Not bad, needs work.
Work on the follow through on you character animation. The part were the robot is jumping lacks secondary motion and the part before that were he is running needs to be sped up. Are you animating the cameras or are you using flash because it tends to get shaky at some points and takes away from the animation. It seems like a great idea but needs improvement. I would recommend getting Maya 2011 it is a lot easier to work with and is to convert to other file types.
The animations are very smooth but...
...very slow. I almost found it funny that it looked like he was just strolling down the street while a thing was chasing after him. The thing I found impressive yet weird at the same time were the physics; The hair moves accordingly and is a joy to look at but when the 'thing' jumps from building to building, it seems to do it defying gravity.
But nevertheless, good to watch.
Good, but not quite satisfying
Don't get me wrong, you have no idea how glad I am to see this. Action series on NG are damn near extinct, and I thank you for picking this up again. Unfortunately, this Flash has alot of what turns people off from this genre of Flash in the first place. I remember the first episode from 3 years ago, and I went back and watched it again, and actually liked the approach more.
As far as graphics, I'm not partial to the new psuedo-3D style, the animations are very slow and awkward, especially the action parts; I really liked the 2D characters with more organic 3D backgrounds like the last one, I don't understand the change. The sound quality was decent, but the acting could use more realism; I felt constantly reminded that I was watching a cartoon by the characters' Saturday morning anime dialogue. Lastly, and most significant is the storytelling, this cartoon feels like you got impatient and dropped it halfway through. It is NEVER a good idea to leave the audience hanging in the middle of an action scene. That doesn't make me eager to see the next episode, it just kind of pisses me off.
It just isn't satisfying. I get the fact that it's a series, but with the best series, EVERY episode is watchable and re-watchable. This episode doesn't accomplish anything storywise or content-wise. The only thing I know more now than 3 years ago is that there's shadowers, and some alternate universe... Mmkay. If it's an action series with a story, something significant in the story should happen, not just... something... Please don't take the "I promise future episodes will be badass!" method, I can promise you that nobody sees your vision the way you do unless you put every ounce of your being into every chapter of this tale. Make every episode count, if it's not helping the story, give it a badass fight, if it doesn't have a badass fight, mindfuck us with intriguing revelations. Okay, I'm done. I'll be watching the rest of the series still, keep working at finding that balance.
Thanks for your honest opinion. The approach I took on this episode is largely due to my own personal interest level. 3d animation has been my latest fascination, so I sought ways to implement it into my workflow. I know, I know, generally a series should be somewhat uniform from episode to episode but what I'd like to do with this series is grow and expand in whatever direction Im lead, in the end I'd like this series to reflect where Ive been and where Im going, I dont want it to appear static. Though I have to admit the cliffhanger ending is a bit cheap on my behalf lol, but bare with me, its only just the beginning. There are many things I still do not understand about flash so I try to make solutions for the problems I face, for example optimization and file size limitations. The next episode might be even more of a new direction than this one, Im lead wherever the wind blows.
Hmmm...
I have to say, I'm not quite as impressed as I thought I should be. Let me explain.
First of all, I'm gonna start with the story. It's simply ok. I'd assume you're releasing these epidoes in the form of "shorts" in order to get them released faster, but it's not working for me, who atleast is interested in what's happening. The whole thing, guestimate,was around 3 minutes.
Which was around the same for the other, episode 1 and possibly Delusions of grandeur, which is still my favorite one after 4 years now? The voice acting, sub-par. For the girl's, which I think is still unnamed, it's slightly above average for me. Not the most perfect thing, but it'll do. However, the man's is slightly below. I don't know, it just dosen't feel right, they way he sounds. Maybe I'd need to watch episode 1 again, but I'm rushing this review.
And now, the worst part (but it's not bad!) for me, the graphics. The first thing that caught my eye to this, was how their head moves. When they talk, or in the begging when there was a lot of "action" it felt really wrong. It gave me the impression that they shoudn't be moving like that. Personally, the way you did it in episode 1, with real pictures and not drawn backgrounds, was better.
For a giant step up, I'd like to see how it was done in Grandeur, but I can't expect it all. Then there's the running scenes. I can't quite remember what he said, but I got the impression that the animation did not match what he said, in mouth and character movement, right before they lept out of the window. And for the last part which was quite obvious to me, was when he ran from the cyclops?
Anyways, whilst he was running from that, it felt slow. You know, when the camera panned way back and it was leaping from bulding to building. The legs on the man just felt like he was running through mud, not in the street as fast as he can.
I would wait 2 years, maybe 2 1/2 at most, for an ATU 3 if it had the same feel as Grandeur, was longer, say 10 minutes, and overall, looked better (^). It felt more "Deep" when there was no dialogue, but I'm more interested long term when there is.
Maybe you can find a happy medium?
6/10
Thanks for the feedback! Alot of people seem to prefer the Delusion of Grandeur installment, stylistically and conceptually. I need to reexamine it again. Although i find it hard to watch sometimes, it's like looking at an old awkward photo. Im still trying to discover what it is Im doing here, so with each episode this series will morph. Into what, I don't know, but I'm hoping to make progress either way.
i got crits
1. your opening menu is bad, i stared at it for 20 seconds waiting for a movie to play. Put some sort of indication that you're supposed to mouse over and click the buttons.
2. Why aren't the graphics in standard flash vectors?