[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C6XYiO80Zs[/media]
Has to be my favourite TF2 SFM in years
A really great short and ill keep my stupid comments in my pocket!
Might be a nice to place to share the poster the amazing artists made for the movie:
[media]https://twitter.com/Hypo_Thermick/status/971880749879177217/photo/1[/media]
[QUOTE=Funktastic Dog;53189088]A really great short and ill keep my stupid comments in my pocket![/QUOTE]
But the pacing for the transitions could be much better in the beginning, it feels really off
[QUOTE=DMGaina;53189107]But the pacing for the transitions could be much better in the beginning, it feels really off[/QUOTE]
Psst. Some of the people that made it are reading this thread, so lets just appreciate how good this is without being overcritical.
[QUOTE=Funktastic Dog;53189110]Psst. Some of the people that made it are reading this thread, so lets just appreciate how good this is without being overcritical.[/QUOTE]
No, if we have genuine criticism then we should post it so they can see it, and take it under consideration.
[QUOTE=_Maverick_;53189143]No, if we have genuine criticism then we should post it so they can see it, and take it under consideration.[/QUOTE]
Fine, if thats how were gonna do this, then heres everything wrong with it.
Sound design is really poor, this is especially noticable in the first fight scene, where nothing feels like it has any weight to it. Some footsteps and more vocals wouldve been nice.
The story motivation for the Agent is unclear. We dont know what hes there for until hes already done it. Were not engaged, were just watching. Its a fun watch, tho.
As previously stated, then deleted, the ending is bad. I get that it needs to be related to TF2 for the saxxy, but just lumping the entire cast at the end isnt great. The obvious, better route for a TF2 movie based around a super spy would be to incorporate the Spy. Maybe show us a janitor that the agent ignores the first time around come around and uncloak to reveal its the Spy.
Dog is cute tho.
[QUOTE=Funktastic Dog;53189110]Psst. Some of the people that made it are reading this thread, so lets just appreciate how good this is without being overcritical.[/QUOTE]
Constructive criticism =/= being overcritical and negative
[QUOTE=Funktastic Dog;53189184]As previously stated, then deleted, the ending is bad. I get that it needs to be related to TF2 for the saxxy, but just lumping the entire cast at the end isnt great. The obvious, better route for a TF2 movie based around a super spy would be to incorporate the Spy. Maybe show us a janitor that the agent ignores the first time around come around and uncloak to reveal its the Spy.[/QUOTE]I feel like that's the entire point. You have this super cool James Bond guy who does everything right, and then you contrast it with the TF team, a bunch of assholes who have no honor and mostly solve problems through violence. Just making it a straight up Bond movie where he wins at the end would still be incredibly cool but the ending captures the TF universe perfectly imo.
It feels like great worldbuilding too, showing how there are a lot of other things going around in the world of TF2. Having the iconic cast appear at the end made me feel more giddy than anything.
[QUOTE=Funktastic Dog;53189184]Fine, if thats how were gonna do this, then heres everything wrong with it.
Sound design is really poor, this is especially noticable in the first fight scene, where nothing feels like it has any weight to it. Some footsteps and more vocals wouldve been nice.
The story motivation for the Agent is unclear. We dont know what hes there for until hes already done it. Were not engaged, were just watching. Its a fun watch, tho.
As previously stated, then deleted, the ending is bad. I get that it needs to be related to TF2 for the saxxy, but just lumping the entire cast at the end isnt great. The obvious, better route for a TF2 movie based around a super spy would be to incorporate the Spy. Maybe show us a janitor that the agent ignores the first time around come around and uncloak to reveal its the Spy.
Dog is cute tho.[/QUOTE]
Okay, I see the Problem, you might wanna check this out :v:
[url]http://www.rightattitudes.com/2008/02/20/sandwich-feedback-technique/[/url]
I do find your feedback really helpful and it should be appreciated by the creators but you have to package it differently.
Otherwise everyone will think you are just a douchebag instead of someone who has a really good eye for this things and valuable feedback.
[QUOTE=Flubbman;53189333]I feel like that's the entire point. You have this super cool James Bond guy who does everything right, and then you contrast it with the TF team, a bunch of assholes who have no honor and mostly solve problems through violence. Just making it a straight up Bond movie where he wins at the end would still be incredibly cool but the ending captures the TF universe perfectly imo.[/QUOTE]
I love that Agent Gunn had this intricate entrance where he used a mini submarine and diving gear while the TF team just rented a small outboard motor boat.
I quite liked the part from the rubberduck scene to the point where the agent makes it out the building. Rest felt like it could have used some more time in the oven. But overall everything had really high production value, so that probably raised my standards for the clip.
Only thing that stood out as actually bad for me were the liquid effects (beer + volcano). Seems like the thing that could be an engine limitation, in which case I think it would have been smart to cover it up with different angles or in the volcano's case smoke and sparks.
