Knuckstrike's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Night at the Casino]

I like this fairly simple and cute movie.
This is probably because of the happy animating style and the music.

What I like most about the animating style are the backgrounds. There wasn't one background that was there during half the flash, but instead made a different background for each scene. This made the video much less repetive, and is probably what I like most about the whole video. The backgrounds weren't worked out in detail, but honesly, I don't think that anyone dislikes the video because of that.

I also thought the facial expressions of the characters were done pretty well. For example, the blob at the end had lines under his eyes because he gambled all night long.

However, it's certainly not perfect. The thing that I dislike most is that it wasn't clear what happened. If I hadn't looked at the title, I wouldn't have known this was a casino, let alone that they were in Vegas until 0:39, where "he" played on a slot machine. Maybe it's because I don't live in America though, I don't know. If so, don't be unhappy about this.

I also thought that the animation of some of the characters could've been a bit better. I liked how the slimes splattered when they turned around or walked/jumped, so that was okay. The green blob turning at 0:11 was nicely done, and the bird flew just fine. But in general blobs look a bit lazy. Don't get me wrong, I can see that there has been put time in this movie, but all most of the sprites did were either blinking, stretching or rotating. Next to that, the shadows on the blobs didn't have anything to do with where the light comes from.

The only part that looked really odd was the part where the blobs jumps on its bed. The third time he jumps just as the last time, gets the same upwards velocity, and then at what was the highest point at the previous jumps it suddenly speeds up immensely.

Even though it wasn't perfect, I still liked the flash and the music gives a setting that fits with the movie.

Review request club

[Op. 100 "Kingdom" 3D Film]

I just can't rate this badly because it's really well done, and there has been put so much time in this. I've seen art pieces from you of buildings that could be in this movie. I'm wondering: did you re-use some of your already made buildings for this? I can imagine that, otherwise it will probably have cost an incredible long time to make this.
I didn't even know it was possible to make movies out of the 3D program you use.

I think it's really good that you made everything in this video so realistic. I don't ever see videos like this pop up on the newgrounds flash portal, so bonus points for originality. You can maybe even start a collection of 3D videos, or at least something like a series.

Because it's so realistic, the less realistic things jump out. In my eyes, those "mistakes" or how you want to call them are what divides a cinema movie from a submission like this. For example, my attention is taken by that every grass plume is the same. If you could mirror a few of them, change the colour of a few of them or just choose bigger and other grass plumes it would look more like a field than randomly placed grass.
Another thing that caught my eye is that, although everything is three-dimensional, the armour of the knights does not stand out. I know it would be really hard, but if you are making close-ups of characters like the knights, it's nice if the closer up is from a more detailed (part of a) character.

Now I've given a harsh comment, let me make it up to you by saying that I did not find most of the movement odd. Although certain parts were a bit choppy like when the characters walked up the stairs, most of it was very realistic. Some of the animations were actually creative/funny, like the door who was kicked out of its hinges.

Another thing I find really well done is that the music fits the different movements. I'm really jealous that you can make great music, art and flash animations. It must be awesome. I can't even draw between lines most of the time...
I would recommend changing the music a bit more between the more dramatic parts and the parts where the fighting is more important. Although there is certainly a difference in the music, the fighting parts sound a bit too happy. If you could make music with a higher bpm in the fighting parts, or instead of orchestrated music a bit darker music it would fit more.

The last point of improvement I can think of is that you could make the story a bit more clear. Although I love that you put a story in your movie, I don't understand it at times.
You could implement characters, so the viewer has a favorite king/lady/prince to root for or something like that. It would also give more of a plot to your movies. I bet you can come up with something original.
Maybe you could even find someone to narrate it for you, or you could narrate it yourself. If you find someone else (if you would let the movie be narrated it at all), be sure to get someone with of those dark and serious voices. I always love those in movies like these.

Even though the majority of this review is critisism, don't take this as a negative review. The movie is awesome, but can be much more awesome in my opinion.
You really deserve at least 3.5 stars from every following review. Otherwise I will get angry. >:(

Review request club

samulis responds:

Hehe, thanks.

Because I inverse-scored this, the music was locked... I decided to leave it as-is and instead try to make the scenes fit the music as best as I could... although I could have put more space between movements.

If I get to making a video that isn't a music video, I'd absolutely love to add some more plot to it, but the main point of this was to simply express the emotions of the music.

