Marvel: Ultimate Alliance CG intro

[ScottC]

Just one plot hole any Spiderman fans can spot, you'll see what I mean. Anyone knows who did the intro?

Im sure Spideys Spidey sense had him well aware of the robothug sneaking up behind him, but they were just moving in slow motion as far as he was concerned, so he first wanted to check on Cap's well being.

Sorry, no "No-Prize" for you;)


Great clip though...this is the superhero movie I want to see :)

[AdamantiumKnot]

wow. it looks great! does anyone know who's doing the work on it?

[Flog]

Looks really good, wow! Loved it.

[RobertoOrtiz]

Too bad they changed the race of Nick Fury.... again



-R

[EpShot]

gotta be Blur ;)

[RockinAkin]

gotta be Blur ;)
Sweeeet... nice job guys.

[Digit]

Too bad they changed the race of Nick Fury.... again
-R


Uh? What should he be?

[BillSpradlin]

Yea, Blur did this one. Saw it at Comicon this year =)

Sweedish did some nice work on the rigs for the characters, wolverines hair looked a bit odd as did Thors, but other than that good work guys and gals.

[Art2]

Too bad they changed the race of Nick Fury.... again

What race should he be? :shrug:

I'm just glad they didn't use him :scream::argh:
http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/fury2.jpg

Great intro. Love to see this as a feature length superhero movie.

[RobertoOrtiz]

Ok time to show my geek credentials..

This is how the ultimate Nick Fury looks like...
>>LINK<< (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e8/UltimateNickFury.jpg)

This is from the Ultimatte universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Nick_Fury
-R

[Nicodemus]

Too bad they changed the race of Nick Fury.... again

-R

Technically they changed him back. He was always white. I am waiting for them to make him a woman!! LOL

Leslie

[Leonard]

Big round of applause to Blur Studio for this. Well done!

Plugged.

Leo

[RobertoOrtiz]

All kidding aside, this is Seriously great work BLUR....

I wonder how they did Spiderman mask?
Maybe a Cloth Sim?

-R

[Grayscale]

Hey Folks. This is the intro Cinematic for a game that Raven Software is making, Marvel Ultimate Alliance. There is another cinematic that Blur created on the official site for the game.

http://www.marvelultimatealliance.com/

Check towards the bottom and you'll see "Nightcrawler Cinematic". Top Notch stuff I have to say. I'm extremely geeked out about this game!

[Littleberu]

Ok time to show my geek credentials..

This is how the ultimate Nick Fury looks like...
>>LINK<< (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e8/UltimateNickFury.jpg)

This is from the Ultimatte universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Nick_Fury
-R

IIRC, this game is not set in the Ultimate universe, as Galactus does not exist in this universe. He does kind of exist, but, anyway... not in this form. :P

[collings]

once again great work from Blur !
congratz :thumbsup:

[eirenicon]

Ok time to show my geek credentials..

This is how the ultimate Nick Fury looks like...
>>LINK<< (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e8/UltimateNickFury.jpg)

This is from the Ultimatte universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Nick_Fury
-R

Time to show mine. In case you didn't notice, Dr. Doom called Fury "Colonel Fury" in the trailer. In the Ultimate universe, he's a general. Despite the "Ultimate" in Ultimate Alliance, the only thing the game borrows from the Ultimate universe are the costumes. The characters and storylines are classic Earth-616 material.

Also, they probably couldn't get Sam Jackson's appearance into the game.

[grundelboy]

It will be sad if the make nick more femmy then this http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/fury2.jpg.
I feeking hate Assel-hoff.

[JakeJK]

Blur truely rock with ther game cinematics!

[Auctane]

Oh, Blur made it... better plug it.

[AdamHerbert]

Wow! Awesome trailers! Great job again Blur!

The hair for Wolvie andThor was a little strange, but everything else was fantastic. I think I liked the Nightcrawler traielr even better. Awesome how he actually uses his abilities to his advantage in a fight, unlike the X-men movies. I think the movies could have taken some character cues and fight scene advice from the boys over at Blur.

[Buzzoff]

Too bad they changed the race of Nick Fury.... again

He was the same race I remember him being.

I did notice that Wolverine now has hair made out of contruction paper and didn't really match the quality of anything else.

How long has Thor been swinging a cheesy axe?

Ingeneral, I loved the look.

[ragdoll]

that's some bada$$ snit they got there! :scream:

[nazarone]

:applause: Another Great and excellent work from Blur Studio. I send one question to the fantastic team Blur Studio .... When you go to make a film with these concepts and desings??.:)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>> My online portafolio: www.esinforafia.net (http://www.esinfografia.net)

[Womball]

That is the best in game cinematic I have seen with lip sync! I hope this game is a lot of fun, that's what matters. Although I wish I could see this Thor in there. http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=037337

[ScottC]

Yes, top-notch work! Although, I always thought of Doom's voice being a bit deeper, and I dont like Thors "kewl" new hammer. The old one always had such a geometric purity about it. Plus, wheres his sweet Thor-hat?

But, onto more important matters. In addition to my first explanation for why Spidey's spider sense seemed not to work, I have an alternate (I'm sorry to say, I lost a little sleep over this last night...Im part of that small but generally useless segment of society that actually get bothered by things like this).

If spiderman's spidey-sense is actually some sort of precognitive ability, maybe he sensed Cap's intervention in the near future, and therefore there was no danger that needed to be avoided.

Do I get a No-prize?

[eek]

All kidding aside, this is Seriously great work BLUR....

I wonder how they did Spiderman mask?
Maybe a Cloth Sim?




-R

Good old skinning, me thinks.

[P_T]

If spiderman's spidey-sense is actually some sort of precognitive ability, maybe he sensed Cap's intervention in the near future, and therefore there was no danger that needed to be avoided.

Do I get a No-prize?
Nope, no "no-prize" for you either my friend. Spider sense only detect hostility directed at him. :D

[mahir]

Forget the spider-sense issue - why is he so buffed is what I wanna know!
Chalk up another Thor fan who prefers the old hammer, the helmet - oh gimme the old costume in all it's glory!
Cap's costume looks alright (but I kinda miss the wings) and I like they got the original Nick Fury in this one.
Nice job Blur!

