Shattered Heaven Act 5 "Into the Azure Sky" Part 1 (10/3/11)

[Adam]

Shattered Heaven is an original mecha novel series created by Azure Productions. The original anime series is a sequel following the end of the third novel "Serenade for the Wind".

http://www.azure-productions.com/shattered_heaven.html

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shatte...65110893500320

Shattered Heaven Act 5 "Into the Azure Sky" Part 1

[/B]

Synopsis: The conflict between Demetrius and the Angels recon force has ended. Picking up the pieces from the confusion and chaos, Angel Commanders Lenard Shaw and Keira Sequor prepare to ascend back to Prometheus with new found information while Adam Novus finds new convictions.

Act 1 "Dratted Days of Delusions" (Approx 15 minutes) :


Act 2 "Wings of Release" (Approx 22 minutes) :


Act 3 "Fading Light" (Approx 30 minutes) :


Act 4 "Conflict" (Approx 27 minutes) :



Cast:
Adam Novus: nikedrummer33
Sharon Amare: Mochan
Stephen Novus: Stephen Alonso
Ashley Bellelus: Mippa
Mario Liberalis: Mysticshinhanku
Heather Pertencia: candi
Luscious Malum: Aramek
Gail Contandino: Photoshoptimeryan
Solus Saevio: clwinston
Forza Devinco: Grand Vanish
Serenity Credo: Rina-chan/Haushinka
Chris Procella: Dymatrex
Keira Sequor: Merodi
Leo Ombra: Leo Rubino
Amy: Lira Tao
Animus Pravelo: Bwoods
Demetrius Libertas: Russ
Lenard Shaw: Edwyn
Yuna Innitor: Hnilmik
Elaine Libre: Scarlotte (Act 3)/ Morningstarsmiles (Act 5 and on)
Freya Abby: Mirielle
Christina Effloresco: Sapphire
Jen Fama: Catoni15
Sean Repens: Rebelcheese
Mike Aquilis: Sonicmega
Marius: bomberman61
Rose Amare: Exdevlin
Zach Orion: Greatoswaldo
Reine Proprius: Snakeyukin
Stephanie Star: Erica
Mike Aquilis: Tridpredravage
Caleb Prodito: BloodRedOath
Severen Prodito: Ramune

SFX: Soundsnap, Sounddogs, Armored Core: For Answer, Various Gundam SFX
Original Soundtrack provided by: Kosiji and ProjectTrinity

[Adam]

Added links to the Newgrounds versions.

[ProjectTrinity]

I always told myself that I needed to seriously sit down and watch/listen/enjoy many of the original productions that are out and running out here on VAA sometime. (AND RESPOND TO THEM. XD) And where to better start this little journey than here? Just keep in mind I will not be the best critiquing awesome ever. I generally suck at them. ' -'

Plot/Concept: Having seen acts 1-4, I somewhat have a grasp on the situation. An unknown-ish group is causing trouble and Adam/friends have been caught up in it due to the past. And speaking of the past - as you know, there is a lot of it. @__@;; Which would be fine, but there's also more than a handful of characters to keep track of for their backstories. And apologies if this goes more towards me not being exposed to the series long enough, but I thought I'd mention that some of the characters, the brown-haired ones specifically, add on to the confusion by having similar physical appearances. If it's more of me not being used to them, feel free to disregard.

Overall, consider it a good thing I haven't a clue how the series will end upon saying all of that. It usually means I (and probably others) will sort out what's what in favor of seeing where the plot goes.

Animation: What can I say? You literally show technical improvements per episode, and it's a far cry from anything I could do with stick figures. There is one nitpick I thought I should throw in, though! There was an instance where our French friend, Demetrius had some yellow pigment outside his hairline...and it twas distracting. =p You didn't do it again, but...yeah. lol

Voice Acting: Good grief, I am so happy you all got better per episode. If you hadn't, I would have double-posted, dedicating an entire post to each and every character (which in itself, justifies the double-post!) and how well they did/could do in the future. Same goes for audio quality overall. Based on episode 3/4, the quality of the sound and the voices were stepped up considerably from act 1, so no need for me to tell you to fix what was mainly already fixed. A few notes I'm more than happy were fixed was Adam's projection of his voice and Demetrius' hard to understand voice/accent. Thank you, for that. 8D;; Overall, a good job for all, and looking forward to seeing the cast more often.

Music: Well of course it's great. =p And a good selection as well.

Extra: I hearted the improvement of the opening/closing animations. [s]Which I was privileged to seeing in one day! >D[s]

And to end this:

Bump

[Adam]

I always told myself that I needed to seriously sit down and watch/listen/enjoy many of the original productions that are out and running out here on VAA sometime. (AND RESPOND TO THEM. XD) And where to better start this little journey than here? Just keep in mind I will not be the best critiquing awesome ever. I generally suck at them. ' -'

Plot/Concept: Having seen acts 1-4, I somewhat have a grasp on the situation. An unknown-ish group is causing trouble and Adam/friends have been caught up in it due to the past. And speaking of the past - as you know, there is a lot of it. @__@;; Which would be fine, but there's also more than a handful of characters to keep track of for their backstories. And apologies if this goes more towards me not being exposed to the series long enough, but I thought I'd mention that some of the characters, the brown-haired ones specifically, add on to the confusion by having similar physical appearances. If it's more of me not being used to them, feel free to disregard.