Now that you mention the grass, I realize now that I could have used multiple grass "sprites" or used some better 2.5D grass I have... grass is tricky in a real-time program because you don't have the ability to have a super complex render so it literally MUST be sprites in some way or another.

I understand what you mean about the armor... I did fix up some of the template armor to make it more presentable, but I could have done more. Most of the pieces by Arteria3D were excellent (aside from being non-standard and thus uneditable in iClone) already so I went with them as-is.

When I played back the shot with the door falling open I thought "oh god, this is so cheesy!" but I liked it and didn't have time to fix the "ditto" men at arms (fixing the stairs would be a nightmare of keyframes... I think I'll just stick to ramps in future videos XD).

May of the models I use are made by very talented modelers such as Arteria3D (feel free to google them if you want)... I often use their work because it is both beautiful and in a great range poly-wise. What models I have made that worked for this are used readily- for example, the palace throne room you see in the general planning scene and the coronation is a build I did in sketchup and retextured for iclone about a year ago. In addition, I made and textured every single terrain mesh in the film. All characters are either Arteria3D or made by Reallusion, the company that published iClone.

I'm actually considering making more 3D videos with both music and eventually some short stories, mostly medieval and such, but it will be a fun experience and loads of great work.

Thanks for the review,
-Samulis

[1 Take 1 Loop]

First I have to state the most obvious thing: everything flows well, and the looping is done great. It's fluent, and there's enough different stuff in it. Everything is drawn well, since it's clear what every person/place is.

I would've liked the different people and places to have something in common though. Or some climax that the loop is going to. Just seeing all those different people merging gets a bit boring.
The background music, a great choice, makes it kind of relaxing though. So if that's what you're going for you succeeded.

Anyway, you deserve the daily fourth prize. Maybe for next time you can make something exiting happen.

Review request club

Carr77 responds:

Hey, thanks! And yeah, the loop is random and it doesn't have a point xD
The reason for that is that the loop were an animation experiment. I wanted to try to make some FBF :D
I'll try to add more story to it next time :3

Thanks for commenting :)

[Papers]

When I open up the flash I was surprised by the nice play button. To make the things around the play button in paper style is really nice.

I like the story and the main character. It was creative to make him like that. I think it would be worthwile to make a series out of that. That same creativeness was also in the cigarette he quickly came across, and the zombie worm that wanted money from him.

The graphics are good. The animation was really fluid, and I didn't notice any oddities. The paper guy himself is a bit too simple though. I liked that he had those hook hands and a bit of a rayman-style body, but the face and body are drawn too fast. It would look better if you could draw them with more detail. He had good facial expressions though.

In general I really like this animation. It's not amazing, and it's really short, but executed well.

Review request club

Surn responds:

Yeah, I was wondering about the face. I'll admit, the eyes look like they were drawn in MSPaint. If I do make a series I'll definitely have to refine the eyes (and hopefully nobody will notice). I'm glad you liked the cartoon, thanks for your input.

[contrast: a love story]

Amazing

The best thing about this flash is how you could make the whole story with just three colours. The dragons were pretty simple, but because of how they stood, interacted with each other and their behavior I could undersand who was the "male" and who the "female", what they wanted from each other and their emotions.

The music fitted just nicely too. I could write a review about the music too, but I'll leave that to another time :). Long story short: it was slow enough and simple enough to fit with the flash, but not loud enough to distract me from looking.

The only thing which I hoped for something better was how the story wasn't worked out good enough. It's a pretty good and simple story, and that's what makes this flash really good along with the style you have, but I hoped for more interaction between the two dragons. Or at least more of an explanation about the whole story.
After the flash ended I still had some questions, like how fire could kill a dragon, why the white dragon could pass through white stuff at the start but not through the wall.

What you have is amazing though. I really enjoyed watching it.

Review request club.

Horsenwelles responds:

why wouldn't fire kill a dragon? where would you find such evidence that in this world a dragon (a mythical creature not in biological studies) wouldn't be flammable? breathing fire just means that you'd have to project flammable propellant and strike a spark. only the dragon's mouth would be resistant. therefor, its a suspension of disbelief. go with it bud.

as for the intro... yeah, that is a little glaring, but its so minimal that i honestly didn't think it would matter in the context. nice catch actually!

thank you for the wonderful review!

[this is who I am]

Boring

The slideshow itself isn't that bad, and the different pictures are nice. The quality in most pictures is nice, which you don't always see.