[davezak]

blur is in california?



wonder how many ppl involved.
for serious yo :thumbsup:

[michael-olszak]

Indeed awesome work from Blur. Can't w8t to get the game man. cool.

Love the Nightcrawler cinematic.

[hesido]

Haven't had this much amusement from a cg animation for a long time. Congrads to all involved, a perfect effort in my book.

[ASWDesign]

your links dont work?

[P_T]

See, the technology is obviously there, the interest/appetite for this kind of visual style/genre seems to be plenty... but noone makes feature animation with this kind of style...

That's a nice market for you guys at Blur to tap into. You can be the Pixar of semi realistic feature animations. :D

[Nick Unden]

Looks like I might have a difference in opinion on this one...

The one thing I do agree that looked amazing was rendering and effects. Very well done!

The animation/mocap looked very weak. The characters feel very stiff and there is a great lack of weight. In every 'jump' in the sequence felt very unbelievable and because of that unappealing. The majority of the facial animation, was horrible. I don't see real people talking or expressing like that, nor would I want to. Nor would I want to see stylized characters talking with such a lack of feeling. For example Thor looked like a robot the entire sequence. Thor has to be feeling 'something' as a character whether it's boredom, pride, nobility, whatever it may be, it didn't come across to me.
Everything about Wolverwine look bad to me as well. Nothing about him worked, from animation to design.
To me the hair didn't look a little 'off'. It looked horrible. The lighting and rendering was executed to well, and to have the character's hair look like that is a big shame.

... just my opinion... that's all...

nick.

[leuey]

I hate to say it but overall this was horrible. Sure, it had some great rendering (the closeup of Spiderman and Cap'n America was great) and the modelling was nice (except for Wolverine, he looked like a plastic action figure - way too buff, bad hair, just...bad).

But what made the whole thing fail was the horrible dialogue and really bad acting. It's as if the animators themselves sat in front of a webcam and did the voices. I'm sorry guys, good modelling and rendering and decent animation don't make for a good short by themselves - not nowadays, not anymore.

It's hard to appreciate the 2 (maybe 3) good fight sequences when you're absolutely cringing at the acting and dialogue (and the audio was very weak as well). Ugh - I can't believe the producer let this slide.

-Greg

[visionmaster2]

strange cinematic. some objects looks like low res models and others not . is it normal ?. it's like a combinaison of réel time rendering with precalculed in it.
it's well done for a cinematic game, but nothing really new.

[jinraichi]

Avesome CG, Wolverine is still a badass.
Anyway, personaly I looked at this from the fan view and not from the CGartist view like Nick Unden and leuey did.
If you look to some of the marvel issues you'll see Spidey not buffed, but muscular defined (like in this CG).
Now, this is a short for the game for fans not a movie. There will alway be something wrong with a CG. Rendering, modeling, texturing,... But this is not something a gamer will look at so closeli as a CGartist. He will enjoy the action, because this is gonna be an action game not a CG movie, that has to have a huge, involvin story that when you look at the movie for the 2nd or 3rd time you're still excited about it (here Advent Children lacked in story).
Horrible dialogue? have you ever read a marvel comic book. those are full of horrible dialogues and comback lines. you would never talk like that in real life, if you did you would get a beating every 60 minutes.

anyway, jus my point of view.

Blur well done.

jinraichi

P.S. Probably I'll buy this game for my PC.
P.P.S. I'd like to see Luke Cage here.

[AdamHerbert]

I can see some flaws as Nick and leuey pointed out, but I still love it. You have to keep in mind Blur has an average of 6 weeks to turn around these shorts, and that's an amazingly short period of time for something like this. You also have to keep in mind budget and audience. As jinraichi said, they are going for a specific audience here, and it's not someone who cares about whether the voice acting and facial expressions are spot on. They are trying to get people excited about the game and imo, they do a great job of that. The action sequences are superb! It may not be Pixar finished animation, but with the budgets and time alotted that would be impossible, even for Pixar. So for Nick and leuey just some factors to consider.

[malcolmTG]

to answer a previous question. spidey's mask was just skinning. the only cloth sim stuff was doom and thor's hair in those two sequences.

and as to how many people worked on it. there are about 70-80 production artists here and probably half the studio was on this project at some point or another because of how much work there was to be done thruout the different sequences.

[leuey]

Yes, I've read a Marvel Comic and no, I don't expect them to talk like you would in real life. I do expect not to cringe at the combination of dialogue and delivery. It was stilted, emotionless, awkward, with no timing or chemistry between characters. Without decent dialgoue and acting the whole cinematic crumbles. I expect more today - Valve has in game dialogue, acting and facial animation that far surpasses this short cinematic. I wasn't really criticising the CG (or the Artists - aside from Wolverine) - I'm just saying that in total this was not a good production. And it's not, compare this to the Chaos trailer. They're in competely different leagues.

Like I said before, I blame the producer (and director) - it doesn't have to be Oscar worthy but it does have to 'not suck'. What's the point of busting your ass on the CG if the rest of the production bites? I mean, am I the only one who didn't realize Thor was actually a robot before seeing this?

-Greg

have you ever read a marvel comic book. those are full of horrible dialogues and comback lines. you would never talk like that in real life, if you did you would get a beating every 60 minutes.

.

[mahir]

I still think Spider-man is too big in this one. He should be muscular yes but much leaner compared to what we have here. As for Thor's line I think it's quite typical of him to be saying that - it's just the delivery didn't come across right. Possibly his pose has something to do with it. And that darn hammer makes it worse.
Overall I enjoyed it regardless of the flaws. Nitpicky as I am, I'm too much of a comic geek not to.

[lildragon]

See it in all its hi-def glory

http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=2663

I truly enjoyed NightCrawler's vid much more, tho I love Cap's take down. Wolverince just looked way too stuffed and very slow and cumbersome for me. Overall its mesmerising what Blur does.

