MineWars Episode 1: Exile

[Heavenira 3.7k]

Horrible.

The length is surely something I'm not capable of creating, but the voice acting completely wrecked it. I'll will completely disregard the quality of the animation, as it's too watered down by the characters' appalling personalities and performances. I can already see how the cast was appointed, you asked your buds (or they asked you) to voice act and they immediately jumped to the idea. To respond to the "voice acting will be better in episode 2", it better be. I'm expecting a Gordon Ramsay attitude from the director, because this is not acceptable for two months of work; a complete waste of effort by not having decent assets.

To make my troubles a bit less painful, I'll like three of your posts to be on my way, as I don't often make such downright hateful reviews. But the amount of time to create lack of quality is just painful. See'ya.

Edited July 15, 2016 by Heavenira

[Zeno 2.9k]

15 minutes ago, Heavenira said:

-snip-

I'm not sure I really see the point of violently lashing out on the first thing to ever come out of a team.

Really, I used to like you, even respect you a great deal, but lately your sounding more and more like a conceited jerk.

Do us all a favor, and don't follow the series. We don't need this.

Edited July 15, 2016 by Deminu

[SDWAN 2.8k]

When the honest game gets capaitalized as being a "jerk". Who says you gotta be soft on a team's launch? Everyone gives feedback in any they can and it doesn't matter whether its hurtful disapproving, or anything. Freakin high school coaches are more downright honest than this smh

@Heavenira basically did nothing wrong in this in my opinion :/

[zoocomicsx 647]

1 hour ago, SDWAN said:

When the honest game gets capaitalized as being a "jerk". Who says you gotta be soft on a team's launch? Everyone gives feedback in any they can and it doesn't matter whether its hurtful disapproving, or anything. Freakin high school coaches are more downright honest than this smh

@Heavenira basically did nothing wrong in this in my opinion :/

I don't condone flames but ye I'm not going to be picking sides and starting a flame war.

what was your opinion on MineWars?

[Ironwave Studios 547]

Hey, I thought I'd give my thoughts on this... (a little late I know, but lmao here goes) And, seeing as a lot of people have posted their somewhat strong opinions of this series, I'm thinking you guys might need a little more sage advice....

First off, as someone who is making an animated series myself, I understand there are a lot different components that have to go in to make it work. It's a lot different than making a plain single animation or doing tests. It's not an easy task to undertake, and the simple fact that you guys set forth and actually made this a thing is somewhat commendable in and of itself. Most people give up before getting it realized, and the sheer length tells me that there was at least some form of motivation and determination behind this. 

However, as others have said, there is a lot of room for improvement... like, a LOT... It was kinda hard to sit through... But don't worry, imma help you guys out a bit (because I'm just nice like that)

I have watched it in its entirety again in order to notice things and give you guys an honest, informed review. So here goes:

 

A few tips on creating narratives: (also, anyone else reading this and wants to learn some stuff about making narrative stuff, keep reading)

Tip #1: The first and most important thing in order to make a series a success (or really any narrative story) is to establish the Environment... which includes the setting of the story, the tone, the emotions you're trying to convey, and the rules/guidelines your story will live by. This is decided even before you have the story fully realized. I noticed a lot of people talk about Minewars having this problem where its hard to see what the theme of the story is. I know you said that there's supposed to be a tons of mods and the world is corrupt and stuff. The more complicated the environment, the more time you should devote to explaining it and establishing it. The only way i could tell that was the case was a really short bit of text at the beginning. You have to SHOW it... you have to establish these things and then stay consistent throughout the episode(s). What mods corrupted the world? how did they corrupt the world? What is the lasting effects? Is that walled up city an effect of that? When did it happen? What time frame are we in? is this the future, the past? Why does all this even matter to our protagonist? Why can't they leave the city? etc. etc. For a good example, look at @ÜberKiller's Chernobyl series, (lol hey m8) it's set in Chernobyl (the setting is literally in the name) and it has more of a dramatic, action, serious tone and the story takes place in an abandoned radioactive factory setting, this tells the audience that it's going be a bit apocalyptic, and with the guns and technology, it's pretty clear that it takes place sometime in the present / near future of earth, so the rules are pretty easy to understand. (ÜberKiller u should fact check this) That's a pretty basic way of stating the environment of the series, and Über does a good job of making sure that environment stays consistent throughout it.

