1999 Animation award

Posted by dave.

Student on team #56, Robbe’s Xtreme, from Bound Brook and Ethicon and Ethicon.

Posted on 6/2/99 4:20 PM MST

Ok, first of, if u can’t guess, i’m from the winning 1999 animation team, and thanx to one of my friends of on the warren hills team, i read all the post about this years animation, first off, i’d just like to say, that i did not expect to win this award, although i was happy when i did, but we also put a lot of hours into our animation, it was mainly student driven, we had to engineers that helped us, because we’d never used the program before, thats it, i was the main animator of the group, i worked every day in my first period class on the program to take what i learned there up to our corporate sponsor and use it there, i did not do everything though. Ok, now as for the reality portion of the animation, if u read the criteria for the animation it says that they would like it to be realistic, but they also would like ur animation to have a personality, now if u look yes we did show so realistic portions, like if u noticed our animation did exactly what our robot did this year. now u people complain that the sparx were no big deal, i didn’t think so either, i could have done them in my sleep, we don’t think our animation was technically hard to make, but it had a lot of detail on it, now if ur wondering y the one animation that used character studio didn’t win, its in my opinion that it didn’t win cause it didn’t show what its robot does in the competition, although it was a very sweet looking animation. Now all there was 3 student animators on this years animation team, and we but in 200+ hours also, we went there almost everyday after school and saturdays from 10 to 4, for the whole time, we put alot of work into that animation, and we were extremely happy to see it win, and when i hear people bad mouthing it saying it wasn’t real, then, i feel like i have to back my work up, now to the person that said we had a company in our credits, what r u smokin, i looked over those credits 3 times, and did not see one company in there, the animation was student built, the music was student written, the voice was of our engineer, so if u would like to talk to me personally about anything in that animation, send me an email at [email protected], i’ll be glad to get back to u, and if u don’t wanna do that then just reply to this post, and i’ll check it everyday in my first period class, in between working on 3d studio and talking to my g/f, so if i sounded mean to anyone about this post sorry, and to the teams that were the runners up, sweet animations, better luck next year, oh yeah, and to the the first person that posted something about this years animation, just because u lost doesn’t me u have to get all mad about, it, try harder next year.

Posted by IXsoNicXI.

Student on team #56, Robbe EXtreme, from BBHS.

Posted on 6/2/99 4:45 PM MST

In Reply to: 1999 Animation award posted by dave on 6/2/99 4:20 PM MST:

Well, I worked with Dave on this animation as well, and for anyone to say that we didn’t put a lot of work into it, well then they obviously never used this program. I just want to thank th people that posted backing us up until we could find these posts. And as for you other guys, complaining about it being realistic, as Dave said, realistic, and having an attitude. If you watched, the first 15 seconds of that animation were very realistic, hell, we even had the TV marking in the bottom right corner! The robot did what we made it to do, we kept it smooth, and we kept it real. The grind incorpterated our team’s theme with the animation. I didn’t get to see many of the animations, but I saw the runner up, and the rookie animation. They were both really good, and I’d like to congratulate them. The reason I think the runners up did not win was because their robot and what it did, or work the theme into the animation.

Now as for time spent, you have no idea. hell, that’s the main reason my g/f at that time dumped me. I was always working on the animation, and she got pissed. It’s also why I quit my job. We were there every weekend, almost every day of the week, working our butts off to make the animation look like that. Yes, we had 2 engineers helping us, but this was my first year on that program, and Rob and Dave were there last year, so i was the rookie, although I didn’t know the program I got to work too, so don’t go and say that the engineers did everything so that we won, because if that was the case, I probably wouldn’t ahve been allowed in the room with them.

The music may have helped us as well, me and my friend Felipe wrote the music to go along specially with our animation, that may have helped us also, the music was perfectly timed with the animation, which shows coordination.

I, just like Dave, did not expect to win this year, I joined the team tolearn how to use this beautiful program. The winning was an added bonus of the hard work we put in on the animation. Our animation is going to be a lot better next year, I can tell already, just beacuse we will be spending as much time as we can on the program once we recieve it. It just raises the starndards for next year. Now for you people who keep bashing our animation, there are 2 things I have to say to you, 1) Just because we won doesn’t mean you have to be jealous, I’m sure you worked hard on it. And 2) It’s too late to change the final judgement on the animations this year anyway, so keep it in, and try to beat us next year. Good luck!

IXsoNicXI

Posted by Kyle Huang.

Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Gunn High School and Sun Microsystems, Nasa/Ames and Xerox PARC.

Posted on 6/2/99 8:18 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: 1999 Animation award posted by IXsoNicXI on 6/2/99 4:45 PM MST:

I was one of the people debating the winning animation a while back on this board. I didn’t start the thread, but i
wrote in it. And I was one of the people that didn’t think it was realistic. Let me say: I loved your models - I loved
the rendering and the lighting. I think your animation looked fantastic. I didn’t think it was realistic because of
the moves it was doing (flipping and jumping)… In this respect, isn’t your animation incorrectly demonstrating
the functions of your robot?

I’m not bitter about losing the animation competition at all. In fact, I don’t think our animation should have won

  • not at all. There were animations far better than ours. The models, rendering overall look of the winning
    animation far outdid ours. But just because you’re rookies doesn’t mean you need any engineer help. GRT won
    the animation competition two years ago with only three students that hadn’t touched any 3D software until that
    year.

Anyways, yeah, nobody can do anything to change the final judgement. I’m sorry if I sounded mean. I didn’t
mean to bad mouth you guys, your hard work, or anyone on your team. Your animation was was awesome! It’s
just my opinion that the winner should have be more realistic.

Posted by IXsoNicXI.

Student on team #56, Robbe EXtreme, from BBHS.

