Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• 
  A great piece, the different effects work well together and the timings are well thought out, this adds good anticipation. I can easily see this animation in a first or even third person  game work. The concept seems well thought out and the documentation shows what it needs to acchieve thoroughly, however I believe that by adding the particles from the ground onto the final effect you mask out the beautiful ribbons you created on the fireball. The presentation of the scene is lacking because of using the in engine character which distracts and does not fulfill any role. Would recommend using the gun as a shoot or removing it all together. The sky in the background decreases the contrast and this takes away from the fire's powerful shine and kick. Using a darker background and removing the obstructions from the view the effect would have created more impact. Overall great work, I can't wait to see more of it.
  

  Tibor Papp
  

  Pixelwarp Studios
  
  

• Interesting approach to this effect. 

  Here are some suggestions that I think might be worth looking into.

  First of all, I would suggest having a different type of background, something more like a grid material in 

  or a very large simple grey floor with a fog added into the level to cut out the hard-edges created by the floor ending. Visually it looks a lot better to have an 'endless' world to show case your effect in rather than a specific tiny little arena like you currently have, assuming the environment isn't tailored specifically to the effect you are creating. The grid material method is what I personally use and I would say it'd be the better approach as it allows you to see the scale of sections as well as making distortion visible, which would otherwise be hard to see against a flat colour.
  

  For the start of the effect, I feel like it could use something that triggers the effect to start in the first place. Perhaps an aura around the center to signify where the caster would be, or energy flowing into the ground first prior to the fireball appearing above the ground. Currently, whilst it looks strong, it's spawn condition doesn't have any impact as the effect almost just 'pops' into existence. Perhaps the fireball bursting from the ground and slowly hovering towards the point it is in the video would make it feel far more intimidating.

  Timing is something that I believe needs to be worked on within the effect. At the start of the video like I said before, the effect just pops into existence with the cracks on the floor for example. You also have orbiting torus' that swirl around the ball, and I think that adjusting the timing on them to match the time of when the ball increases in size or giving some sort of visual reason for them to be swirling would add to the level of impact the effect has. Furthermore, when the explosion happens, the timing seems to be very off regarding the explosion and when the character gets hit as well as when the ball on the left gets hit. 

  Lastly, I would suggest working on the presentation of the effect. After having downloaded the files, it took a bit of time to realise which effect I'm meant to be placing down into the world to test it out on my end. Ideally, when doing art tests or such in the future, you want to make sure that the recipient of your work doesn't need to fiddle with things just to see what they look like, therefore I suggest setting up a quick blueprint system for camera and particle spawning to make sure the recipient can quickly press Play and watch the effect.

  Looking forward to what you make in the future. If you need more critique on anything, don't hesitate to reach out to me at https://www.artstation.com/fakado

• The production diary for this piece showed strong research process, with great evidence of pre-production development that clearly described intentions, issues encountered and solutions achieved. Technically, this piece makes good use of the tools available in game. From a CPU/GPU resources perspective, this is a large scale and heavy particle effect and would be need to be used sparingly.

  The creative elements of this effect work well together. The chaotic feeling of the fire tearing from the top is particularly strong. Animation timing feels too linear though, it would have benefitted from an acceleration in the buildup, shortening the time spent at full scale. The growing and shrinking fireball feels too mechanical and lasts for too long - the animation and timing on this element is the weakest part. 

  The documentation of the project showed a strong development of ideas but would have benefitted from deeper information on the technical tools (and some more careful formatting).
  I'm pleased to see this piece shown against a background sky but would have liked to see a more realistic ground surface for a better preview environment - this is key for properly assessing the visual impact of the effect. 

• A good, solid effort, with the candidate displaying solid technical skills and a braveness to attempt a technically challenging type of effect. Using material noise to dynamically displace the mesh was a clever approach.

  I think from an artistic standpoint this effect could be improved somewhat; the individual assets are a little simplistic in this regard. Having said that, the candidate acknowledges this in their documentation and I'm sure with more time they would have been able to address this.

• Very nice work, I especially like the explosion at the end as it had a good feeling of force. Also, very good research and documentation.

  Areas to improve would be:

  - It's hard to tell what is going on in the buildup at times. Possibly too many elements in there all going off at once. The timing of the buildup of the big flame elements seemed a bit off, so could perhaps be played with a little.

  - Part of the reason it's hard to tell what is going on is the choice of just one camera angle for the final video. Perhaps consider showing it from a few different angles. Also, consider showing it in a darker environment which will better show off fire, as well as a more game representative environment to show how it would look in a real environment.
  

• Great effect, looks really good, and was good fun. 
  

• I liked the idea but you need to work more when you are doing multiple fire style effects in a scene. You need to blend more all your effects with more realistic shaders and particles. The shapes of the meshes around the effects and the hard surfaces can lost you many points. So try to create smooth blended fading out meshes.

  For the documentation you need to put more effort and explain with screenshots technical things to show your skills and the way you are learning and working. Plus the progress of each significant stage.

  Please, keep in mind when you are uploading a video for a competition like this and for a special reason, don't upload it on YouTube with such a low resolution. Your effect is losing points and is not the appropriate way to present a work.

  Keep working hard and you will reach your goal, you are in a good way to do it.