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MDizzle wrote:Look the simple fact here is this movie is not up to current quality not by Hollywood standards not by HBO standards not by TV standards and not by video game standards. If you think other wise please enjoy this movie. The fact is this is not worth the money. If they wanted to do a movie cheaper they should have went with animation. I would have preferred a cartoon to this. At the end of the day crap is crap and this movie looks like crap.

You're talking about video game cutscenes, which aren't that much of the actual time spent.

Actual video-game graphics not above this.

MajorTom11 wrote:There is not one person who has commented on the story while expressing a negative opinion about what we have seen so far.

Not one.

I said it looks generic as hell.

D.P. Gumby wrote:They should have used those life size space marine and ork suits that relic made for GDUK

That would have been hilarious. I can just imagine the beautiful special effects that could be achieved by a big guy in a foam costume.

Delephont wrote:

Grotzooka wrote:

Balance of opinion is quite hard to come by on the interwebs, worse luck. And your condesending tone isn't really helping.
If you don't want to discuss the movie, then ignore this thread.

Well, erm, thats kinda the whole point of my post. I'm all for disucssion. My post was aimed at those who appear to NOT want to discuss the movie.

Yes, I can see that many people are super stoked that "finally" a WH40K movie is being released, but that doesn't therefore mean we can ignore that other factors surrounding this release. To be honest, this "thou shalt not critique GW" isn't just evident here, it also appeared on the Dark Eldar thread.......

Its a sad day when products within the hobby can not be discussed on a web forum objectively and without the usual fanboism or "I hate GW no matter what" attitude.

However, like a waise man said, everything that needs to be said about this DVD has been said....

Hmmm.
It seems that I completely missed the point of your first post.
I'm sorry.

Necroman wrote:

MDizzle wrote:Look the simple fact here is this movie is not up to current quality not by Hollywood standards not by HBO standards not by TV standards and not by video game standards. If you think other wise please enjoy this movie. The fact is this is not worth the money. If they wanted to do a movie cheaper they should have went with animation. I would have preferred a cartoon to this. At the end of the day crap is crap and this movie looks like crap.

You're talking about video game cutscenes, which aren't that much of the actual time spent.

Actual video-game graphics not above this.

MajorTom11 wrote:There is not one person who has commented on the story while expressing a negative opinion about what we have seen so far.

Not one.

I said it looks generic as hell.

D.P. Gumby wrote:They should have used those life size space marine and ork suits that relic made for GDUK

That would have been hilarious. I can just imagine the beautiful special effects that could be achieved by a big guy in a foam costume.

1.Sorry but killzone 2, gears 1 and 2, even halo reach look better, not to mention crysis. IN-Game.

2.Looks generic as hell is not the same as 'the story and actors are awesome so i don't care about graphics' one is stated as opinion, one as fact. Thanks for confusing things for no reason though.

3.those suits look better than the graphics.

TBD wrote:I will not be buying this online though, so it better be available through the stores too.

It's been confirmed that it's only going to be available to buy via the website.

Wannabe Writer wrote:

TBD wrote:I will not be buying this online though, so it better be available through the stores too.

It's been confirmed that it's only going to be available to buy via the website.

i heard that BL may eventually carry it, but for now its online only.


although you may be able to find it on fleabay in a couple months

Or you could always check the swapshop here.

Graphics look very poor.

When you consider how sweet this is:


Why is it they can't do something to that level?

Maybe because the price tag for a Blur animation is a tad higher and Relic is a tad more wealthy than GW?

BrookM wrote:Maybe because the price tag for a Blur animation is a tad higher and Relic is a tad more wealthy than GW?

I very much doubt that (relic having more $ than GW).

CG is not as expensive as you guys think! The blur animations don't come anywhere near the technical level of pixar or ilm motion pictures, the difference isnt much to most people, but there are very large differences. It's all a matter of choosing shots and venues according to your abilities and sticking with it. Lots of money motion pictures = subsurface scattering, and tons of particle effects, super high res multi-pass rendering. But the blur animations use 2d particle effects, no sub-surface scattering and very little in the way of lighting set-up. They just do it amazingly due to talent and an artful eye and the know how of knowing what to avoid and what they can do amazingly for little expense.

There are lots of tricks, it's too technical for this discussion, but believe me, a LOT can be done for less than 5-10 million. In comparison to 'real movies', thats next to nothing these days. Many prime time shows have that budget for a single episode.

AlexHolker wrote:
And we should care why? They're still charging $40 for it, in a world where movies like Avatar or Iron Man are released on DVD for $25.

Bingo. I barely want to spend the $25 on those movies, and they had quality. $40 for collector's edition of suppar animation? No thanks.