Tip #2: The next thing you guys seem to need work on is the plot, more specifically what it has to do with the main character's motivation. You need to have this clear for the audience. Throughout the episode, this wasn't really that clear. He's trying to find a treasure? Why? Why hasn't he gone to find it before? What's so special that makes him want to find it now? What challenges does he face? The main character always needs a call to action. Some force that pushes him to do whatever he needs to do. This is a well known element in full length movies as well. I know you explained his backstory a bit at the beginning (spent a little too much time on the parent, imo) but he needs reasons to act NOW... (btw, in the ep, he said he didn't know it was against the law to leave the city? he's lived there for 15 years, it seems like he should know lmao) 

Tip #3: Each scene needs to have its own emotion and meaning tied to it. Good stories are built in a way that they create emotion in the audience. So what emotion do you want to go for in each scene? Excitement? Sadness? Tension? Awe? Fear? Desperation? etc... And whatever it is, the visuals, sound effects and music (or lack thereof) need to back it up. In most of the scenes, it seems like things were happening just to happen. A lot of the scenes and dialog were pointless I noticed. Even exposition scenes need to have emotion attached to them, otherwise, people get bored and uninterested. We have to care about what's happening. (be careful also, music does not equal emotion. You cant just slap some music on a scene and call it good, you have to have the RIGHT music, or like i said, none at all) 

I know it might be kind of hard to fix these things in minewars since episode 1 is already done, but in any case, this stuff will come in handy in literally any narrative project anyone works on...

Notice that so far, the only things I've talked about are abstract things. I haven't even touched on the quality of animation or sounds or... the VOICE ACTING (lmao everyone's talked about that) 

 

Now, for more actual reviewing:

For the voice acting, you should definitely consider getting more professional voices. Or at least get better quality mics on some of them... These guys are the characters that are supposed to be portraying the story to the audience, and you don't want them to sound annoying. As for the animation, there were a few tiny parts that were done okay, but a lot of it could have been much better. There's tons more to be said, but I'll leave that to others.

Also, I noticed you had 6 people on story. Having too many people on story is a BIG no-no in the film world because of how much the story can become broken, muddled, or confused. Each person has a different perspective on the story, so each one will tell it differently. This is especially evident when they also do the animation. I suggest maybe one person on story, and then have another person help review/edit it to make some touch ups.

Really imo a lot of problems might have arisen from the amount of people working on it... The inconsistent lighting, weird motion blur, tone, movement... it almost just seemed like a jumble of everyone's animations that happened to be related. I suggest only one person managing the lighting and rendering (and maybe have others give their input on it) Also, a few very dedicated, passionate people can do way more good than a bunch of people gathered up willy nilly without very clear organizational structure.

 

ANYWAYS, that took way longer than I thought.... This reply used to be even longer, but i decided not to tell ALL my secrets lmao. I feel like this is enough for you guys to chew on, the rest you guys should discover and learn for yourselves. Hope that helps a little bit and hope you guys learned a lot... Also, good on you for not giving in and feeling super sad/angry because of the bad reviews, you sound like you really want to improve and that's great. That's what this forum was meant to be about in the first place.

All I can say is thanks for reading, and good luck with episode 2...

 

(lmao maybe I should make this into a topic... if this gets enough likes then maybe I will)

Edited July 15, 2016 by Ironwave Studios

[EliteBlueSniper 115]

13 minutes ago, Ironwave Studios said:

 

 

(lmao maybe I should make this into a topic... if this gets enough likes then maybe I will)

Make topic please. I need to learn.

Edited July 15, 2016 by EliteBlueSniper

[zoocomicsx 647]

 @Ironwave Studios ok thanks iron wave, we have already gotten better voice actors, I couldn't afford professional but MUCH better. 

I have to say the after effects problems were entirely my fault as I was the only one working on them, I guess I should have listened to my team more at the time.

as for the story, plot line was extremely rushed for this episode but the episode 2 script is actually almost completed and better than ever. We spent an hour on a group call going through it and fixing plot holes and such! 

Im also implanting a standard of animation technique all FSP members should use as a guideline for MW.

thanks for the help, Ima copy and paste this to show FSP!

you were a big help

[MCBoomBox 188]

8 hours ago, Heavenira said:

Something i started reading but didn't finish

Aren't you that person who made "Top 10 mine-imator animations" I watch it wishing i'll be on it, I hope i'm on it when Hero Outbreak comes out.

[Patrick 1.7k]

4 hours ago, MCBoomBox said:

Aren't you that person who made "Top 10 mine-imator animations" I watch it wishing i'll be on it, I hope i'm on it when Hero Outbreak comes out.

He made top 10 Mine imator animators.

[MCBoomBox 188]

1 hour ago, Patrick said:

He made top 10 Mine imator animators.

I wish i was one.

