Theme: Freestyle 1v1 Deadline: January 22nd, 2021 C3quel: Comments: Wooooooah, 48 hours flew by way faster than expected... might need to refine my time management skills in time for Maple Rushed 17. Thanks to Shulkle for agreeing to an extension, as well as being an awesome opponent and all-around cool guy. Didn't have time to include all of my ideas in this video, but you may see an updated release in the future! Shulkle: Comments: It's been a minute since I had to do a rushed animation under a short time. This was also pretty out of a blue challenge too, but it was pretty fun, so thanks for that C3quel
There it is. That's how Shulkle canonically dies. A buff penguin smashing him to the ground. Loved your animation C3quel, that ending was pretty damn funny.
I liked both parts. Once again, C3 made me laugh especially when the penguin tweens off but I think I'll give my vote to Shulkle. You've shown an improvement in choreography by integrating the background in clever ways like with the pole and boxes. Nicely done to the both of you for making good shit in only 48 Hours. P.S. Thank you for not making freestyle boring as shit and somewhat doing a theme anyway
Gonna vote for Shulkle here, but this was pretty close. The main thing for me was the pacing in Shulkles animation. I just think he has a much better paced fight than C3 as there were moments in C3s animation where it felt like it stopped for the sake of music sync (kinda like at 1:09). Though, I think something both of you need to work on a little is camming. Shulkle, your camera is a bit too zoomed in sometimes (0:32). This would have been a good time to have the camera zoomed out so we could see C3's reaction to the box being thrown at him. Just a small reaction from him would have done a lot IMO. C3, your camera is too zoomed out which creates a lot of negative space and it is very still. A good example of the camera being too still would be 1:09 where the only time the camera is even moving is for the shaking. There are a few points in the animation like this, but that's one that stands out to me. I could see a camera pan doing a lot to help here. An example of the camera being too zoomed out is at 1:16 where Shulkle sends his claw grip thing in the air. Zooming the camera out here isn't a bad idea, it's just too much. Bring it a little closer next time and you'll be fine. Great job to both of you, especially with the limited time you had. Also, I did actually get a laugh out of your animation C3 and if the theme was based around that, you would have gotten my vote for sure.
As I'm typing this out, I'm not even sure which animation I feel deserves the win. You both cranked out some solid animations, not even factoring in the short time period you had to make them. C3quel Your humor has consistently been rock solid. I'm all for the ridiculous nature of the setup here with the penguin and the egg, and to me I feel like it really captured the spirit and potential of "freestyle". The giant buff baby penguin literally had me cackling, especially once the "But at what cost?" test appeared. Though some may have felt the pacing was off, I was able to look past it for the fact that this was also a music synced fight, and paid off well in the end when the giant baby penguin shows up and smashes to the beat. Something I've noticed you do quite well is camera work, and I quite enjoy it here. The camera just flows nicely, and always seems zoomed in just the right amount to get everything in the shot. If something is outside of the shot, it's either to focus on a character reaction/something important happening, or to build up for an unexpected and/or funny moment (like with Shulkle jumping in with the egg). Those Z-axis backgrounds also just add a really nice look in my opinion. Now, for the fighting itself, the beginning starts off feeling a bit fast with the combo Shulkle is doing. I just found my eyes having a tough time following it, with how floaty and quick it was. There's also an odd zoom in/out on one of his attacks that felt a bit disorienting. Throughout the fight, I kept feeling like certain moments were just a bit too fast, while others were a bit more slow -> easier to read, like the clashes, and the clawshot flying up into the air. My guess to why this is is that you were trying to keep everything synced to the music. It wasn't until watching the animation a few times where I could finally keep up with the pace and some of the camera movements. I wish I could offer better advice for this, but I'm not sure what it'd be. A theory of mine is that some of the fast characters movements combined with quick camera movements just don't read well. The choreography was a bit simple, but the fact that it all revolved around hitting the egg made it quite entertaining. It reminded me of people fighting over a Smash Ball in Super Smash Bros. I feel there were certain shots that, though simple, you made much more interesting with good camera work and pacing, like the big weapon clashes, the hookshot, and the final hits on the egg. One thing I wish the fight had more of was specifically on hitting the egg, or avoiding hitting the egg, in some unique, clever ways. I couldn't help but feel the fight should've changed a bit/the characters reacted a bit more when it was time for the last hit on the egg. BUT, this isn't a huge deal to me, considering