As for my taste, far too many cams (like in between every frag?) and those all those "cut-scenes" which are supposed to add some kind of "plot", I don't think they were really needed. Some frags were great (even if I've already seen them before), but there were also a lot of medicore frags. Highlighting those with cams did no good to the general flow of the movie.
There were a couple of scenes where the enemy and POV models were switched, it got me confused a bit. You should've fixed that..
Music is a matter of taste.
The red fog is an interesting touch. Props for that.
All in all, sorry if this sounds harsh, it's just my honest opinion. I can imagine how much time you've put in this movie, so thanks for your work for the community.
Agreed on a few points..
- the movie has no continuous flow which makes it very hard to watch it to the end
- it ignores one of the golden rules of design that if everything is special nothing is special anymore (referring to cuts, cams, general showcase of frags)
- frags are taken out of context which defeats the very purpose of showcasing those 2 players IMO
- maybe some historical context would be nice as well, for people like me who were not around when those players were big in quake (opponents, achievements) - I'm not sure how to fit it in but with some brainstorming there might be a possibility
- the highlight distortion effects used in some 3d scenes don't add any value IMO
- if it wasn't for the LeXeR & uNkind branding, as well as for dksl's positive reputation from the memorial movies which I enjoyed a lot as well people would probably give this a consistant 5/10
+ I actually liked the fog touch.. adds well to the quake 3 style and the general atmosphere of the movie with the music. Maybe it should have been used more sparingly.. (i.e. for selected scenes only with a fadeout after a few seconds - though I don't know if that's easily doable, technically)
+ very much liked the intro
+ a lot of nice frags
- frags are taken out of context which defeats the very purpose of showcasing those 2 players IMO
- maybe some historical context would be nice as well, for people like me who were not around when those players were big in quake (opponents, achievements)
watched the movie file ofc. thats what i thought. well it is a design decision, epicness over history. dksl must watched many demos, games, tournaments, read stuff. sad that his exploring isnt shown in the movie. all the w-questions, what happend, in which tournament, how they look in rl, list of wins, what match could i re-watch. it doesnt deliver "refresh my memories/teach the newschoolers" what the time and context was. but obviously that was never the goal with the movie.
-
fantastic video, well made. my highlights are in general the aim, the look in the plasma output, lexer fox railzoom, rain, picture quality. the red fog is clever, we will remember the movie as "this with the red fog". as i said the whole movie is like a dream sequence.
I think you are thinking of collection of gaming clips played to the music which we usually pass as a movie.
I wouldn't call this one revolutionary because we've had few pioneers already, but this is a head and a half above anything we have so far in development of cinematic presentation and story telling.
i didnt like the red mist everywhere besides that:
saw q3tourney2 rated 10/10 so hard my index finger bone broke through the skin it splintered on the metal table into several pieces but not without leaving a dent in it like america prefers its freedom, raped and annihilated. simultaneously the mouse cursor penetrated the firefox tab until a rift sprung open so i could see my desktop which desperately tried to sacrifice internet explorer to stuff the leak. But the holocaust-alike impact on my operating system was so brutal, against that the pressure on dahang qcon finals 2012 t7 was a helium filled balloon on the outermost orbit of the moon.
I liked the red fog, was trve kvlt, but too much editing and too many cams. I know the majority were frags "in context" and brain frags or significant frags rather than just amazing shots or whatever, it was more frags indicative of the players smarts - but I don't think the editing really helped that. All the constant breaks obfuscated what was going on and made it harder for the viewer to understand what was actually happening.
You did well, I just thought there was too much editing :)
Good movie but i agree with the previous comments,it would be much better with less editing,less red mist and not so many cut scenes,anyway q3 feeling is still there so i will watch it again :)
I didn't really get the skill of lexer and unkind carrying over in this movie. It was so heavily edited it kind of removed itself from the game, and a lot of the moves/shots/kills seemed really abstract to me. The most amazing thing about these players was their execution, speed and amazing reflexes. Half the time I didn't really know who I was watching, and it's too difficult to keep checking down below with that small text. I'd have had one half lexer, one half unkind. Less red fog, less 3rd person cutscenes.
These players were about raw skill, it's not conveyed well in this movie. The way the lexer and chaoticz comeback was portrayed was confusing in-between different matches and players. Just start the sequence with one screen explaining the score, then show the entire sequence with fast-forward in between frags.
