Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• This effect is really nice. It's great to see that you're objectively aware and able to critique your own work and know that more sublte details and elements could support the effect. I would also add depth fade to the trails and push the timing a lot further. It's currently very linear and like watching a metronome. Don't be afraid to play with the curves, hold frames, etc.
• Hey, I'm liking what you've got going on with this effect! It's definitely off to a good start. Here are a couple of things I noticed: Those stars heading toward the center are cool, but imagine if they swirled around a bit on their way there instead of just getting sucked in straight. Adds a bit more flair Before the big explosion, it might be cool if that glow you see starts shrinking down right before the explosion. Gives it a bit more anticipation before the big bang. Time it Right: Keep an eye on the timing of everything. Getting that spot-on can make the whole effect pop! Keep tinkering with it! Can't wait to see how it turns out.
• Highly detailed documentation throughout, possibly too much text, use a different formatting on key words in a block of text to allow people to understand the key parts at a glance. Great colour palette and concept, timing feels a little rigid, use more easing on curves to give the explosion a more expressive animation. Great work :)
• Excellent project and effort towards achieving a complex effect and its implementation. There are many key elements to the effect which is great to see, perhaps some of them could use a little colour variation and more emissive elements to add some punch to the effect. Maybe a light particle emitter would help a well. I would also suggest revisiting the timing of the elements to make the effect more punchy and give it more impact. Overall – great work and very cool to see the effect from idea to implementation. Also I really enjoyed reading the documentation and following the thought process behind the project. Thank you!
• This is a compelling concept and implementation! Nicely one! I'd see room for some improvements around the timing and curves. Your motion feels a little soft, the timing could be a little snappier. I agree that the growing glow could take some love, maybe break the very spherical shape, maybe experiment with a hot core and some godrays. But overall a great implementation of your concept!
• The documentation showed that you had a really good grasp of what you were trying to achieve. From the initial function to the storyboarding of the stages of your effect. This was demonstrated very well. Nice technical research as well and also you thought about the colour. The issue with the final effect is that it lacks timing, pop and cohesion. The start has nice anticipation, but the effect doesn't escalate from this. The effect can be much more snappier, the elements can be brought closer together in terms of art style and the elements can blend in better together. The explosion after the initial anticipation lacked punch. I would reduce the lifetime of those particles drastically. Also have the initial frames burst out and then have it lose it's energy and slowing down. I would expect an exponential curve that eases out near the end of it's lifetime and settles whilst fading out. During the explosion, you could also have the particles already spawned, be affected by the blast, to help ground the whole thing and make it believable. Nice job.
• First of all, well done for completing and submitting your project on time. You have something to be super proud of! You’ve shown an ability to create great-looking art with strong fundamentals which is really pleasing to see as developing technically is much easier than developing artistically. There’s a lot of specifics to love about this piece: 1. Well executed without going overboard on different elements in the effect- this created minimal visual noise and allowed you to create something very visually appealing 2. Extremely strong understanding and use of colour 3. I really liked seeing your iteration in the planning stage through your concepts- it clearly aids your final result! 4. You stuck to the visual style you researched very well not only through color but through value and shape too! There are a few areas I would look to focus on in your future projects/ if you wanted to work back into this piece: 1. Some sprites and textures (like the star sprite) could have used a little bit more attention when creating them. the star especially feels a bit rushed and even though it holds up at long range, the player may move and get closer to your effect/ the sprite may not be useable in other contexts (not ideal for production). 2. Your main star doesn't feel that connected to the effect as the explosion has almost no effect on the star itself- some extra movement like the start spinning could help show the effect winding up. I also felt that because the point that was charging up was a different location to the star it gave me 2 points of focus instead of one. 3. Your use of different elements worked great but I feel a few extra simple ones would have really helped sell the effect. For example: Lens flares/ god rays coming from your 'core' would help sell the idea of this bright energy source. 4. The aftermath of the explosion feels a bit static- changing this would depend on what you're trying to tell the player the effect is doing. e.g. is it damaging, healing etc. So that would be something to think about in future! Overall though, you have done really amazing work here and have so much to be proud of! If you would like more feedback on this or future projects you can reach out to me on LinkedIn: 'Ethan Gangotra' and I will do my best to help! Best of luck with the rest of the university and with the rest of the competition!🙂 👏
• This effect has some really nice textures and a really nice aesthetic and colour pallet. I think the star mesh doesnt need to be so subdivided you arent really adding much with that detail, if you want to round edges you can chamfer them. One element that is a little confused is the build up and explosion, the build up element is brighter then the explosion frame, so this feels like all the energy is lost. The shape of the energy build up and sphere are quite contrasting and make the sphere stand out quite a lot. This has some really great elements that with a bit more time and work will really look great. It might be worth looking up some of the videos on https://www.youtube.com/@VFX_Apprentice or https://www.youtube.com/@Sirhaian for some references. Keep at it!