[Zeno 2.9k]

11 hours ago, Ironwave Studios said:

~much needed snip~

Hey, I just wanted to personally say thank you so much for this. The general message you were trying to get across is basically what I would have done if I had reviewed this. So, if anything, you can know that there's atleast one person on the team who shares your opinion in general.  I do not want to come off as conceited or arrogant in any way, but I have tried to voice these opinions to the others during production, though sadly it seemed to go mostly unnoticed. Perhaps this is due to my joining midway through production, I'm not sure.

Now, as for what we're doing to solve these issues. As @zoocomicsx said, we are working on getting more experienced voice actors, and training our existing ones. I haven't heard anything about the animation guidelines, but it sounds like that's going to be a thing moving forward. With the plot, we spent a good amount of yesterday working out character backstories, and in particular, their motivation. We've come up with what we think are solid backstories for several characters, along with the reason behind the walls going up, as you mentioned. I'm also working on writing a scene that explains in more detail the mods issue. I believe that I'm fairly good at story-related things, so hopefully I can convince everyone of that. I agree with your idea of having one writer and one editor, maybe I'll be able to snag the editor position(Gah, I sound so conceited...). @zoocomicsx was in charge of the After FX, and he's been reminded many times of the excessive-ness of the motion blur and camera shake. That should be fixed next episode.

And finally, more of a minor thing, but I'll also be handling all audio-related items in the next episode, meaning sound fx, mixing, etc. in this episode, all I really did in terms of that was arrange the music and write the song in the credits.

 

All in all, hopefully some of this gives you an idea of what we have in store, and that all of us have really taken to heart your ideas, and will do our best to improve.

[ÜberKiller 7.5k]

5 minutes ago, Deminu said:

we are working on getting more experienced voice actors, and training our existing ones.

you had me at here. sold, when can I start?

I mean uh, if you are looking for an adult-sounding voice actor, I can be of service. I have done a few voice acting skits for people here in the past, however most of them went unused since each project I applied for was cancelled.

11 hours ago, Ironwave Studios said:

Also, I noticed you had 6 people on story. Having too many people on story is a BIG no-no in the film world because of how much the story can become broken, muddled, or confused. Each person has a different perspective on the story, so each one will tell it differently. This is especially evident when they also do the animation. I suggest maybe one person on story, and then have another person help review/edit it to make some touch ups.

I concur, but to a degree. You should have at least 2 people on the story, and three at max for small projects. You want the story to flow well and follow the rules of a typical story. Having too little or too many to switch and twist the plot can be a bad thing. Though having a single person on the story can work if that single person is an exceptional storyteller.

 

11 hours ago, Ironwave Studios said:

For a good example, look at @ÜberKiller's Chernobyl series, (lol hey m8) it's set in Chernobyl (the setting is literally in the name) and it has more of a dramatic, action, serious tone and the story takes place in an abandoned radioactive factory setting, this tells the audience that it's going be a bit apocalyptic, and with the guns and technology, it's pretty clear that it takes place sometime in the present / near future of earth, so the rules are pretty easy to understand. (ÜberKiller u should fact check this) That's a pretty basic way of stating the environment of the series, and Über does a good job of making sure that environment stays consistent throughout it.

(Shnoot you caught me.) I think a simple plot with a simple to understand location works best to decrease confusion for the viewers. For my case, it's important to have some good establishing shots from the start for big locations to reduce losing track of where they are in the schematic. (Since Chernobyl is big, but not super dense)

That is why while I don't think Chernobyl is great on it's own merits anymore, it does hold a place for the beginning of storytelling animation here. Take away the bad, keep the good; etc.

[Zeno 2.9k]

11 minutes ago, ÜberKiller said:

you had me at here. sold, when can I start?

I mean uh, if you are looking for an adult-sounding voice actor, I can be of service. I have done a few voice acting skits for people here in the past, however most of them went unused since each project I applied for was cancelled.

Haha. I'll bring it up in the Skype group once everyone starts coming online. 99% chance we can use you.

[ÜberKiller 7.5k]

7 minutes ago, Deminu said:

Haha. I'll bring it up in the Skype group once everyone starts coming online. 99% chance we can use you.

Skype..

Skype? Oh dear. Better use that.. I suppose. I've been using discord for so long I almost forgot I had it.

I'll be online late tonight (Not home currently) but i'll be available all day tomorrow.

[Zeno 2.9k]

Just now, ÜberKiller said:

Skype..

Skype? Oh dear. Better use that.. I suppose. I've been using discord for so long I almost forgot I had it.

I'll be online late tonight (Not home currently) but i'll be available all day tomorrow.

I guess it just sort of defaulted to Skype. I don't know too much about Discord, personally.