I'm really glad the author put the effort into educating the QL masses who weren't around to experience these amazing players, but I feel like it was kind of a let down.
about capturing the skill level of the guys: partly agree, but you did capture their strength pretty good afterwards.
about checking down below- i just guess this movie is not meant to be watched 1 time, especially for people who's into quake, or who's having hard time catching what's going on from first take.
lexer cha0ticz comeback was split into pieces imo just to keep people in seats, awaiting for it to finally happen, for it to be done. the clips of unkind meanwhile executing just built up tension for me and killed time in a way.
and (mb cuz of my own experience, since i played quake3) but i highly doubt that educating was in 'main' plans of this movie.
- red mist is good for intro not for the whole movie
- no frag message
- overlay with nicknames could be more visible
- unwatchable for newbies and casual watchers
+ legendary names (unkind/lexer)
+ editing
+ environmental effects
+ into and transition
+ music choice
+ well deserving movie (about fuckin time someone made a movie on these two)
+ 3rd person cam work (godlike)
- incomplete frags (ive disliked this feature about all your videos, I think these made an appearance in the memorial movies as well)
- some frags were impressives, other were meh (i understand this is really really old, but still, if it wasn't good, there was no need to make it 15 minutes long)
- red hue was lovely in the trailer and the effects in some of the transitions into the actual first person footage was also amazing, but some reason I don't think I liked it for the whole video.
need to change my pants, will watch again and edit as more thoughts come to mind. 8/10
Edited by sleepparalysist at 04:05 CST, 13 December 2013
It doesnt block out the map. It makes it look newer, fresh. Much more fresh then that stupid Minecraft texture pack. (example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwkOlyqFwM4 )
I watched through the whole video without looking at how much is left (except the credits). For a 12 minute long frag movie thats pretty fucking impressive.
No movie is perfect, but none is. Except possibly the cooller movie or Ulbe 10. But cmon. Thats C00ller and a disturbed person.
I hate movies with """epic"""" music. But this one was pretty awesome
Only complaint - moar frags and less confusing editing. And for those who thinks some frags are meh - keep in mind that its much harder to hit in Q3 then QL.
i gotta say i DIDN'T LIKE the RED FOG at ALL, especially the amount you did it here. it's just gets in the way too much, maybe if it was used in the intro and not that much, i don't know, it's just way too red for me i feel like Jerry and Kramer and Kenny Rogers' Roasters Sign, everything is red to me now :)
don't take this personally by any means, you make awesome movies and i support that all the way and you know you can't please everyone, somebody liked the red, others didn't and that's just the way it is.
thanks for all your movies and the time you put into them.
Awesome editing!
I loved the red fog and especially the black contours of xaero in front of a red background. It really conveys the idea of an nightmare (but nightmare for who? chaoticz?).
I think the story telling lacks a clear structure. Maybe have the frags in chronological order or smth. Also some of the cutscenes on t2 and t4 seemed to be out of place. The idea behind this movie ("nightmare") doesn't feel like a red line that leads through the movie. Or maybe I didn't get the idea?
it is like the SP mode in Q3. change sarge with keel (the challengers) killing the lower tiers (uriel *t4, visor *dm6 and sarge *ztn) to reach the final stage/boss (xaeros - unkind/lexer). you can view t2 as their cave or hell of unkind/lexer. the first nightmare segment starts with the arrival to the teleporter. unkind and lexer jumps in two seperated teleporters and fight the first 3 challengers on t4/dm6 and ztn.
they fight on a different arena ( you will never see a ztn scene by unkind and after that a frag on the same map by lexer). unkinds first "hard time" kicks in with the match against death. lexers real opponent is chaoticz who gives him a hard time.
so i would say it is a "nightmare" for all (the challengers, unkind, lexer, chatoicz) at some time in the movie.
the hunter becomes the prey.
thats the fundamental structure of the movie.
to the red fog: i tested the movie on a plasma tv and 3 different lcd screens, and i was pleased with the value and brightness of the fog. i work on a crt (never used lcd) that was the mainproblem for me. if the fog is to "bright" i can just beg you to adjust your gamma settings etc.
Loved it! Was so intense, particularly watching the Lexer vs Chaoticz comeback. I think the red fog was a great touch.
Extremely atmospheric - I'm finding it very difficult to express the feelings I had while watching the movie. Although I wasn't in the competitive scene back then, I could sense the 'oldschoolness' about it. I felt briefly that I was half my age again playing Quake for the first time. It captured some of the emotions I had when I was an fps noob, scared to go around each corner because I didn't know what to expect. While simultaneously wiring me to empathise precisely with how the players were feeling during some of the situations. When Lexer got the leading spawn frag on Chaoticz I wanted to stand up and celebrate for him.
