Animation

The animation group produces 3D animations to compete for the annual FIRST Robotics Safety Animation Award and Digital Animation Award. The group works with software such as Autodesk Maya, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Premiere to create original and expressive animations while highlighting some of the medium's most exciting possibilities. Members work together to write stories, model objects, animate characters, and develop scenes.

The animation team primarily participates in the Safety Animation and FIRST Competition projects. For those competitions, we follow a certain theme announced by FIRST, creating a storyline and scenes and producing an animation including a soundtrack. The Safety Animation Project is focused on the theme of safety. View all of our past animations here:

Beyond the FIRST Safety and Digital Animation awards, the animation team helps other groups with graphics and designs where needed. In the 2020-2021 season, the animation team worked with the Game Design project group to create a storyboard and script for an animation for their game submission to the FRC Game Design Challenge. In the 2018-2019 season, GRT prepared for the build season by producing its own offseason robotics competition, meant to mirror the feeling of build season and gave rookies a taste of the second semester rush. The animation team provided graphics to flesh-out the rulebook and represent important parts of the game visually.

Animation team rookies are not required to have any animation knowledge prior to joining. At the beginning of each year, the animation lead organizes 3D modeling sessions in which both rookies and veterans can work together. Veterans teach rookies what they need to know to participate. Rookies also utilize free, online resources such as YouTube tutorials, 3D modeling forums, and open source projects. After training, all members know how to model, texture, and rig. Animation of models, scene composition, lighting, camera angles, and rendering are all taught by the veterans most experienced in those areas.