And the lip sync is the best I've seen to date in a cinematic, kudos to that :thumbsup:

Cheers

[Arrghman]

I didn't have a problem with the dialouge, sounded like what I'd expect from a comic book... but you know, in a good way. I'm also 90% sure that was Mark Hammil doing Spidey's voice :D

[gent_k]

The Nightcrawler cinematic was awesome!

But I'll have to agree about some of the thoughts on the originally posted trailer. The technical side of thing might be good but the directing, dialouge and voice acting were simply... not good. And yes it did make me cringe throughout too.

I also didn't quite like some of the character design decisions, though that's more dependent on the game creator's side of things I guess.

Blur are capable of doing amazing work as can be seen from the Nightcrawler trailer and many more, but this one isn't one of their best work. I agree with leuey that great CG alone doesn't cut it.

[Flog]

LOL, you definately cannot please some people. It was fun. Period. It was not a movie and this would pass for most audiences.

[phantomworkshop]

I thought it was top notch work from those geniouses at Blur studios. Some great slow-motion frames, excellent character recreation, and great sound effects. As far as the dialogue and such, if you've read the comics and watched the movies and/or TV shows based off these guys, the dialgoue is 99.9% cheesey. That's what makes Spider-Man, spidey. His goofy perosnality, smart-alec remarks, and all around conceited selfish exterior.

Good job Blur!


(the only thing that may turn people away was Wolverine's interpretation. I however thought it was cool to see Logan looking a bit different then usual. The character showed original style and creativity.)

[bedrock]

fun stuff :D

[P_T]

I saw Sze Jones here earlier, did she do modelling work for this project?

Ok, time to nitpick, Thor moves his hammer arm too much, gave the impression of a toy hammer. I know he's really strong and all but giving the hammer a bit more weight would make it more believable I reckon, specially since he uses the weight of his hammer to fly, or something like that...

[My Fault]

Yeah, didn't really like this one at all except for the Captain America bit. Everyone seemed soooo stiff, even Spidey. When Thor flew through the ship it seemed to lack any power. Wolverines run and jump showed little to no weight. Really surprised at how mediocre this one was, well at least compared to Blur's other outstanding work.

[Flog]

wow!! I really would like to see some of you guys work. You must be amazing.

I mean it's so funny how folks with a CG eye look at things, hahahahah. It really is funny. I'm almost scared to post a picture.

[My Fault]

wow!! I really would like to see some of you guys work. You must be amazing.

I mean it's so funny how folks with a CG eye look at things, hahahahah. It really is funny. I'm almost scared to post a picture.

Umm, the name of this place is CGTalk so we are supposed to like..ya know..talk about CG. Duh! :D

And the skill of the commenter should have no bearing on wether someone can comment on work posted here. That would be ridiculous and would lead to only like 8 people saying anything. Please think a bit before posting next time.

I enjoyed the Nightcrawler vid more, though the more obvious mocap bits held it back. Loved some of the ideas and direction in it!

[Flog]

Nah I just thought it was funny that is all. How you can please some but not others. I just think it is funny.

Personally I thought it was fun.

It reminds me of this one post where there was a picture of a lizard and everyone was critiquing it saying the fins on the lizard are not the right color, the lizard was not realistic, that this texture needed to look like this and that. That they could tell it was fake because of some lighting element, textures, etc.

Someone even mentioned something about the proportions. It was hilarious because in the end, it was a real photograph of a freaking real lizard.

The texture was perfect because well it was the lizards own personal texture. Folks were dogging how fake it looked.

Priceless when everyone found out it was a real lizard, texture couldn't be more on point than actually being the real deal.

It's cool to critique, but it's also okay to sit back and stare at amazement and laugh.

Dude I just realized what big geeks we really are. I think there should be a new level, right under FANBOY. Darn put me on that list.

wow!! I really would like to see some of you guys work. You must be amazing.


Actually I wasn't being smart or sarcastic. I really would like to see your work.

[Littleberu]

wow!! I really would like to see some of you guys work. You must be amazing.

I mean it's so funny how folks with a CG eye look at things, hahahahah. It really is funny. I'm almost scared to post a picture.

I found the sequence to be really good, but your comment makes no sens. Since when are we supposed to be expert to give our opinion?

[kenshinw95]

I actually liked it. Even the dialogue, 'cause it fits with the comic book genre. With many "in character" scenes. The only thing was Wolverine's hair was a little odd, but then again after all by trials with making hair for my character. Thor's hair is supposed to be long, and flowy. From what I can remember, Thor always talks in that kind of prose before. He IS supposed to be from a different time period, and country, so his way of speaking wouldn't match John Q. Public. I can understand how they'll take the path of least resistance while keeping to a distinct style. Maybe if Nick Fury had the same style of hair as the others' hair, it wouldn't have look so out of place on Wolverine & Thor.

And hopefully my PC will be able to run it at a decent framerate, 'cause I can't afford any of the Next-Gen consoles. Especially not a PS3. $600?! :eek:

[Littleberu]

I actually liked it. Even the dialogue, 'cause it fits with the comic book genre. With many "in character" scenes. The only thing was Wolverine's hair was a little odd, but then again after all by trials with making hair for my character. Thor's hair is supposed to be long, and flowy. From what I can remember, Thor always talks in that kind of prose before. He IS supposed to be from a different time period, and country, so his way of speaking wouldn't match John Q. Public. I can understand how they'll take the path of least resistance while keeping to a distinct style. Maybe if Nick Fury had the same style of hair as the others' hair, it wouldn't have look so out of place on Wolverine & Thor.

And hopefully my PC will be able to run it at a decent framerate, 'cause I can't afford any of the Next-Gen consoles. Especially not a PS3. $600?! :eek:

Marvel : Ultimate Alliance will be available on all current generation platform (including PS2, Xbox and PSP) IIRC.

[Igo]

Horrible dialogue? have you ever read a marvel comic book. those are full of horrible dialogues and comback lines.

Have you not read any Marvel Comics in the past 5 years? They are full of "GOOD" dialogue, because they dont hire shitty writers being the best selling comic corp in the world. Here's a name for you... Mark Millar.