Also seemed kinda weird that the agent suddenly had a silenced pistol on demand when he just almost lost his life in the brawl because he was unarmed and one of the goons wasn't. The script is "cheeky B movie" enough to tank those kinda plot holes of course, but from a cinematic standpoint it gave me the impression that somebody didn't properly stitch together the idea for the brawl scene and the idea for the "sneak into the boss room" scene.
Most of the work is on par with productions by paid professionals so any flaws are going to sorely stand out. People are going to criticize this unfairly.
[QUOTE=Zang-Pog;53189575][B]There is no such thing as unfair criticism. [/B]It's the job of the authors of the criticized thing to decide what's actually constructive criticism and what is stupid.
Saying " I didn't like it because main character didn't have a red suit " is completely worthless but giving valid criticism about something, like for example the first fight scene having sorta odd sound effects is something the authors can think about if and when working on another project.
[editline]9th March 2018[/editline]
This isn't how you should act. If you genuinely care about this video and the people making it, you'd be honest instead of trying to sugarcoat your opinions[/QUOTE]
I disagree.
The sound person for the SFM posted on [URL="https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/831p43/agent_gunn_vulkanite_saxxy_awards_2017_extended/dveo96m/"]reddit[/URL] about why sound in it isn't the best.
[QUOTE=556pm]It's not silence so much as me completely failing to accommodate for the music in a scene, I should have had the sfx much more central with more midrange presence & worked them in on-top of music rather than trying to build each scene as a soundscape from the perspective of the camera position.
Tons of valve ip in the samples because I really wanted it to be clean legally, if its not valve ip or on soundsnap then I made it with a synth or common samples. Submarine engine, the ocean water, the self destruct sign are coming from wavetable synths
I didn't take the time to recreate other sfm sfx timelines & I don't watch too many in my own time, so I went roaring down the wrong street aiming for what a mic in the camera position would hear, lots of stereo automation, reverb & low cuts and too realistic levels for environmental sources of noise basically resulted in all the sfx being way too timid under the music.
If I had more time & had I noticed this sooner I would have uprooted everything and started from scratch but I ended up with an awkward compromise between a conventional film camera mic soundscape & the more abrasive dead center momentum-orientated swoosh/crash/bang/wallop timelines sfms tend to employ
100% the weakest member of the crew, very nearly stopped them from getting it out the door, but thankfully we made it in time. But yep you're totally right I suck, learnt a lot from it though & theres a lot I'd do differently if I were to do it again.
If you're curious as to what the sfx timeline sounds like on its own you can listen to some of it here. Hope my incompetence wasn't too much of a detriment to the short for you I definitely wanted to do a lot better for such a talented team[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=TheBorealis;53189590]The sound person for the SFM posted on [URL="https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/831p43/agent_gunn_vulkanite_saxxy_awards_2017_extended/dveo96m/"]reddit[/URL] about why sound in it isn't the best.[/QUOTE]
We were all a little hurried for time towards the end of production on the short, especially Five on SFX and music having to work with ever changing cuts, and pacing; so they're being very hard on them-self there. Yes it's a shame we couldn't finish 100% to the standards people seem to be expecting from us - but I'm still proud of the work we achieved over the last few months as a team since this is our first time working on something with story, music, and animation on this scale before.
I'm also pretty proud that people are tearing us apart like this in a way, you've gotta remember that we're all absolutely not professionals in any way shape or form; and to be held up to standards that high is flattering in a weird way.
We'll definitely keep in mind the feedback we get here (and everywhere else) for if we ever do something like this again, maybe next year if there's another Saxxy awards. Just keep it civil!
Thanks to all and I hope you enjoy the short! :cat:
Agent Gunn kind of looks like that guy in Mr Robot
[img]https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/mrrobot/images/9/9d/IrvingMorseTie.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/310?cb=20170804195144[/img]
[QUOTE=Zang-Pog;53189575]There is no such thing as unfair criticism. It's the job of the authors of the criticized thing to decide what's actually constructive criticism and what is stupid.[/QUOTE]
There are many kinds of objectively worthless, unfair criticism.
I often see experienced vocation artists who spend thousands on art tuition dunk on amateur artists, because "criticism will improve your shitty art and here's how you must draw HUR HUR", when that person never asked for any critique. Theses people are parotting their teachers to get a primal sense of dominance and authority, and completely fail to understand that the context and the purpose of a creation is way more important than its technical qualities. Holding a teenager drawing for fun to industry standards just makes no sense, is just pure lack of self consciousness on the part of the critic, and worthless criticism.
And even outside of this kind of context, a lot of people defend personnal attacks on creators by calling it "criticism".
