The torches look pretty cool, but will we be able to use alpha transparency? If not, perhaps there could be ways of producing similar effects with a combination of 1-bit transparency and additive transparency.
Some other thoughts:
- The light emitted from the torches is way too strong, and realistically shouldn't be visible at all. Having the wall lit by the torches implies that the torches cast a stronger light than the sun (while still being yellow = darker than the sun's bright white light) and just looks odd. It would work great in a more dimly lit arena but looks misplaced in a sunlit location.
- While on the subject of the right-hand wall, the red colour of the door reflected on the "doorframe" looks odd to me as well. It suggests some kind of polished marble, but the texture and shape of the wall (as well as common sense, I guess) suggests a much rougher stone material, which wouldn't reflect colour that way.
- The statues on the right have a few issues still. The sleeves hanging towards the ground look extremely thin - if this was carved out of stone, wouldn't the sleeve be part of the same solid piece as the rest of the statue? Their hands also look a bit wiry and thin, and the face is still a bit... derpy, in lack of a better word. They look like they have really stuffed lower lips, and the eyes kind of look more like a "T" shape extruded from the face than actual eyes. (Maybe it looks better at full resolution but that's how it reads in the pic you posted, anyway) Of course there could be some degree of stylization and lack of detail compared to an actual human face, but looking at them now I simply can't help feeling they look a little funny.
Here are a bunch of references that may be helpful,
here's another that looks very similar to the actual statues in the stage.
- Agreed completely on the dragon designs on the flags, they look more like a modern tattoo design than a traditional ornament. If the design is to be embellished I would much prefer something more along the lines of
this or
this.
- The clouds look very strange to me. The way they look now they kind of read more as exhaust or smoke than clouds. The sky is very bright yet the clouds are dark, with nothing to suggest that sunlight is shining on or through them. I'd think they should either be essentially pure white with varying degrees of transparency, and/or have a strong backlit silhouette to imply the sun shining on them from above/behind. At least part of the clouds need to be lighter than the sky behind them; doing a quick google search for references, I can't find a single picture of clouds that read as a single flat colour, yet appear darker than the sky.
- The shadows coming into the picture seems to have been reduced which is definitely an improvement (although you know I'd like to see them completely gone
), but some shadowy areas like the one around the statue in the background (right underneath the torches no less) are a bit befuddling still.
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Bleed, the blocking animation look much, much better now. Good call on adding a loop for the blocking pose, I was thinking of it myself and would suggest doing the same for the crouching idle/blocking pose as well.
Justin, great work on the music. Sounds fantastic. I don't really have anything else to add.
A thought on the "Goro Lives..." screen - why not add a bit of animation? Nothing huge of course, but I think it could look really cool if Goro was actually breathing and blinking (ie, being a LIVING thing
) as opposed to just being a cardboard cutout. On the same note, the backdrop always seemed to me like some sort of lights/laser/etc shining through smoke, like at a concert or something - maybe that could be animated as well? Just a thought.