And I doubt any of you bickering to Blur about design can really, because Marel's known for totally just chaging costumes and what not all the time for any marketing. Cards, posters, movies, video games, etc. Bitch at them, and whoever came up with the actual designs for the game, because Im betting it wasnt Blur.

Im with the others on a lot of it being mediocre, especially with most of the models looking like high-res game models. I'd kill to have your budget go up and see some skin sliding, muscle tk, and not having every muscle modeled in flexed because they always look like action figures to me, no matter how good the skinning is. But I blame that on whoever for not giving you the budget and time, so keep pushing forward Blur.

Nightcrawler's "BAMPH" was handeled so excellent... way better than the movie IMO. Really, really, REALLY top notch effects on that sequence.

And Im curious how much freedome you have with the scripting and whatnot when this all goes down. How much freedome do you have with a cinematic as a company?

[noisewar]

IIRC, this game is not set in the Ultimate universe, as Galactus does not exist in this universe. He does kind of exist, but, anyway... not in this form. :P

Yep it's not, despite the name, related at all to the Ultimate universe. They meant it to be the alliance to end all alliances.

[Nicodemus]

This is pretty damn cool but Thors hair really does bother me.

Still, this looks great. I especially like how Spiderman moves.

Leslie

[TheChosen1]

I have mixed feelings. Character animation was bad and stiff and so was the voice acting. Spidey was good but the other characters weren't. I also just didn't like the art style on some of the characters. Doom and Fury looked awesome but Wolverine, Thor and Spidey didn't look that good. They were poofy and just wierd looking. This is just from an artistic viewpoint, technically it looked very good. It definately had some cool stuff going on but I don't think its up to par with some of the other stuff I've seen blur do like the X-men legends cinematics. I really did like that it was nice and long and had some acting in it instead of just being another action showcase kind of thing. Makes me want to see more stuff like this.

[kenshinw95]

Marvel : Ultimate Alliance will be available on all current generation platform (including PS2, Xbox and PSP) IIRC.

Oh, then I'll probably get it for Xbox, since it has better graphics than the PS2. I'll also be able to take it to my friend's house for some 2 player gameplay.

Oh.. and after another viewing. I like to show my friends trailers for upcoming games, and
let them decide. Well, I could see some of the "flaws" in the animation. Like the wind-up for jumps, and the effects of "gravity" upon landings from those jumps.

I also, I just noticed that when Wolverine rejoined the other 3 heroes, he's got a knife in his back. Near his waist. At least it looked like a knife.

[malcolmTG]

I also, I just noticed that when Wolverine rejoined the other 3 heroes, he's got a knife in his back. Near his waist. At least it looked like a knife.


its a debris shard from the crash. he pulls it out before walking up to the guys.

[Stefan-Morrell]

Blur get's all the cool jobs :thumbsup:

[Spin99]

Blur is just the best what can you say :D
If only everyone could jump at things the way they do.

[Kid-Mesh]

Blur is basically PIXAR of the game world.

Awesome work as usual :twisted:

[jinraichi]

Oh, then I'll probably get it for Xbox, since it has better graphics than the PS2. I'll also be able to take it to my friend's house for some 2 player gameplay.

Oh.. and after another viewing. I like to show my friends trailers for upcoming games, and
let them decide. Well, I could see some of the "flaws" in the animation. Like the wind-up for jumps, and the effects of "gravity" upon landings from those jumps.

I also, I just noticed that when Wolverine rejoined the other 3 heroes, he's got a knife in his back. Near his waist. At least it looked like a knife.

The debrid was a fantastic touch in the cinematic. It shows the healing factor of the character.
(Don't come complaining for the lack of blood in the debrid/Wolverine scene. You know the strict censorship in USA about these things. I'm sure the game would instantly get a high rating for violence and blood, so that younger fans wouldn't be able to enjoy the game.)

NIck Fury: Its the character from the original Marvel Universe. The only thing I'm missing here is his cigar in the mouth. :D
Captain America: Nothing to say here.
Spider-Man: still conviced the body modeling is perfect. And to those claiming that his spidersence is malfuntioning, as you can see before the helicarier he's on knicking down 3-4 robots crashes in the mothership he senses danger and jumps ON the mothership to avoid death. He's not avoiding the robot comming towards his back just because he was still far away for him to even be alarmed by this treat. He's a chatterbox, so he first stops to talk to captain whos fighting them off.
Thos: Despite the hair, theres the costume that bothers me. Why the hack did they put the ultimate thor in here, where we can see that everybody is from the original marvel universe?
Anyway, I agree that the hammer is strange and unfitting here in this kind of action.
And, yes. Thor speaks like this and acts like this. He's an Asgard God. Another time.
(in the 19th century the spoken english was different from the english in our time. wouldn't you agree?). Personally, I was never a fan of Thor.
Wolverine: My favourite character. I agree, the hair its a bit strange looking, but hes a hairi character. Probably the budget was not high enough to do the animation with a better hairstile.
And what about logans modeling? Its perfect. Muscular, pumped up :D . This is not the wolverine from the ultimate universe. This is wolverine from the original one. Still cool. They took them from the New Avengers story arc. MIx Ultimate Thor look inside and put the old Fury in.

jinraichi

P.S. Buy the Pc version if you can. Better graphics and the comunity support. Patches and such...

[sergioKomic]

Ohhh boy ow boy!!

(uber geek mode on!)

[Blaine]

Hey Folks. This is the intro Cinematic for a game that Raven Software is making, Marvel Ultimate Alliance. There is another cinematic that Blur created on the official site for the game.

http://www.marvelultimatealliance.com/

Check towards the bottom and you'll see "Nightcrawler Cinematic". Top Notch stuff I have to say. I'm extremely geeked out about this game!


Is there a download link for the Nightcrawler Cinematic?

[jinraichi]

Ohhh boy ow boy!!

(uber geek mode on!)

Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,...

thanks for the laugh, man. :thumbsup:

jinraichi

[Grayscale]

Is there a download link for the Nightcrawler Cinematic?

Sorry, all I have to put up is the official site link.

[malcolmTG]

Sorry, all I have to put up is the official site link.


http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?fs=1&id=2663

has the trailers do download.

