WoW Moviewatch: Nef vs. Rai: A machinimated cartoon
by Michael Gray 
Nov 26th 2008 at 12:00PM
The author says up front that he considered this movie to be an experiment. Nef vs. Rai was intended to help explore the animation possibilities in World of Warcraft. It is a very short animation example, that pretty much can be summed up as "A dragon steps foot in Darnassus, an anime hero charges his lasers, and kills the dragon." The story wasn't complex, but probably wasn't meant to be. While the opening shot of a dragon landing is created using modified WoW graphics, the rest seems to be hand drawn.
The opening credit with the animated cat-form druid (Night Elf) was pretty neat. I liked the hand-drawn overlay in Darnassus, and what it did for the environment there. I'm not sure the animation of "Rai" did much for me. Something about the way Rai's face was drawn kind of put me off, and made it very difficult for me to understand what emotion the character was experiencing. But, I guess, the anime style can be kind of like that, with a lot of it being an acquired taste.
"Nef vs. Rai" isn't the worst freshman effort we've ever seen, but any follow-up would definitely need some story embellishment.
Filed under: Machinima, WoW Moviewatch
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ekimus Nov 26th 2008 8:03AM
The portion using WoW models and scenes were fine, the hand drawn animation left a lot to be desired.
gundamxzero Nov 26th 2008 1:30PM
Oh god the animation drawings were terrible. HORRIBLE
Eberron Nov 26th 2008 12:13PM
It's based (loosely) on a scene where the music comes from: Final Fantasy 7 Advent Children.
In fact, Bahamut the 'dragon' is what the heroes fight during the scene. :)
Bat Nov 26th 2008 12:11PM
Wacala!!
Maleven Nov 26th 2008 12:28PM
Indeed.
MDC Nov 26th 2008 12:22PM
I seriously watched about 15 seconds once the opening credits passed. I couldn't stand the abrasive sound anymore, or the weird animation.
Elvyra Nov 26th 2008 12:49PM
I agree 100% with you MDC.
Eraj Nov 26th 2008 12:37PM
That made me /facepalm.
Exeter Nov 26th 2008 12:55PM
The transitions were so abrupt that I think I got sensory whiplash.
Coolaliveguy Nov 26th 2008 1:21PM
Just plain bad, I felt that it was put together by a six year old with some sence of knowledge in machinima. Just.....bad...it was..bad.
Ktok Nov 26th 2008 1:48PM
Really un-good... as in, damn, other than the outlined cat druid, this sucked.
And WoW Insider guy? No... that is not what Anime is like. Anime (or good Anime anyway) is extremely expressive. Even when the drawings themselves are very basic, emotion is clearly displayed. This is... well... crap.
Vincent Avatar Nov 26th 2008 1:57PM
That face... It was so... so....
So BADLY DRAWN. Holy crap. That is not anime style face, that is "seventh-grader who has seen at least one episode of Dragonball Z doodled in his math notebook instead of taking notes" style.
Fugly. Awful.
Just... damn. I can't draw, but at least I can admit it.
The WoW graphics that had been overlaid with black outlining looked pretty cool, though.
jurandr Nov 26th 2008 5:32PM
While his animation was smooth, the running scenes were pretty shoddy. For an anime character, there were too many rounded corners, and not enough angles. I cannot stand animation or machinima where the speed of travel of a character doesn't match the motion of the limbs (i.e. legs moving at running speed, while the caracter moves at a walking speed.)
The outline of the dragon was pretty neat, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. The drawing was mediocre, and I really hope it improves in any future videos this guy makes. I felt that the color inversion tool was way too overused, and the slow-motion tool was used at bad times.
All sound was bad.
Overall, 3/10, much room for improvement
Six Nov 26th 2008 6:43PM
This doesn't stink because of style, it stinks because the artist doesn't know the first thing about illustration. He's quite a ways too early into his drawing career to even worry about style. Don't scapegoat this crap with 'anime' style or whatever the hell - he just plain can't draw. It's kind of sad that an entire style of illustration has become synonymous with "complete pieces of crap" thanks to a bunch of teenagers on DeviantArt who attempt to draw by mimicking their favorite show or comic. It's somewhat depressing from an artist's standpoint.
tl;dr
This has nothing to do with style, the guy just sucks; the author doesn't know anything about drawing; and the animator needs to be beat with a sack of hammers for this travesty.
Ærynn Lómëhtar Nov 26th 2008 6:49PM
Calling this fugliness "anime style" is like watching Ren and Stimpy and calling it "american style". Even the Japanese would likely /facepalm this, screaming "Sugoi?! Chigau! Baka da ne!"
Nevertheless, the idea of tracing on top of the 3D stuff has potiential.
uncaringbear Nov 26th 2008 7:39PM
Ugh, this was the first machinima on WoWinsider that I got up and walked out...errr just stopped playing mid-way through. Not to be cruel, but I think the animator needs to work on his drawing skills.
Marco Polaris Nov 26th 2008 7:48PM
Ouch . . . even with the animation woes aside, the direction of the scene itself was kind of uninspiring. Not to mention that watching a "kid" in modern-day clothing whose eyes turn red briefly before becoming dangerous, drawing a magical sword that's disguised as a charm around his neck, and promptly charging down the dragon that was butchering veteran adventurers by the droves just screeches in my ears like the sound a knife makes when it's blade is drawn along a piece of rough steel - against the groove. That is just not really the Warcraft fantasy at any level.
And I'm not even going to touch the art quality, which has already been handled nicely, or the nitpicks, which are really just nitpicks.
Gwiazda Nov 27th 2008 12:51PM
Awful face, you could do it better
The creator of the movie Nov 28th 2008 5:29AM
Now I finally found out where all my youtube views came from.
Thanks Michael Gray, and all you other people that seems to want me purged from the community, love you.
Funny that you write in such a way that you think that I'm not aware of the flaws of the film myself though. : )
You can rest assured though, I won't make something in this quality again.
kkthxbye...