Assassin's Creed 3 - reveal trailer

Since this is a great expectation I decided to write about this trailer. However it is really short and somewhat mysterious and foggy. In concise: we leave Ezio back and join to Conor, a halfblood Native American-British assassin and participate in the War of Independence of the XVIII. century colonial America.

The choice of the character is a nice one, he is half British and half Native American. This symbolizes the change itself between the two worlds. The change which carries both but neither but the essence of them both making the two identical. This is not only derived from the character and background only. The tomahawk and the bow clearly represents his Native American roots while his coat resembles to European uniforms. Actually I think his blue collar is closer to the French than to the English army. Or maybe he already has the connection to the revolutionary army. 

The land of America is represented as a cruel and dangerous place where only the strongest survives. The wolves at 0.30 indicate that this is the only law here. The switch between the night scenes and the daylight scene with the wolves is a nice idea to emphasize the metaphor. In the one hand, we see how the wolves tear apart slowly a dead body while in the night we see how only one assassin kills all of the soldiers. First this is a nice full contrast: for the daylight it seems that a pack of wolves tear apart one body while we see in the night scenes that its only one assassin (wolf) who kills the many soldiers.

On an other level it shows that history happens on various layers or reality. The facts on the surface do not always explain everything that happens. Since the switching makes a psychological parallel between night and day, surface and reality, it has a major significance that the revolution takes place at daylight.

This indicates that the revolution is just the surface as many other things in history, and underneath a lot of hidden or forgotten individual effort made these things possible. 

Now some words on its look. Well this is a release trailer but apparently the basis of the later marketing project, not just some slideshow or some an ingame footage. 

At the beginning there are some nice lightnings indicating that the picture is computer-generated (1.18 on the big branch lying on the ground). This is a nice little detail. The dust-snow particle systems are very nice, this is a huge snow, and it is very cold. The continuous snowing lets the author not to bother with the traces. However if you watch closely at 0.31 they do not really want to do that anyway. This is clear from the fact that the arriving wolf almost does not leave any traces in the snow. I am not a ranger but I am sure that one can follow much deeper traces in the snow. And since you can see that it is moving under its feet, it should not be frozen yet. I think the general problem with snow here is that it has a little bit confused behavior. At 0.38 we see that there is some snow leaving the rock with the assassin. But such a little amount entails that the snowing is just started. Now this is a very difficult issue. Because it needed to start for a while to cover everything. Let suppose that it is very cold there. Then the redcoats should be semi-frozen out there as well as our assassin. No matter why they do not have proper winter clothes or at least blankets with them by the beginning of the scene they should have been covered by snow (when they meet Connor). At 0.33 you clearly see that there is no such thing as snow on their clothes. Not even on the one who is surprised on the back of his horse (this rules out the possibility that they just took off their blankets). 

Now for the tarzan-parkour scene. The trees could have had a little bit more movement but never mind let assume that they are frozen. Well I think they should have moved at least that amount to be released the supposedly just fallen snow. I mean Connor has the weight of an adult man. This is a great disturbance in the balance of any tree. But it is clearly enough to get some snow to fall. And remember at least some of the snow just has fallen. 

This makes it look like as if the trees were purely painted white. And this is supported at 0.58 where we have this side-cover for the trees. If the snow is just that deep, there cannot be such a big storm (especially not in a forest) just before the snowfall during the night.

But enough of snow. In general there is a beautiful forest shown in the trailer. Forests are very hard to make because their organic system is difficult to mimic. You cannot just throw some logs onto each other. And here we have this. This is covered by beautiful northern dawn lighting which makes it very realistic. The parkour scene has great animation. I feel the flow of the movement a little bit hooked up sometimes but this gives the impression as if in the air he could change direction by muscle movement. You can change your movement in the air if you are trained enough so maybe it is just too strong to see from the outside because you do not often see it done.

I think one point could have been considered for correction at 1.02. The bow on the back is ready for shoot. If you check the string on his chest it is not that stiff. It should cut into his coat with much more tension in this state. However if they have moved the end of the strings a little bit towards the middle of the bow it would not be prepared for shooting. This would let them to have the somewhat loose string.

Now the face of the army leader was a real surprise. It lacks most of the details as if it was burnt. His mouth synchronization is perfect though.

