===== From chipr@niestu.com: Cool concept. ===== From dick@buckosoft.com: Nice concept. Awesome lightning. More needs to happen or the animation needs to be shorter. That is, there is a long period of rain with nothing else happening. ===== From gmccarter@hotmail.com: The downward-pointing camera suggests that we should be looking at something on the ground -- but nothing is there. And the theme, "transportation of the mind"? You've got to be joking. Themes this anim fits: "Books", "Thunderstorms", "Storytelling" Themes this anim does not fit: "Pickles", "Team Sports", "Transportation" Good creative transitions and SUPERB lightning, both the distant flashes and close ones. The rain animation is good, but the rainDROPS need work -- how about motion blur? Final scene at the very end that ties it all together is a little brief, especially when compared to the opening "expansion" scene. ===== From karl@pemail.net: It started well with a journey into a book, then through the clouds, but I'm afraid that rain is boring at the best of times. It would probably have been improved if there had been a sense of motion towards to hills, or a car had passed by. ===== From nazrat@athabascau.ca: I like the concept, but I don't think that you quite pulled it off. Perhaps it was because I couldn't quite finish reading the page before diving into the green storm. The storm sequence felt more like how one endures, rather than how one travels, through the elements. ===== From bill@apocalypse.org: I really like the intro part with the book and words into clouds. The rain didn't work for me though. It looked odd, to jumpy and the scene was otherwise not interesting - nothing else going on in it. ===== From hcousineau@usa.net: After reading your extensive text file, I am very impressed with animation. I saw your animation in the last round: Snail Paced, but since I did not enter, I also did not vote on it. But I will say now, that I thought it was really impressive, and my Sculpture class loved it. With this animation, I think you are very fortunate to have access to 3 computers. So, spiffy, I like your animations. Heather ===== From r@dmsst59.d.resnet.pitt.edu: An interesting concept... the particle system is well done but motion blurs would add realism. I agree with your assessment that perhaps 20 seconds of rain is a bit too much (without other activity in the scene) Notable for originality ===== From r@pm1-23.spectranet.ca: The relation to transportation seems a little weak... ===== From r@cust150.webbernet.net: It is ironic given the putative subject, but this piece lacks two main things: motion and a story. The images are pretty. I like the lightning and the raindrops that hit the "camera" especially. The cloud bit isn't bad either. Unfortunately, even more than still art, an animation must tell a story. It must go somewhere. Just watching it rain does not do that. Although I admire the effort, I have to admit I fail to see why you needed an external particle system to do this. The dissolve through the book was well done and original, although "walking" it toward the camera mainly gives the impression of drunkenness you see in amateur video shot without a stabilizer. It was a good start, if you had carried the viewers into a story instead of pressing their noses against a window to watch a random storm. Frustrating. ===== From r@auasc7-104.flash.net: A nice experiment in rain, but I think the topicality is too much of a stretch, despite the book metaphor.