Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• First of all, I want to congratulate you for the great work. The easing and the timing for the animation is very well executed. It is clear that you paid attention when creating the build-up, as well as the individual elements that build up the effect.
  
   I would have liked to see a suite of animations in a similar style.  Since there is a singular color palette, a technical ease of the animation and the highly inspired piece, I think you could have at least showcased more uses of the effect. I would have loved to see what you can do with more range of particles and see your own personal touch on the work.
  
  In terms of presentation, try to use your designer touch more. Bring your skill set, your attention to detail and perfectionism that is clear in terms of a final product into the way you show it to others too. The animations and VFX are not separated from the presentation, but should be brought together as a whole.
  
  That being said, you should also put your name, signature, logo and 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 Lee!

  I love this effect, a combination of blue and black is something I can always find myself supporting. The material work is also solid and the overall flow of the effect is great. There's not much to point out besides timing and nitpicking at the smaller issues, so here goes!

  - The beginning of the effect, with how it absorbs power to become a large radial sphere with the additional sphere with an energy-like material thrown onto it is an interesting idea and I can very much see what the idea here is before it implodes and opens up the portal. But I did feel that the radial sphere that expands as the 'core' felt a little empty in comparison to the scale and design of the portal it opens up. It could be worth adding something extra to happen around the charge-up stage, perhaps some small lightning or such to give the final opening of the portal more of an Oompf feeling.

  - When the charge-up collapses and the portal appears, there is a little issue with timing where parts of the portal spawn at slightly different times, or I believe the outer parts of the portal expand slower than the other part. I think this is largely noticeable because the projectiles the portal spews out begin almost immediately after the implosion happens. Might be worth looking into giving it another go at timing to fix up a few of the bits there; for the projectiles though, it could be interesting to try make the projectiles spawn a half second after the portal opens, maybe give the area where the projectiles come out from an additional effect to show that the portal is about to shoot them out, rather than them suddenly just materializing with no warning.

  - The refraction from the implosion might look more impactful if it was more rapid, rather than slowly expanding and drawing the eyes' attention away from the portal/projectiles. Maybe making it a short 0.15 second expansion to give the portal opening a Oompf feeling with it suddenly materializing/tearing a rift in reality. 

  - Whilst the effect around the portal is really cool, and looking at the project files, the combination of various emitters in the particle is very nicely done to create the entire portal, I think it may be worth exploring into making the outer areas of the portal feel a little more powerful, or alive with small details like sparks that passively float out/around the portal with vector fields, or for example lightning subuvs rapidly zapping around the edges.

  - Personally, the trails looks a little too short to me for the projectiles. I imagine them to look far more interesting and fear inducing if the Lifetime was changed from 0.2 to for example 0.4 and if they retained a little bit of the darker blue/black energy that the portal is made up of, alongside the bright blue/pink trail. 

  - The trail could also be a little bit more populated with more sparks, perhaps with vector fields to give them more gentle movement in the air, perhaps some falling down to the floor with Z: -980 Constant Acceleration to simulate gravity. Perhaps duplicating the current spark emitter you have and giving the second one a different set of velocity/colour settings.

  - Not too much to say about the impact, it feels good and the colour palette, refraction, sparks coming off and the light emitting from it on the ground all are nicely balanced. Though I suppose the refraction on the impact has a strange little shake, maybe slightly reducing the lifespan on the refraction to be more of a 'in the moment' thing could be worth trying.

  - My only gripe that I'm personally not really fond of in the effect is the slow collapse of the refraction around the portal when the portal is closing up. Again I think a more rapid collapse, one to atleast match and swallow up the portal's own speed would look much better. The slow refraction right now looks like its lagging behind and slightly breaking the immersion from the rest of the effect. If the slow fall-in is intended as the portal is intended to slowly collapse rather than quickly shrink out of existence upon finishing spawning the projectiles, it may be worth looking into ways to make that more clear. Whether that be through timing, or a little extra few effects to show that the portal isn't able to sustain itself in this reality anymore and ends up collapsing (maybe? :P).

  Overall though, I really love this effect and I love your other work on artstation. I look forward to seeing more of your work on artstation and RealtimeVFX in the future!

  - Fakado