TAR of Zandoria, Episode 1

#1

//youtu.be/d18ysusFmx0

I’ve been working on this for a while, so I’m excited to finally have something to share :slight_smile:

#2

Wow congratulations I appreciate you sharing this update, seriously inspiring work keep going!.

Cheers :wink:

#3

A few things I noted:

1)Interesting shader choices. But you need to iterate them more. You need to control more the shadowing and the brightness/darkness. I feel the closest equivalent to this type of shader and color palette is BORDERLANDS. You might want to look at footage from BORDERLANDS to see some examples of the shadowing and speculars and how not every deep shadow should be full-on black.

2)All the motion needs more iterations. If possible start thumbnailing on paper the various key poses because a lot of if doesn’t look finished and all the motion is occurring at the same speed. There’s some timing in here, but not enough work on spacing or the actual key poses. some positions are too straight… Torsos straight… and the shield-hat… it’s mounted too straight. For example, there’s that walking in the desert shot, but there’s no jiggling or “interesting movement” going on. That helmet can’t stay that stiff throughout the whole motion. Look at comic books for some ideas.

3)You need to change how some of the cinematography is working. Characters shift positions without the slightest setup, events seem to occur “all-of-a-sudden”. There are not enough wide shots or establishing shots. I expected more like… you have the Hippo walking in the desert… then on a high peak, one of the Jackals’ ears prop up… The Jackals look like they had a lot of movement potential… but it wasn’t exploited. And you really needed shots that establish the spatial relationships of the Hippo and the ambushing Jackals.

4)I’m also not so sure about the silhouettes on some of the characters. It could be pose related, but might also be a modeling or design issue. The Hippo… that flat shield hat… maybe you wanted to pay homage to old war helmets? That’s fine, but you have to see images of how those hats fit and what kind of silhouettes they form and how the skull of the hippo would be able to reliably use it as a “hat”.

Overall, not great (there I go again)… but definitely a Work-In-Progress in my view.

#4

Thanks for the feedback :slight_smile:

#5

I agree with the crit so far.
I’ll add that there are problems with the FX. The cloth sims in particular.
“Wardrobe malfunction” comes to mind!
Learn about using pins/constraints and controlling that properly against envelopes on a character!
Good FX aren’t easy to do its true. And take more time. Reverting to envelopes aka ‘stiff’ cloth are probably better than having your character ‘undress themselves’ during a fight scene if thats all you have time for.

#6

You should also watch this clip.

//youtu.be/iSzpCeob1Ik

One doesn’t just cut shots together to make action.
There’s quite a few things you can do with it to make it better, or more engaging, or more drawn out, or more urgent just with where you place cameras or what you are showing or not showing the audience.

#7

Interesting analysis of that action sequence from Salt, but I don’t find it useful, unless you’re saying the cinematography wasn’t clear…was the story and the twist not clear?
I appreciate that you are spending a lot of time on the critique, but I am pretty happy with the choices I made.

#8

Ok. Then I have nothing to add.

#9

Looking good. I would say it needs a few more closeups. So happy to see this come together I liked it and want to see it continue to develop