The Legacy of Saradomin (Part 1)

Many of 3dmm's most ambitious projects have been in the "epic fantasy" genre. The latest, Chippy's The Legacy of Saradomin, is certainly epic indeed. It clocks in at over an hour long, with a story still nowhere near complete and many major characters, most of whom the story hardly began to explore.

Storywise, it fits perfectly into the genre, in the sense that the plot employs practically every fantasy cliche in the book. I'm willing to ignore that, though, as practically every other fantasy story, 3dmm or not, does the same. It's as if there's a big checklist of plot elements without which a fantasy story simply cannot be written. But oh well. The characters are similarly flat and underdeveloped, but to be fair this movie is nowhere near complete and some of them have shown intriguing glimpses of their backstories that could be expanded on later.

Visually, the movie does feel pretty dated. This is due in part to the actual scene constructions, which make relatively limited use of v3dmm and thus employ many of the pre-v3dmm scenery tricks that are instantly recognizable, but more due to Chippy's directorial decisions. Enemies hordes are portrayed by groups of duplicates of default actors, mostly Valentines. People almost invariably use the talk action when they talk.

Chippy works well within the style, though. The scenery ranged from adequate to beautiful, with the forest-based scenes and the scenes in the treetop village the best. The fight scenes mix in the usual swordplay with some extremely creative moves, especially on the part of the pike-wielder (him leaning his pike up against an enemy's head, walking up it and over the guy, and then grabbing it and impaling him in the back was probably my favorite moment). The magic user's spell were varied and imaginative, with his disintegration of a Valentine into colored circles particularly standing out. And of course the battle with the Doc Ock zombie thing at the end was great, with its tentacles well used and the going-through-walls ability adding an interesting dimension. Some of the animation seemed a little "clunky," and the physics and effects of gravity on objects seemed off in places, but on the whole the fights were thoroughly entertaining.

The music was hit and miss. Some of it was very well-placed and evocative, but some pieces seemed misused and were distracting. During the first confrontation between our heroes and the general, the music hits a rousing crescendo in the midst of a conversation, and the first piece used in the Doc Ock zombie battle scene didn't really appeal to me at all. For the most part though, I thought Chippy did a good job of combing through the vast amount of available fantasy music and putting together a varied yet cohesive score.

The voice acting seemed slightly off throughout. Often two characters would be conversing with two rather different tones, where one voice actor presumably interpreted the mood of the scene slightly differently from the other. The voice acting job which I felt stood out notably from the rest was Chippy's own, perhaps indicating that he didn't give his voice actors enough cues to work with. Some of this might also have come from the dialogue they had to work with: it seemed to alternate between traditional archaic fantasy language and more realistic conversational English, with things like "you know" thrown in. It might have been difficult to figure out a delivery that was effective for both types of lines. The sound effects were not bad, though I think the 3dmm stock sounds might have been a bit overused, sometimes sounding a little out of place.

Technical errors and oddities were distracting in places. Characters frequently started the "talk" action slightly before their actual began, and it was common for body parts to move through solid objects during actions. A little more polishing in these areas would probably have been beneficial, though I can understand that just finally getting this released was a major priority.

This movie was far from flawless, to be sure, but its high-quality scenery and action sequences and sheer epic scale generally pushed the problems to the background. It was very much an archetype of the fantasy genre, pulling off fantasy's strengths (lush, mystical landscapes, hand-to-hand combat, and cool magical effects) very well, but also falling victim to its stereotypical weaknesses (weak plot, unoriginal characters). Usually, though, the movie's strengths were effective enough to allow the viewer to excuse the weaknesses. The Legacy of Saradomin may not be a perfect movie, but within its genre it succeeds to a greater extent than most. At any rate, the movie was certainly able to pull me in, and I sincerely hope there will be a Part II at some point.

[Slade]

Oooo, thanks for writing one Phil.

Yeah, in regards to all the cliches, this was started a long time ago when I thought single camera-angle fight scenes were the shiz. When I started making it, it was just non-sensical eye-candy shit. Then when I realised it was actually going somewhere I kinda had to work from there. I like to think that this was the archetypal beginning, to set everything up for the viewers, and from here on I can expand the story into more interesting avenues now that the basics are out there. I'm really liking what I have of the script for II at the moment, but as I've said before it's probably never going to be completed. We'll see, I guess.