I truly think this is a movie to be put in the history books. I wish I could have watched this at the cinema...
Anyway, as you can guess: it touched my heart. As for those who think less of it, each to their own.
If people want to premiere their frag movies on the stream then they are welcome to. If the movie is available on Youtube upon release, then people can go there and watch them.
release date must be critical and chaotic. moviemakers want their baby as fast as it gets in the world. they cant wait for nobody. just saying. better do it like "this is the video of the week, all are talking about" or smth.
the music is kinda boring, and what annoys me the most is that red fog which prevents me from seeing half of the shit that happened, too much editing in general, abusing slow motion (surprised you didn't do slowmo scenes of shard pickups), a lot of frags that are average at best (I suppose they weren't average in 01/02, but still...).
guessing you tried to make an epic video, but failed epically instead. 0/10
This is the quintessential, fundamental movie that everyone should watch.
Movie deserves nothing but respect.
If there were oscars for frag movies, this one would take all the prizes.
Everything is simply immaculate - the red fog was a bit of a let down and felt forced and too intrusive at first. When I watched this for the second time I figured out that if you take the fog out, it's just another drop of water in the already vast ocean of copy/paste frag movies.
The red fog is the leitmotif of the movie, it keep haunting you till the very end, this is NIGHTMARE, it's supposed to be grim, it is supposed to suffocate you and evoke feelings that a simple frag-flick with stock config cannot. It is unique, powerful and has a theme, a meaning, something that most generic movies lack.
The spawn rape on ZTN was so carefully executed, watching xaero speeding towards you from the deep red fog and shooting plasma cells directly in your face really gave you a feeling of uneasiness.
Fox getting railed on Campgrounds through two sets of arches, exposing just a pixel and getting obliterated was another majestic moment. The fog only adds up to the experience, such frags would be rather dull if it wasn't for the sinister theme.
This should go into the annals of history along with Get Quaked, Contenders, annihilation and similar.
oh and btw, refrain from saying "leitmotif". yea i know its a habit in the art-world to write it that way, but it should be "leitmotiv", thats the only way of spelling it.
read up, wrote what i think bout this movie. specially about the frags in it. sure, give the context of time when the frags were made they were something special, but now they're not. and a ton of effects ain't gonna help the movie, just ruin it even more imo.
There actually were some pretty impressive frags, even for today's standards.
I particularly remember one scene on ZTN. A fight starts on GL platform. Nice first rocket to send enemy towards MH, second rocket hits mid-air, then immediate jump to the left to open up a rail angle on the opponent spiraling down and the rail hits. That's perfect execution of 300dmg delivered within ~2 seconds. I dare to say that only few players today would do this with ease.
I'm sure there are many more scenes like this.
How about the rail vs. rocket fight in the MH/LG hallway on ZTN? I think he hit 3 rails while dodging ~5 rockets? That was similarly awesome.
I think you shoud re-watch it and try not to focus on the negatives (e.g. the few LG vs. LG fights which were pretty dull imo), but on the positives (situations like the two mentioned above).
Of course, most of the best frags from 10+ years ago might look pretty average today when the technical abilites have developed to a higher standard. It's still impressive and enjoyable.
Also, it's obvious that the movie isn't trying to provide historical context but it instead assumes the essential contexts to be known and aims for ambience and mood, which it does very well. You can't seriously expect him to do everything at once.
because, a lot of frags that are in this movie and taken out of context, compared to the same frags WITH context in those 2 old movies i linked look 10x better.
i don't get that mood and/or ambience you're talking about. red fog making a lot of stuff that goes on invisible and epic music are not really a selling point. also, the constant slowmo is just annoying. like i said, nearly expected shard pickups to be in slow motion with amount of that crap going on.
Huh? I just watched those two lexer/unkind movies, and I didn't see any context.
I only saw random frag after frag (including some slow-mo jump-pad rails (!)) to generic music, without any synching or game sounds and nothing more than a brief "oh yeah that guy won WCG 2002 btw" in the credits.
Liking the fog and music boils down to a matter of taste. I like it just fine, so did lots of others here, so I don't see how your taste differing from others' justfies a 0/10. It just makes you look like a jerk.
context as in, there's full action (specially in lexer movie), not just 1-2s of frag moment only.
i said why i gave it 0/10 -> overthetop editing, annoying fog, boring music, mostly average frags, too much slow motion. if i don't like a movie, i give it a 0. if i like a movie, 7-10. i don't like this movie.
there's nothing i enjoyed in this video, and i'm not gonna give it a 6+ grade just cause it has lexer & unkind in it. i don't see why it's so hard for you to accept that i have a different oppinion.
