Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• First of all, I want to congratulate you for the great work. One of the things I appreciate the most is that you focused on one animation mainly and developed that into a full piece. Yes, there are a lot of small animations added into the background and the thought behind doing all of that shows creativity and good storytelling skills through visual stimuli. Keep this attention for details for further work too. Another strong point of this piece is the restricted color palette as it gives the piece a natural, clean look.

  Nonetheless, there is one thing that I feel your effect is missing and that is a small-medium-large ratio for elements. It needs some sort of animation that is a bit...”chunkier” than the rest, that grounds the animation. It would be a visual trigger, it would attract attention so that smaller, more subtle animation elements can be fully perceived. If I were the one designing this, I would foreshadow the projectiles on the statue before they are launched, similar to Syndra’s orbs around her. It would add to the overall effect, but this is just personal preference.
  
  You should also put your name, signature, logo and a portfolio link on everything you design! People need to know it was made by you and you deserve them to know it too. Keep up the great work and good luck!

• Hey Zachray,

  A great research and planning document and wide variety of ideas explored!

  But as we're all here for feedback, here's a few things that stood out to me that could be taken for consideration for future projects.

  - The effect you've made fits the rest of the artstyle of the environment quite well, the hard colours and stylised shapes matching the statue and rest of the colour palette. However, by simply observing from a visual standpoint, I struggled to tell what the idea of this effect was. Assuming this turret was preparing to fire at the approaching beast, it feels like the buildup was on the slow side considering the distance in the environment for the beast to travel that could act as the 'warm-up' stage for the turret.
  

  - In the same aspect, I felt that the timing could use a lot of work. The worst culprit here in my opinion being when the small portal in the middle of the statue appears and projectiles are spewed out. It could be worth considering to extend the period that the portal is visible before the projectiles come out, giving it some visible charge or growth action, or simply making the portal rip open with some stray spark feedback as though a sudden tear in reality.

  - With the projectiles that come out, them suddenly just being spewed out soon after the portal opened felt a little unsatisfying, I think it might related partially to the above point, but also in large part due to the consistent speed at which they fly. It might be worth exploring working with their velocity, for example, when they spawn they could be burst out rapidly, slow down as they spread out and then collapse onto the target like homing missiles at a faster pace again. Or maybe have them start off slower and speed up as they locate their target. 

  - The start of the effect had a really long build-up with light swirling around and ultimately a portal opening up for the projectiles to manifest into this plane of existence, but the actual projectiles and finale of the effect around the statue felt like a *pew pew*. What I mean by that is that with the long build-up time and the overall scale of how grand the effect was progressively building up; the portal opening and small homing projectiles that fly at a consistent speed with no feeling of force or power felt a little lackluster. I think another pass at the timing here would really fix up the feel of the effect, give it a little more Oompf.

  - At the end of the statue effect, once all the projectiles were fired, there was an odd column of sparks flying outwards before the portal dissipated into nothing (this could also be built on a little more). I think this was intended to be happening at the same time as the projectiles being spewed out?

  - I can see what you were going for with the three rings that fall down the statue at the end, but I'm not sure if the feeling was properly conveyed here. Something that may be worth trying in the future is to have those rings move down faster, with more purpose and perhaps them start smaller near the top and then 'swallow' the rest of the statue and effect as it goes downwards. Perhaps those rings themselves could instead be filled-in planes of some shape with a portal-like material thrown on to it, as though the effect was being eaten up into whatever dimension it came from.

  - Finally, in my honest opinion, I found that the impact effect for the monster was vastly off-target considering the speed, size and force of the projectiles hitting it. The large radial spheres, and the smaller ones repeatedly spawning throughout the effect (i.e. 1 projectile hitting the monster but the impact being some 17 seperate little 'booms' that appear alongside the larger impact) felt really odd, there simply didn't feel like there was the power from the projectiles to cast the monster in fire and then cover it in a pelleting barrage of explosions.

  Overall though, I think its a wonderful effect, especially considering that you began learning vfx not so long ago. I look forward to seeing your work in the future!

  - Fakado