I really liked the overall idea of this trailer however I miss some minor details and consistency from the final product. The concept I think is very nice. This time we need to ask the director about the snow for example. 

Story: 10/10 (I think the story for a launch trailer has a lot in it. Not too intense but still quite complex to let us feel the character of the situation. It opens up a nice perspective.)
Director: 9/10 (This snow thing is a really hard task. It is only important because unconsciously it builds up or decreases our feeling of reality).

Modelling: 7/10 (That face at the end is really disturbing.)

Animation: 7/10 (Few movements I did not understand, like the one when he pulls the tomahawk out of the officers head. Or the wolf stepping onto the snow. Or the arm movement of the general.)
Render and lights: 8/10 (Nice dawn-lights. However the night scene is a little bit too bright. It makes some cartoonish effect. Very classic in from the '60 to the '90 but not realistic. A forest when it is snowing is really dark. After the snowing it becomes lighter when the clouds are gone.)
Material/textures: 8/10 (Again I miss some dirt from the clothes and some blood. Blood on the red coat is not just additional red dye. And if you face-shoot someone with an old gun, the head is covered with black gunpowder. I miss that too.)
Photography: 10/10 (Nice compositions. Smooth ambiance for the colonial forest.)
Editing/effects: 10/10 (Intensive switching between very different scenes without the feel of disturbance. Classic idea delivered perfectly.)
Music: 10/10 (Classic Assassin's creed soundtrack. Nice and smooth adaptation for the revolution.)
Visual concept: 10/10 (Great concept concerning all of the little details about clothes, scenes, the forest. Well done.)

Overall:8.9/10

Deus Ex - Human revolution trailer II. (Director Cut)

"These people Adam, they are like ghosts..." says the oracle, expressing our own feelings about today's social life. Of course we want to hear that these guys are the past and they cannot stop us, the future.
I think most of us are in when he says that. And of course even more enthusiasm comes when he says that to Adam who is the first man created by God, and the hero we would very like to identify ourselves.
continued from Deus Ex - Human revolution trailer I.  (Director Cut)

Deus ex 2011

Terminator 2 1991

Here the render is just great. The reflection of the face on the window with the beautiful sight of the city and the sides of the great neo-neo-gothic window pillars. And for the word "future" a plane from Terminator 2 flies away from the window. And most of us do not care because the moment is just great despite of the unnoticeable window frames (which looked so great from the side). These frame is alike a UI frame which is pretty bad if you re-start the video from that point as I just did :). But in the flow of the trailer you just do not notice it for there are so many things happening there.

Then we change to the view where Adam is recreated by the machines. This is again a great metaphor. Since originally God created Adam, now Adam is created (or at least re-formed) by machines. Only one doctor is there with the machines not the bunch of people as they used to be in the renaissance scene. And meanwhile the doctor says that the body may heal after recreation but the mind... Well the mind is not simply weaker but "not always so resilient". This leads us to the social aspect of the metaphor: society may find new ways of existence but the mind of the people remains the same so humanity falls back again and again to the same historical states as we see from the scope of the trailer. And after this a short reference to psychology as Adam is shown in two short shots. The first when he faces the camera the looks into it. The other is when the camera shows us the side view and he turns to us, and suddenly shots his shades and his face becomes aggressive. This shows exactly the former statement of the doctor on a personal level and makes reference to the historical heritage of humanity of aggression and war (well I am not sure whether on this point I go too far about this).
And that old way of living is of course the Darwinian struggle for survival. As Adam attacks the wall and breaks a hole into it the next picture suggests that he breaks through the web of secrets of this world and again he breaks through ourselves.
This claim is supported by the next event with the hacker. Adam cannot save him for the web is stronger and faster than him. Before going further let us have a look at the view for a second.

