Nanashi's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Avania: episode 2 part 3]

Lacking visually, but with good structure

Is this story and are these characters original? I'm writing this review under the assumption that they are.

Your backgrounds are messy and simplistic. Your animations are very minimal and the voice acting is heavily compressed and far from perfect... BUT, you're focused on telling a story, and you don't seem to be letting anything get in the way of that. FAR too many animations on newgrounds have this formula backwards. Great visuals should come AFTER a well structured story and original characters.

My advice would be to keep working with your focus on the story and characters, but slowly keep trying to improve your art. Look around at other people's art and try to emulate their style. In times where you are waiting for voice work, just go nuts on the detail of a background.

Don't feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the background. You don't have to draw every tree and plant. You only have to IMPLY the existence of these objects. Try looking at similar backgrounds in cartoons and anime. Notice how most of the time, very little work has gone into them, but they imply the space with shadows or lowering detail in the background.

Even if you don't change a thing about the art, I think you're going somewhere with this. Don't lose faith in yourself.

Deer50 responds:

Yup, it is all original and thank you ^^

[The Assignment Part 2]

My 8 is kinda like most people's 9 :P

I don't remember how my review went with the last part, so I hope I don't repeat myself too much.

Your drawing style is unique enough to stand out, and fluid enough to not look lazy, so props for that. I don't like it when I can clearly see what has been tweened and what hasn't, and even though you use a lot of auto-corrected shapes and straight lines, it actually kinda plays toward the charm of the animation.

The plot and story telling is clear enough, though for people with horrible memory like me, a really short refresher of what happened last time wouldn't hurt.

Sound wise, you seem to do well picking appropriate songs and do well to stick to music from the audio portal. When the music came in the first time, I felt it was a little loud (or the voice was a little soft before it), but otherwise your sound design is on par. You could gain a bit of detail by adding background sounds to different locations. Nothing too loud or crazy, but enough to fill in the spaces between bits of dialog.

Where your animations really lose their momentum is in the voice acting. Its not poorly voiced, and the actual quality of the voice samples is fine, but you need to gather some outside people for voice work. Try posting to the front page for a casting call. If each character had a unique and expressive voice, it would really add some color to the overall production.

Good work, and I look forward to seeing what craziness you come up with next.

somezombie responds:

Drawings: Thanks for the compliment on the drawing style. About the auto corrected shapes and straight lines, I just found it easier to work that way while I still don't have a tablet. I'm saving for it though.

Plot and story telling: Yes, it did missed a short reminder of what happened last time, sorry about that.

Voice acting: Next time I'll find some friends that could help me with the voice acting cause I can't do all the character voices... The thing is I need them too speak english and spanish for now :P.

Sounds: I already have the idea for my next two animations, and the only sound I'm gonna use in both of them will be a background song, so no voice acting or sfx for now. I will keep in mind what you said about the background sound though... When I'm back at telling a normal story with dialog I'll problably ask you for advice on actual audio help. Thanks a lot man.

[Pico Jones]

And so I give away my coveted 10...

I was actually lead to this because I was curious to see how my song "The Red Barron" was used. Not only was it used quite well, the whole animation was great! I love your use of flashes new 3D, and the energy put into implementing motionblur on so many effects.

I've gotta ask, how did you do motion blur on objects not moving strictly horizontal or vertical? Did you just pre-render all those objects outside of flash?

Anyway, well done sir... Quite epic.

RiverJordan responds:

Yeah the whole video was actually made in after effects, not flash. So thats how I did the blurs and the shadows and stuff :)

[Dual Arms Verbatim Part 1]

Well done

I give this animation a 9 for how damn solid it is. That is, no one part is exceptional, but as a whole it really stands out. As strange as it may sound, a lot of artists modify the script and direction to fit what is easily done. I do it a lot myself when confronted with difficult shots. You don't seem to have held back with this, and I really like that. I'll break this down and be a little bit more specific than I normally am.

Audio:
The music did its job and didn't stand in the way. Nothing took place that really could have gained much more power from some overused Hans Zimmer music, so no faults there. The sound effects were a little over compressed in some cases, but such is the result of a megabyte budget.

I disagree with many other reviews. I felt the voice acting was reasonable, and above the common standard of newgrounds. Yes there are some AMAZING voice actors and actresses out there, some of which I've been lucky enough to work with, but its just physically impossible for every single animation to have top notch VAs. I thought the acting was just fine. The quality of the samples was lacking, but again, this is out of your hands.