[skurge13]

Wow, I'm pretty stunned at people bashing this animation, seems awfully over-critical to me. Things like Wolvie's hair I found to be more stylistic choices than flaws. And to say that the whole short is ruined and horrible because of small stuff like that seems like crazy talk to me. It's like saying Cindy Crawford is ugly because she has a mole on her face. "Just look at that mole, it totally destroys the overall look of her face, blech, what a DOG." But to each their own I guess, everybody has their way of seeing things.

[neonneo]

Awesome stuff guys, love your trailers :D

[NeptuneImaging]

I am not going to critique anything on this piece because I am no expert, but I love the way Dr. Doom was modelled...the shading and insane details on him brought it to my attention. And thor looked cool to me. The animation looks good for the amount of time they had to crank this out.

"Soulless machine, how dare you strike the son of Odin?" priceless....

Keep them coming, Blur.

[noisewar]

Wow, I'm pretty stunned at people bashing this animation, seems awfully over-critical to me. Things like Wolvie's hair I found to be more stylistic choices than flaws. And to say that the whole short is ruined and horrible because of small stuff like that seems like crazy talk to me. It's like saying Cindy Crawford is ugly because she has a mole on her face. "Just look at that mole, it totally destroys the overall look of her face, blech, what a DOG." But to each their own I guess, everybody has their way of seeing things.


To be fair, Thor's pose as he flies up looks massively cheesy. Awesome trailer, but there were some nits to pick.

[blakshep]

my problem with this hype and the previous blur cinematic, is not the little flaws, the mediocre character animation, my problem is there's no life in either of them. no feeling, no dramaturgy. in every blur cinamatic nowdays, the script looks like this: characters randomly fighting. this is pretty uninteresting for me(even if they figthing in space what is pretty ridiculous for me)
see some blizzard movies, even the really old ones. maybe theyre not so beatiful, but the animation always have an arc. or see the digic movies.

[MrPositive]

I love these types of cinematics. Spiderman's movement, modeling, and cloth texturing are mesmerizing to watch. Definitely my favorite character in the piece.

[KolbyJukes]

Dr. Doom, Spidey and those Ultron-looking robots were my favs.

Fury looked badass as well.

Great job Blur!

[HieSpike]

Well...I've read all the post, and watched both cinematics...I must say, I did like the Nightcrawler one even more then the Wolvy/Cap/Spidey/Thor one...but, that is not to say that I don't think both of them KICKED ASS!!! As a 3D artist, I am working everyday to become better at what I do, and if I can one day create something that cool, I would be very proud!

I also do think that a lot of peoples comments have merit...hair, and so forth. But, overall, for me personally, I love this kind of stuff. And I don't even want to know what their deadline was like! I imagine they had to create that cinematic in less than a month (I could be totally wrong - just guessing)

Anyway, last comment I had to make was that I freakin' loved how kick ass they made Nightcrawler...he's always portrayed as just someone who helps the other characters escape, but here...man, he clobbers! (until the weak end where he get's shocked, oh well)

[Tim Miller]

I’m glad that MOST of you guys seemed to enjoy the cinematics….there’s lots more in the game--11 minutes of cool stuff in fact, each one driving some arc of the story that the player will be involved in. Thanks to all of you guys who found the time to say nice things.

To those of you who chose to beat it up….well…all I can say is I hope you had as much fun criticizing ‘em as we did making ‘em! And I’m sure the great “Karmic Wheel” will spin ‘round and tidy things up eventually. :thumbsup:

Just for the record we agree with lots of the nitpicky things….Wolverines hair is stiff, Thor’s flowing locks could definitely be flow-ier, muscles moving under the skin would be super, and animation could definitely be massaged on some shots. Rest assured that those of us here at blur SEE ALL OF THOSE THINGS. But time and budgets are extremely tight in the cinematic world and we simply don’t have time to make everything hold up to feature film FX or even some of the outstanding work done by blizzard or Digic (both of whom are in-house teams). I’m not copping out when I say if we had the same amount of time...well, most of those critiques would be null and void. But even WITH those problematic issues I’m EXTREMELY proud of the work and we went way, WAY beyond what the budget and schedule called for because we wanted to make things great—almost double in fact.


And just FYI, things VO recording, sound design and score, casting and character designs (in a general sense) weren’t under blur’s control. Sometimes they are, but this time not.


All of the comic PRO’s we know flipped, Paul Jenkins, Brian Bendis, Joe Quesada, Avi Arad, Kevin Feige, Craig Kyle, etc. etc. LOVED these….the amount of positive feedback from the pro’s was amazing.


Personally I liked the later cinematics even more than the Intro—a lot of ground to cover in that one and it had to be done VERY economically—so the story had to take a back seat to giving each character his “moment” and doing it in the LEAST shots possible. The later ones are more focused--like the Nightcrawler sequence.


As far as the comments related to dialog n’stuff, well….the game is quite tongue-in-cheek (not the hardcore stuff like some of the Ultimate line) and comics in general (of which I’m a 30 year hardcore fan) has its share of campy dialog. It’s not supposed to be Shakespeare.


We had a TON of fun making them and Raven and Activision were both EXTREMELY cool about letting us add things and “make it our own.” We had a blast doing them and we’d LOVE to do a full length “comics based” feature someday—it’s one of my dreams for sure….maybe someday.


We’re really proud of the work and I think all of the artists here did an amazing job. I’m honored to work with ‘em.


Tim Miller
Creative Director
blur

[shy-guy]

Woa..really cool cinematic! :thumbsup: Congrats.

But...something is missing... there´s no Dr. Doom saying: "Im had it with these motherf%$ing heroes on this motherf$%ing aircraft!!!" :)

[loocas]

Very nice! :thumbsup:

Congrats Blur, you've done it again! :buttrock:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/rating/rating_5.gif from me, even thou I'm not a big superheroes fan... ;)

[(...)]

Apart from Nightcrawler's stilted animation, that's the second-best CG cutscene I've ever seen. Shame the actual game looks so shit.

http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/715/715478/marvel-ultimate-alliance-20060628055133787.jpg
(PS3 version pictured)

[Blaine]

Apart from Nightcrawler's stilted animation, that's the second-best CG cutscene I've ever seen. Shame the actual game looks so shit.

