Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places, but are there really no finalists yet for the animation competition??? Because Nationals are just about a week away and id like to see all of the ones that are finalists before we see the winner next week…
Yeah… sigh. That’s typical for Autodesk.
It’s great that they sponsor this contest, and donate free software licenses. But it’s frustrating that they’re always late publishing the rules and announcing the finalists.
We just have to be patient.
I wish they weren’t so isolated from the FIRST animation community. I don’t even know if they check this forum.
I think you’d be surprised just who checks this forum. And how many whos there are. And how often these whos check this forum.
remember these people are taking their personal time to do this. remember gracious professionalism
Like cindy lu who, and the who’s who of Who-ville?
Jk 
Love that movie, one of my Fav’s in the animated film biz.
My fav from Pixar is Toy story and from Dreamworks is Kung Fu Panda!!!
Anyone else wanna tell their favorites?
He just wants to see the finalists…i don’t see that being non-gracious professionalism ( or however you want to call it) I think he’s just concerned because world’s is almost here…
I don’t agree that this is the case, this competition may not be a focus of Autodesk it appears to be a business decision. The Autodesk agreement this year that we signed to turn in handed all rights to the content over to Autodesk. This competition and the growth of the educational website are a part of a marketing campaign. I appreciate the competition for my students. It’s a great experience for them. My disappointment is that the competition criteria were changed 2 weeks into the competition and consistently criteria is not released on time.
It seems as if perhaps in being so focused on what the students, that it is assumed they should be flexible to whatever circumstances are handed to them. As a mentor I understand students need to learn how to be flexible but as an adult it is disheartening to know that my time isn’t respected as valuable. Spending many hours working with the students to have almost 2 weeks of preproduction wasted this year because criteria was released late was disappointing.
I agree that complaining is not a professional means to show reverence to a sponsor, however I also believe that mutual respect needs to be considered to both the gracious company providing the competition and the gracious mentors and volunteers who dedicate themselves to teaching students that company’s applications.
I really wasn’t trying to be disrespectful, i mostly just wanted to know if i was just totally missing finalists that were announced.
but i really do think that with just a week left, they should have announced by now…
Last year Autodesk announced the finalists on April 8, exactly 1 week before the Championship event.
So, if history is any indication, we might get an anouncment tomorrow (April 21st).
FIRST is handled mostly by volunteers as well but if they took as long to release division imagine the heat they’d be catching by now. When Autodesk signed on to run the contest there are expectations to handle their business in a timely and professional manner. If they are incapable of handling the task then they should turn over the duties to someone who can handle the responsibility.
Wow, that’s rather rude. For the record, yes they do:
Phil Dollan has been one of the main liaisons and is quite often available for contact, but there are several others working with him on CD:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/member.php?u=34885
They all do an amazing job considering their time frame, the quantity of their judging group, support, etc.
I am just as anxious as everyone else to hear about the CAD and animation top 6 results, but bashing people isn’t going to speed up the process…
Wow, settle down everyone! Did you stop to think that maybe this person did not legitimately know whether or not Autodesk checked CD?
And nobody here is trying to “bash” Autodesk. Sharing a bit of criticism isn’t a bad thing. Many people simply are expressing that they think Autodesk should be announcing things earlier.
Thank you scrubsfan.
I and the others on this thread are not trying to be rude. We are just a little frustrated by the lack of communication from Autodesk at the beginning and end of this competition. I hope they take these posts as constructive criticism.
I was under the impression that “bashing” and criticism are nearly the same thing. If it’s constructive and it ends up inspiring change for the future, then that’s great.
Yes, they should have got things out when they said they would. Yes, they should have notified us of any changes. I just saw this post, and from first glance, It looked like the start of a thread that we wouldn’t be proud of anyone from Autodesk seeing. I just think from Phil’s shoes what it must be like. They had plenty of nightmares of their own with submission of the 3D models and their storage systems. These problems and understaffing I’m sure have both combined to make it one of the hardest seasons for them. They have less time to judge both competitions because of it. They’ll figure it out though, they always do, and they do it well.
Also, I rescind my “rather rude” comment, emotion is often difficult to perceive online, if they were truly asking whether Autodesk uses CD or not, then I apoligize for the mis-understanding.
I assumed that we’d be hearing within the week leading up to World Champs as per the past, but it makes since, considering the circumstances. I’ll shoot Phil an email and see what’s up.
I’ll post what I find out here ASAP. Once again, sorry if anyone felt the need to get defensive. I wasn’t trying to attack anyone, just trying to play devil’s advocate and trying to emphasize what the volunteers are doing.
All,
I have read your posts and passed on your comments to the folks looking after the animation submissions.
Hope to have an answer soon.
Hi everyone,
As you have noticed, we did have some changes in process during the 3D Animation competition this year, and we are aware that this resulted in some confusion at times. Some of this had to do with new people (like myself) coming on board the project, and we were also doing our best to streamline things as well to try and make it easier. All i can say is, we learned some valuable lessons for next year, and it will get better.
We do have a few things planned for this year to share the results of the competition with everyone.
I’d like to start by saying thank you to the 168 teams that participated this year. The entries were amazing, and we are very pleased with the way everyone ran with the idea. I hope everyone has looked over all the entries, you can find them here: http://autodesk-firstanimation.skild.com/PublicVote.jsp
For our regional winners, we are in the midst of compiling a highlight reel with all the winners that will be available on YouTube and linked from the Autodesk Education Community - this will be available by Monday, May 2nd. We’ll also provide a full list of all reginal winners.
Also, for the Championship finalists and winner, we’ll be providing the list of the top 8 entries, along with the industry judges who selected them, on or before (not the winner of course) May 2nd, on www.autodesk.com/first
I hope that clears up some confusion, and i do apologize for not responding to your posts sooner.
Best Regards,
I just have two questions. First for the Excellence in 3D design, not the animation part, will the finalists be announced before championships this weekend. Also will the winners of the award still be announced at championships?