Is it a good idea? or would it be unsafe if they change the topic or something. Like not really the whole thing but you know start char . sketches scene sketchs modelling a little… w/o the robot scenes? ( and no i didn’t do all those “SKETCHES” this year but i think it’d be a good idea this yr)
And also do any of u guyz start before the kick off ?
we were think of model a full crowd, with all the poepl and that would take a while so we may work in the offseason
You might as well work in the offseason if not just to practice. The worst that could happen is that they change everything around and you have to start over with the same time frame as the rest of the teams that don’t work in the offseason. It’s good practice even if you can’t use your offseason work.
Screw the “topic”! Make any kind of animation you want. The animation doesn’t need to have the actual robot in it at all. Make up some robots if you want robots. I wanted to have the whole thing done before the kickoff but that didn’t happen. Oh well.
thats not waht i mean by topic ! like u know this year (or maybe other years as well) it was “what does first mean to u” what the heck would be the point of making an animation for that topic and they change it to something else? what i mean is do they really change the topic much or can u safely make one on this years topic?
I’m going to work in the off season and try to figure out how to animate our cat Xavier. We had no idea how to do it in version 5.
I want to get my team to do a practice animation, just to force people to learn how to use the software… Dunno if the others will go along with it (especially since I’m graduating so even I’m not too motivated ;)), but I’m thinking we could make some of the crazy stuff that got left over from brainstorming in January…
here’s an idea that I thought of now that I wish we would have done.
Originally last year we thought of an idea to have a camera fly through a city and show engineering acheivments of first. Well this started in may/june. We thought it would be done by kickoff. In november, we switched our idea to something more FIRST-related. This meant we had about 4 monthes of stuff we couldn’t use.
Thus My idea for anyone thinking of starting early… make robot parts. This gives you awesome practice and gives you models that will surely be able to be used. If you already made awesome robot parts, then make a playing field. The playing field outlines have been pretty uniform for a couple of years…It’s a safe bet they’ll look similar next year. After that…then start working on universal models that could apply to your animation in anyway.
As for the person that had the idea of a crowd. We tried that in a b*tching stadium and unless you have some massive graphics power…forget it. Your computer won’t be able to handle it.
Well that’s my advice…hope that evryone has fun next year.
we encounter that in this year’s animation. our crowd was 200 crappy models and it still took forever. we learned, however that render all can be very helpful, by hide the objects to reduce lag. hey if it works cool if not whatever it cant be wore than this year’s casue we were DQ because of our stupid mentor burning corrput and blankCDs and sending them in. ohh well…always next year
PS kokoEd have you used bones cause thats how they do CS movies and stuff and it works well. in our animation we had a tiger model and we used bones so we could move the position the way we wanted…i dont know maybe that not what ur looking for but o well…
actually matt, we didnt used bones, we used bipeds. character studio is a very helpfull plugin when it comes to creating characters. I would suggest learning character studio before you learn bones. around 400 person fully articulate crowd, that’s alot of bipeds. might start workin soon, never hurts to be early.
hey colin wassup i hope i didnt sound like a complete loser up there but o well. lets get woeking soon, maybe this sunday?
btw when we gonna post our animation do u no
well, not this sunday. and i will post the anim as soon as we get a host.
I found this when I was Googleing.
http://www.broadiecarpark.com/modules/news/
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only 1 problem with that hosting. you have to post a certain amount of times or something in their forum to be eligable. Thanks for tryin, back to the host search.
I wouldnt be surprised if they did make the topic more specific next year, just because it will be a heck of a lot easier to judge animations about a specific subject than a bunch of animations that address a problem in about a billion different ways. This year, they have a problem. How do they decide what animation demonstrates best what FIRST means to their team? If you have two animations with equal technical excellence and equal creativity, it kind of comes down to a matter of opinion for the judges. What if in those two animations, one focused more on images, and another focused more on text, how could they decide which communicated content better? The one who did it directly through text, or the one who did it through animation clips? This is why I think they may have a more specific subject matter next year or more guidelines as to what the judges are looking for.
However, will stuff you make be rendered (no pun intended) useless? I doubt that. Anyways, if you do put a bunch of time into an animation about what FIRST is to your team, and they change the topic, make the animation anyways and use it as a promo video or something.
Am I making sense? I’m kind of tired right now so maybe I’m not thinking about this correctly.
thanks for the tips. by the way can u pls keep the post on topic instead of web hosting and stuff?
As I’m on a rookie team, I don’t know that I can offer a logistical analysis of starting next year’s animation, but I can share our team’s anticlimactic experience. Our animator’s submission was going to be this huge, towering cinematic work. It had thousands upon thousands of polygons and looked perfectly stunning in the stills. But the actual modeling wasn’t done until four days before it was due, and it took six days to render. That’s probably partly because it was rendered at 1600x1200 pixels, 30fps, and was completely ray traced, but the moral is this: If you, like all other illustrators/animators, are a perfectionist, it’s never too early to start.
*Originally posted by $_@1_i|< *
**by the way can u pls keep the post on topic instead of web hosting and stuff? **
In my opionion this was stickin to the topic. Part of the animation competition (evern though it isn’t in the rules) is to show it off to people. A good webhost helps with this as most teams will not see your animation if they aren’t at your regional. Also, a good website allows for better sharing of information and collaboration between team members. Part of our site is a file depository where we can upload what we have been working on so everyone can see and learn from it. Also, for us animation kids, designing and maintaining a website is something to do in the off season instead of bulding mini bots and such.
I guess im done defending him now 
And with that said, i’ll interject my own preference for free php hosting
http://lycos.co.uk <– free php+mysql, only one ad that isn’t static and dissapears 5-10 seconds after showing up. Good interface and again FREE! They are about to move their datacenter though so i suggest signing up soon as i think they are suspending signups during that time.
*Originally posted by Trashed20 *
**In my opionion this was stickin to the topic. **
Actually it wasnt- this thread is about starting your animation early- not showing it off. Just because its in the animation section of the forum- doesn’t mean anything goes- thats why there is a menu of threads in the beginning
Now for the real post-
Its obviously a great Idea to get as much software time when learning 3D. Most of you can get a jump on some of the more advanced tutorials, try some special effects, work on lighting techniques, etc. Check out 3Dcafe.com and the3dstudio.com for help if you get through all your other tutorials.
As far as the actual animation, I think its only fair to wait to next year when all the software ships. This way you dont have an unfair advantage over a bran new team. Ofcourse, theres nothing to stop you from using models and textures from a previous animation (which could be your off season animation).
Practice, Practice, Practice.
I think animating in the off season is a good idea, train newbies and improve your own skills is nice. Also making useful objects, tables, chairs, computers, etc can come in handy in future animations.
I wouldn’t start next year’s animation though. My team tried that for the 2002 competition, and they completely changed the topic. My team will probably make an animation, but not on a particular topic, just on anything we feel like.