===== From brendthess@attbi.com: A good story in animation. I can easily follow the entire storyline within the animation with no ambiguity. Good job! The actual animation itself could use some work, but the story is there. ===== From tek@evilsuperbrain.com: I like the way the camera starts out as a first person view, then subtly becomes a free flying camera. ===== From evilsnack@hotmail.com: The fire was only understandable because there's nothing else that does that to trees. ===== From maarten_hofman@hotmail.com: This animation could greatly benefit from a little bit more work on the textures and camera movements, but overall it works quite well. I enjoyed watching it multiple times. ===== From Martin.Magnusson.7121@student.uu.se: That's a pretty long animation. Too bad the compression has hurt the image quality quite a bit. I like the water splash effect. Good attention to detail there, however giving it more of a "blobby" look, like the fire, would make it look better. The fires end a bit too suddenly, IMHO. A higher frame rate would make it all look better, too, if yuo could fit that in under the size limit. I like the concept. ===== From martin@simaltech.com: A solid idea with good variety in the camera work. Technical roughness prevents it from reaching full potential: The lightning strike, the shadow from the cabin window (Should have been softened with area lights. Also: Where's the shadow from the viewer?), and the stiffness of the camera movement (a little side-to-side sway and some bobbing would have done much). ===== From chris_darcy_irtc@yahoo.com.au: Good effort. Try using camera cuts, not fly-through. ===== From bill@apocalypse.org: Great camera work/movement. The ocean foam splash didn't look right. It was hard to tell what the boat landing had to do with the fire. The flower growing (in time-lapse?) seemed an odd thing to throw in. Overall, I was confused about how the elements of this animation were related. More work to tie them together would have help a lot. ===== From jonathan@scudder.no: Nice idea. Good motion in the boat and boathouse, and nice touch with the sycamore seeds/leaves. The burning trees were a bit abrupt; the fire animation was good, would have been better with a more detailed fire texture to match (very yellow fire, and very white smoke). Nice attempt at spray from the bow of the boat. ===== From jouni@mikrobitti.fi: Not bad for a first try. Your camera run was a bit smooth - maybe some bumping and tossing around would've made it look at bit more real. The flower in the end was cool, I liked that. The concept of having a storm burn down some forest is cool, but the implementation could show much more of the drama involved. Keep on rendering! ===== From angelsdie2@aol.com: Using all of the elements in this way was a great idea, and though i expected to see many similar ideas, you seem to be the only one to use it. The splashes from the boat would have been better as spheres, but the cylinders imply motion too so i can see why you would have used them. The fire could have been done better -- some red or orange in the center would have helped a lot. Also if it had slowly died out and covered the ground more evenly it would have been better. Fire is very difficult though.... good work on the boat house! it could have used a few more touches, but its scale and design were very good... This is a great first attempt! ===== From p_chan@shaw.ca: The plants look very nice. I find the water looks fairly flat. It gives the impression of a flat surface with vary colour rather than moving waves. This is especially true during the storm, as the water isn't dynamic enough to give the sense of a strong wind which we perceive through the slamming door and swaying light. Adding motion to the jar in the boat is a nice extra touch to put into the animation. ===== From quinet@gamers.org: The modeling and the motions of the objects and camera are good, but the textures need a bit more work to be realistic. The particles used for the water drops, fire and smoke should use textures that are partially transparent and more than one color. I do not know if Cybermotion supports media as in POV-Ray, but if it does, then you should try to use that. ===== From batronyx@alliancecable.net: I like the overal message. I don't like that the guy "dies" in the middle of the storm. I guess he died because he is suddenly floating out the window. ===== From glenn@mccarters.net: I like the rocking boat, the swinging light and door, the way the fire spreads, and the thunderstorm effects. I like the way the camera transitions from a personal point-of-view to an overview without stopping. Nice storytelling. Interesting way to make splashes around the boat. I like the modeling on the boathouse, but the land is rather simplistic. Nice plant growth. Mpeg compression is a little too rough. Good work. ===== From irtc_mail@yahoo.co.uk: This has lots of technical flaws like polygon birds, cylinders for water splashes, triangular shadows and a big hole in the island but you seem to have got the motion of the objects right, except for the camera which starts as the eyes of someone in the boat but then flies through the window and around the island. ===== From file: Very nice camera sweeps. I would reccomend just a few things: work on textures! A good texture can make an unnatural shape seem real. Also, let me give you a hint: If you use 'ripples' on a cylynder that is *just* above the water, you can make quite a realistic wake behind your boat. ===== From r@adsl-65-64-194-217.dsl.rcsntx.swbell.net: Very good if this is your first movie!