If GW released a model of the same quality of this movie people would be panning it big time. GW needs to up it's standards when it comes to movies they did when it came to video games.

My decision to purchase will be totally price driven. If its as much as a new release that just came from theaters, then I'll probably sit and wait to grab it second hand. I'm not paying 19.99 for a movie that was deemed too poor of a quality for theaters.

MajorTom11 wrote:

BrookM wrote:Maybe because the price tag for a Blur animation is a tad higher and Relic is a tad more wealthy than GW?

I very much doubt that (relic having more $ than GW).

It's THQ who have a tad bit more money than GW.

I am somewhat at a loss as to how the 'Bionicle' guys managed to convince GW to let them do it when allegedly so many others have failed...

I think that's a load of bs, and Codex were just the first ones to offer. There never were "others", lol...

Either that or they were just the cheapest. Which shows.

I'm not paying 19.99 for a movie that was deemed too poor of a quality for theaters.

Well, count this out then. It's $40.

Only GW could get away with that. Charge double the price of what it costs for a regular DVD for something of even poorer quality, just because it has Spess Mahreenz in it.

Stolen from a post over at miniwargaming:

"More info than you want to know:

Codex pictures did not work on Bionicle. The company Codex Pictures has never made anything before. They didn't even exist until a couple years ago. They aren't actually making anything now either, they are producers only.

It is very common for companies to spring up out of nowhere to do 1 movie or several based on 1 topic like this. That way when it flops it takes the name with it, and the people can move on with others. The name Codex is not a simple coincidence.

The connection Codex has to Bionicle is that a few people who worked on the project now are involved here. Codex is owned by Good Story Productions, which is a small company owned by Bob Thompson. Mr Thompson once worked for Lego, where he was a creative resource on Bionicle toys and acted as the Executive Producer for the 3 movies which were made by Miramax. Good Story as a company has done (executive produced): Bionicle 3 and Ultramarines in 6 years of existence.

Codex also employs David Kerney who was a producer on Bionicle movies and Dan Faucett (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0269229/) a story board artist for the movies. Producers are like managers, they don't draw anything or do any work on the movie, they make sure it is true to the IP and get the people to work on time.

The animation for this movie was done, in part at least, in Montreal by POP6. They were recruiting for it at the 2009 Ottawa International Animation Festival and are listed as co-producers. http://www.pop6.net/ It is their first movie.

The faces are being done by these guys: http://www.image-metrics.com/ "Charged with creating lifelike superhuman Space Marine characters, Image Metrics is using performance capture data and character rigs provided by Pop6 Studios to deliver approximately 65 minutes of animation for the Ultramarines movie. "

The director has done 2 other projects besides this one. The only people with experience are Dan Abnett (who has written a ton of novels and some comics but this is the first movie he is credited for) and the voice talent.

All of that to say the trailer makes it look equivalent to bargain bin videos that sell for 5-10 dollars. This thing would cost 44$ to have it shipped to Canada. Not a chance in this household."

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Graphics look very poor.

When you consider how sweet this is:


Why is it they can't do something to that level?

Most likely because it would've been ridiculously expensive and time consuming to make.

Me personally, I'm not too concerned with the quality of the CGI, I just hope it gets 40k right with a good story and its a moderate(at the least) commercial success.

Most likely because it would've been ridiculously expensive and time consuming to make.

Would it have been? Others have posted in this thread with knowledge about this kind of thing and said it really wouldn't have.

NELS1031 wrote:Most likely because it would've been ridiculously expensive and time consuming to make.

It would also have made it something that would appeal to the mainstream military sci-fi audience. Making a movie that does not inspire awe, set in a universe with hundred metre tall walking idols to warlike gods, mountain-powdering artillery, orbital bombardment and drop troops (and all of these just from one novel!), is insane.

I really think that doing the Ultramarines was a bad choice. They're boring and overused. Should've done Black Templars or Dark Angels.

ironhand45 wrote:I really think that doing the Ultramarines was a bad choice. They're boring and overused. Should've done Black Templars or Dark Angels.

Arent those also boring and overused?

Although taking Damnation Crusade and making it a movie (sans recruiting the 25 year old men part) would be pretty sweet

Direct to dvd says it all.

I know we are are spoiled with good quality warhammer cgi thanks to the dawn of war games, but this feels like something I would see on a saturday morning cartoon.... but with more blood.

kenshin620 wrote:

ironhand45 wrote:I really think that doing the Ultramarines was a bad choice. They're boring and overused. Should've done Black Templars or Dark Angels.

Arent those also boring and overused?

Although taking Damnation Crusade and making it a movie (sans recruiting the 25 year old men part) would be pretty sweet

Not really, i've seen very few BT players, except myself, and they are pretty freaking sweet

Would it have been? Others have posted in this thread with knowledge about this kind of thing and said it really wouldn't have.

