shade-v2's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Clay fight 5]

Ahhhhhh.

These are great to break the monotony of viewing vector graphics. I dig the series.

But I am sick of seeing reviews that repeatedly ask how it's done. I don't know how the authors here do it but it can be accomplished with the simplest and cheapest of the outdated QuickCam's. The software that comes with them has a stop motion option. I used to make little stop motion vid's with hotwheels using one - it ain't that hard.

What should be noted is not the tools used but the skill of the animator(s). Adjusting the surface of the water slightly for each frame and taking the time and effort to string up pieces that are being "thrown."

As far as frame rates... I'm viewing on a 600mhz laptop with 128mb's Ram and yes, it did chop up near the end - it forced the machine to start caching to the HD. However, I don't think theres an absolute need for a compressed version. Up to you from my stand point.

FireHound responds:

Now there's a review! I hope other people will read this.
Maybe we should make the movies around 40 sec.
With me its by the way the same, getting slow at the ending. We worked damn hard on this movie, and I can't even see it myself :) (not fluently anyways)
But thanx for the review!

[Tales of Nosu]

Very nice.

This is some excellent work. Very good FBF and great use of tweens. I hadn't caught the connection between the old black and white toon and this new one until the authors slapped me in the face with it. None the less it's nice to see something like this reborn in all it's beautifully shaded brilliance.

Personally, I didn't much like the underlying style of swirls but I still couldn't avoid tossing out a 5 for this.

See ya on the Top 50.

BenSpurgin responds:

I don't know what you have against swirls and swirl motifs, but I'm glad you caught it regardless.

[Storefront: Poodgie Noir]

Though unfinished...

I can't help but like it. Remniscent of the overly pretentious foreign films of my youth. I feel your trying to say something about the world and the very essence of existence and yet.... uh... nope. Nevermind. heh. That fucking duck.

Radam responds:

An apt pupil!

Unlike my other submissions, I was, in fact, trying to say something with this one, and it did, in fact, have to do with pretentious films overrated for having the proper artsy air.

It was really triggered by another Newgrounds submission: The Bard's Song -- the bane of my Flashmaking existance. That thing's been on and off in the top 50 since the dawn of time.

Well, I thought to myself, if that guy could climb to the top on a fruity music clip and a bunch of motion tweens, I can borrow the formula and outdo him ten times. I started work most of a year ago. My ambition slipped, but the reviews here are really bringing it back.

Time and motivation, guys, and you're giving me the motivation.

[Snowpimp #6: "Neander"]

Ahem,

Hey all you Newbies out there, with your stick figure - no background - no sound - gradient shaded - 3fps - BULLSHIT, asking me to give you a chance because this is only your second submission: Check out Snowpimp --> Simple shapes - nothing but tweening - minimal audio events.

This Snowpimp series is extremely simple animation AND it's fucking kewl. Anyone who has been using flash for a week or three could put something like this out if they took the time. But y'all would rather animate a 12k swf of a stick figure taking a shit.

I hope I'm not offending the author by saying that this work is simple. I simply wish that the neophytes releasing animations at NG would make the tiny bit of extra effort and put something like this out to replace their "Stick Raping a Goat While Being Shot in the Head" standard.

Oh yeah, nice short. I like the series.

Parat responds:

Your totally right, dude!
Yes, I am the animator of those guys
Yes, Those were my first movies with Flash 0.5 and...
Yes, they ARE fucking simple!

I see some people are looking forward to #7, but this could take some time. I'm working on a Game too, you know.

Thanks shade

[FANTASTIC shootout =)]

Well, since it's your first...

I gave you a 2. I can tell that it took a lot of time and effort and it's a damn fine first run. However, you broke quite a few rules of newgrounds etiquette with the film. First, no story just guns. Not always a bad thing but your graphics aren't at place !YET! where they can hold up an animation on their own. Next, the Matrix thing - personally, I think the whole slow motion thing is overplayed and used too much anyway, but then you pull out the old Matrix bullet dodge and my hand suddenly takes over and wants to click 0. I will say, that I'm sure this took quite a long time and I'm glad that you learned as much about motion tweening and sound events as you did before you threw in your first submission. All said, it was good. Not worth more than a 2, but it was good. A little more effort toward the graphics and the addition of a plot, you'll be there.

BazzMann responds:

Cheers mate, granted you gave me a '2' on the vote, and '3' on the review, but at least you THOUGHT before you wrote it! Thank god, there are some intelligable Newgrounds reviewers out there... and I appreciate the critisism... I will work on making a kickass brand new movie later this month... over my lonely xmas ;)

[Skater's Surprise!]

Ya know what.

I'm not even going to post a review for this one.

glish responds:

Um... i think you just did?? Thanx for voting!

[SnowyFight (GuruD.)]

Pretty Good.

I'm surprised at the score this animation has. I would imagine this to be somewhere in the 2.+ range. Pretty damn good frame by framing. And when combined with the 3d backgrounds really makes this look nice. Of coarse, if I were throwing out suggestions - Plot, charector development, more scenes with less action. Yes, I said Less Action?! What I mean is that you need to consolidate your effort. It's clear you spent a lot of time going from layer to layer drawing and redrawing all these movements and actions and they look great for it. But! For the effort you must have put into this 30-40 second clip, had you stretched it out, you could have had a 3-4 minute animation. My only real suggestion would be to take a queue from THE MASTERS of stretching 2 minute action sequences into 24 minute episodes- Dragon Ball Z -and maxamize your efforts end result. Good job.

GuruDragon responds:

Thank you for your time typing. I also appreciate the ideas, as do I from other reviews. I put this here to have something that didn't suck, so people would think I wasn't participating.

[Newgrounds News]

Well...

I like the concept. As others have already mentioned, if you took it the route of critiquing the Newgrounds scene and giving props to those deserving, it could be a nice regular installment. I agree you ought to tweek up the graphics a little more. It's one of those ideas I wish I would've had. Damn you for stealing my idea before it came to me! You bastard!

looneyboy221133 responds:

thanks man lol. i won't let you guys down. thanks for the review