Girl, this is that rare time when I agree with you thoroughly)).
Guess it's due to the emotional tide this movie raises in those who dig the lethal nightmare-wise atmosphere of true Quake kung-fu.
This golden artwork truly stands along with the best of the best you've mentioned above.
The first time I've seen such a heart-pounding predatorial aggressive theme was in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2TPbn8AePo
but Sturmer's effort took the definition of Quake movie to another level.
AuraBolt awaits for 60fps ver to run it on 55 inch plasma.
(fits fine in the hd-playlist along with Shio's Final Torture;))
Can somebody tell me the appeal of third person cam in quake movies? I seriously don't get it. And there was sooooo much of it too. Those models are like 15 years old and then you even make them run in slow motion? Absolutely ruins the whole pace of the movie. At least for me. Sorry.
The close up span arounds were too much, too hectic, the fog was too thick and obscured the visuals at times. Otherwise it was 'cinematic', but too much I guess, at the expense of the original content.
awesome movie. the only thing I didn`t like is the very high amount of camswitches, which was annoying in some scenes, but the rest was really not to criticize.
This frag movie is certainly a special one, right from the start. But I don't think that you should go in and watch this as if it was a regular frag movie. To me, dKsL doesn't try to show off the actual frags in this movie. It feels like he tries to capture the awesomeness and the hype you got from watching the old school quake 3 (I assume it was awesome and hyped up, but I wasn't into quake back then). He tries to show everyone how badass LeXeR and uNkind really was.
I usually hate when frag movies uses this much bloom/glare, and not to speak of the red fog, which I would deem extremely ridiculous in basically any frag movie. Somehow, though, because this movie obviously isn't all about the nice air rockets, I find it acceptable.
This frag movie to me is really something of its own kind. I've never seen anything like it. Well, okay I have, but not anything like this as good as this. It's like if this movie defines a new type of genre within frag movies, one where suddenly crazy looking graphics and 3rd person frags becomes the norm. This is not a show-off for frags. This is pure art! This should not be on youtube, it should be on cinemas (or at least small/home cinemas).
As a traditional frag movie, I would give this something low, like 4-6 in score, but I don't think that's fair. It doesn't do a too good job in covering the frags itself but does an excellent job in covering the awesomeness of quake. No frags made me shit bricks (like CPM movies always do), but I was interested in watching throughout every second of the movie, despite it having weird fog and all. I'll have to give this 8/10 for being true art.
Edit: And oh, didn't even mention the music, which I thought was the best thing about this whole movie. Epic music that matches the setting of this movie PERFECTLY. Truly feels like it's tailored to fit this movie. Good job!
Edited by Snapphanen at 08:28 CST, 13 December 2013
I feel sorry for people that rate this movie badly.. You are either new to quake or you're just too stupid to comprehend that this frag movie is not actually about frags, it's about the legacy these 2 legends legends left behind.
god, how i miss timelimit 15, sudden death and xaero model i used to play (cuz now the avatar looks so stupid with ingame screenshot with a freaking ugly one tone shadow separating the exact half of his skull: dunno why they not using art pics like they still do on slash or tankjr...)
one thing that really bugged me for some reason it's that NOBAP makes no sense, but noBap as a nick does to me :/ i know capital letters suits the style but anyway..,
another one being cha0ticz pov frags i assume taken from multipov demo or just following enemy while watching it from wolfcam, cuz they were choppy as hell
movie remined me of a good old chill i used to have while playing duel in q3, while trying to even the score on last seconds or playing sudden death :s well put with it's own style... and i thought i really hate everything with epic music. but despite zeroql experience, you know how do put it in good use.
Edited by zero thoughts/sec at 14:25 CST, 13 December 2013
Alex Nesterov - St. Petersberg, Russia /clans: M19, ^n
2nd Quakecon 2001, 1st Quakecon 2002, 3rd ESWC 2003, 12th Quakecon 2004
LeXeR's unusual config included very low sensitivity and very high acceleration. He caught the attention of the quake community by winning Quakecon 2002.