the time needed for the animation. Just something I thought that could improve the animation. Another thing that irked me a bit was that it seemed like the egg had numbers on it? It was a bit tough for me to tell, honestly. I would recommend changing the number to have some kind of black outline so it's easier to read, and also having it countdown from 12 instead of counting up. Overall, a very fun and memorable animation. Shulkle Damn, I'm really surprised you were able to crank out so much action in such a short time. There are some really cool moments in this, and the more times I watched it, the more little cool details I started noticing. I think the best thing about this animation is simply the choreography. Just to list all the things I loved: the delayed electricity, causing Shulkle to drop his weapon, dodging an attack by climbing up a pole and having the axe get stuck into the pole (based on C3quel's last MBR, looks like you've both become masters of the "pole dance"), flying into a bunch of boxes, the scythe destroying one of the boxes, and whatever that crazy move was with the box toss+kick. Though it's very minimal, the dialogue you did include I enjoyed. In fact, I'd love to see even more from you, either during the fight or after, both for showing character personalities and maybe how both your characters interact/conflict/harmonize with one another. One thing that others have already touched on are that the camera is often just way too zoomed in, and there are a lot of moments where I feel like I don't have enough context as to what's happening, specifically sometimes C3quel's character is out of the shot. I think both keeping the camera zoomed out a bit, and making sure you're not missing context of other characters while their not in the shot and possibly doing something important. This might be a personal opinion of mine, but I couldn't help but feel like the animation was almost too fast. There's a lot of cool moments, but they are often easily missed because of the speed of the animation. It'd be interesting to see you try to slow those moments down; not literally with a slow down effect, but maybe by slowing down the pace of the fight in those moments to highlight the interesting thing that's happening. I ended up enjoying the fighting in the animation a bit more after playing it in x.75 speed, and rewatching it several times. I feel my suggestions/criticisms here are a bit reaching, as this is a really solid fight. Verdict Though I've watched these animations now several times to give out my thoughts and feedback, I still don't know who deserves the win here! Honestly I feel we've all won by being given two great animations. Personally, I ended up finding C3quels more fun, creative, and memorable, but while I didn't initially find myself drawn to Shulkle's and thought my vote would go to C3quel, once I slowed it down and watched it a few times, I found myself wanting to watch it again and again, and I do think it's better quality in terms of a fight, while C3quels excels with dialogue/narrative/humor. Hrngh. The fact that this is a freestyle makes it incredibly tough to decide, as usually my decision would come down to who met the theme better in this situation. To me, I feel C3quels definitely hits a very creative stride with the setup, dialogue, and music sync fight, which to me feels as on theme as a no-theme "freestyle" can be, so if I had to put in a vote, it would ultimately go to C3quel.
I have decide after and after hours and my vote goes to SHUKLE, he got the best choreography, fighting style, Movement, Combos, Zooming , Great design of your animation from using objects as weapons, speeding animation and everything. Sorry @C3quel, I enjoy your MBR too.
Votes going to Shulkle for this one. Choreo was pretty solid and the use of background elements in the fight really won it for me, as well as the overall pacing of the anim (sick timing at 0:14 with the music). Like Neil said, camera work felt a bit iffy on both ends, but considering the amount of time both you guys were given for this, still impressive none-the-less. As for C3 I think youre doing a great job with pushing the whole "freestyle" theme to something that has a bit of substance to it rather than a straight "oh you're approaching me? Then let's fight" kinda situation that I've seen a lot in previous MBRs, and I do hope you keep going with that same mindset in future MBRs as well. (also that buff penguin at the end had me geekin ngl) Either way, thank you guys for giving it your all in just 48 hours! Was veeery tough to choose who to vote for ngl
I'm voting for C3! Yeah, you all, Shulkle's animation was better and all, but I think C3 is ultimately more creative (Well, he was the one to come up with the MBR so he had the advantage of having more time to think about what to do) with his mini-plot and all. It's not just a bash, it's got a set-up, a theme, and a result. He knows how to build an intriguing concept or story within a short amount of time, and I think that makes an animation more entertaining despite there being less 'animation' to it. I hope you keep the energy to constantly post such creative works. Shulkle did good on his animation, though in his video, I have no idea what the egg is supposed to be. Is it something unexplained about C3's OC or something? Not that it matters much.