After the beautiful city view we see the landing air plane and I just cannot decide whether it is made of painted steel or plastic. And I am tempted to the latter one. Its not even chromed which is a shame. Even the 20 years older terminator plane looks more realistic at least on this picture above. It does not take a long time so it can be considered as a minor problem, but still it is not a real big deal to chrome a surface with maya 3d either...
The robots re-framing Adam have the same little bit of strange materials on them but well they are hi-tech  medical tools so they can be built from any UFO metals. However I still think that the arms are beautiful but I think the their chrome-rubbery material is a little bit too original. Its seems to be just strange and it is not introduced well enough to make sense in the context. I only mean here that I had to think what they look like for the first time. The x-ray see is nice and the movement of the soldier is dynamic enough. And now the break through. Well I think it is really hard to sneak-break-through a wall. I think most of you agree with me :). I would have used faster and stronger moves and rapid-cut for this. If one blows the bricks off the walls just behind you, you would be thrown away by the bricks only unless he is fast enough to grab the soldier before he is knocked down by the bricks. The hole and the lights are nice afterwards and the little pace is again a good catch. But the way the bricks fall down from nothing is... well believable but it would have been nicer if they extend the hole I think. The sparks are on the other side not realistic and while I understand that they are the wires in the wall or some security system, they are really unnecessary. So I think if there are any major ones, this is a major mistake in the trailer. However for this far you are way behind the line when you are already bought by the authors so you just don't listen to such details. The disappearance is again a very nice thing after this. And if I'm at my charity-side of understanding I think the sparks emphasize that phenomena. But well they are again unnecessary.
The 2d footage is nice again while the music elevates to a next level of intensity. I think the sparks of electricity at the hackers head are much nicer than the ones from the wall (that is again a puzzle in understanding the former ones). However again I think those are unnecessary, almost stupid. Since Adam shouts "No!" we know that he is not the killer. But such sparks should burn the hacker so much we should see some smoke and way more pain on his face.

The transition to the fight is beautiful, first everybody thinks that these two are the same scene. The animation is a nice combination of rapid-cutting and motion capture. Fast camera movements emphasize the heroic pictures of the scene and I am soo glad that we do not see some ugly animation of the smashed head of one of the soldiers.
Then again the riot view. I just cannot identify the mats of the people's clothes. I admit that I don't care about the mats on Adam and the soldiers for those may be of special tissue. Again nice sparks on the disappearing girl but her face is expressing too much pleasure (like a child) and less concentration. Of course she must be mad, but this madness is not analysed deeply. She could have a personality as well. She is now simply an idiot. But still a professional. It has the Mad Max atmosphere. I doubt that in such a world of "ghosts" such mad people gain high-tech equipment. The feeling of the "enemy" is way more professional during the whole intro than her face in the crowd.

The riot-scene and Adam's struggle merges into one big chaotic battle which clears away at into the clean picture of the sun.I again don't really understand this "sun against the black sky" thing. This could be a reference to Blade Runner again where in the night-rain-scene a pigeon flies towards the blue sky but that mistake has been corrected since that time.

So as an overview I really liked this clip. The details are much better at the beginning than in the end, but I think this is not from a lack of attention but maybe some open-air render mistake which is responsible for some constant minor mistakes. But it is a hard task to render night-scenes in artificial futuristic lights. I think less light would make a great deal of improvement on those scenes. If the authors had some night-riot footage from youtube as reference they would have added fewer lights maybe.

So my final evaluation:

Story: 10/10 (epic!)
Director: 10/10 (great job!)
Modelling: 10/10 (great job while simplified surfaces) 
Animation: 9/10 (Minor mistakes in details)
Render and lights: (7/10) (Could not reach some almost impossible goals. One major mistake. Some mistakes in details)
Material/textures: 8/10 (constant but minor ambivalences)
Photography: 10/10 (nice sets and pictures)
Editing/effects: 10/10 (Despite that one cutting mistake great)
Music: 10/10 (I have the soundtrack on my playlist now on youtube, check the piano version as well)
Visual concept: 9/10 (minor mistakes, some non-contextual reference)
____________________
Overall: 9.3

Deus Ex - Human revolution trailer I. (Director Cut)

It is great to have so much remakes these days. This can be either a historical reflection or a cultural self-reinterpretation. Whatever is the case, it is a great gift to the middle aged guys to revive their childhood. Deus Ex (2000) was one of the enigmatic games of the millennia taking place in 2052's cyberpunk future. However it is only a ten years old game, it already has the sense of a remake and a nostalgic ambience. However it is a sequel to the old game and a prequel to the story of the 2000 game. But actually it is not why I am talking about its trailer. No my friends, the reason is that this is supposedly one of the best cgi clips of these days.