Brutal video showcase

TorQue[MoD]

Brutal - a source engine mod being developed by Surrogate Interactive with dreams of becoming a full retail project -has had it's showcase uploaded to their website for your viewing pleasure. You can watch the video which also includes a director commentary at
http://brutal.surrogateinteractive.com/

"We are looking to innovate the fighting game genre by putting the action of a first person shooter into an arena style environment. Our gameplay will focus on how each player moves about in the 3D environments and how the variety of characters will provide a multitude of playing styles and tactics. Some of our characters will be capable of wall running and super jumps allowing them to take advantage of the vertical space in order to launch attacks or gain access to hidden items that others characters cannot. Other characters will have the ability to deform the environment in various ways, such as pushing over pillars, or smashing through walls to open up hidden areas or destroy environment structures. We feel our concept will provide a new, deep and rewarding multiplayer gaming experience. As the current videogame market is saturated with Shooters and online RPGs, we feel our project provides much needed variety."

-Peter Ryan aka TorQue[MoD] Brutal Project Lead

Several polycount members have contributed to this showcase and I'd like to thank every one of them for their brilliant work.

cholden

Overall, this came out great. I'd only like to crit the presentation itself. When your characters are presented in the video they drop in at a distance. At a time when character focus is important, the emphasis was placed on the environment. This is a common theme on all of the video. While it's great that you gave such highlight to the world, since you have so much uniqueness in character it should be reedited with close up shots and closer shots of the characters.

What seems to be the whole 2nd half of the video is a long, drawn out credits sequence. There was just no sense in that being so long.

Finally, what does the number three have to do with this game? Is this the third installment of 'Brutal'? Since you used the number three as the letter 'B' it should have some notable significance or I'd reinvest some thought in the logo.


You might also consider looking at the formula for game trailers and following it more closely. It'll only help.

Slum

To me, this looked more like a machinima movie with a few cool animations. With the very obvious human-controlled camera, if I didn't know better, I'd have no idea this was even a game.

TWilson

The game itself looks like it could be interesting. The presentation of it all isn't going to help you much. I like the white guy

How about some embedded videos? People don't download movies these days. Check out vimeo.com (HD) and you might as well put it on youtube as well. They are extra promotion. Or you can simply embed it on your own server but why even use your own bandwidth?

You really need to simplify your web site in a big way. I have no idea where I'm supposed to look. There's red and green text and multiple font sizes and borders and lots of icons. People look at 50 web sites a day and are likely to quickly exit one's that aren't easy on the brain. I suggest you rip off a video sites layout, video icons on the side or bottom and embedded video in the middle.

Also at some point the video pause to tell us whats going to happen next becomes annoying or comical. You need to let the viewer get into it for a bit. Just watch some crazy fighting and editing. Either that or make the statements a full screen text on black so it's like a technical presentation.

Also the multiple pages of personal special thanks are nice but make it less professional.

And that's what I think If I didn't like what you were doing and find it impressive already I wouldn't have wrote all this critiquing your presentation. I hope you find it useful.

Xenobond

Hey Pete, you forgot to mention in yer credits one of the concepts was done by Ted Beargeon. Kraylor would still be Goro's step-son without big mean Ted.

Ironwolf

Haha, That was pretty Brutal.

Wilex

I downloaded the HD QuickTime video which took an hour or two and it was buggy. I kept getting random blips of a single frame during the whole thing and then at the end the video sped and flashed a bunch of artwork to fast to see then at 21:43 the screen went white for the rest of the commentary.

It looks like you have a pretty good concept. I'm not sure what it would take for a publisher to take notice in a project like this but it seems like you have a good start. I think cleaning up your videos and getting the easy YouTube type option will help. I think you could also shorten the length of the showcase/commentary video and clean up the presentation overall. A little more time could be spent explaining the combat system and your environment/levels rather than just listening to music while someone walks us through the environment.

Is any of this playable or are these combat scene's just animation and scripting?

Good luck on getting funding i'll be checking the website for updates.

