===== From evilsnack@hotmail.com: Artistically not very much, and only a moderate technical challenge. Could not understand the relationship between the topic and the animation. ===== From Markus.Altendorff@asamnet.de: I'm not sure what a chess pro would say about it, but i was rather amused - both by the idea and the various ways the chess pieces were removed. Reminded me of good old Battlechess on Amiga :) Things that i didn't like that much: - too much camera movement: i felt a bit queasy after watching it... - blurring/depth of field seems a bit overdone if i look at it fullscreen. Frontal blurring is all nice and stuff, but the blurring of the background affects the chess pieces too much, i think. Well done! ===== From darwin_gregory@yahoo.com: I liked the concept, and found myself engrossed watching the game and forgot what the topic was until it became obvious. I did find it a little distracting to have all of the chess pieces littered around the area, but the chess pieces when they were eliminated from the game just seemed to disappear... This may have been part of the desired effect, especially with the looks of the active pieces compared to the previously defeated, but just personal taste. ===== From sascha@jpatch.com: The pieces are well modeled and nicely animated. I like the hands an weapons "morphing out" of them, as well as the fighting. Camera motion is very smooth. Here are some suggestions: The depth of field effect in the shot where the pawn attacks the king could have been used to drag the viewers attention towards the color changing pawn, but the way it is done it is a bit confusing: It starts with the focus on the king, then focuses to infinity, and then to the pawn. The camera ride is nice, but a bit confusing as well. It is very hard to follow the game, and you never know on which side of the board the camrea actually is. I've noting against dolly shots or camera rides, but if you'd try to keep the camera on one side of the action (in this case, on one side of the board), this would IMHO help the viewer to keep track of what's going on. All in all this is a very nice animation, I like it! ===== From file: neat. Bit repetitive but the camera has many interesting angles. Notable for composition, textures ===== From file: neat. Bit repetitive but the camera has many interesting angles. Notable for composition, textures ===== From file: Good composition and use of DOF; good "kill" variations Notable for originality, lighting, composition ===== From file: Excellent animation. Not sure about the theme. ===== From file: Better