[Achroma MC 1.7k]

Since I'm kind of late, I guess I should get right to the point. Please keep in mind most of this is nit-picking.

The animation was good. The movements were fluid and realistic. Some parts could be touched up on, though. The lighting was quite generic in some scenes, which I believe you can do better, and others had effects layered on top, which breaks consistency.

Everything else, I'm not so keen about.

From the very start, the city's design was just unappealing. The mix of different designs and block choices along with an inconsistent placement of buildings just clash with each other. This may be because the residences were allowed to build whatever they wished but for the sake of making the story at least somewhat realistic, I would suggest you had kept a consistent design and layout.

Speaking of consistency, the character's seem to live in different time periods. Kiro is wearing modern-casual, the guards are wearing SWAT armour, yet use swords and bows like everyone else, and the king is wearing medieval-styled robes. Yet gain, I would suggest you kept a consistent design.  Also, good job on Kiro - after 15 years he doesn't look a day older than when he was a baby. His clothes still fit him, too. Couldn't you have made custom skins for each age? An infant isn't born with a full head of hair unless there's something I'm just missing.

I believe the city had gone to waste story-wise. Despite being a city full of different people and places, Kiro leaves the city during the first episode. As for the story, this is a waste of an opportunity for character development and world building. The most interaction we get is a shopkeeper asking Kiro if he wants shovels. There's so much you could have done with the set and its characters which you didn't. It's best to introduce crucial places and characters early on unless that's part of the story or is supposed to be kept hidden from us.

In my opinion, the king's throne area doesn't have a proper design. It most cases, the king has a castle, with the throne room being on the ground floor near the front - not several stories above the ground on a balcony.

Some of the voices don't fit the characters. For example, Kiro's voice actor doesn't sound 15. Although you did point this out with comic relief, comedy doesn't excuse poor quality. Kiro's mother's voice actor's audio quality was a bit static-y, and she sounds younger than Kiro himself. The king's voice was static-y as well. The voice acting - especially the king's - should have been more dynamic with varying range, pitch and volume.

At 2:30, I'm not sure if this is a mistake, but Kiro's father says "Before we came to the chest, I buried a chest [...]". Plus, the map Kiro's father gives Kiro appears to have a burned edge but has a solid colour to fit in the negative space and make a perfect rectangle. I can see if this was done to fix the transparency bug or if the image was a .JPEG, but it could also have been done by using a .PNG image, erasing the transparent pixels or increasing the Render Depth. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense, as in the next scene the border disappears.

The 'apple juice' thing with the king doesn't fit in with the story, I know you were trying to be funny, but it doesn't sit nicely with everything else. The king acts intimidating - he even kills someone right then and there. Him being picky about flavoured liquids breaks his character and archetype. He also blinks too often on the zoom-in part.

The guards are dangerously oblivious and innocent. Simply letting a civilian pass by when he clearly stated his true intentions were idiotic. I know this was for comic relief, but again, it doesn't fit the story.

At 6:31, I don't think lining those three fountains with wood would do good either.

If they wanted to make sure nobody could go beyond the walls, then they wouldn't have made it so easy, considering Kiro did it in less than a minute with simple parkour. Adding more security measures or training their guards properly could do them some good.

A 7:24, I would suggest you had done something else to have Kiro get down, other than just falling face flat. He could do the parkour earlier but then acts clumsy the next bit afterwards, yet again breaking character.

Why did the king not kill Kiro? He had no reason to spare him at that very moment, considering he killed someone else earlier. Kiro saw the map, which could give him hints on how to find the truth about the city, which could be costly for the king. Plus, throwing someone out of the city for getting out of the city isn't really a reasonable punishment.

Nice music transition afterwards. Those flat-top mountains surrounding the forest look nice, too.

What's with the lack of shadows? Is the sun straight overhead? Dynamic lighting (or lighting in general) can add depth and realism to a scene.

And now there's more comic relief about the poor voice acting.

So, as the first episode of a series, this was poorly executed. It was a mess. The voice acting I can excuse in some regards, as finding good voice actors can be tough if you're not quite Hollywood-status, but at some points, it sounded like you didn't try. I'd give it a 3.2 out of 10 - the extra .2 being for your team not departing after a week or so. I hope Fluid Script Productions produces something better later on, though. Until then, I'll be waiting.

 

Edited July 15, 2016 by Achroma MC

[Zeno 2.9k]

58 minutes ago, Achroma MC said:

 

Nice music transition afterwards.