Posted on 6/2/99 8:36 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: 1999 Animation award posted by Kyle Huang on 6/2/99 8:18 PM MST:

The reason we had the flips and the grinds was basically beacuse we were skaters…they said that they wanted things realistic, but that doesn’t mean the whole entire thing has to be realistic. I mean, if u look at it, there was quite a bit done in the realistic spotlight of things. I mean, when the robot did the grind, and the flip, you know the robot can’t do that, it was something to grab attention, nothing else. if it wasn’t for that, believe we would have one.

Don’t worry about thinking you sounded mean, I can understand where you’re coming from, from a certain point, but look at it this way, in commercials, does everthing they portray something to do really happen? Or do they put in things that you know won’t happen, but you accept it because it grabs ur attention?

Posted by Kyle Huang.

Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Gunn High School and Sun Microsystems, Nasa/Ames and Xerox PARC.

Posted on 6/2/99 9:14 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: 1999 Animation award posted by IXsoNicXI on 6/2/99 8:36 PM MST:

You know, I never thought about it that way, but now that you brought it up, I think it’s a good point. I remember
our team discussing during storyboard meetings that Autodesk wanted the animations to be like commericals
or infomercials for our teams. So that would fit perfeclty.

But by realistic, we thought that Autodesk wanted us to show the robot in competition, doing what it does in
real life. So that’s exactly what we did. We had four individual robot models, including our own to make it look
like we were actually playing a round.

One other thing. Is your animation up on the web? I’d love to see it again. I’m working on getting ours up - we
have an MPG of it, we just need to put it up on a server.

Posted by Mike King.

Other on team #88, TJ², from Bridgewater Raynham and Johnson & Johnson Professional.

Posted on 6/2/99 9:17 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: 1999 Animation award posted by Kyle Huang on 6/2/99 9:14 PM MST:

: One other thing. Is your animation up on the web? I’d love to see it again. I’m working on getting ours up - we
: have an MPG of it, we just need to put it up on a server.

I was just going to ask the same question, although i have not seen any animations other than my own teams.

Mike

Posted by IXsoNicXI.

Student on team #56, Robbe EXtreme, from BBHS.

Posted on 6/3/99 5:26 AM MST

In Reply to: Re: 1999 Animation award posted by Mike King on 6/2/99 9:17 PM MST:

Well, we don’t have it up on the web, but I’ll try to get it up. I’ll talk to a few engineers I know, I’d d/load urs, because I really wanted to see more animations, but my computer is too slow to d/load anything too big, unless I wanted to d/load for a few hours…but I’ll let ya know when we get it u p on the web, and I’ll put the site here…

Posted by Anthony.

Student on team #56, R.O.B.B.E. Xtreme, from Bound Brook High School and Ethicon, inc…

Posted on 6/3/99 6:15 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: 1999 Animation award posted by IXsoNicXI on 6/3/99 5:26 AM MST:

: I am from team 56 also and i have read the criteria required for the
animation and i think that we went way beyond it. Every aspect of our
animation coincided with our team image, it was very realistic, and it
didn’t have any bull%&#( in it. I think that for the amount of work put
by the students on this particular project, they deserved to win. As for
that animation that was played before ours, (the one using character
studio), i don’t think that a student in high school could come up with
something that smooth, regardless of their training in the past.
any questions email my friend the ‘psycho’.

Posted by Daniel.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]

Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Henry M Gunn Senior High School and NASA Ames.

Posted on 6/3/99 6:39 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: 1999 Animation award posted by Anthony on 6/3/99 6:15 PM MST:

: i don’t think that a student in high school could come up with
: something that smooth, regardless of their training in the past.

Never underestimate students.

Posted by IXsoNicXI.

Student on team #56, Robbe EXtreme, from BBHS.

Posted on 6/3/99 8:18 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: woh! easy there… posted by Daniel on 6/3/99 6:39 PM MST:

Please Pardon Anthony, he just got a little upset about what was said about our animation…I agree that every team deserves to win for the amount of time put into the animation, and no one that didnt work on the animation could understand that more. As for the final product, some look nicer then others, and some are pretty close. Don’t be harsh on the judges, I mean, if you look at how many videos they have to look at, think about what they have to go through to judge.

Now, for the runner up, their animation was very nice…I liked it. In fact, I’m supprised we beat it. Anthony doesn’t understand that, he did not work on the animation, so once again please excuse him. Sorry if he offended anyone.

If there are anymore things you’d like to say about the animation please e-mail me at [email protected]…I don’t wish to use this board as a personal argument ground. If it is about animations in general, I’d be more then happy to post…

Posted by Kyle Huang.

Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Gunn High School and Sun Microsystems, Nasa/Ames and Xerox PARC.

Posted on 6/3/99 7:18 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: 1999 Animation award posted by Anthony on 6/3/99 6:15 PM MST:

: I think that for the amount of work put by the students on this particular project, they deserved to win.

If this is true, then doesn’t every animation team that sumbitted an entry ‘deserves’ to win. Every team
worked incredibly hard on this project.

The members on our team worked on our animation at school from 2PM until 11PM every weekday, and on
weekends and holidays from 9AM till 12 midnight. But that was only for the six weeks the robot was being
built. The last three weeks were spent in the basement of one a member’s house. Hours: cut classes, work
till 3AM (or later) every day.

Posted by Kyle Huang.

Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Gunn High School and Sun Microsystems, Nasa/Ames and Xerox PARC.

Posted on 6/3/99 7:07 PM MST

In Reply to: Re: 1999 Animation award posted by Kyle Huang on 6/2/99 9:14 PM MST:

Our animation us up on the web. There are two versions. One is an 18 MB MPEG file, the other is a 1.5 MB Quicktime file. Just follow the link below.