Just so you know, the secret to good VAs is puting your idea out there, asking for auditions, and poking around in places like the Voice Actor Alliance forums.

Animation:
Movement wise, again, you've done as much, if not a little more, than was necessary to imply movement. All animation is implied movement to some degree, and with a budget of zero dollars, extensive frame by frame sequences are just plane unrealistic expectations. This is obviously a character driven story, so writing and still visuals takes priority.

On that subject, I would recommend, as some others have, that you try using the paintbrush tool instead of vector lines. The brush does a better job interpolating your intended strokes (a godsend if you use a mouse), and overall looks cleaner if used properly. If you really spent a year on this, I'd say its worth your money to invest in a WACOM tablet if you haven't already.

You characters could use a little work. I think you just need to spend a little more time on them, and need carefully drawn character reference sheets. When artists draw real humans, they often use real human references. You should consider picking a studio or artist who draws in your preferred style, and start using their artwork as a reference for your own. And if people dislike your work because it is Anime styled, screw em. There is a reason why Anime is the top grossing style of animation. Its simple enough to be affordable to draw, but stylized in a way that makes its characters enjoyable.

Your 3D animation isn't mind-blowing, but it more than does its job. I really like how it is employed. I never received any 'formal training' in 3D art either, but I'm now able to illustrate complex transforming flying vehicles. Its just a matter of dedication. I can see you are modeling with primitives for the most part. I'd recommend you pick up a copy of Milkshape 3D ($20) or Blender (Free) and learn the art of 'extrusion modeling.' That'll allow you to make more complex shapes, and interesting things. Swift's interface is meant for posing and setting up shots, and its a terrible modeler. You might also be able to use Sketchup, but you'll need PRO to export .3ds.

Story:
Your dialog was well written (especially by newgrounds standards) and the story complex and original. I'll admit I was kinda lost, like watching the 5th episode of a 13 episode series, but you've been told that already, so I'll leave it be.
Sub titles would be great. I know in the elevator scene, I was unable to make out what was being said over the SFX in a shot or two. I don't understand what you mean when you say 'program' subtitles. I've subtitled the majority of my work, and I don't know a single line of ActionScript.
Its a simple process of adding a text layer and timing it with your audio. This is even easier if you use the text as a trigger for the vocal files.

RPGsrok responds:

Thanks for the detailed review - always appreciated.

As far as sound, I didn't record anything myself, but I thought they turned out...serviceable. Save perhaps for the awkward static in the train sequence that you perhaps noted (something there was just no way to fix; it didn't sound that way in the source file T_T) I think they fared compression decently.

I'm glad you liked the voices. I am personally quite found of several of the actors I got to work with, though as you mentioned there were several cases where I had some pretty cruddy quality to work with. This was the first time I ever auditioned anyone for anything and I only used one site, so hopefully future works of mine will see larger, better held auditions and better acting. XD

I'm still not entirely sure of what you guys mean by using the brush. Obviously when you wrote this, I had no response below, but without pressure sensitivity, I think it just makes things look like they weren't within lines and ups the filesize. I think I may be missing some detail of what you guys mean by using the brush "right" and if you have the time to elaborate, please pm me. YOU THINK I COULD DO THIS WITHOUT A TABLET?!? XD I do have a tablet, but its getting on in years - I really should get a new one...

I was using mostly primatives at this time, but if I know what you mean by extrusion (drawing a shape that the program gives depth) I did use some of that for the train, and have used it more in my more recent 3D (the 3D work for this was actually finished early in the production cycle). I looked at blender once - couldn't figure it out. Honestly - I'd really rather get some formal 3D training before I invest in a program.

SIR you NAILED it. In my head you see, this IS the 5th episode of a 13 episode series. At least it was. Now its like the 7th episode of a 16 episode series >_<. Point is - as I've said, it was kinda dumb to 'start' there. I add also that I did NOT 'start' with this. If you care to watch a rather BADLY done 8 minutes, check out my older animation - Dual Arms Precipice. It shows its age, though it may very well be less confusing than verbatim (that's saying a lot, i know)

Again, as I said below, if I'm going to do subs, I want them to be activatable. I don't want text just hovering over every screen with no option to turn it off. I mean, if I did that, I'd need to main a plain version of the movie for any time I wanted to export to a non-flash format and besides - I think if you can DO that sort of thing (activated/deactivated subs - and I've seen it done) you should. And I dont' know what you mean by 'trigger'.

Thanks for reviewing man! Hope to hear from you in the future!