TorQue[MoD]

Hey all. Thanks for the great critiques. Yeah, its really annoying the glitches in the videos. I don't know what's causing them. When I export from premiere I'm doing so as uncompressed video and audio and then using SUPER to encode the videos and it seems to randomly botch things up. I sort of gave up as I wanted to get it out, but I do think going back and cleaning things up is a good idea.

So everyone has been saying the portion with the levels is way too long so I'll definitely have to shorten that up. I also don't get why everyone thinks fly-throughs are better, but I can do that as well.

As for the pausing in the fight sequence, the purpose of that was to highlight the features we hope to include in the game and let viewers know what it is that they're looking at rather than simply watching a cool fight scene but not knowing what's going on. Maybe we should talk about the features in the developer commentary with flash backs to the actual events?

Hey Kurtis... I completely forgot to credit you in the trailer, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize Ted Beargeon did anything for the project... is he the one who came up with the idea to make him furry? I thought that was you :P

Unfortunately this is NOT playable. Our programmer got hired halfway through production, so we were forced to change gears and simply make it into a video showcase. Would be why it looks like Machinama, cause technically it is.

And I'll re-organize the website and put it up with an embeded video asap with clear download links below.

Thanks again for the feedback!

CheeseOnToast

Some Source engine specific stuff : where are all the shadows? The characters don't seem to be casting any, and the overall ambient light level seems too bright which is flattening everything out and making it look a bit "last-gen". I think you need to pick a few focal points and make the lighting a bit more contrasty.

Aside from the lighting issues and some of the presentation problems mentioned by others, this is really impressive. I love how you've managed to get ragdolls working in between animations. The characters look good from what I can see, but I'd like to see some closer shots of them included in the short versions of the movie. My first reaction was to check out the smaller movies first, with the intention of looking at the larger ones if I was impressed by what I saw. I think many people would do the same, so I'd put even more effort into them if you want to draw people in.

Anyway, best of luck with this. It really deserves some cash thrown at it. I think it's good enough for you to be able to hold out for the best offer, rather than taking the first one you get.

EDIT: You posted while I was writing this. How much of the video is done by physics and in-engine stuff, and how much is hand animated or scripted? You might need to prove a few of the ideas before anyone will take it on, so that's why I'm asking.

Xenobond

All I did was feed a couple of key points, and Ted painted up that concept. I was too busy with work of my own to be of any real use.

Wilex

Wow that’s tough losing your programmer. It looks like your characters are getting close to completion hopefully your game Design/Concept document is just as far if not completed. Your design may not work in the engine yet but it can still work on paper. If you can make a mock sequence of what combat would be like from the player’s perspective and figure out the HUD UI for what’s happening during each stage of the fight I think you could make a fairly successful pitch to a publisher.

TorQue[MoD]

The entire fight scene that is shown is simulated. Since the programmer left, we didn't get to the stage of development where we could start working with the ragdolls, but I know its possible. We had a rough version of it working in the Quake 2 engine a few years back, and with what I know of Source, its more than capable.

I've re-edited the fight scene to remove the pauses. I'm just trying to figure out what the best way to go about talking about the game features is, but I think I should have it down soon.

Its funny because I was originally going to try to do some shots of simulated gameplay, but I thought an action sequence would be cooler to watch so I opted for a more cinematic look with all the shots. I could easily cut together another version with simulated gameplay, though I'm not sure its really necessary. The only difference is that the camera would spend a lot of time behind the character's backs, and I'm sure I can just as easily explain that the game would take place from a third person perspective. In fact I do in the breakdown of the gameplay near the end of the 26 minute video which I'm going to move to the front in the revised version.

I also figured out how to get a proper streamable version of the video working, so once I finish the next cut I'll be putting it up as a direct stream because its definitely a lot easier for anyone wanting to watch it.

Thanks for all the positive comments!

TorQue[MoD]

Ok, so I've gone back over and re-recorded the levels, now flying through them and all four maps are shown in under 3 minutes.

http://brutal.surrogateinteractive.com/maps_fast.html

Any better or?