| 09-07-2003, 09:06 PM | #1 |
Here are the current reviews for Part 1 of "The Tale of Archon" Feel free to post your own reviews here :ggani: Current Overall Score: 93.5% ============================================== Mech-Sheep: Terrain: A - It was damn good! Music: A - Perfect timing! I love how the music was on the whole time. Tell me how to take off that stupid Warcraft default music on the background! Story: B+ - It was pretty normal, but this is only part 1. I would prefered more of some information and such. Effects: A+ - It's impeccable! Overall: A = 9/10 - BEAUTIFUL CINEMATIC, but now I'm going to have to enhance my own cinematic ============================================== DaemonKillar: DK approved :) Alright, Here's my 10 pages long review: First of all I really want to congratulate you, it's been a long time since I've seen something of that level. Well in fact (no offense to anybody), I believe it is actually the first time . Strangely, watching this really made my day: it just gave me even more interest in finishing my own COTN. When you're all alone to do something in particular, you don't really feel the need to improve(which is really a major problem), and when you don't bring anything new, you quickly lose interest. But since I saw this, I quickly told myself "Alright, what he has done is pretty amazing and of my level, now I must do as he did and do better with the stuff he brought" (You probably told yourself something similar before doin this cin ). So I thought of new stuff I could add to COTN 5 which quickly reanimated this nearly lost "passion". As a result, you just gave me what I needed to regain interest so I'd like to thank you for that. Also, since I believe you're very talented, I'll have you become a mod of this forum if you desire. I'll also make a public announcement on the COTN webpage and will try and get one on the wc3c news so people realize i'm not the only one that can do good cinematics. Ask Skull to get a forum for your project, that's what gave life to COTN actually so it should be the same for TTOA. k enough with the announcements, here's the review! Terrain: It was really good and high quality. I really liked the forest, it had a good amount of details and you did as I told: "Use my stuff and make it better"(Altought I wanted to keep that tree model for myself, greedy bitch eh? ) There are still some flaws I noticed. it's mainly the city that looks too... unnatural. It lacked details compared to the forest and they both contrasted a lot during the cin. Other than that, I can tell you used the new FT environment doodads really well! Terrain Grade - 85% Story: Well it's an introduction, so it doesn't really tell much and that's normal. Still, it starts quite abruptly. Something that sounded odd was the captain's speech when they attacked, it sounded really desperate when he hadn't even seen anything from the enemy. I woulda freaked out if I had such a pessimistic captain to lead me IMO . Despite this minor problem, the events really went on smoothly and remained interesting. That battle was really displayed perfectly! Story Grade - 90% Cameras: You made a really good use of them, especially when the attack began, it made the scene look really panicking! The forest shots were also enjoyable I would say. Yet, there is once again a minor problem: When you move around the city and in the forest, the camera movements are just not fluid enough. They abruptly change direction and kinda break the mood you gave to the scene. Like, one cam goes slowly, then when you issue another cam it just speeds up. Try and correct that in a future update Cameras Grade - 90% Music and SFX: Wellt hat was pretty much near perfection, I don't have much more to say about that. You're one of those that understood it's all about music and sound effects Music and SFX Grade - 99% (nothing is prefect ) **Note I had 3 white fade out and back in at the beginning. There was probably something to show up there (Something announcing TTOA). Yet, it showed white screens. The problem was probably because your texture size wasn't in conformity with most 3D cards standard resolutions(Short, it wasnt a multiple of 32). You might want to fix that too. Now, I'll explain what I meant with "Take my stuff and make it better/add more to it". Basically, COTN gave the tools and ideas to use in order to make an above average cinematic. Yet, the idea is to always go deeper and find new ideas while still using the old ones. So here are the major ideas you brought I could notice: - Reskin a unit when it is wounded (That Arthas that got rocked, pretty good idea there) - Have different skins for every villager (major plus when you don't have much in the town, helps with variety and credibility) - Customized weapon sound effects! (the blademaster scene , that was really cool BTW) Note to some