I was always under the impression that it was time consuming and expensive to do full CGI movies, but if others with with knowledge of the graphics industry say otherwise, I'll happily concede, since I know zilch about it.

I just can't imagine Pixar or Dreamworks or any other studio famous for its CGI getting a movie finished in such a short amount of time on such a short budget(at the level of quality in the dawn of war II intro, not the Ultramarines movie).

Maybe GW just went with the lowest bidder, like the government does.

caddock wrote:Stolen from a post over at miniwargaming:

"More info than you want to know:

Codex pictures did not work on Bionicle. The company Codex Pictures has never made anything before. They didn't even exist until a couple years ago. They aren't actually making anything now either, they are producers only.

It is very common for companies to spring up out of nowhere to do 1 movie or several based on 1 topic like this. That way when it flops it takes the name with it, and the people can move on with others. The name Codex is not a simple coincidence.

The connection Codex has to Bionicle is that a few people who worked on the project now are involved here. Codex is owned by Good Story Productions, which is a small company owned by Bob Thompson. Mr Thompson once worked for Lego, where he was a creative resource on Bionicle toys and acted as the Executive Producer for the 3 movies which were made by Miramax. Good Story as a company has done (executive produced): Bionicle 3 and Ultramarines in 6 years of existence.

Codex also employs David Kerney who was a producer on Bionicle movies and Dan Faucett (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0269229/) a story board artist for the movies. Producers are like managers, they don't draw anything or do any work on the movie, they make sure it is true to the IP and get the people to work on time.

The animation for this movie was done, in part at least, in Montreal by POP6. They were recruiting for it at the 2009 Ottawa International Animation Festival and are listed as co-producers. http://www.pop6.net/ It is their first movie.

The faces are being done by these guys: http://www.image-metrics.com/ "Charged with creating lifelike superhuman Space Marine characters, Image Metrics is using performance capture data and character rigs provided by Pop6 Studios to deliver approximately 65 minutes of animation for the Ultramarines movie. "

The director has done 2 other projects besides this one. The only people with experience are Dan Abnett (who has written a ton of novels and some comics but this is the first movie he is credited for) and the voice talent.

All of that to say the trailer makes it look equivalent to bargain bin videos that sell for 5-10 dollars. This thing would cost 44$ to have it shipped to Canada. Not a chance in this household."

POP6... ahhh that explains a lot. Keyframe animators, there wasnt any motion capture. A bunch of kids straight out of school, who usually quite a few months in due to crappy working conditions. I am ashamed Montreal played a part in this lol!

Other companies are chopshops too... Jeeze they really took lowest bidders only here.

Delephont wrote:

Yes, I can see that many people are super stoked that "finally" a WH40K movie is being released, but that doesn't therefore mean we can ignore that other factors surrounding this release. To be honest, this "thou shalt not critique GW" isn't just evident here, it also appeared on the Dark Eldar thread.......

Its a sad day when products within the hobby can not be discussed on a web forum objectively and without the usual fanboism or "I hate GW no matter what" attitude.

However, like a waise man said, everything that needs to be said about this DVD has been said....

Fair enough, but frankly most of the negative comments are coming from people who obviously have no idea what they are talking about. Case in point is the people saying that because it's straight to DVD explains the level of quality. They fail to realize that this movie is targeted to a specific audience - people who play 40k. This is not a film aimed at bringing in the general movie going public. Furthermore, they obviously have no idea how much money it costs to release a film nationwide, let alone worldwide in theaters. It's laughable to think the first 40k movie would be a big screen release. This is very much an independent film, not a Hollywood blockbuster.

There are people who are criticizing the movie and are making valid points. Major Tom is probably the best example because he obviously works with CGI, knows what he is talking about and is making fair points in his criticism. That is welcome by me at least. I'm not blindly defending the movie, I said the CGI was not great. I'm buying this movie not because I think it's great quality, but because a 40k movie and I want to put my money into it to encourage more movies hopefully of better quality. This is a business venture, like any other movie. If it makes money they will make more movies.

AlexHolker wrote:

NELS1031 wrote:Most likely because it would've been ridiculously expensive and time consuming to make.

It would also have made it something that would appeal to the mainstream military sci-fi audience. Making a movie that does not inspire awe, set in a universe with hundred metre tall walking idols to warlike gods, mountain-powdering artillery, orbital bombardment and drop troops (and all of these just from one novel!), is insane.

Exactly, if any movie needed a good effects budget, it would be a 40k movie.

And for all the smart-asses saying "Go watch Avatar then and stfu", personally I think Avatar might have had a deeper plot than this movie will. I'd like to be proven wrong, since if the story is really good then I can probably forgive the gakky animation, but I really doubt it...it's Ultramarines vs. Black Legion, I'm bored already.

