HeartOfTheStorm's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Arc Infinitum 2]

Wow quite an improvement. I remember bashing the first one a while ago but this one seems to have a ton of effort put into the animation, audio balance, angles, and pacing. It's not flawless but I don't expect flawless.

Not sure if I'm supposed to understand the overall story yet it's still minutes of dialogue worth of names and events which nobody could keep up with without pen and paper.

Also I noticed you just placed you characters wherever on the screen, but there are actually some placement rules you should check out:
http://www.floobynooby.com/IPUB/axislines.png
http://www.floobynooby.com/IPUB/storyboarding08.jpg
http://www.floobynooby.com/IPUB/storyboarding10.jpg

[Start Game]

This video has more animation than your previous ones which were just slideshows, but at least the other ones tried interesting things like perspective and detailed art. The only word I could use to describe this one is rushed. You didn't try anything challenging, the animation was the lowest effort possible, the art was simpler than usual, and everything lacked polish. At least the voice actors were decent this time.

You probably already know all that, don't sweat it though; having to rush huge projects always happens. the fact that you did a video this long for highschool (I assume) is pretty amazing.

exninja123 responds:

It's actually a college project. Meh...
Thanks for the review!

[Chaos / Capstone Project]

Hard to believe this took 90 hours to render, it doesn't even have fancy light effects like ambient occlusion or blurry shadow edges when an object is far off the ground. Does 3dsmax just really suck at rendering light quickly or is it the fault of polycount/texture size?

Labyrinthus responds:

It's mainly at fault from 3Ds Max. The textures I made were relatively high definition depending on the object, and that causes mental ray renderer to suffer quite a lot when sampling the scene. There are soft shadows but the lack of light at night, and the exposure levels during the day, make it hard to notice. The interior lights that I did remember to put in were pretty rushed and i didn't adjust their photometric settings enough to really create ambient light well enough.

I'm still learning how exactly to get the best render out of 3Ds, so it might be a lot of personal testing on my end until something really looks great, and efficiently made at the same time.

Thanks for the review!

[Celles et Ceux des Cimes et Cieux]

Hope he continues to update here on NG, otherwise I found his deviantart account: http://goo00.deviantart.com/

The animation itself was totally amazing, better than what I'd even expect from many animated movies. The only flaw was the sounds which were just weak and unfitting. You can't just throw any sounds on animation, you have to make the sounds so fitting that anyone could nearly watch it with their eyes closed. I can't believe there's a dedicated sound guy in the credits, the sounds are so quiet compared to the music that if I wasn't wearing headphones I wouldn't have even heard half of the effects.

[Techno Pond]

The art is decent, although not impressive, the animation is pretty weak considering you only drew 2-4 frames per frog (you didn't even add animation smears!), and the song is awful (your first time making audio I'm guessing).

I'd like to review more but there's barely any content in this animation at all.

Jenjamik responds:

You nailed it pal! I guess I didn't mention it was made in 3 days while working two jobs. Good eye and ear!

[Arc Infinitum 1]

Still the usual awkward movements, pacing and not enough easing. The story, props, and lighting redeem it pretty well.
No stars were taken away for this, but for goodness sakes "Youtube.com" is no way to credit the Neotokyo soundtrack. Since you are using it for commercial purposes, did you at least get permission from http://edharrison.net/ ?
That's like if I redid the soundtrack for your animation, uploaded it to youtube for ad revenue, then credited your animation as "google.com".

Kel-chan responds:

it hasn't been updated because I had to republish the video because I also misspelled one of the VAs names. refresh it a bit.

As for awkward movements....it'll just take time to iron out and i just have to keep reading tutorials. I'd take a 3d animation class but...seems like a waste of $

[The date]

A guy is talking on the phone so his date eats him... that's it?
What a waste of good animation.
Plus the woman is moaning and groaning constantly when on-screen, barf

[Pink]

Yoo that song is so nice, quite similar to Aquatic Mines from Sonic Adventure 2.
Also of course the animation was everything that internet animations should be: lo fi, long, and imaginative beyond limits.
Holy butts you nailed it.

KartuneHustla responds:

Thanks man! Now let us all pray to the mighty butt

[TD-Culture Shock]

Yeah i live sorta near Sheridan college, I know the crowd that goes there. Good luck on that grinding wheel.
Based on these drawings I'm guessing your skill is way above most people around you too.