The Terminal: Reimagined

[Alan]

Irons when I listened to your file I heard scratching noises and a long beap. Not kidding.

And W'rkncacnter when I listened to your file I heard two kinds of wierd frog noises. It sounded like.... rrrrrroaoooooowwwwww..... roooooooooowwwww. Not kidding.

Is there some thing wrong with my computer or the file?

[Crater Creator]

No, Alan, irons and W'rkncacnter played a common practical joke. However by pointing it out, your post will probably prevent anyone else for falling for it. They might elect to edit their posts with a new mp3, and then insist there never was a joke version. Though, by pointing out that possibility myself, they're now unlikely to do that, either.

I don't get mad at Rick Rolls, but I sure am apathetic to them by now.

[treellama]

They sounded fine to me. Maybe you are the one playing the practical joke?

[Pfhorsome]

I liked it a lot and I could say the same as others, but in short - whenever I read Durandal's messages, I thought of Jigsaw, the evil guy from the Saw movies, and kind of imagined the voice to be like that. The face looks a bit happy too, but maby that was intentional?


Those minor things however, don't bring it down - excellent work and a huge step forward, because I have wondered about this - I think that with M2 on the Xbox presenting the text was great and all but probably turned many people away, but this is a great thing to disprove that and could probably spark some interest if it got included in the games and would draw a lot more attention.
Great Job.

[Alan]

What's a Rick Roll?

I hope this isn't a stupid question.

[Pfhorsome]

Rick Roll
. . .Getting Rick Rolled

[Crater Creator]

Hmm. I haven't seen the real Saw movies (just parodies thereof). I see some similarities, but isn't Jigsaw an out-and-out antagonist, who wants his victims to die? That may be appropriate for this terminal, but not Durandal in general.

As for the emotion, and motivation, it's quite a balancing act. Durandal should either be melancholic, angry, or jealous, because he's rampant. Yet he should also be sarcastic and smug, because that's what comes through in many terminals. And on a third hand, he could be emotionless, being an artificial intelligence. Trying to throw all of these in a one minute monologue would probably make him come off as schizophrenic, which might actually please other viewers who think of Durandal as just plain crazy.

I went for specific sentences being sarcastic, and a melancholic demeanor in general, and I've heard both that he's too happy to be melancholic, and that he's not smug enough. So one thing I conclude from this project is that, the process of converting the written word into an animated performance that's spoken and acted out requires enough interpretation that it may disagree with other people's interpretations, even if the script is identical. It's not unlike a director's vision in making a film out of a novel. Of course, I'd like to please everyone, but it just doesn't seem possible in this case. That realization gives me a certain degree of freedom, by recognizing that going with my own interpretation is the best I or anyone can do.

I suppose the litmus test, then, is: if Marathon: Durandal or a similar Marathon remake game came out, with all the terminals done this way, would you the Marathon fans accept terminals done this way? Would it leave a bad taste in your mouth that the performance just wasn't right, or would you admire the game for its willingness to do terminals in a fresh way that requires interpretation by the game developers?

P.S. beware that Pfhorsome's second link uses javascript in a way you may find annoying.

[Pfhorsome]

Haha, thanks for clarifying my link . . .

About Jigsaw, yes he just wants his victims to die (can be argued but for this sake, yes, he does) but I'm referring more to the manner in which he speaks. . .
f.e. The voice of the doll giving the 'instructions'
except maybe a little bit less fuzzy, if you know what I mean? Like a crisp evil, that fuzzes out at times like you incorprated into the animation.

[Coraxus]

Umm, I can't seem to play the video, it requires a Veoh plugin and unfortunately, the country I live in has been black listed by that Nazi site called Veoh.

[Crater Creator]

I assume you mean the Saw trailer? My videos are .movs encoded with H.264.

[ColdGoldLazarus]

Unfortunately, the links to the files didn't work for me. However, I'm going to guess that your current icon is related to that; if so, then good job!

Not sure I'm fond of the idea of a projected face (seems a bit too Halo-ish) but I agree that a voiceover would be a nice addition. And for the record, I pronounce it "Deer-aan-daal."
(For voices, I imagine Leela to have one of those typical 'pleasant female voices' with just the slightest hint of a british accent, Durandal to be kind of deep, with this constant tone like he's kicking back on some couch and watching you with a smirk, and Tycho to alternate between hammy mad-scientist stuff, and a dangerous low purr.)

[Crater Creator]

Yeah, I'd been using Coppermine gallery for my portfolio, and some time ago it was rendered inoperable, seemingly by some automated malware. That's why the links don't work anymore. I've been meaning to get the content accessible again one way or another.

Nothing's permanently lost though. Here's the high-res render version until I get the video up somewhere.

[ukimalefu]

... Here's the high-res render version until I get the video up somewhere.

There's this website called youtube. I hear is very popular.

[Crater Creator]

That is a definite possibility.