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The Awakening v09012017

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The Awakening

Recreation of the World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King's intro cinematic in Warcraft III. Hope you enjoy.

Duration: About 4 minutes
Tip: Turn the game's music volume a little bit higher, to make it easier to hear the narration

Credits:
Lich King model by: Kwaliti
Returned skins by: 67chrome
Background music and narration by: Blizzard

Special thanks to tomoraider, who's campaigns inspired me

This cinematic is going to be used as a intro to an in development project. You can check it's page here: Hour of the Scourge

Still on the lookout for a good Syndragosa model, if anyone would like to help.

Changelog
*Minor terrain update in scene 3
*Minor animation changes in scene 3
*Minor sound/camera sync update in scene 4
Contents

The Awakening (Map)

Well, it was quite the effort to get this to sync well with the background sounds, considering all the animations and camera movements, to only get an "It's OK" =/
I would really appreciate if you could point out what's wrong with it so I can improve, since I am going to use it later in a bigger project I really want to make it as enjoyable as it can get.
 

deepstrasz

Map Reviewer
Level 68
Joined
Jun 4, 2009
Messages
18,706
Well, it was quite the effort to get this to sync well with the background sounds, considering all the animations and camera movements, to only get an "It's OK" =/
I would really appreciate if you could point out what's wrong with it so I can improve, since I am going to use it later in a bigger project I really want to make it as enjoyable as it can get.
It's not really your fault but...
-it's basically unoriginal for obvious reasons
-the terrain (+doodads) isn't special (you'd want a minifilm to look as good as possible)
-creatures/units do not posses the required animations for not making it feel plastic; it's why for instance Arthas looks like he is freezing most of the time
 
Yeah, the originality is really questionable. I never had the intention for this to be original though, only unique at best. I just felt inspired by tomoraider's version of this scene in his Forsaken campaign and thought with myself if I could do it in an improved way and use the oportunity to implement it in my other project, however it might not have been the best of ideas to release it as a single cinematic.

The terraining I can work on, the whole thing was done in a sigle day so there was not much attention to doodading and terraining, I can improve it if I take another day dedicated to this sole aspect.

There isn't much I can do about the animations unfortunately, but I've noticed the cinematic you sent me and will check it later to see if I can learn a thing or two.

Thanks for the feedback.
 
Last edited:
Level 8
Joined
Dec 30, 2013
Messages
106
Pretty good but it needs some more polishing. Until then its 3/5
  • Add more doodads! Download some custom ones that fit Icecrown maybe
  • The shots of Arthas in one pose are too long. Maybe instead try making a view from afar for some time (like in the real cinematic)
  • The ice breaking doesn't look so good. Maybe try some views from afar as well, see how it looks or add more things breaking in the background
  • The last shot didn't work for me (arthas standing above the army, after sindragosa flew away) as the army was kind of buggy, some were walking, some were stuck by others not walking, might want to check it out
 
Pretty good but it needs some more polishing. Until then its 3/5
  • Add more doodads! Download some custom ones that fit Icecrown maybe
  • The shots of Arthas in one pose are too long. Maybe instead try making a view from afar for some time (like in the real cinematic)
  • The ice breaking doesn't look so good. Maybe try some views from afar as well, see how it looks or add more things breaking in the background
  • The last shot didn't work for me (arthas standing above the army, after sindragosa flew away) as the army was kind of buggy, some were walking, some were stuck by others not walking, might want to check it out

I`ll work on polishing the environment with some more doodading.

Hmm, I might change the Arthas' scenes, the difficult thing is that WCIII engine cannot handle far views so I'll have to be careful.

Agreed, neither I liked those breaking ice walls xD
I'll work on changing that, maybe using some closer shots, revealing the buried Sindragosa as the ice breaks, to make it similar to the original.

The last shot was a bit disappointing for me as well, thing is, it is difficult to move all of those units at the same time without bugging them out, it's a WCIII pathing issue, I might redo the shot completely somehow.

Those were quite some nice tips, thanks tyci, however all of them will take some time to be implemented. For now I will go back to my melee map, as I'm quite happy on how the new faction (Forsaken) is turning out and I'm eager to finish them, also I don't have much available time, if not during the weekends, to thinker with WE. Complex stuff like improving this cinematics is better to leave when I have some more time.
 
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