UnKinD
Alexey Smaev - Russia
1st World Cyber Games 2002, 3rd ESWC 2004 in TDM with Cooller & Evil
Winner of the World Cyber Games 2002, UnKinD had the twitchiest style of play of any pro. This was a result of his high sens, high accel config. Although he didn't play for long, UnKinD helped cooller become the Quake master that he was to become.
this is awesome. love the style and the whole concept just works for me. the scenes with the rain over the teleport and the silhouettes looked like they were taken right from a very stylish comic book. red gave it a sinister and hellish look. it's not a 'fragmovie', but it wasn't supposed to be. imho you hit the sweet spot bro. 10
Edited by kk-super_koziol.pl at 17:59 CST, 13 December 2013
Really awesome. Not really because of the frags, but because of how it's made. Q3 never looked so good afaik. Some of those stills will join my wallpaper folder.
Don't have much to say that hasn't already been said.
Amazing aesthetic, and I love the fog ( did you just add fog to the mapfiles themselves? ), the config/colours are beautiful too. Personally I prefer pov fragmovies ( if you can really call this a fragmovie, it seems to serve a different purpose. ). I don't really enjoy the super edited movies too much, I thought the music was a bit overwrought. Anyway, the editing itself was absolutely stunning. Bravo!
Awarded 10/10 for obvious effort.
couldn't watch it to the end. the fog was annoying, the cameras were annoying, the plethora of cut scenes didn't make sense to me, and i'm not sure some of those were even frags? the POV switching was confusing, and in general i felt the movie move far too slowly. i probably would have enjoyed that spawn rape section of the movie, but the constant 3rd person camera switching ruined it for me. the only thing that i felt was pulled of correctly was the music.
4/10
Loved every second of it, every part of it. The concept of the movie, the machinima part, the frags, everything, was waiting for that lexer vs chao comback in that vid. Everything was perfect 10/10.
People that complain about this movie do not know what they want, and you cant satisfy all anyways. They want new fresh ideas, but when u get one, it gets shot down.
Also the red mist, especially when u darkened the models was awesome.
i planned this at the very first when i was thinking about the movie, but realize that it makes no sense at all. these two guys are the last stage in the arena... defending it etc.
DKSL Thank you for a great movie =) Didn`t watch a Quake 3 movies for like 5-6 years allready , but this one was made with heart for sure =) Thank you for remembering us after such a long time )
LeXeR
hehe=) CENEK :every time i watch a movie , feel like donwload a Q3 right after ))) if i wll continue wathcing it over and over again defenetly wll come back )))
LeXeR
Now THAT"S some quality assurance right here, from the sunny surf beaches of Indonesia, where all the elite gladiators of the Arenas should go when they retire:).
Girls, waves and eternal glory))).
Show up your tanned ass here in Quake once in a while, u downshifting bastard:)!
The red fog annoyed me very very much. It's unforunate there isn't some content from real life action, must be very hard to find though... Also, there were way too many animations, if you'd put less it would have been a very sick video.
I give it a 7/10 but I expected way too much with the trailer tbh
fking epic. the only problem I had; sometimes, it gets a bit confusing with the camera switching to certain angle, and a video playing in a banner/window/opening of some-sort. apart from that, good video - really liked the sound and the movie feel, it gave me.
Yeha:) Nice, btw, why does it take 30hours to render a movie?
i made some quakemovies myself and it never took that long. do you own a p3 733mhz cpu or did i something wrong?:)=
the fog/pov and cam lines uses always a mix of "level, glow, glint, defocus) extra lens flares + sharpen fx and a permanent film filter on all scenes extremly reduces render time.
the font takes the most power because of a different composition mode. 60 fps also doubles the render time (render time on 30 fps was 12-13 hours)
Thought as a video isn;t wasn;t great content wise, far too over edited to be enjoyable for me. The over editing made it quite hard to follow the action. Biggest plus point of the movie - I just downloaded the HQ version my new internet connection in 4 minutes. Gave it a decent score as although I could barely see what was going on, I played it full screen and it looked very good. As for content though, you failed badly due to the over editing. Just my 2c! :)
i like it, don't care much about red mist or gibs, but get rid of the forcemodel keel, if i want to see that, i can always watch any fragmovie/vod of QL ...
The rain & timescale monents are great !
Edited by Rothaarig3 at 05:01 CST, 16 December 2013
Initially noted 9, I raised it to 10 after watching it for the third time.
I reckon this short movie has a smart and well-written scenario which is far beyond the typical frag movie. The initial goal, a tribute to 2 great Q3 players, is brillantely reached by keeping a fitting atmosphere and using a lot of complex scenes and angles. This coupled with some convenient musical tracks provide a whole storyline sprinkled with intense actions.
there are few lacks that people mentioned before, but the thing that I really like about this movie is that it has somewhat similar feel to older fragmovies like annihilation, and alikes from own-age era, also there is something cool about overusing this red mist effect, so yeah, I like it