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Somehow... I don't think this belongs in the \"Technology News and Reviews\" forum....
But. I have 2 GB on my desktop, and 192 MB on my laptop. Yeah, shaddup, I'm upgrading it to 512 MB later... Pentium III's just aren't very snappy with any less...
-Pikl
Last edited by A_Pickle on Thu Jan 05, 2006 4:45 pm; edited 1 time in total
pickl did you know my brother went to nationals at skills usa VICAA competition? the judge said he would of got second place but he didnt due to the fact that the software they made them use to compile it none of them could find the place of where to compile it was like in some menu in preferances disabled then they were able to but it still had one second left on the compilation by the time it was suppose to be in.
Last edited by krazykaveman on Thu Jan 05, 2006 4:52 pm; edited 1 time in total
pickl did you know my brother went to nationals at skills usa VICAA competition? the judge said he would of got second place but he didnt due to the fact that the software they made them use to compile it none of them could find the place of where to compile it was like in some menu in preferances disabled then they were able to but it still had one second left on the compilation by the time it was suppose to be in.
Yeah uh...
We went to SkillsUSA Nationals for 3D Animation and Visualization. Anyways, we were progressing very well, quite the antithesis to what we had accomplished at State (we barely made it due to poor decisions). T'was me and my partner, our computers were pretty lame next to our competition using many a Xeon, or in the back, even a couple of PowerMacs running dual G5's.
Anyways, we're going on this render that has 40 minutes left out of it's total estimated 1 hour and 30 minutes render time on my partner's compy. 50 minutes of that render have been completed, 40 remaining. I'm working on the next scene... and boom.
Power outage. Keep in mind, we had a grand total of six hours to work on this thing... 50 minutes of that on one computer had just been trashed.
Since the power went out, power to me, my partner, and two other groups went out. Any rendering that was taking place ended abruptly, and the video files corrupted and useless. So, the judges got everything sorted out, and in about 5 minutes the power was back up. We were hurt, but not out of the count. I told my partner to put the file on his \"Shared Documents\" so I could render it, having the faster processor. We quickly accomplished this, and my computer hummed away. Total estimated render time was 40 minutes.
It gets better. My computer is literally five frames from completion, having a net total of 38 and some odd minutes of rendering...
...and the power goes out. AGAIN. This is now 90 MINUTES worth (an HOUR AND A HALF) of work time that has been nuked no thanks to some faulty power. At this point, we're as lost as the Titanic without some retribution... so we contact one of the judges with our plea. To this, he responds, \"Well, in the industry this is something we call an 'act of God.'\" And left it at that. No extension. No grading curve. No nothing.
Our requirements were to turn in a 30-60 second animation and 4 still frames. We turned in a 29-second animation with no still frames. We went to the competition debriefing the next day, one of the judges (a Discreet employee) nodded towards us that ours was the most \"anatomically correct\" model of the figure they had given us... but we were certain that this was merely a ploy for \"Cheer up, ya lost.\"
We wanted to file something of an appeal, but we were unable to find our sponsor in time to do so within SkillsUSA regulations. We hadn't completed any of the project requirements, so we were disqualified. Two good friends of mine had fared much better in the Web Design competition, and they were extremely confident that there was a distinct chance of victory for them. Since we were down for the count, we decided to root for them.
Well, there's two great things about the SkillsUSA National Awards Ceremony - anticipation and free glowsticks. We all waited and waited... pre-awards stuff was kind of blitheringly annoying... lectures from some college football coach whose endless speech analogizing life experiences with some game or another was matched only by the boredom of being lectured by the CEO of ...some tool company... anyways. Why couldn't they get Michael Dell or someone cool? I bet Bill Gates would have done it -- he's all into helping and encouraging students. Hell, I'd have even listened to Steve Jobs blathering on. Anyways.
We FINALLY got to the awards announcements, and our school had a list of them, including... bah, I don't remember. Anyways. EVERY competition our school was in was announced prior to Web Design, except 3D Animation, so once Web Design's winners were announced, we were all a bit weary and ready to go enjoy the final day of the trip. Since there aren't many common letters after 'W,' the ceremony was wrapping up and we all began to pick up our glowsticks, jackets, and other parphernilia... when they called 3D Animation. In a last glance of hope, we turned to hear the sound of some \"Team H\" being called, so me and my partner turned back around to a little confusion.
We were like... \"wtf?\"
Some people were cheering at us, \"Team A,\" while others had heard what we had and were turned gathering their belongings. It just so happens that, in a stadium with more than 5,000 people rapaciously clapping that the letter \"H\" and the letter \"A\" can become very similar in resonance, much like the numbers 50 and 15. We got Third Place, which was pretty sweet, considering we had completed none of the project requirements. Given that, we were pretty certain that had we those 90 minutes back, we'd have gotten second fer sure, and a good possibility of first.
In any case, there were some issues that I kind of have a beef with in that competition, though happy I am to have won third. A competition is supposed to weed out the most adroit individual or team in a given field or subject. To be able to do that, it is necessary to eliminate all dependent variables except that of the skill of the individual or team. When you have over a hundred computers, some with multiple processors at different speeds utilizing different programs faster and slower in different areas -- you don't get that true objective competition.
Oh well. My tale ends. :D
My Partner: 1.8 GHz Pentium 4, Willamette, 400 MHz front side bus, 256k L2 cache 256 MB PC133 SDRAM 80 GB ATA100 HDD Intel Extreme Graphics 1 (not 2)
That's a matter of debate. We brought everything on the list they gave us of things to bring. Not to sound nationalistic, but power reliability isn't something I routinely fret about living in the United States. In addition, they knew the number of competitors who would be attending, and they had far too few outlets prepared for 52 teams of two (each with a computer with at least one processor). We had power strips, we just didn't have uninterruptible power supplies.
In any case, the part that just... ggh... stuck in my craw was the, \"Huh. Our power failed, you're screwed, it was an act of God.\" Act of God my foot, that was ridiculous how three teams were unfairly disadvantaged by circumstances outside our control, with no semblance of restitution whatsoever.
Quote:
it was probly some other team playing with the circuit breaker so that they could try and make you lose.
Doubt it, we didn't see anyone and we were right next to the outlet that failed. It was probably too much power draw, but what bugs me is that they didn't anticipate or test the possibility of this happening. They moved the competition from it's traditional location right into one of the Kansas City Convention Center wings.
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