 

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.(im commenting on this part because it's basically the only thing commenting on something i did)

Thanks for the review, though. We're all working hard on the script for Episode 2, and trying to give it as much polish as we can, while steering the story towards more sensical-ness.

[CatOnCaffeine 646]

5 hours ago, ÜberKiller said:

Skype..

Skype? Oh dear. Better use that.. I suppose. I've been using discord for so long I almost forgot I had it.

I'll be online late tonight (Not home currently) but i'll be available all day tomorrow.

Honestly if necessary, I can set up a done chat room for dicking around, another for real business, etc. I already made a schedule thing on google charts but maybe I can incorporate that into discord. Also, we would love another voice actor. (even if it means more work for me}

[Caeden117 1.8k]

Oh god this has gone for 132, now 133 replies, I haven't seen anything like this since my first year of the Forums!

Well, getting to the point, after watching through your animation twice, yes, there IS some work you can do to improve on it.

1. Why have King Lapis banish Kiro after he only seen a few mountains and having been outside the walls for one minute before SWAT comes and tackles him?
2. Voice acting needs a lot more work, purchasing Blue Snowballs (Or whatever those are called) for everyone might help
3. Why have the wall be one-block wide? Have it be five to ten blocks wide and have SWAT gaurds patrolling the walls.
4. Why leave so early? You had potential to make a great backstory but ruined it, maybe next time when Kiro has a major flash back r something
5. Noticed you used FSP's members in the beginning of the animation. kek.
6. Why the diversity of times? Yes, I do understand that the world is modded and "everything can happen" but come on, why doesn't SWAT have guns? Where's the Thermal Foundation, Tinkers Construct, and Immersive Engineering in this? (I may be over reacting here, but since it is modded maybe make a resource pack with some modded blocks and place them around, give the "modded" feel a bit more foundation

I could go on for a bit longer but I decided to end it here as most forumers already pointed out most the points I am going to make *cough* *cough* number 2

[Zeno 2.9k]

3 hours ago, Caeden117 said:

Oh god this has gone for 132, now 133 replies, I haven't seen anything like this since my first year of the Forums!

Well, getting to the point, after watching through your animation twice, yes, there IS some work you can do to improve on it.

1. Why have King Lapis banish Kiro after he only seen a few mountains and having been outside the walls for one minute before SWAT comes and tackles him?
2. Voice acting needs a lot more work, purchasing Blue Snowballs (Or whatever those are called) for everyone might help
3. Why have the wall be one-block wide? Have it be five to ten blocks wide and have SWAT gaurds patrolling the walls.
4. Why leave so early? You had potential to make a great backstory but ruined it, maybe next time when Kiro has a major flash back r something
5. Noticed you used FSP's members in the beginning of the animation. kek.
6. Why the diversity of times? Yes, I do understand that the world is modded and "everything can happen" but come on, why doesn't SWAT have guns? Where's the Thermal Foundation, Tinkers Construct, and Immersive Engineering in this? (I may be over reacting here, but since it is modded maybe make a resource pack with some modded blocks and place them around, give the "modded" feel a bit more foundation

I could go on for a bit longer but I decided to end it here as most forumers already pointed out most the points I am going to make *cough* *cough* number 2

There's a trend going on.

The trend is people keep bringing up the exact same things that were driving me crazy and some of which I mentioned multiple times.

 

Seriously, guys. Come on.

[Caeden117 1.8k]

1 minute ago, Deminu said:

There's a trend going on.

The trend is people keep bringing up the exact same things that were driving me crazy and some of which I mentioned multiple times.

 

Seriously, guys. Come on.

 

3 hours ago, Caeden117 said:

I could go on for a bit longer but I decided to end it here as most forumers already pointed out most the points I am going to make *cough* *cough* number 2

[JjCinemas 3.3k]

Just now, Caeden117 said:

 

I believe Deminu is aiming his frustration at his team because people are saying what he was saying during the production of this episode.

[Zeno 2.9k]

1 hour ago, JjCinemas said:

I believe Deminu is aiming his frustration at his team because people are saying what he was saying during the production of this episode.

This.

I've already said multiple times that I don't want to come off as conceited, but whatever, I'd rather see this series hit it's full potential than maintain internet reputation(if i have any). I feel I was underutilized on this. I have some skills that I've been honing for multiple years now, and not many places to use them.

Edited July 16, 2016 by Deminu

[ratgirldingus 601]

*SHAKY CAM INTENSIFIES*

 

This was pretty nice, the only things that could use some work are:

1. Voice acting

2. Movements

3. LESS SHAKY CAM OMG

4. Cinematography

 

Other than that tho, I see you got a solid story going.

[OfficialCUYT 536]

Bruh