Reviews for The Lady In White

[MrGUS]

You know what is my favorite part of?

The handwriting you use, I love the handwriting you put on your text. I'm joking, but it is quite good.
In the first part I liked how it felt like a painting, and the colors and sound gave it a very nice wholesome look... I am not very fond of that kind of drawing though, I liked the second part's style much more, specially the atmosphere, the way you portrayed the city. I will give you some advice though... (that I should follow myself, but I still can't pull it off, if you do, do tell me). When tweening to change angle and zoom, be a bit more careful with the pace, and the smoothness of the tween, so it doesn't feel very mechanical .. I'm still bad at zooms and angles, ha, so there you go.
Again, I like the story you're trying to tell, I think I understood the point. I'll contact you later.. about *shhh....* the secret project... *shhhhh*

Hildebrandt responds:

OOOH, THE SECRET PROJECT, WOOOHOOO... yeah, i know what you mean- but I told ya, I suck at shifts of perspective ;)

[Aethox]

While WAY better than bedtime...

I thought the animation was VERY robotic and unnatural for such an emotionally free flash. Every scene made me wish the movement was more smooth, but it just kept repeating the same awkward looping a few times too many.

But this deserves at least an 8, good job.

[RexKwanDo]

Pretty cool, but it needs something...

I really was moved by what this movie tries to portray, but to my eyes the movie doesn't do the message justice.

This movie is very reliant on tweening early on, which I can understand, but if you're going to use a lot of tweens, you *need* to learn about something rather unheard of by many artists starting off: keyframe easing. By that I mean click any frame in the middle of a tween and - at least in CS3 - there is an easing option. This basically makes the tween movements less harsh. You can visually see a graph as well(Edit option); a normal tween is perfectly linear and an eased tween is a gentle slope. You can also edit the graph to your liking for some really great effects. By easing your keyframes for even just your camera moves the film would look 100 times better.

Another thing I'll briefly touch on is perspective problems. You've done a better job than I could do in a thousand years, but there are some definite perspective problems at the beginning of the movie. I would suggest cutting from one angle to others (eg overhead, to isometric, to straight-on) until you can pull off the rather advanced 3-dimensional camera move in a 2d environment.

The final aspect I'd like to mention deals with the shadows in your film. If the edges weren't blurred they were very harsh and well-defined... This can be resolved in a couple different ways. By breaking apart your shadows and using Modify > Shape > Soften Fill Edges (Once softened, just simply re-group them in order to tween and other stuff.) or just a simple blur you can make your shadows much better. I would suggest blurring them a lot more too.

I'd finally like to make some general comments.

The movie get better the longer you watch. I can see definite improvement through out this: while the style remains fairly consistent, it is more refined by the end. The music choice was very good, but sounded compressed -- slightly muffled might be a good way to put it. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this project of yours, and was refreshed by its style.

-REX

Hildebrandt responds:

Hey, thanks for the review! Yeah, I'm still learning... and, nope, I don't have CS3.

[punbeard81]

Nice but characters suffer at times

A nice fluid look to your style, (I really like the trees and backgrounds) but the human characters suffer from inconsistencies. Legs get too thin in places or you can see obvious breaks where legs meet up with the hips. Walk cycles need a little more work as they distract. Basically, needs some polish and it will be good to go. Still, good effort.

Hildebrandt responds:

Farrck, dude, I thought- well, okay, that part where hes is walking through the woods where he is just a black shape) (--> less work XD) his leg doesn't seem to be connected to the hip for a quarter of a second because I used one SHITTY formtween (I don't do that anymore since I got a drawing pad...), but, well, people won't realize... I was just to eager to finish the animation, I really worked sloppyly on some parts- but, you know... animation just always takes so damn long, and neither am I a professional animator, nor am I unemployed... :/ Thx for you review!!

[Patriclus]

Constructive Critique;

Your FBF work was nice, especially for the folds of the cloth rippling in the wind. Also, a good use of the glow effect (although perhaps a little too much in some places). The 3D spins were plentiful and impressive, however the animation at times felt very 'floaty'. Multiple perspectives shattered the 3D effect you sought after. I would suggest getting toon boom studio (download the demo?) for the application of its 3D camera to a 2D environment. That would allow you to do your drawings and animations in flash, but place them in a much more solid 3D environment.
Cheers, Patriclus

Hildebrandt responds:

Hey fella, thx for the review, I'll check out the program as soon as possible :)