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Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 6:49 pm
by Lady_Justice
Allow me to throw my hat into the ring: I made this in 20mins(not including rendering time)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOPs5igw6TI

No offence to mikdog or to his animation in particular, more aimed at the judging in gereral. This was a test to see how easy it is to replicate the winning entry - something which could not be said of the others. And this was starting from scratch not using a premade character. In fact I've seen this character in his other work and think it's very good. However I don't feel the entry was first place material, due to:

A) 18 seconds long? Some people myself included couldn't keep it within the time requirement thus not entering. If I'd known I could have flaunted the rules and still had a shot at winning I would have entered. But we were not told this
B)
bupaje wrote:The judges were specifically looking at animation -which was one of the things suggested in the thread where I asked for people's feedback.
Even just taking the animation into account I would not have said it beat the others. There was very little movement nay animation involved at all.
C) All the other entries made use of the brief outline and showed imagination in terms of made up products, alien design, environment etc. and marketing the product in a believable way e.g "alien girlfriend in a can" If the judges are not going to evaluate the winner in terms of the brief then why have one at all? Why not just say animate something - Impress me?

I personally would like to see a breakdown of how on earth (pun intended) the judges came to the conclusion they did.

Peace out,
LJ

Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 7:10 pm
by J. Baker
Lady Justice, those were my exact same thoughts. ;)

Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 9:08 pm
by Mikdog
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA! I LOL'D!

:lol: :lol: :lol:

As a side, I think the animation sucks in that. The movement's kind of anti-gravity like. The voice is kind of funny though.

But, there's no point in being a sore loser. You should have entered the competition, and the judges wouldn't have been forced to select from the few that entered.

Don't be sour, my friend. Next time, you'll enter ;)

Mike

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 2:06 am
by spoooze!
Off the subject of whether or not Mikdog should have won 1st place...

When are we supposed to get the prizes? I PMed Bupaje but haven't gotten any word at all.

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:32 am
by Mikdog
Me too :( Maybe he skipped the country with all our prizes. Oh noes.

Now I'll be sad forever.

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 3:43 pm
by bupaje
Nope , I didn't skip. Remember I have a full time job too. :) I sent the email out Friday so they may not see it until this morning. Once I know' you'll know.

As for the judging, I'll bite and post my last comment on it. In the rules we said judges decisions were final, period. There was a reason for that. I've set up several contests over the years for web sites and no matter who wins , and no matter how expert the judges, there is always a dispute about the judges selection, heck I don't even guess it right most of the time, but the main judging criteria was the animation and regardless of how simple or hard it may have been to create that animation using Anime Studio, three professional animators decided that, based on animation as the main criteria, from the small pool of entries, the animation on the piece that won was better.

I'm not sure that I have the time to set up future contests, but feel free to share ideas as to how you think they could be judged in some way that would satisfy everyone and I'll submit the suggestions to whoever handles it.

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 7:33 pm
by Mikdog
Yaaaaaaaaay

:D

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 7:45 pm
by J. Baker
bupaje wrote:I'm not sure that I have the time to set up future contests, but feel free to share ideas as to how you think they could be judged in some way that would satisfy everyone and I'll submit the suggestions to whoever handles it.
We should do it like Hash does. They get uploaded to a site where they are all viewable. Then registered users log in and cast their votes for first, second and third place. :wink:

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 7:48 pm
by J. Baker
Mikdog wrote:Yaaaaaaaaay

:D
I happy for you Mikdog and have nothing against you. I just felt that yours wasn't first prize material. But congrats anyway! ;) I just wanted to post this as I don't want you thinking that I was attacking you in any way.

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:03 pm
by Mikdog
Did I mention that I won FIRST PRIZE?

Did I mention that your feelings have no effect on the fact that I won FIRST PLACE? And that I animated THE BEST? With my delayed actions and whip and snap and counteractions and manual interpolation and crossing the X's method and my lead and follow and facial gestures and strong poses?

Anyway, good luck next time. I wish you the best.

MWA HA HA! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 11:28 pm
by spoooze!
I sent the email out Friday so they may not see it until this morning. Once I know' you'll know.
Okay, just contact me when you hear from them.

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:55 am
by patrick
I think the way the competition was run was fine as it was. (Except for my query not getting an answer!)

The error was on the side of the entrants, myself included.

Mikdog did a basic character with limited animation...done well.

I spent so much time trying to show all the different technical bits AS5 can do I had no time left to animate, which was the whole point of the competition.

I even cut the frame rate to 3 fps in the style of anime, not the brightest thing to do when trying to show quality animation (had I done any!).

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 9:55 am
by jahnocli
Wow. This all seems kind of petty. It's supposed to be fun, isn't it? Hope the winners enjoy their prizes...

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 9:56 am
by patrick
jahnocli wrote:Wow. This all seems kind of petty. It's supposed to be fun, isn't it? Hope the winners enjoy their prizes...
Agreed.

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 10:16 am
by Lady_Justice
patrick wrote: Mikdog did a basic character with limited animation...done well.
If the contest was to be based purely on animation then the contest should have been to animate premade scene given by the contest organiser to keep the playing field level. I'm sure if the other entrants had sacrificed backgrounds, character design, multiple scenes, an imaginitive product and made their animation last less than two-thirds of the minimum requirement then they could have spent more time on animation. Making a final animation is a balance of all these things and I think thats what's missing from the winning entry. It was misleading for the brief made it sound like these other things actually mattered. On a positive note I thought the brief was very well done and got the imagination racing 8)

"With my delayed actions and whip and snap and counteractions and manual interpolation and crossing the X's method and my lead and follow and facial gestures and strong poses"

You can put all the fancy handles on it all you want to make it sound impressive - the end result speaks for itself - it's not.

The fact that there weren't many entries seems to be brought up as an argument. If the other entries had been of a poor quality then I could understand the decision but I feel they have been done an injustice and have to speak my mind. Had I finnished the animation and been beaten by that then I would have sour grapes. As for the next competition, seeing the way they're judged I'd have second thoughts about entering but who knows.

In regards to the copy animation being crap, it was a PARODY and I would not spend more than 20mins on something that was essentially a joke. Problems such as getting the dynamic movements to look right arise when you have a character that actually moves.
Peace Out,
LJ