[Don't Leave]

Very nice

So what if it was a test? I think the response it has received is a good indicator of the success of that test. And remember that the secret behind creativity is hiding your sources. It does not mater how you put together the art (as long as its legal), all that maters is that you are able to put together what you intended to.

I see animations like this and it reminds me of back in the day when I could animate. I remember that I tended to rush through things, and when I forced myself to take my time, my work was much better. You should consider it. With a little focus, you could make some amazing work.

I agree with the other reviews that say the NG logo was a mood killer, and the one top down scene was very out of place. Otherwise, everything was fine. The story was a great idea. Interesting enough that I could imagine writing a whole series around it. Girl dies, comes back and tries to make things work, they obviously don't because she is DEAD, story peaks when she gets him killed so they can be together, but ends in tragedy when he discovers she did it intentionally. Just a thought.

Anyway, keep it up.

Jestercap13 responds:

thank you what you say is true( and the NG logo thing yeah lol, that was a problem but i had never done something like that and i wanted to see what would happen lol, bad choice in some forms lol) and i hope that i can make even better flashes in the future.

[KR47: Club]

A few tips

The animation was great, as was the style. Not knee slapping funny, but that's ok, I like to go a day without bruised knees.

Anyway, once you have all of your lines ready for your animation, download goldwave (google) and load them up in that. Copy a section of silence onto the clipboard (not really silence, obvious fan's and shit in the background that we want to cut out). now select the whole sound, and go to effects > Filter > Noise reduction. Set it to use clipboard, and click ok. It should remove background noise based off of the sample you gave it. It might need a longer, or shorter sample, but try to get one as uneventful as possible so it only removes the fan noises and room tone. Once this is done with all your files, your voices will fit in flawlessly with your TOTAL SILENCE BACKGROUND SOUND!

Try looking for roomtones on free sound effect websites. A room tone, or background loop of SOME kind would be much better.

Good luck

Ghosty22 responds:

Thanks, man!

[Wacky Pod Races]

Exelent work

I always like to see dedication like this in an animation. You set a goal and reached it. I never was a fan of the original Waky Races cartoon, or a big Star Wars fanatic for that mater, but you have done a great job combining two things that don't seem to go together at all!

I see how much work you did to stay true to the sources, and I have great respect for that. The voices where as good as they could have been, music did its job, and animation was flawless. Thank you for your time and effort.

StuffAnimation responds:

Wow, you don't like either Wacky Races or Star Wars and you still give it a 10! Thank you.

[Contra]

Great use of basics:

This is a fantastic animation, not for its visual complexity, but your skilled use of some of the most basic animation principles that seem to have been forgotten. All movements are fluid, intentional and smooth. Characters anticipate movement and abide by the basic physics of motion.
Once again, I see someone setting the standard high for new animators. Now even if someone wants to do a stick animation, they can see that its not an excuse to be lazy.

The only thing that brought it down a little was the audio. FX where enough to do the job, but often times maxed out, even on my Bose. Its probably half Flashes fault for the way it compresses. With a 3 MB file size, it might not be a bad idea to reduce the audio compression a bit and see if that does it.

All in all, totally worth watching. Good work.

dkuo responds:

Haha you're right, the size limit for stickpage was 4 MB so I could have unloaded the compression for newgrounds a little. Thanks!

[StarCraft: Infestation]

Its so close

This is so close to being a real winner in my book. The dialog is well written, and the voices aren't too bad ether (could use a better mic). The cinematography is good too, the angles you chose, and such, but the thing that brings it down are the ultra simple backgrounds. Flash MX and Flash 8 support images, and they don't look half bad anymore. Try exporting your backdrops, photoshoping them, and bringing them back in as images, or something to this effect.
The other thing that kills it is the models. Not bad at all for being built out of primitives, but for how much work goes into this, you need an upgrade. Try milkshape 3D (add a dot com to that for the url). Its free for 30 days, plenty of time to re-build your models using extrusion, instead of primitives.

Loved the dragons, the movement was great!

LogFish responds:

My computer is too arse to run any newer programmes so, while i have a new 3d graphics program that doesn't bite arse, I can't use it yet! New PC in a few weeks though then it's all go - but I won't be re-doing the grahpics of this series, it's so close to completion and im ditching it in 1 or 2 episodes so I'm not doing an complete overhaul - new series should have awes-the-horse models though! (which move more accurately too!)

I'll give that a shot with the photoshopping and things - thanks for being accurate in your criticism and giving me a way to try and imprve the background rather than just saying 'it's arse' - that's a helpful review! I'm even going to helpful review it, wow.