people around I kinda find it insulting to see people forget so easily when they find something better. I personally don't really appreciate the term "COTN killer", it sounds as if you just ignore what I brought to the cinematic community. Please remember most of the cin projects around would never have come to life if I hadnt been here (I'm not telling you should all eternally bow in front of me, I'm just asking for a minimum of recognition please ) This sentence I prefer to take as a joke(which is the case, but looks unclear) left me quite... let's say... confused: No, hes not your rival, your time is over, hes your successor. That quite discouraging to hear as Iron Ian's project is just going to make my own even more alive. Please call it something else like "COTN Rival" or sumthin like that. Keep it clean please so we can continue to have fun while having some of this friendly rivalry In conclusion this Cinematic is definitely DK Approved and deserves this award of excellence  ============================================== Trav Ah yes! This definetly has kicked the limbo bar down a notch. This cinematic has a very eye-catching and fluid approach to it, and it will take a lot of effort to beat it. I could tell just by looking through your Imports that this must have taken 2-3 weeks to create (if not more). +Atmosphere: This is a very comprehensive aspect that I consider the most important to any map. It encompasses story, terrain, enviornment settings, doodad placement, and so on. The first thing I looked for in the editor were those trees. Fur Trees - very nice! The doodads made it seem like a completely unique tileset. +Dialogue: Few spelling/grammatical errors. Most of the text had a sense of purpose about it that didn't bloat the plot. The only thing that detracted, very minimally at that, was an overuse of establishment shots in the beginning. 10/10 ============================================== Undead-Swarm Exellent job! Nice!! 10/10 on special effects, very well done - I love the evil mage >:) 9.9/10 on the skins, the archers was a litle too white for me >:) 10/10 on the camera work, the fading was perfect, it reminded me of some parts in LotR >:) 100/10 on the battle, VERY KEwLLll~!!1 Overall: 129.9/10 - Nicely done, *clap clap* ============================================== Zotax So heres my review: Terrain: Yea pretty good, not the best ive seen, the outdoors had an interesting use of the rock tilesets instead of grass, cant think of whether i like it or not. Story: Seems alright, like DK said its an introduction so not much has been revealed. Dialoug is overall good but has a few moments when it sounds forced and unnatural. IMO try to avoid quick succesions of short sentences. Cinematography: Battle scene was really cool, I suggest for the next part doing something like that, but on a much larger scale, im talking like 4 times what you had. A full blown siege or battle in the planes would just own (take a lot of work, but be worth it). I could just image in far overhead shot or the close up of two opposing heroes fighting amidst the two armies.... Yea like DK try to make the camera movement smoother, SFX/Music/Skins: Definantly the best part. The mage battle owned, almost as much as the undead bloodmage skin did. Having many multiple skins of characaters, even if there only minor changes from the original skin really make a map seem much better. I didnt notice sound much, but thats because I wasnt concentrating on it much, but the few things that did stand out (the music, spell voices and weapon hit sound) were good. Overal very GJ, looking forward to the next part. ============================================== divinesage Fantastic work Ian! Terrain: This is very beautiful. The trees all blend in properly with the background and the ground. Maybe the trees should be a little brown since there was a drought. I'll give this a 9/10. Storyline: Mmmmm. Very nice beginning. The peaceful rain, and then suddenly we're right in a heated battle. A little too sudden for the beginning though. However can't really tell how the plot will progress since this is the first part. 8/10 Music: Good ambience that matches the scenery. Especially the forests. Definitely one of the best. 10/10 but as DK says nothing is perfect so 9.99999/10  Special Effects: This ones an eyefull. Very nice. The orc killing the Lord. The Captain dashing past himand the mage battle were all awesome. 9.99999/10 again :D Overall: Very nice and good work even for Part 1. Good Job! 9.5/10 Keep it up II(Iron_Ian)! ============================================== |
| 09-16-2003, 03:36 PM | #2 |
| 09-17-2003, 02:42 AM | #3 |
| 09-19-2003, 06:00 AM | #4 |
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| 11-14-2003, 10:28 PM | #10 |
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| 12-09-2003, 07:18 PM | #15 |