(PS3 version pictured)

Thats from the ps3 version? wow does look kinda crap.

[Interactionman]

Sorry but I was cringing all the way through. How many tired old cliches can you get in a couple of minutes? Especially the very first sequence. You can't cover up tacky script writing with fancy 3D and hope no one will notice... not on my watch.

[Igo]

Tim, thanks a ton for taking the time to answer all the questions I asked. It really helps a lot knowing what hold you guys really have with certain aspects and how you turn out the end result.

I’m EXTREMELY proud of the work and we went way, WAY beyond what the budget and schedule called for because we wanted to make things great—almost double in fact.

This is something I've always been curious about. When a company purchases your services, and you do go above and beyond with something less of a budget/time than you wanted, how does this affect the next project you might pick up from that company or from any other company? Is is more common to be offered more budget and time for the next round (hoping for an even better end result?) or for them to expect more of the same because they might be totally stoked with what they got (like the Marvel high-er ups?) Are there any other pros or cons for the company, any other risks that you take in doing this that most people overlook?

Thanks again Tim.

[Tim Miller]

Truthfully we end up going a bit over budget on MOST of the cinematics….despite the general impression that blur is one of the most expensive places that do cinematics we rarely make money on them. Hopefully we break even though. We just usually end up wanting to make it better than the clients have money for.


How we HANDLE it though is by trying to make clients aware that they’re getting more than they paid for….and not to EXPECT it every time. We always try to give them a lot for their money but if we went as far over on every job as we did on MUA we’d go out of business fast. We do other things though like commercials and large format films that balance things out a bit.


Do we get more money next time though? Not really. The fact is that game companies usually have a budget for cinematics and they need to stick to it no matter WHO is doing it. I look at it this way: Most clients need to buy and apple. They may want to buy the BEST, most shiny apple they can get….but they still only want an apple and they’re only willing (and able) to pay so much for that apple. So if we try and sell them a steak dinner just because WE want to cook them one...well, that won’t work. But sometimes we cook ‘em a steak anyway. :)


The downside of that is that often the ARTISTS bear too much of that burden and end up working a lot of hours to raise the bar. It’s something we struggle with here all the time. I think it’s one of the great things about blur and the artists that work here is that we NEVER force people to do that though; everybody usually just steps up to the plate because they’re enthusiastic about what they’re doing and want to make every project great.


And before anyone says, “yeah and if they DON’T they’ll probably be fired!” I’ll say that it’s NOT that way at all. We try and create an open enough atmosphere that people can tell us when they need a break—nobody can sprint ALL the time—and we do our best to give them one. The bar is high here; but it’s more peer pressure and individuals WANTING to excel than company policy to work long hours. Believe it or not…..but as evidence I’ll say that blur probably has the lowest turnover rate of any studio in LA.


Tim Miller

Creative Director

blur

[dcmoutinho]

wow, another great work !!!
congratulations for all :applause:

[BabeBro]

Big ups to Blur really fantastic work, I saw that Marvel one and the following HellGate trailer also by Blur at this past Siggraph http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=10529&type=wmv&pl=game

[kgaulin]

And before anyone says, “yeah and if they DON’T they’ll probably be fired!” I’ll say that it’s NOT that way at all. We try and create an open enough atmosphere that people can tell us when they need a break—nobody can sprint ALL the time—and we do our best to give them one. The bar is high here; but it’s more peer pressure and individuals WANTING to excel than company policy to work long hours. Believe it or not…..but as evidence I’ll say that blur probably has the lowest turnover rate of any studio in LA.


Tim Miller

Creative Director

blur

I know a few guys that are lucky enough to work for Blur and from what they tell me they are more than happy to put in the long hours since the studio takes such good care of them. For the most part it is a pretty equal relationship, and that makes perfect sense to me.

As far as the Ultimate Alliance cinematic goes.....I just watched it with some of the guys at work and we all pretty much agreed that it was SICK. The only complaint that I had was that Wolverine was to thick (just my opinion though). :buttrock:

[Tim Miller]

Thanks Kyle. Yeah we agree on Wolverine.....the model looked awesome but when we got to animation it was a bit funky visually, too buff. It made his movements look stiff and awkward and the big hands were problematic too. It's kinda tough to find that balance between realism and stylization and we missed a little that time. Wait until you see Doom in the other cinematics though--sweet!

Thor was a problem too....that big &*!%in belt made it nearly impossible to make him move naturally. We should have just proposed a design change but it was too late to redo the model. We TRY and catch all that stuff in rigging but sometimes we err.

Thanks for the kind words about blur. We DO try and take care of everyone here as best we can. As well as balancing art and commerce.....takes an effort to keep those scales as from tipping too far one way or the other. When it works though it's the best and blur is happiest company I've ever worked at....unless everyone is just too polite to tell me. :shrug:

Cheers,

Tim Miller
blur

[Shaderhacker]

Damn you Blur for making such a fantastic FMV for me to watch only to salivate over the game for another couple of months!!:thumbsup: And damn Raven for making such an awesome game and having me argue in the VIP MUA forums while waiting for this game too!!:bounce:


Despite some of the understood criticisms about some of the characters, I love the work. I truly look forward to watching all of what your studio brings out everytime. I'm a hard-core comic fan myself, and this game is my most eagerly anticipated game of the year. I look forward to seeing more FMV as the game approaches release.

Now, can you tell me who all the playables are? (j/k):deal:

-M

[Abaddon]

Awesome cinematics, my jaw hung open for much of them. This is the sort of stuff that made me get into 3d, and I would happily work overtime on this sort of stuff.

Its good blur looks after their people. I have heard scarey tales from people who work in the 'most' well known studio here in sydney, how they expect newbies to always work late nights overtime for no extra pay. Makes me sad to hear some studios use peoples enthusiasm to their own ends. Though I personally could easily rationalise it on a project like this.