A lot of "criticism" is so biased, spiteful and ignorant that it's absolutely useless to anyone and just only serves to show how petty and awful the critic is. Unfair criticism make discourse worse in general and can be toxic.
Obviously it's most of the time subjective what is or isn't unfair, but it very often isn't, like someone trying to hide pure spiteful aggression by calling it "criticism", making it instantly sacred, and ironicaly, uncriticisable to a lot of people.
It's not relevant to what was posted in this thread obviously, but something as general and vague as "There is no such thing as unfair criticism" is just wrong. Criticism isn't sacred and often suck.
While were on the criticism line, I'll go ahead and repost what I said in the youtube comments because its probably already buried.
[QUOTE]I gotta say, this was exceptional. The animation was fantastic, as per the usual from you lot. Its surprising you guys tried to do liquid in sfm, even though it looks kinda like jelly, but art from adversity. The characters are so pretty, too. I'd say theyre better than valves models at this point. I can tell where care was put into ever stitch of Agent's suit, and how his face was textured and touched up after the jungle inferno update to give him a more detailed, saxton-esque skin job. I just cant help but feel that the story, while very good, not too basic and not too complex, was muddled by the ending.
We spend five minutes following this man, watch him fight and kick ass and succeed, only to have the TF2 cast come out of no where and kick his ass, for what seems to be a very minor reason. It really feels like they're just there at the end because you guys were afraid that it wasn't TF2 enough and would lose out on votes because its the saxxies. Additionally I feel that the TF2 cast is very low quality compared to your models. It strikes me as annoying to see Agent have a beautiful suit with seams where the cloth was stitched together, but the spys suit is just a hunk of fabric. Not saying that its your fault, it just kind of detracts from the ending even more.
I also adored that odd job reference. Got a sensible chuckle from me.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Digivee;53189824]Its surprising you guys tried to do liquid in sfm[/QUOTE]
Isn't it just this model?
[url]http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=272273537&searchtext=water[/url]
[QUOTE=Sexy Robot;53189648](...) Yes it's a shame we couldn't finish 100% [I]to the standards people seem to be expecting from us[/I] [/QUOTE]
you're kidding right? you people [B]raised[/B] the standards of anything SFM ever related. like, for years to come.
[QUOTE=Metaru;53189855]you're kidding right? you people [B]raised[/B] the standards of anything SFM ever related. like, for years to come.[/QUOTE]
Yeah this would be totally believable as an official promo video for a TF2 James Bond themed update.
[QUOTE=Digivee;53189824]While were on the criticism line, I'll go ahead and repost what I said in the youtube comments because its probably already buried.[/QUOTE]
The ending seems to be very marmite-y. We decided on it very early on in production because we thought it'd be hilarious for this professional's work to get squandered by the mercs, who have no honor or morals and just want the briefcase.
The TF2 characters being lower quality was a bit of a bummer, lighting the scenes with them after doing all the others was really painful. But in the end making higher poly versions of the mercs would have been a undertaking that we didn't have time for.
[editline]9th March 2018[/editline]
[QUOTE=Hogie bear;53189853]Isn't it just this model?
[url]http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=272273537&searchtext=water[/url][/QUOTE]
The liquid stuff (coffee, volcano lava) was done with the pretty-broken-but-functional-enough blobs feature in the particle editor.
[QUOTE=Hogie bear;53189853]Isn't it just this model?
[URL]http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=272273537&searchtext=water[/URL][/QUOTE]
Thats for standing water, not a running liquid like beer or lava seen in the short. IIRC it has to be done in a 3d program (probably blender in this case) and exported as a vertex animation.
:ninja:
Great work overall, my only complaint is that the music in the beginning does, at least in my opinion, a pretty poor job of setting the initial tone. The transition from a cheery and overall tranquil theme into a more traditional "secret agent" style theme is a bit awkward and happens a bit too late. It makes good on that throughout the rest of the short though. Otherwise, I dig it. Great job to everyone involved.
Honestly this seems like something that would totally fit in TF2's world. Makes me miss all the Spy Tech stuff.
That was great! I loved the character designs and environments. I agree that the sound design wasn't the best but in my experience SFM's tend to be made by dedicated enthusiastic tinkers and not necessarily industry professionals, so some of that is to be expected (and to me, part of the charm of SFM videos).
I tip my hat to you all for aiming so high. You didn't need all those unique assets to tell that story but you did it anyway and it looks better for it. I hope you guys continue to work together.
Yeah, this was one of a kind. I can't even begin to put to words just how amazing all of this is. The character models, the custom props, the custom textures and setting. Everyone did an absolutely stellar job, and I really think the only flaws the movie has are a few significant pacing issues early on, and some pretty sub-standard sound design.
Bravo, nonetheless. Stellar.
I absolutely love the attention to design and aesthetic. Great art direction overall of the custom assets. Really makes the spytech theme feel fresh.
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