BiffTheTimid's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Birthday 30]

Keep on keepin' on dude. I still call people cutie-pies thanks to Pico 09.

[Raw Latex]

Ah, the perfect balance of latex strap-on's and Siobhan. Even though I feel like this is a satirical jab at young adventurer kids shows, I would watch the shit out of this series.

Sexual-Lobster responds:

cheers, biff.

[Wooden Hearts]

Nod bad, especially for an intro class. My main gripe is your shadows were all sorts of jacked up. I don't know which program yoiu used, but I'm sure it has light linking. All those tiny strung up lights would not be strong enough to cast shadows, and and probably had no fall-off. You also have the light-angle at 0, giving you a sharp edge on every shadow, when with dim lights light that you'd be getting very very soft shadows. Also, your wood was suuuuuuper reflective, which though it looks cool to see reflections in stuff, is kind of distracting. Other than that I liked the texturing, set building, and lighting (other than the shadows). Good stuff, keep it up.

Snazzymation responds:

Thanks I plan to. I actually wanted the shadows soft but I haven't completely figured the best way to do it yet. I am still working on it. I have a few things I want to change but rendering took forever.

[NoPUNintendo 2]

Again, I will begin with saying your art is Ok. Now on to the rest of the review:

These "animations" are so horrendously bad it makes me actually want to review them - which isn't something I do much at all these days. I said most of what I wanted to say the last time around, and I legitimately hoped you'd heed my advice and never ever make something like this again. I can't stress enough about how bad this brand of "humor" is - which as I had said in the last review, isn't even humor. I don't know what your aspirations are in life, but if it deals with comedic writing, you're straight fucked. Or I could be completely wrong, and you some how take your infantile, blatantly obvious, 5-seconds-to-think-of video game puns all the way to the bank. In which case it's the world that's fucked.

[NoPUNintendo]

The art was pretty OK. Now that that's out of the way -

Please for the love of god do not make another one of these. I have always considered parodies the lowest form of comedy, but it would seem you've found a new hybrid amalgamation that takes the cake. All you did was think of extremely obvious puns in a video game setting, and... that's it. Literally, that is all you did. It's a colossal waste of time for the $1 ad revenue you will make from this, even if this thing took you only a day to make. I made the mistake of looking at your website, and see that that's really all you do. I can't even say that you aren't funny, because you aren't telling jokes. You even "animate" and voice act the characters as if they're in on the fact that the puns are trite and unfunny. It's clear that there are people who somehow find merit in this, but some day those people will grow up and realize that there is absolutely no substance to this type of humor. Just look at any comment section on Reddit and you'll see a pun thread 50 comments deep, meaning anyone can do it in the span of 10 seconds. Since you seem to have some actual artistic skill, I would really suggest putting that skill to better use, and stop worrying about pandering to the lowest common denominator with low hanging fruit.

TerminalMontage responds:

I actually think younger people are the ones that don't like puns. At least in America.

[Manhunt]

I commend you for having an animation as long as that with everything done by yourself. It's no easy feat creating CG animations at are even a minute long, let alone over 3. It's in sort of a strange middle ground though.

You don't use subdivision modelling for any of your characters, so we can see the poly-flow, and all your textures are very flat, with your shaders limited to lamberts and maybe a few blinns here and there. That would be all well and good if you were trying to show off your animation skills, but for the most part it's lacking - especially in the running scenes. Your facial animation also seems a bit robotic, and limited basically to the eyes/eyebrows, and maybe a bit of mouth. Given the scale of the project, it would be too hard to get good blend shapes or facial rigs for the 20+ characters you have, which is understandable. Also, your lighting is frequently inconsistent (shadows are cast directly behind the main character (and sometimes has two shadows for no apparent reason), your shadows are extremely sharp, and you might even be using an ambient light, which you should pretty much never do.