Anyway, I loved these Blur. I wanna see more!!!:bounce:

[blakshep]

as you can see 90% percent of people didn't notice and didn't care. i don't want to hurt blur, because i can see the energy and time you did put in it, and yeah the visuals are nice, but Tim tell me honestly how much time did you and your people spent for the storyboard? or did you get it from the client? cause i can see more work in spideys textures than in the script.

Sorry but I was cringing all the way through. How many tired old cliches can you get in a couple of minutes? Especially the very first sequence. You can't cover up tacky script writing with fancy 3D and hope no one will notice... not on my watch.

[Grayscale]

Thanks Kyle. Yeah we agree on Wolverine.....the model looked awesome but when we got to animation it was a bit funky visually, too buff. It made his movements look stiff and awkward and the big hands were problematic too. It's kinda tough to find that balance between realism and stylization and we missed a little that time. Wait until you see Doom in the other cinematics though--sweet!

Thor was a problem too....that big &*!%in belt made it nearly impossible to make him move naturally. We should have just proposed a design change but it was too late to redo the model. We TRY and catch all that stuff in rigging but sometimes we err.

Thanks for the kind words about blur. We DO try and take care of everyone here as best we can. As well as balancing art and commerce.....takes an effort to keep those scales as from tipping too far one way or the other. When it works though it's the best and blur is happiest company I've ever worked at....unless everyone is just too polite to tell me. :shrug:

Cheers,

Tim Miller
blur

Tim,
I hear nothing but good things from the guys I know out there. These cinematics are definately amazing. When people see that Dr. Doom one later on (I know which one you speak of) they are going to just drop the controller in the middle of the game and have to go grab a towel to wipe up the drool! He's just a bad ass!
I'd suggest slapping Malcolm around alittle, but many seem to be scared of the big teddy bear :) Again, top notch work :buttrock:

[Artbot]

Tim, it's great to see you chiming in here. The best thing about this site is when someone like yourself joins the discussion to elaborate on their high-end projects. It helps bring the whole thing back down to earth before it gets swept away in a fan-boy nit-picking tornado.

Great work on the cinematic, too. You guys really know how to sell character action sequences.

[VirtualFM]

Loved it, in spite of the comic-cliché scipt. It really doesn't matter, pure old-style comic-action wich was a pleasure to watch.

Highest point: Close-up of Spiderman's mask
Lowest point: Anything where Thor shows up. The hair was not very good either. At least it felt strange to me. something is missing there (but I understand there must have been a deadline to comply).

[Tim Miller]

as you can see 90% percent of people didn't notice and didn't care. i don't want to hurt blur, because i can see the energy and time you did put in it, and yeah the visuals are nice, but Tim tell me honestly how much time did you and your people spent for the storyboard? or did you get it from the client? cause i can see more work in spideys textures than in the script.

Well Gee....that's a tough one to answer since I wrote most of it. And we have 2 ex-Marvel/Dc/Darkhorse artist on our concept art staff and one of them--Chuck W.--did the boards for it. (although any story related issues would still be MY fault).

We had a script from the client originally but it needed to be re-written to fit the budget. 40 shots was about all we could afford to do and cover a lot of ground. It was the same basic scenario though. Doom attacking the helicarrier with Ultron bots.

Whether or not you LIKED it I can honestly say we DID put a lot of thought and effort into it. I'm not sure what you DIDN'T like (and PLEASE don't take the time to tell me!) but whatever it was I'd mark it down to taste. Personally I thought it worked well considering the TONE of the game and the budget we had to do it.

But I do know that it took me longer to write all the scripts than it took for Ian to texture Spidey...cuz he sits right next to me. :D

Different strokes for different folks. 'nuff said.

Tim Miller
Creative Director
blur

[blakshep]

i'm not criticising your work to hurt you like i said before, i thought this forum is to help each other, to improve our skills. sorry, i didn't know you're here only to accept hip-hip-hoorays. yes, i'm not a big fan of superheroes, that's a question of taste. Despite of that i liked the modelling-lightning-rendering. But I didn't like the script beacuse it wasn't really good. PLEASE don't tell me what's the reason behind what i say, even if you're uninterested in it.


Well Gee....that's a tough one to answer since I wrote most of it. And we have 2 ex-Marvel/Dc/Darkhorse artist on our concept art staff and one of them--Chuck W.--did the boards for it. (although any story related issues would still be MY fault).

We had a script from the client originally but it needed to be re-written to fit the budget. 40 shots was about all we could afford to do and cover a lot of ground. It was the same basic scenario though. Doom attacking the helicarrier with Ultron bots.

Whether or not you LIKED it I can honestly say we DID put a lot of thought and effort into it. I'm not sure what you DIDN'T like (and PLEASE don't take the time to tell me!) but whatever it was I'd mark it down to taste. Personally I thought it worked well considering the TONE of the game and the budget we had to do it.

But I do know that it took me longer to write all the scripts than it took for Ian to texture Spidey...cuz he sits right next to me. :D

Different strokes for different folks. 'nuff said.

Tim Miller
Creative Director
blur

[AdamHerbert]

i'm not criticising your work to hurt you like i said before, i thought this forum is to help each other, to improve our skills. sorry, i didn't know you're here only to accept hip-hip-hoorays. yes, i'm not a big fan of superheroes, that's a question of taste. Despite of that i liked the modelling-lightning-rendering. But I didn't like the script beacuse it wasn't really good. PLEASE don't tell me what's the reason behind what i say, even if you're uninterested in it.

You're right, this is a forum for critiquing others work, but there is also a way to go about a critique where you don't offend the person who created the work. Imo, what you said, came off very rude and un-constructive. I wouldn't want to hear any mroe from you either. That's not to say you meant to offend, just another opinion on your approach to critiques.

Tim, I already said it in this thread and I'll say it again, fantastic work! Blur seems to get better with every project you take on. Grats!

[Tim Miller]

i'm not criticising your work to hurt you like i said before, i thought this forum is to help each other, to improve our skills. sorry, i didn't know you're here only to accept hip-hip-hoorays. yes, i'm not a big fan of superheroes, that's a question of taste. Despite of that i liked the modelling-lightning-rendering. But I didn't like the script beacuse it wasn't really good. PLEASE don't tell me what's the reason behind what i say, even if you're uninterested in it.

