[Mozeman]

We finally put the finishing touches on the pilot of our show. You can check it out at the link below.

High Seas - Pilot Episode Part 1

Any feedback is appreciated, as long as you loved it!

We'll be starting on a new pilot for a different show soon.


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Mozeman
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"If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?"

[Sedone]

Mozeman, I really liked the style and atmosphere of the piece, but I'm not sure if it's because of my slow connection speed or what, but the lip-syncing was off, so that it looked like those badly dubbed kung-fu movies. Are you planning on having a downloadable file?

Very interesting so far.

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sedone's artfolio

[AliasMoze]

Sedone,
There is a problem with the Flash player and drifting sound. We're looking into ways of dealing with it.
Thanks for the feedback. We may have downloadable video file in the future.

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AliasMoze
:) :) :) :)
"That activates my hilarity unit."

[samdragon]

Great stuff guys! You've put some time into this and it shows! Great characters and backgrounds!
I can't help it, sorry....
There is a white line that appears at the top of the frame when ever we see the guy at the wheel steering. Looks like a compositing error.

I have a great deal of respect for someone who can set down and do 2D animation. And you guys have done more than just 15 seconds here! It shows that you guys did some great planning too, the story is just long enough to introduce some characters and keep us hanging on until the next release.

It's late here so I'll leave the rest up to everyone else, I could only watch it 4 times before my browser crashed. I'm off to la la land now.


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VISIT SAMDRAGON'S HOME

[Jyashuwa]

Overall I like it alot. Especially the character designs. I also liked movement on the water.
Just one thing. I thought there seemed to be lack of facial expression with the Captains dialog. When the character "sounded mad" he didn't quite "look mad". I thought it was very borderline.
For flash animation, I thought it was great. Good luck with the pilot.
The lip-sync seemed fine when I played it.

[Kain Victus]

Wow, thats some really good flash animation! Although I really must be honest with you, the sound is just unconvincing, but your animation is really excellent!

Best of luck on your continuing animation though!

[Mozeman]

Thanks for the comment Samdragon; I didn't catch that white line before. It's fixed.

We are planning on offering alternative video formats, but we don't know which ones yet. We've gotten comments that the sound is "tinny," which unfortunately can't be helped with Flash audio compression - at least while preserving the relatively small file size.

Jy, thanks for the feedback on the facial expressions. I agree with you; there's a fine line in this type of animation about what you can show and what you can't. We'll definately be adding more emoting to him and the other characters in the next couple of episodes, in which he has a much more expanded role.

There's also going to be a (we hope) kickass fight scene.


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Mozeman
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"If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?"

[Nex]

Moozeman:

Some Feedback if you want:

The characters never blink in the animation, this makes them somehow look stiff or unreal...

The head movements are somehow harsh and sudden.
I saw a comic in TV from THE MAXX (I don't know the autor or the artist involved) but they solved this problem by putting a frame with motion blurring between the frame before and the frame after. Maybe you want to try that once.

The sounds of talking are much lower in volume than the music and sound effects (should be easy to fix)
Sounds can tell stories too. You did that (the creaking boards of the ship etc.) quite well, just keep them at about the same level.

(well, not exactly the same of course, Ambient sounds and dominant sounds should be diffenent in volumes)

else this really is good and I guess it took you a lot of time to finish it.
I'm really curious how it will continue.




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- Nex

http://on.to/nex

[Mozeman]

Nex;

You bring up a good point about the eye blinking. I think will add quite a bit to the characters.

We've also gotten several comments about the sound, mostly about the sound levels.

Kain, what do you mean about the sound being unconvincing?

Nex, I've seen some examples of that motion blurring you're referring to. I never really thought it worked. I think what we're going to do in the future is bump up the frame rate and add more tweens (hand drawn tweens, not the Flash kind).


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Mozeman
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"If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?"

[hennifer]

i think you'd have an easier time getting realistic looking heads if more were drawn at a 3/4 view. most cartoons use 3/4 views almost exclusively, because they're more natural, and it's easier to suggest interaction between characters.

it even works in live action movies. if you're watching a movie, pick a scene where two people are having a conversation, and look at the placement of their heads. you'll find that almost ALWAYS both are 3/4 views during most of the dialogue.

the movement looks a bit jerky. i guess that's a by-product of the style of flash animation. kind of like hanna barbera cartoons, where they'd animate part of the body and leave the rest as a still drawing. i think you'd benefit from drawing more in-betweens though. right now it looks like you're animating with just the keys. i'd especially suggest drawing a few more facial expressions - thats often what a good cartoon depends upon.

all that said, i really like the atmosphere of it, the layout looks nice, and the character designs are quite good, especially with the male characters. its impressive to see someone take the time to put together an animation like this. i wish i had the time to learn flash!

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hennifer

[Fred Flick Stone]

Moze, finally got to see the animation. Lots of nice stuff. I am just amazed at how much you can control in Flash. THe biggest drawback with it to me is the character animation, mostly with the expressions. They reminded me of 70's Hanna Barbera animation, on the side of stiff, with minimal expression. I understand that controlling vectors in subtlety is quite a biyatch. I have been trying it myself lately, there is so much to remember to control. But know what? Do this a few more times and you will be the Flash master. Mileage, mileage, mileage...I can't wiat to see the next one.
This is just personal, but I am not too keen on all the voices. Really memorable animations for me have alot of personality, including the uniqueness of the voices. These, I see were all created by the same people. A session with Dan Castaneda is in order with regards to getting variation in the vocals. But this is truly just my own opinion.
I cannot wait to see the next installment, keep up the great work and can't wait to see the progress...
Three cheers for the mozes...

[Kain Victus]

What I ment by its unconvincing is that its not really in unision to the animation. I think you should project the vocals a little more.

[AliasMoze]

Fred,
Thanks! BTW, the backgrounds were painted in PS, not Flash, in case I mislead you before. I do almost everything in PS, but I'm doing the backgrounds for an outside project in Flash, which is pretty fun.

Yeah, the character animation suffers allot. We're getting allot of great feedback, and we plan to incorporate it into the show. Specifically, we're going to add more animation for the characters and their faces. We're kind of checking how much we can get away with. The more animation per episode, the more time it takes and the worse it plays back.

The sound quality suffers because of the compression and a known issue in the Flash player that causes the sound to drift. We'll be offering a high quality Flash file in the future, as well as several broadband video formats.

The show is being shopped around this week. If it gets picked up, then we'll really get to spend the time we want to lift up the show to the next level.

Again, great feedback Fred and all.

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AliasMoze
:) :) :) :)
"That activates my hilarity unit."

[tanis]

That's cool!

I agree with others saying that the lack of blinking is making characters rather stiff.
Other than that it's great!

Are you in any way affiliated to Camp Chaos ?

[Mozeman]

Tanis;

Thnx. We're taking all this in and we're going to make some changes in how we do our future shows. We'll apply those changes to this one when and if it ever gets picked up.

We are actually very closely affiliated with Camp Chaos. We are working on a couple of series with them and the Romp.com. In fact, they put a pic of us on their site. So if you guys want to see what Aliasmoze and I looked like when we were about 6 and 4 years old, then go there and check it out.

Keep the feedback coming. This is helping us tremendously and we are incredibly grateful.

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Mozeman
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"If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?"