Jeff Mottle

Judges: Please post your critiques here

CGarchitect.com Members, you may view the finalist's animations here: http://www.cgarchitect.com/challeng...hallenge4_2.wmv

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Jeff Mottle
CGarchitect.com

ehanson

This piece has a great cinematic structure that is decidedly commercial in feel, if not a good spot for Duracell. The camera work is well executed with convincing imperfection and angles. The apparent pincushion vignnetting add to the comfortable smaller scale of the piece. The rendering is rich and photoreal, with good use of depth of field and GI. The audio foley is well thought out, although I would've expected more from the impact. The architectural narrative is not really a focus, but the twist of the story works. Well done!

Arnold Gallardo

This piece works very well in breaking the 'conventional' arch-vis presentation of fairly static walk-throughs and the use of transition editing. There is a presence in this piece in terms of lighting as well as 'ambience'.

It has that commercial broadcast feel to it. The only regret was that you should have shown more of the building's interior as well as exterior than focus solely on the 'security camera bot's single perspective'. It is reasonable to assume that there is more than one of these bots in this building. Had you shown other perspective, it would have been a more effective piece and worked well with you 'ending' of one falling off the building. You could have shown them too bumping into each other and such like in those r/c robot wars.

Overall it as an effective piece, cinematography because you had a key lightign there established along with proper dynamic range as well as optical effects such as depth of field and motion blur etc. You had the proper low perspective to show the 'world' of the rover bot and that's quite effective. Good job on the animation as well. Well done

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Arnold Gallardo
Visual Content Creator
Technical Writer

Author:'3D Lighting: History,Concepts
and Techniques'

Ernest Burden

I'm having trouble telling where the live footage ends and the CG begins. I guess that's a good thing. But what if it's all CG? You would have to pick me up off the floor. I'm writing in an airplane now so being on the floor isn't a good idea. I've been running the piece back and forth, frame by frame looking for clues. The rover bumps over the cardboard in a way that's too real to be keyframed, the tires are flat--who would do that in CG? Ah, but when it launches off the plank the rover's front wheels pitch UP a bit. Humm. When you have people wondering how you did a piece you know you've done something good.

Now, assuming the parts that appear live action--the desktop scene, the rover, the laptop--then I must protest that too little of your piece is CG. It was only a 20 second spot and you seem to have only rendered a few seconds of CG. Or most of it, in which case I stand in awe. Sit actually. Typing with turbulance isn't easy, by the way.

Speaking of which, I love the camera movements, especially from the rover's eyeview--the fall, bounce and warped vision. You cover the three main forms of narative storytelling, first person (the rover's view) second person (the security camera) and third person (the general cameras followong the action). The jumps from one to to another is logical and perfectly paced. At each point you see what's happening from the appropriate POV to tell the story.

The objects in motion are very well animated, as well as the cameras. There is never a point where it looks un-natural.

And it's surprising how much story you cram into a short piece. Although as an illustration of architectural subjectry I find it lacking. I woud like to see more of the project, even though it would be at the cost of the story. Maybe I'm being too rigid. Your piece is about discovering a work of architecture and finding a new way to experience it, even though it doesn't yet exist. Isn't that exactly the job of the architectural illustrator?

But now we have to fear being replaced by little robotic explorers who work for a few Duracell's per month.

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Ernest Burden III
AcmeDigital
architectural rendering

RIP

Thanks for your comments. I appreciate very much.
p.d. Ernest: all in this scene is 3d