PLEASE RECOMMEND THIS FOR THE MATRIX COLLECTION!
Thank you to the high voters for the Front Page and Daily Feature.
It's nice to know someone appreciated the hard work!
For the rest of you, assuming you take the time to read this description, let me address some FAQ's:
1) Why is everything green?
I exaggerated everything in this movie. Like actors in a play, to convey the actions and appearance of the sprites I found it necessary to amplify a few elements. The color green is one of those elements that defined The Matrix.
2) He jumps way too high and far too much, why?
First off, refer to question #1 for why so high. Second, using sprites, for anyone who has attempted a sprite animation, it becomes difficult to vary the motions as you get further into the animation. In order to account for this, I incorporated new moves. Also, given the 2-D nature of the animation, I was one dimension short. While I made every effort to give the illusion of depth, in order to compensate for that missing coordinate, I added more height to the animation.
3) Why didn't you use your own sounds or original music?
Keep in mind that the animations are synced to the original soundtrack, which I recorded straight from the movie. This provided more challenge, as I like to set various limitations on myself when embarking on time consuming tasks, such as this animation which, for the curious lot of you, took around 4 months to complete. There are moments in the animation when you might hear a sound that doesn't accompany an action. Watch it again, check the side of the screen for a Smith banging into a wall. Or maybe you hear the pole twirl, but Neo is off screen.
4) How could you forget the scene with Neo spinning on the pole and kicking all the Smiths?
Once again, limitations in two dimensions. Additionally, while an eight minute long sprite movie may appeal to some, most would become bored. I used about three minutes worth of sound from the fight sequence, focusing more on the stronger points of the song. The section of the song to which the movie featured the pole-spinning-kicks was not one of the portions I used and therefore was no series of sound effects with which to create that scene.
5) Are those KoF sprites? Why didn't you make your own?
Yes, I found the original sprites on FightersGeneration.com. They are from a fighting game entitled King of Fighters. I used Oswald for Agent Smith and Ash Crimson for Neo, as these sprites most closely resembled their prospective characters (Smith more so than Neo, I'll admit). I edited the sprites, to which was delegated about one fourth the amount of time it took me to complete the animation. There are a lot of sprite movies on Newgrounds which feature sprites and rarely have I ever seen fully original sprites. Mario and Zelda parodies are very popular and I see very few complaining about these animations. Just try to put that in perspective. I would have loved to draw original sprites from scratch but it would have taken a year to complete this animation had I done so. I don't know too many people with that kind of free time and I'm certainly no exception.
6) The Matrix came out years ago, aren't you a little late with this animation?
Yes. However, I began this submission back in 2004. I worked on it for a few months then moved about 3 times, had 5 different jobs and got pretty busy. I recently got a new job and a new computer. Between the upgrade to Flash 8 and the ability to work from home and make my own hours as an SEO consultant, I was finally able to finish this. I thought, what a waste to not submit something I worked on for so long. Don't you agree? Also, some of us still enjoy a little throw back here and there, even if the idea was killed by a bunch of morons in the hay day.
7) Why sprites?
Three Words: Super Nintendo Rules.
8) Credits?
Music - "Burly Brawl" by Juno Reactor vs. Don Davis, The Matrix Reloaded Soundtrack
Sprites - King of Fighters, SNK (Oswald and Ash Crimson)
Backgrounds - by me, from scratch, in FormZ
Text - Matrix Font found on dafonts.com
Enjoy.
