Score: 5

"Cute flick"

submission: Nim moves to College

date: April 2, 2006

Cute, short, with snappy pacing and nicely drawn characters.

If there were two things I didn't like about it, I'd have to mention that the photo-edited sprites were a bit off. They didn't quite blend with the 2-d drawn characters as well as I'd like. The white outline around the car was particularly annoying.

The perspective was off in a few scenes--distractingly so. Most notable among these were the packing scene, where the boxes are simply squares, while the house has some depth. The two didn't blend. Worse was the scene with the two cars on a road--the road was at a different angle than the cars.

Score: 4

"Switch?"

submission: Junk1

date: March 29, 2006

Decent animation, although it got really old after a while.

Seriously, if you're going to do a monologue against a plain black background, at least take some cues from the Apple "Switch" commercials and vary the camera angle a bit.

Use close-ups, wide-angle shots, partial-head shots, etc.
Move the character.
Do *something* to break the monotony.

Even blinking from time to time would help. It can also be very effective in getting your message across. Play with the eyes to show emotion. Even the Clock Crew folks do that, and they have some very simple animations (though I give them kudos for doing a lot with their simplistic animations).

Score: 4

"Tropical island platformer"

submission: -The Island Fight-

date: March 25, 2006

A competently-executed platformer with decent artwork. It's very rough around the edges and lacks variation, but improvements will no doubt be forthcoming.

The art style was simplistic, but decent. The animation, however, could use quite a bit of improvement. The walk cycle alone was somewhat ridiculous: the character gets as far as the breakdown, and then switches back again, like a skip or chasse'. It seems very strange, and is mimicked in the arm movement, which is jerky. Jumping isn't quite as bad, but could use work as well.

The scripting was great as far as I could tell, with the exception of opponent AI. There was no skill involved in standing beneath the opponents and shooting up at them; they never moved except to die, and couldn't aim.

The level was incomplete--at the end you simply keep walking forever. The intro doesn't exist, I was waiting for several seconds for a poorly-timed fade in that never came. It's just a black screen.

Scripting was smooth, it wasn't painful to look at, but it's clearly not finished. A decent rough draft, I suppose. I await the final version.

Score: 3

"Cute, with room for improvement."

submission: Furby attacks lego valley

date: March 25, 2006

Basic premise was cute: furby wreaks havoc on lego Vader and Stormtroopers. It was enjoyable to watch, though not all the action was clear, and there was an unfortunate break in the background music, which felt very out-of-place.

Your biggest problem is the camera work. The camera stayed in the same place for the entire movie, making the movie one long extended scene. That's like having a sentence that goes on for 3 paragraphs. Switching camera positions is like punctuation. Vary your angles, and pick shots that help tell the story. Don't put more in one shot than is necessary to tell that part of the story. If the action is centered on Vader, cut to a close-up. If the action is Furby terrorizing, a wider angle might be necessary.

I know pans and dollies are tough to pull off in stop motion animation, but simple cuts to new angles will help vary things a bit and give you more room for expression.

Another problem in this movie is the same one that most animators have starting out with frame-by-frame animation. Pacing. If you try to pack movement into every frame, it becomes hard to follow. Find a rhythm and give pauses every once in a while. Remember that not all movements are the same speed, falling rocks travel faster than growing flowers. You did this to an extent, but more variation will help give life to the animation. This goes along with the punctuation thing. Some sentences are long. Some aren't. You need both to tell the story effectively.

Score: 4

"Short Clock crew sing-along"

submission: You and whos army?

date: March 24, 2006

I'm afraid this didn't do anything for me.

I had some hope after the first few seconds of interesting visuals, but that's about all this movie was good for. A few seconds of interesting visuals.

Animation was dull, and rare; most of the images were static.

At least it was short; it ended before I made up my mind that it wasn't worth watching to see if anything else happened. My fingers were hovering over ALT and F4...

Score: 4

"Dancing and dinosaurs?"

submission: Dancing 'till dawn!

date: March 23, 2006

Generally really cute; obviously there are a few things you could work on (lighting, set design, etc.)

Can't say I care to hear miserlou remixed like that, but I'm not rating the music, I'm rating your animation.

You need pacing. The entire movie felt like everything was going the same speed. In real life, everything is moving at different speeds. This needs to be reflected in the motion you're portraying. Falling objects move faster than people walk, larger things have more inertia and respond to change slower.

Use the basic animation techniques of easing in or out of a motion to show change in velocity (except where comical to do otherwise).

A plot of sorts might be nice as well; you had a little bit of conflict, but it seemed out-of-place rather than a new stepping stone in the storyline.

Looking forward to seeing more from you.

Score: 8

"Sick."

submission: CRAPPY FLASH MOVIE!!!!!!

date: March 22, 2006

The animation is gorgeous--seriously, some of the best I've seen on NG. The art style wasn't that great, simple line drawings, but they moved beautifully. Very fluid and clean.

It's a huge shame that the subject matter is sick. Really, truly demented. Warped.

A guy drives to a hospital, crashes into the lobby, and begins slaying people at random. I loved the animation and I hated what it portrayed.

Other viewers, I don't recommend it except as an example of nicely animated flash. I wish I could. I wish it had something else that was redeeming.

Score: 7

"Nice"

submission: 2012

date: March 22, 2006

While the graphics weren't phenomenal, it's a solid pice of animation, decently paced and nicely set to the music.

It is a bit of a downer, though, which I do believe was the point. Or at least part of the point.

The plot line wasn't exactly clear: who's the bizarre fellow with the cross? The antichrist or something? Who is dropping all these bombs?

The sound lost quality at times, which is unfortunate. Maxing out the channel perhaps?

Looking forward to seeing more from you. If I have any suggestions, they would be to tighten up your animation: good keys, clean 'tweens, and clean breakdowns. At times it was a bit sloppy.

Score: 2

"Yet another shooting game"

submission: Guardian of the Portal

date: March 22, 2006

It's another shooting game. Shoot flash icons as they head toward the portal. The game is sluggish, the response after clicking takes a few seconds.

The graphics are certainly nothing to brag about.

Was it fun? For about 40 seconds, yes, I suppose it was. I suppose the music getting on my nerves didn't help much.

Not something I'd play again, but as in intro to actionscript, I guess it's ok.

Score: 2

"Humor outweighed by lousy technique"

submission: Random Funnyness!!

date: March 22, 2006

Fairly humorous. I think I laughed at the beginning.

Please stop overloading your mic or the sound card! That crackling noise is hideous. It's not that hard to fix or avoid.

Visuals were ok, and the animation was really weak. Really. Work on the basics.

Skip or shorten the voiceover. It didn't really add much.