we didn't have a paper, apparently.

Then, of course, they didn't even show the winning animation during the awards ceremony, but that's just icing on this already messed-up cake.


Now, last night I was at a teammate's house till late for our post-comp party, and when I got home I crashed in bed. And then when I woke up this morning around 11:30, I came online to check my email, having not checked it for three days... and I found an email, forwarded to me from our head mentor, saying that any teams whose files were corrupted or who had a missing animation, and were intending to compete in a later regional, could reupload them... by 12:01 AM Sunday.

On the weekend of five different regionals, we were expected to still be awake and checking our email that late at night in order to resubmit our animations.


We were really looking forward to getting to participate in the Buckeye Regional, after spending this whole weekend feeling cheated out of all our hard work, and now this. I can't help but feel cheated again.

I don't understand this at all. Has anyone else had any problems like this? Is there anything we can do about it?

[YourSoulIsMine]

Hey I also posted an animation at BAE regionals in NH. It took me 5 hours to post the animation, for some reason it just couldn't get through. I tried 3 different browers, and finally it worked with internet explorer.


What team were you from/what animation was yours. It was my first time ever using 3dmax, I was team 1474. We had the animation of the robot lifting weights, pull ups, and dancing. Yeh, it was bad.

Thanks,
YourSoulIsMine

[opnickc]

I feel for you man. 67 didn't compete this weekend, but none of us saw the e-mail until yesterday (sunday) at 8:00pm, which said our sound (THE single most important part of our animation this year, as far as story/concept) was corrupt. I know for a fact the file we uploaded did not have corrupt sound.

We re-uploaded it, even though we were nearly 24hrs past the deadline. Fortunately, I do have a DVD burner, so I'll be sure to bring a dvd of the animation, as well as my cd (with four different encodings) and my flash drive. One of them will have to work.

Something really got screwed up with the AVA submissions this year. There's absolutely no way that so many teams’ files were corrupted because of something they did. Something got messed up in streamline, and now the teams are paying the price.

I'm not blaming FIRST or autodesk for problems with streamline, but only giving teams a 10hr notice to resubmit (the e-mail to the teams was sent at 2 on saturday), when many of the mentors and team leaders who get those e-mails don't check them on saturdays/were at a competition, is ridicules.

Hopefully this'll all get straitened out this week, but it's probably a good idea for teams to bring copies of their animation with them, just in case.

[Li Jianliang]

I had a similiar situation at Sacramento.

Nobody knew when the animation judging was when I asked the information desk on the first day. Later, I was talking to two animators from other teams when some Autodesk person finally showed up. I was informed that my team's animation wasn't on the list- I had to bring in a laptop with the animation immediately if I didn't want it to be disqualified. So I grabbed the team laptop, which fortunately had a copy of the animation, and went over to some secluded judging room. There was no announcement that I remember about animation judging- the student judges there were informed by others who happened to be there when the Autodesk person showed up. One team's judge rushed in late and remarked the absence of any loud 'n clear announcement.
No one had a ballot. No one ever received one, if I remember correctly, so we all ended up hastily sketching lines and boxes on plain paper and calling them good.
After judging, I was told to bring in a DVD of my team's animation, just in case if it won the Regional, by the next morning. o_O Someone on my team spent quite a few hours trying to burn the DVD.
The next day I turned the DVD in, which happily worked. I was talking to another animator the next day whose animation was submitted but never judged- turns out it was the wrong format; an .AVI instead of a .MOV. He said that no one told him to resubmit or anything. Hmm. I think there were 11 animations at the Sacramento Regional but only 8 were available on the official DVD.

[Ryan Dognaux]

This happened to us last year, and I pray to God that it doesn't this year. We haven't received an e-mail saying anything is wrong and I tested downloading it off Streamline on multiple computers. I can honestly say that I feel for you - we had to burn it to a DVD and go through a lot of extra effort to get it judged. However, I will say that Autodesk is no doubt trying to sort through this to the best of their abilities. They're really some nice, great people who have your best interest in mind.

In my opinion, I think it would be better if they gave us the option to mail a hard copy to them just in case. It would solve a lot of headaches I think.

[jdiwnab]

We revieved an email saying our file was corrupt. The person who did the animation couldn't upload again and couldn't burn it to a DVD so he email it to me (becuase I had a DVD burner), only it was later than they wanted (they asked for it ASAP, but the email went to our mentor, who has enough stuff to do). We were able to be judged, but Whoever manages streamline needs to fix it. I don't want other people to have the same problem

[Roushey]

*rolls eyes* the Saga continued at the Finger Lakes Regional. The Pit admin not only didn’t know when the judging was... they didn’t even know WHERE.

Myself and another team ( I cannot remember the number to save my life) wandered around the building for a good half-hour and finally found the 'hidden' sign posted facing the wrong way outside a ticket office on the outskirts of the stadium. Nobody knew that the animation judging was on the practice round day either. (Usually its on Day 2 ) After a frantic search and a little frustration, we had to advise the pits to make an announcement that the judging was in fact on that day, and when it was.
*sigh*
Not to knock FIRST or anything, but it goes to show you how little importance the animations are at the competitions.

[Penguin]

Ahh, so I wasn't mistaken in thinking the judging was on Day 2.

I'm mildly upset that FIRST downplays so much what some of the team members pour their heart and soul into creating during those six weeks. I thought FIRST wasn't just about the robots, I thought it was about outreach and exploring all sides of technology. Why do we get shunted aside?

Also, the fact that they didn't play the winning animation when they presented the award was kind of upsetting. And weren't the animation awards in previous years presented on Saturday, during the BIG awards ceremony?