I think my last post didn't quite come off the way I meant. I wasn't offended--like I said, You're welcome to your opinion. What I MEANT by the "please don't take the time to tell me" was simply that I didn't want to get into a long discussion about the script that's all.

I don't come hear just to hear people say "wow, blurs great!" This would be the wrong place for that! But I also don't come here to debate....mostly because I don't have time for the back and forth of it.

No harm done though and hopefully you'll like some of the other stuff we do more. Truthfully we're harder on our OWN work internally than anyone on the outside has ever been. :thumbsup:

Cheers.

Tim Miller
Creative Director
blur

[punchatz]

"yes, i'm not a big fan of superheroes"

then maybe you should go critique something you DO like! If you have that mindset going in you will never like what you see.

Tim you guys rock, you should be very proud of what you have done with this project and Blur in general. You all are an inspiration to us here at Janimation!

Greg

[Flog]

Actually I thought it was really a fun peice. It was old school comics that we have all come to love.

If it looks good I'm not going to break it down shot by shot, I'm not geeky like that. I thought it was fun, exciting.

I don't care about Thor's hair, it was okay. And Wolverine's hair didn't bother me much when he jumped off the heliport onto the robot vessel and started dicing people up.
Spiderman looked cool. I love the fight where he webs two of the guys up and pulls them together, SMASH!!

"The texture off of Spiderman's suit was derivative of the emacipation of pixels and requires an abudance of textural procedures to incorporate a more realistic feel and a flow"

See how geeky that sounds. Sounds like movie critics who love the artsy fartsy bore fests vs the good old fun summer flick.

As far as story, this was simply good old fashioned cliche comic book. And guess what, this is a COMIC BOOK VIDEO GAME. Loved it. A good clean comic book old school FUN!!

[Tim Miller]

Thanks for jumping in and defending blur (and me) fella's but there's no need--It's all cool. The guy is correct-all the feedback need not be positive and we can handle it!

And I've been toughened up by YEARS of working with Dave Wilson (CG Supe on Marvel) and Derron Ross (Animation Supe on the intro and NC sequence). They feed me more crap during an average blur lunch out back than I'd get from a YEAR of posts here on CG Talk! :D

Thanks for the compliments too!

Tim
blur

[Shaderhacker]

Hey Tim - can you at least tell us if there is a FMV of Silver Surfer and Galactus that we can look foward too?? ;)

-M

[kenshinw95]

Loved it, in spite of the comic-cliché scipt. It really doesn't matter, pure old-style comic-action wich was a pleasure to watch.
Yeah, me too. You kinda have to use that style script to make the characters seem "In character". I mean would you want the 4 heroes to just look around confused, and complain about being teleported from where they were to in the middle of the battle? Sure, it'd be more realistic, and less clichéd, but I don't think that's what they were going for.


Highest point: Close-up of Spiderman's mask
Lowest point: Anything where Thor shows up. The hair was not very good either. At least it felt strange to me. something is missing there (but I understand there must have been a deadline to comply).

I don't know if there was a "highest point" for me. Just a bunch of high points. Which to me is much better.
Spidey's mask & suit looks like it did in the most recent movie & the Spider-Man 3 game teaser trailer.
Although Thor isn't my fave character even in the comics. Most recent thing I saw of him was in the 1st "Ultimates" movie. Where he acted, and pretty much looked very similar to the one from the trailer. Even though I think that different people worked on the different characters' hair. I must commend them for getting it to flow, and not look like a plastic helmet like in some other CG movies/shows/games.
This accolade is coming from from someone who's spent months trying to come up with a decent, flowing head of hair for his model(s) that I won't need a render farm to animate when the time comes.

[kenshinw95]

Im sure Spideys Spidey sense had him well aware of the robothug sneaking up behind him, but they were just moving in slow motion as far as he was concerned, so he first wanted to check on Cap's well being.

Or after showing it to my friends. Various friends, various houses. I came to the conclusion that his "Spidey Sense" didn't fail him, but it overwhelmed him. He's got the "warnings" going off for probably all the ones that surrounded him, and Cap. He couldn't chose which one to go after until another "warning" from Cap throwing his shield. That snapped Spidey out of his indecision, and left him with 1 choice. DUCK! :eek:

At least that's my 2 cents. :)

[Abaddon]

I think Spidey knew it was Cap's turn to strut his stuff and didnt want to steal his thunder.

[ScottC]

I'll accept any explanation that doesnt have the star spangled track star with the gimp shield in any way greater than or equal to Spidey in coolness.

Oh, and Tim, if it makes you feel better, Im a superhero fanboy and I thought it was "super-sweet". I dont like Thors new "trying too hard to be Kewl" hammer design, and I miss his sweet Thor-hat...but none of that you guys had anything to do with.

Id rather watch a feature length version of this than ANY of the upcoming live action superhero features. Well, except for Spidey 3. Oh, and anything Christopher Nolan does with Batman from now and till the end of time.

But more than anything else.

Ok wait, and Hellboy 2.

But anything else, really.

Well, talk to me when we see some advance stuff on Watchmen.

[samsanca]

Maybe this has been said before... but is not ultimate Nick Fury supposed to be black ??

[Gentle Fury]

Super cheesy, but still pretty cool looking, Nightcrawler vid looked awesome, except for the horribly stretched AR.....guess its animorphic video and the web designer didnt take that into account. :(

[JeffrySG]

I thought the trailer was great! It was really nice to hear Tim chime in a bit with some info too! I actually didn't mind the dialoge either. To me it was the stuff you wan't to hear in a comic trailer. And as this was for a game trailer, I thought the script was good too! And Spidy always makes wisecracks like that anyway... ;)

I was aching to see THOR's original hammer design, though. I really don't care for that design. And maybe his hair in a pony tail would have worked better?

And, Tim, if you're still reading this thread... Count me in as one of the people that would love to see Blur do a full CG Marvel movie. With a great script, that is... I'm still amazed that Marvel let that last Fantastic Four movie get made. Shamefull...

--Jeff

[Spin99]

I'll be hoping to post my demo reel to Blur someday ;)

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