As for a lot of the dated parts, yeah, I started this at a very awkward time, when v3dmm was just on the verge of being safe to use. For a while I was stating that I wouldn't use it at all for the first film, then as soon as I did I couldn't live without it. So a lot of time spent on this was just going back over old stuff and v3dmm-ifying it. It's a very up-and-down film, quite messy in that respect, but like you said, my first priority was making sure this didn't become just another ambitious project that ended up unfinished or unreleased.

Thanks a lot for the feedback. In a bit of a rush now, might come back and edit this. Anyway BYE

[Halextorg]

That was briliant!

I Saw Ninja Wars Episode V: Space Goat's Return but it was July 2007

[Halextorg]

Originally Posted by Phil Williamson

Many of 3dmm's most ambitious projects have been in the "epic fantasy" genre. The latest, Chippy's The Legacy of Saradomin, is certainly epic indeed. It clocks in at over an hour long, with a story still nowhere near complete and many major characters, most of whom the story hardly began to explore.

Storywise, it fits perfectly into the genre, in the sense that the plot employs practically every fantasy cliche in the book. I'm willing to ignore that, though, as practically every other fantasy story, 3dmm or not, does the same. It's as if there's a big checklist of plot elements without which a fantasy story simply cannot be written. But oh well. The characters are similarly flat and underdeveloped, but to be fair this movie is nowhere near complete and some of them have shown intriguing glimpses of their backstories that could be expanded on later.

Visually, the movie does feel pretty dated. This is due in part to the actual scene constructions, which make relatively limited use of v3dmm and thus employ many of the pre-v3dmm scenery tricks that are instantly recognizable, but more due to Chippy's directorial decisions. Enemies hordes are portrayed by groups of duplicates of default actors, mostly Valentines. People almost invariably use the talk action when they talk.

Welker works well within the style, though. The scenery ranged from adequate to beautiful, with the forest-based scenes and the scenes in the treetop village the best. The fight scenes mix in the usual swordplay with some extremely creative moves, especially on the part of the pike-wielder (him leaning his pike up against an enemy's head, walking up it and over the guy, and then grabbing it and impaling him in the back was probably my favorite moment). The magic user's spell were varied and imaginative, with his disintegration of a Valentine into colored circles particularly standing out. And of course the battle with the Doc Ock zombie thing at the end was great, with its tentacles well used and the going-through-walls ability adding an interesting dimension. Some of the animation seemed a little "clunky," and the physics and effects of gravity on objects seemed off in places, but on the whole the fights were thoroughly entertaining.

The music was hit and miss. Some of it was very well-placed and evocative, but some pieces seemed misused and were distracting. During the first confrontation between our heroes and the general, the music hits a rousing crescendo in the midst of a conversation, and the first piece used in the Doc Ock zombie battle scene didn't really appeal to me at all. For the most part though, I thought Chippy did a good job of combing through the vast amount of available fantasy music and putting together a varied yet cohesive score.

The voice acting seemed slightly off throughout. Often two characters would be conversing with two rather different tones, where one voice actor presumably interpreted the mood of the scene slightly differently from the other. The voice acting job which I felt stood out notably from the rest was Chippy's own, perhaps indicating that he didn't give his voice actors enough cues to work with. Some of this might also have come from the dialogue they had to work with: it seemed to alternate between traditional archaic fantasy language and more realistic conversational English, with things like "you know" thrown in. It might have been difficult to figure out a delivery that was effective for both types of lines. The sound effects were not bad, though I think the 3dmm stock sounds might have been a bit overused, sometimes sounding a little out of place.

Technical errors and oddities were distracting in places. Characters frequently started the "talk" action slightly before their actual began, and it was common for body parts to move through solid objects during actions. A little more polishing in these areas would probably have been beneficial, though I can understand that just finally getting this released was a major priority.

This movie was far from flawless, to be sure, but its high-quality scenery and action sequences and sheer epic scale generally pushed the problems to the background. It was very much an archetype of the fantasy genre, pulling off fantasy's strengths (lush, mystical landscapes, hand-to-hand combat, and cool magical effects) very well, but also falling victim to its stereotypical weaknesses (weak plot, unoriginal characters). Usually, though, the movie's strengths were effective enough to allow the viewer to excuse the weaknesses. The Legacy of Saradomin may not be a perfect movie, but within its genre it succeeds to a greater extent than most. At any rate, the movie was certainly able to pull me in, and I sincerely hope there will be a Part II at some point.

[Phil Williamson]

that was me all right!

[Dustin Guest]

How have the mods not banned this douche yet?

[Slade]

Hahahaha he's so WEEEEEEIRD

thanks so much