Overall, consider it a good thing I haven't a clue how the series will end upon saying all of that. It usually means I (and probably others) will sort out what's what in favor of seeing where the plot goes.

Animation: What can I say? You literally show technical improvements per episode, and it's a far cry from anything I could do with stick figures. There is one nitpick I thought I should throw in, though! There was an instance where our French friend, Demetrius had some yellow pigment outside his hairline...and it twas distracting. =p You didn't do it again, but...yeah. lol

Voice Acting: Good grief, I am so happy you all got better per episode. If you hadn't, I would have double-posted, dedicating an entire post to each and every character (which in itself, justifies the double-post!) and how well they did/could do in the future. Same goes for audio quality overall. Based on episode 3/4, the quality of the sound and the voices were stepped up considerably from act 1, so no need for me to tell you to fix what was mainly already fixed. A few notes I'm more than happy were fixed was Adam's projection of his voice and Demetrius' hard to understand voice/accent. Thank you, for that. 8D;; Overall, a good job for all, and looking forward to seeing the cast more often.

Music: Well of course it's great. =p And a good selection as well.

Extra: I hearted the improvement of the opening/closing animations. [s]Which I was privileged to seeing in one day! >D[s]

And to end this:

Bump

Thanks for the review! I appreciate getting input.

Oh man, yeah, Act 1 was sooo bad. I was new to Flash, jumped right into it, didn't know I could change the audio settings for when it was published, so all the audio was crap, plus my voice acting was crap, ugh man... haha.

It also didn't help that for the first 4 episodes I was a really bad producer. I was going through a lot in my life, so I was really just happy with getting lines. And I was focusing on the animation so I didn't really jump in, direct, ask for redos etc. But that changes with Act 5, all scripts from that point on has direction cues and I'm going to be focusing on the audio first before I even animate. Decided I'm going to mix the entire episode audio wise first.

I love my cast, I got so lucky to get such an amazing cast of diverse talented VAs. Wish more of them were active lately though on the forum =/.

Actually about half of the characters were not in the first 3 novels, so there's not alot being missed there, but yeah, I learned my lesson. But to be honest, you don't really need to know much prior to this to watch it.

Basically, there was a war, it ended, things changed, this picks up after that XD.

Though, I do have a character bios page for reference.

http://www.azure-productions.com/sh_bios.html

Can't wait to finish this last scene. I just finished the rough/base animation, so the full episode will end up being 25 minutes long. Phew, hopefully I can get this out before or right after Christmas.

[Zankoku no Yami]

Animation: Naturally the frames are drawn the best. But I would love to see a bit more detail into the characters~ (nit pick!). Aside from that, really, my only real complaint might actually be due to youtube or something. But when you had repeating animation, it would kind of have a moment every now and then of PAUSE. Super quick pause. But it interupts the flow. Another nit pick, hehe (just trying to be helpful! even though I don't know that much about animation...). But otherwise, its coming along nicely! I can see the improvements over past episodes I've seen!

Mixing: Some SFX sounded out of place, others felt slow (like falling behind the scene). This is the biggest area I would work in. It is also, what I find, to be the hardest area. No matter how hard I work in this area, I always find half a million things I could improve after mixing the final product (and eventually go back and fix them... only to find more!!). What SFX do you use? Because I have some AMAZING sci-fi ones from Sound Ideas, if you are interested.
I would also be weary of volume. Only happend a few times, but I noticed some voices being far more quiet than others.

Talent: The cast seems pretty solid; but my biggest complaint is when it comes to accents. Some felt fake or forced. And I know accents are hard, especially if it ISNT real. But that is the only thing that really bothered me~

Over all; so far I am enjoying it! And always remember, I am not trying to be harsh or anything... just want to be HELPFUL. If there is something I can point out or comment on, or even give advice on, I try my best to do it. Because I feel its always important. But sadly, I SUCK at it. So if I EVER come off as anything OTHER than nice... know that it is merely because I suck at critique *ashamed*

But I cant wait for more!

[Adam]

Animation: Naturally the frames are drawn the best. But I would love to see a bit more detail into the characters~ (nit pick!). Aside from that, really, my only real complaint might actually be due to youtube or something. But when you had repeating animation, it would kind of have a moment every now and then of PAUSE. Super quick pause. But it interupts the flow. Another nit pick, hehe (just trying to be helpful! even though I don't know that much about animation...). But otherwise, its coming along nicely! I can see the improvements over past episodes I've seen!

Mixing: Some SFX sounded out of place, others felt slow (like falling behind the scene). This is the biggest area I would work in. It is also, what I find, to be the hardest area. No matter how hard I work in this area, I always find half a million things I could improve after mixing the final product (and eventually go back and fix them... only to find more!!). What SFX do you use? Because I have some AMAZING sci-fi ones from Sound Ideas, if you are interested.
I would also be weary of volume. Only happend a few times, but I noticed some voices being far more quiet than others.

