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

Some really interesting things at play here. I wasn’t so sold on the static image of this earlier, but it really provide a nice hybrid feel between realism and illustration. This is such a fine line we all tread in CG, sometimes arriving somewhere fresh and peculiar. It is a conflicted reality presented, especially on the last frame, but interesting nonetheless. The water drop spreading after intersection is clearly stock footage, and could’ve been stronger. Overall, makes me want to see a longer short film done w/ this aesthetic.

Arnold Gallardo

This is a very effective piece with the use of the rain as an element, it really works. It draws you in the piece and makes you want to see more of it. Overall everythig here is working. The raindrop on the car would have been done better as said. Overall though the subtle change in the weather on the end is quite effective and one does want to see more of it. So congratulations in having all the elements work together in such an effective and engaging way.

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Arnold Gallardo
Visual Content Creator
Technical Writer

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

Ernest Burden

I still find this scene impersonal. I'm looking at this city, but am not really a part of it. There isn't much to invite me in. Possibly we could follow the drop as our way in. But the drop goes around us, distorts the view and then breaks up on the car. It serves as a good device to show us a way. But when we see the car it is driving away, and we don't see a face inside the glass. The car is a closed world, with us on the outside. To some degree that is how the whole piece feels. There is a welcoming moment as the lights come on in the building to track the car. It shows a connetion between people and place.

The model is great and well lit. The rain effect is perfectly executed, something that most of us would not even dream of trying because its just so hard to do. But you did. The audio fits the weather, though I don't like the 'warping' sound when we pass through the raindrop. I don't have a suggesion for something better, it just seems to be too weird, and therefore distracting. The drop explodes on the car in a splash that reads as a drop-on. It's a difficult effect to do, so you did fine with it, but it is obviously an effect. Maybe it would be better to minimize it. The streaked car lights effect is really nice. It sets up the piece as not an ordinary vision of this place.

The camera moves are smooth, the best one is the shot that follows the car as the buildings zoom by. But I would love to see a shot from the ground, a pedestrians point of view, that follows the car as it passes, to link the car shot to the next shot. Perhaps it could be from under an awning, sheltering from the shower. Once the rain ends things brighten up nicely, but that is when we leave, backing out, everything in the scene moving away from us.

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Ernest Burden III
AcmeDigital
architectural rendering