There are also lots of things that I dislike about this video though.
First, something that each video should have: a mute button. The music quality became horrible after a while, and that was the point I wanted to turn it off.
It also doesn't have a start or a replay button, making closing the screen the only option to mute the sound.

Second, a lot of those pictures have deviantART watermarks. Either search for other pictures, or leave the part with the watermark out.

Third, not every picture is of the same quality. In some there are tons of dead horizontal and vertical pixel lines. But what I dislike the most is the background. With some pictures it is white, with some it is black, and others just have the previous picture as their background. If you could make that the same for each picture, it would look better as a whole.

If you could make a few pictures yourself, made some different music and a mute button, and maybe even an option to scroll through pictures, this will surely get a better score.

Review request club

[.Bank Robbery]

Not enough effort

Even though this flash has very limited animation and horrible graphics, I can at least see you tried. There is a story, you searched for some sound effects that fit and the movie replayed if you press a button.
With these stick movies I always get the idea like there's put not much time in it though. If you tried to draw a few people, or some creatures that you made up, it would look less amateurish already.You don't have to be a great drawer, but trying and practising helps. Or you could ask someone to draw something for you.
Another thing that made it look pretty amateurish is the very limited amount of movement in the flash. Only their mouths, one arm and tears moved. Especially at the first frame I asked myself: "has this started already?" because there was no animation.
With some practice you'll get beter.

Review request club

[Adrellia Village #34]

Great

I haven't seen all of the episodes, but from what I've seen is that the animation has really improved.
Although the video quality is worse than in some other episodes the characters and backgrounds are actually moving, and there are not many loops for the animation. The main character actually moves through the different backgrounds, what you didn't have in many other episodes.

The things that were good in the previous episodes apply here too. The nice voice acting and good atmosphere are here too.
The story progressed quickly too, which is always a plus

Altogether this is IMO one of your best episodes yet.

MistyE responds:

Thanks. Importing a video into Flash gave this a fuzzy quality. I appreciate your review!

[Adrellia Village #12]

A bit boring.

I have the feeling this episode lacks some sort of action, or something funny. Since the animation is nice but not awesome, it still needs some funny jokes or other entertaining things.

The whole story of kings and knights is nice though. It's not too bad that you have those small moments where nothing happens, since that adds to the tension too. But I had just hoped more would happen in this episode. Give us a plot twist in every episode, or some answers to a question in the previous episode. It would look more like a story then.

I guess this is a pretty old episode, so you weren't as advanced with the animation program you used as you are now, so that explains it.
Still this isn't a bad episode in terms of animation, but just a bit boring.

Review request club

MistyE responds:

Thank you. This episode was a short one that somewhat furthered the story in that King William isn't tied up anymore.

The two hours it took for Drake to untie the king was indeed intended to be funny but I suppose it probably should have been executed in a better manner.

lol, yeah, "retro" Adrellia Village as I like to call it has a bunch of awkward silence moments that I added for comic effect.

Thanks for your review!

[Adrellia Village #3]

Great

I'm sorry if this review is a bit stupid, this is actually the first time I write a review like this.

Graphics/Animation: 13/25
It was pretty simple, but effective. It was pretty boring to only see the mouths making a movement loop when they were talking though. Some of the movements were missing too, like him picking up the amulet.

Audio: 16/25
It was nice, and it fitted the moment well. The credits song is always a plus. The voice acting was done well too.
There wasn't a lot of audio, but I don't think the flash needed it.
Using the "exiting music" three times was a bad choice though. It didn't fit all three times, and it started to irritate me.

Story/humour: 15/25
It was clear about the characters what they did, so that's a plus. It's pretty funny too, but not so funny that I laughed out loud. You did your best on this though.

Originality: 21/25
Since you made up everything yourself, and you didn't use anything from someone else, you get nearly full points for this.
There is also another part of originality, and that is that I wouldn't have expected the jokes and story. The first joke I really expected, but the second I didn't. So nicely done on that.

Overall: 65/100
It's a nice submission, and although not of the highest quality, still funny to look at.

Review request club

MistyE responds:

It's not stupid at all; it's great!

Graphics/Animation: I appreciate your insight on this category. Since almost two years have passed since the submission date, I've definitely made more of an effort to create more accurate lip sync and more accurate movements.

Audio: Thank you! The "exiting music" was originally intended to be repetitive, but I'll keep that in mind.

Story/humour: Thanks. I didn't initially intend these episodes to be humorous, but rather to advance the plot.

Originality: Thanks!

Can you review Adrellia Village #38? I put much more effort and time into it than into this.