Talent: The cast seems pretty solid; but my biggest complaint is when it comes to accents. Some felt fake or forced. And I know accents are hard, especially if it ISNT real. But that is the only thing that really bothered me~

Over all; so far I am enjoying it! And always remember, I am not trying to be harsh or anything... just want to be HELPFUL. If there is something I can point out or comment on, or even give advice on, I try my best to do it. Because I feel its always important. But sadly, I SUCK at it. So if I EVER come off as anything OTHER than nice... know that it is merely because I suck at critique *ashamed*

But I cant wait for more!

Animation: Haha, yeah, I tend to generalize the art for the people for animation purposes and in order to get them out somewhat consistently. Though as I go I'm getting more used to it, so I'll probably be able to be more detailed. It'll probably start off with Act 5 once I completely finish Act 4. Still waiting on some lines *cough* yep *cough* (Animation for it is completely done though. Act 4's last 10 minutes are probably the best animation in this series so far.

For the sake of it.

Here is the preview of the entire Act 4. (It's 25 minutes in length. Includes the WIP animation along with some of the completed animation in the final scene.)

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luAebNu4mTI"]YouTube - Shattered Heaven Act 4 (Full Episode Preview)[/ame]

SFX: In the beginning I was horrible when it came to sound design. My SFX library has grown tremendously since then. Most of the sfx for the frames was ripped directly from a few Gundam games as well as Armored Core. I felt those portrayed them the best.

When converting to a mov file from Flash, it seems it's impossible to get away from frame loss. When frame loss occurs, things like "sfx or voice" getting out of sync happens.

Either way, I realized after the 2nd episode that a lot of people were put at a handicap since I made this as a direct sequel from my 3rd book. So a lot of the basic character develop that would happen and something I pride myself on doing, isn't happening, because it comes from a process of "you know the characters by now."

I'm trying to remedy this by adding extra content, such as minisodes, and audio logs that take place during the actual novels.

Those are all found on my site.

The audio logs can be found here.

http://azure-productions.com/archive.html

The minisodes are in the media player on my home page as well as the audio page. And there's a thread on the VAA in short audio somewhere.

I usually update my site with extra content way before it's even put up here.

Also, bam, 600th post hah.

[mattandnavi]

Good grief am I jealous of what you have created xD

Story flow is awesome and your art! soooo awesome. Being a animator at heart I know how tough it is to animate such detailed characters but you pull it off wonderfully. Backgrounds are good and music choice can't be faltered.

So much work has been put into this and I say keep working hard cos it's awesome ^_^

[Adam]

Good grief am I jealous of what you have created xD

Story flow is awesome and your art! soooo awesome. Being a animator at heart I know how tough it is to animate such detailed characters but you pull it off wonderfully. Backgrounds are good and music choice can't be faltered.

So much work has been put into this and I say keep working hard cos it's awesome ^_^

Wow, thanks, I really do appreciate that. I'm content with the story, not overly happy with it, but knowing how much character development and emphasis I placed in the actual novels, not doing it as much or enough in the animation is a bit sad. But then again, that's the point of this since it's a direct sequel, like a one shot of sorts.

Once I get the lines I'm missing I can 100% finish this episode and move onto Act 5 which I'm really looking forward to. Because I'll be on the halfway point of this season...finally.

[Blue Leader]

It's fairly interesting so far. I wont right a review right now, I'm too lazy... But so far it is intriguing. I'll have to check back later for more.
One thing I will mention, though, is that the sound effects seem to be a bit lacking. Some sounds don't seem to match up well with the their action, while other things (like laser blasts) have no sound effects at all. Others are extremely quiet.

And I must say, I'm extremely jealous of anyone who can draw (and animate). Drawing is a skill that I'd love very much to have. Ugh, I couldn't draw my way out of a wet paper bag...

[Adam]

It's fairly interesting so far. I wont right a review right now, I'm too lazy... But so far it is intriguing. I'll have to check back later for more.
One thing I will mention, though, is that the sound effects seem to be a bit lacking. Some sounds don't seem to match up well with the their action, while other things (like laser blasts) have no sound effects at all. Others are extremely quiet.

And I must say, I'm extremely jealous of anyone who can draw (and animate). Drawing is a skill that I'd love very much to have. Ugh, I couldn't draw my way out of a wet paper bag...

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback!

The sound effects issue, I noticed that. That seems to be an out of sync issue when the file was exported to a movie format. At least with Act 4, I think I know which scene you're speaking of. I had certain sfx aligned with their actions, but for some reason when it exported they were either pushed back or pushed forward, so there's a few instances when they didn't line up.

It was a general pain to find any decent sound energy beam sfx. Ripping directly from Gundam and Armored Core games seemed to be the best effect. But the sfx with the last scene of Act 4 will be much improved since I recently extended my sfx library by a few gigs XD.

I've been on a break writing and editing scripts for a radioplay with Mochan and a few other things. Anytime I see a comment to this it makes me want to ignore these things and cut my animation break short haha XD.