So basically, since your aren't showing off your modeling skills, lighting skills, texturing skills, or your animation skills, the story is the main focus. The story is definitely interesting, but has some holes. How did that guy wake up in the woods, why was he in a world filled with zombies, and if it was just a bed-time story told to a kid, why is it shown that he actually exists in the end? Also, you have some strange cuts, like when he runs from the diner he's immediately in the middle of the road around the corner. There are some strange slow pans as well, and you don't have enough easing in and out of your camera. Also, completely off topic, you have some parts that are super reflective, which is a common mistake.

I'm not sure what you want from this animation, since it's scale is too large to focus on any one thing enough to make it stand out. Since I can't imagine your render times are longer than maybe 5-10 seconds a frame (or less), it could be really easy to go back in and fix up shadow inconsistencies and mess with camera movements/cuts. Depending on your rigs it might also be semi-easy to really clean up the animation. You can't really do much else to improve it, since you clearly chose a limited style with very basic shapes and textures/shaders. So there's no point in doing global illumination, subsurface scattering, color bleed, or any of that fun stuff. Maybe do an ambient occlusion pass. That generally makes everything look better, and would not be hard to add in post.

So there is my two cents. I just finished the graduate program at Drexel in Digital Media by the way, and teach this kind of stuff. Take from it what you will, and don't think I'm trashing your animation. I'm just used to giving a lot of critiques. Good luck with your stuff.

Genwhite240 responds:

I really appreciate the comment! And, having just now graduated school, I'm used to critiques, so I know where you're coming from. Unfortunately, I wound up creating a story that was fairly ambitious for myself, and the amount of work I had to put in was pretty large, especially considering the time. So, as a result, there's no one part of this that is particularly strong. In the future, I probably wouldn't take on a project of this size, by myself, in such a short time period.

I do really appreciate the comment. I'm always interested in improving.

[The Steven Seagal Show #1]

Hot Damn

At a New Years Eve party I was discussing with some old friends about how we all used to watch the Steven Seagal Show. We talked about how hilarious it was, how we still quote the 3rd one to this day, and how putting them on that Atom website was bullshit. Low and behold, less than a week later a remastered version pops up. We all hope you remaster the 2nd and 3rd as well, so we can relive our teenage days. These truly were the funniest movies on Newgrounds at the time. Not sure what went down with you and the Toilet boys, but don't let that stop you from finishing out the series.

[Sheriff McGyro]

Not too shabby

Pretty good for something that isn't entirely your own work. Needs more Siobhan though.

Sexual-Lobster responds:

heheh we were not game enough to attempt american accents.

[Africa Dudes]

Work of art

The fact that I was not asked to be a part of this is my lifes greatest disappointment.

[Sketched - Babies]

Your comedy suffers from MadTV syndrome

I haven't watched all your sketches, but from what I've seen, literally every situation revolves around a character or characters with a ridiculous point of view or disposition, and the rest of the characters being dismayed by that person. So the formula seems to be: put a supposedly normal person with abnormal people - and have the voice acting be loosely scripted.

MadTV has the exact same formula. Which is better between the two I couldn't say. The animation is choppy, the art is all over the place, and the voice acting - while trying to sound like natural conversation - sounds very forced. Yes people stutter, and interrupt each other, and don't complete their sentences sometimes, but when 80% of the lines sound like that it becomes exactly the opposite of natural conversation. It's not all bad though. There's a few hints of what I consider comedy in there, but I think this series has a long way to go. I believe its got potential, hence the 5 instead of a 0 or a 1. This is all opinion though, so take it as you will.

sirjeffofshort responds:

Thanks for the review. Some valid points in there and it's definitely things to consider for our next series. In all honesty the formula for this series may not change much any time soon as it is that formula that those considering the pilot have enjoyed, but it's all a matter of taste so I'm not in any way trying to say you are wrong. I can see what your saying with "MadTV syndrome" (ouch by the way, haha) because that is inherently sketch comedy... possibly not sketch comedy at its finest, but for the most part it is what it is.

I can't really make excuses for our style or humor being the way it is, because we are really just making the kind of things that we ourselves enjoy, so not everyone is going to enjoy it as well, but the main thing is that we all have fun, otherwise what's the point?