$40? Yeah, I'm sure gonna buy a direct-to-video movie about spess mehreens with pathetic CGI from some rookie company. For 40 bucks.

I think Games Workshop overestimated the zeal of the customers to buy things with blue space marines on the cover.

MajorTom11 wrote:1.Sorry but killzone 2, gears 1 and 2, even halo reach look better, not to mention crysis. IN-Game.

I've played the Gears games and Halo Reach.

I don't recall them looking better, other than the backgrounds/environments (Which is my main graphical beef; scenery means a lot in a movie).

MajorTom11 wrote:2.Looks generic as hell is not the same as 'the story and actors are awesome so i don't care about graphics' one is stated as opinion, one as fact. Thanks for confusing things for no reason though.

I'm sorry if I somehow offended you by being contrarian. I just was stating that, yes, someone did think the story doesn't look that great.

ironhand45 wrote:I really think that doing the Ultramarines was a bad choice. They're boring and overused. Should've done Black Templars or Dark Angels.

And what, exactly, would have changed about the plot?

NELS1031, I detailed some factors in play with quality levels before. Pixar and ILM are at the Zenith of CG production, they have facilities and finances (and experience) blur can't even touch. There are many technical aspects, but the biggest differences you will see are size of settings, detail of objects in those settings, and amount of camera movement within them. Now, if you are smart, like Blur has been, you tailor your settings and camera movement to minimize the amounts of work and time you need to put in on the surrounding areas. The characters themselves are not as expensive to create and render as you may think. Once they are modelled, textured and rigged, that's 90% of the work done right there. By having their backgrounds sparse (not neccesarily undetailed, just not super deep, i.e - block the view with trees and darkness), and not moving the camera too much, and using tricks like panning on a larger pre-rendered image, you can do amazing things very quickly.

That combined with not using too many lights in the scene (i.e, keep it cg looking, not true life, keep it dark or harshly lit) you can use 3-4 lights, 2 directional, a spot and one soft, instead of HDRI lighting, a very expensive process. Also, they don't use sub-surface scattering, a process in which creates the illusion of light passing through translucent objects like skin (this makes the ears orange-reddish when brightly lit from behind, effects like that). Finally, due to the aforementioned carefully planned diminished use of true camera movement, you can use 2d visual special effects quite a bit, instead of creating again expensive and diificult 3D effects. Oh ya, won't see much fluid effects either, and when you do,short and not as convincing as pixar or ILM.

The number one thing lessening price is that it isnt mixed with live action. Live action forces levels of detail and lighting you don't need to create pretty CGI otherwise. When it's pure CG, you get to set your own standards, levels of detail, lighting etc. It still looks great but you put your own artistic spin on it, define your own world, which is, in the end, much cheaper!

So you see, Blur, despite it's awesome work isnt in pixar or ilm's ball park. Does it mean they don't do pretty stuff? Hell no, they do amazing work. They just stick to the limitations of their size, and not only work around their limitations, but use them to craft their own style which works oh so well.

Seriously, as stated above, a Sci-fi movie needs to look good. It's the whole point. Take a fantastic, imaginative world, and render it out in loving motion and tone, and take the viewer into the creators imaginations. Star Wars would not have been what it was without it's effects, and it didnt suceed despite them, but with them. It brought us into it. It didnt make us shake our heads or snicker. It just made us fall in love with a galaxy far, far away.

Necroman wrote:$40? Yeah, I'm sure gonna buy a direct-to-video movie about spess mehreens with pathetic CGI from some rookie company. For 40 bucks.

I think Games Workshop overestimated the zeal of the customers to buy things with blue space marines on the cover.

MajorTom11 wrote:1.Sorry but killzone 2, gears 1 and 2, even halo reach look better, not to mention crysis. IN-Game.

I've played the Gears games and Halo Reach.

I don't recall them looking better, other than the backgrounds/environments (Which is my main graphical beef; scenery means a lot in a movie).

MajorTom11 wrote:2.Looks generic as hell is not the same as 'the story and actors are awesome so i don't care about graphics' one is stated as opinion, one as fact. Thanks for confusing things for no reason though.

I'm sorry if I somehow offended you by being contrarian. I just was stating that, yes, someone did think the story doesn't look that great.

ironhand45 wrote:I really think that doing the Ultramarines was a bad choice. They're boring and overused. Should've done Black Templars or Dark Angels.

And what, exactly, would have changed about the plot?

I would've either concentrated on all the space marines, or concentrate on a battle with either all the space marine chapters, or very many of them like the Armageddon campaign.

Its $34.99, spent more on other things and got less. I am buying it!