“Karate Jane” – A high-energy 3D animated martial arts short inspired by 80s action films! All characters were created in CC4 and brought to life with iClone 8 and Unreal Engine 5.3. Watch now.
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OK, here we go.
The good:
- Pacing and editing
- Character motions
- Camera work
- Jane’s eye movement
The so-so:
- Quality of the render (for UE), image seems a bit blurry at times (I’m not talking about DOF); there also appear to be a few issues with transparencies with regard to Jane’s hair and the background (e.g. at 0:21, 1:15)
- Foot contact could be improved in a few instances.
The not so good:
- Some ugly distortions/stretching on clothing, especially for the more extreme moves.
- Nobody seems to exert any kind of effort, not breathing faster/harder, etc. Looks like something from a game (not in a good way).
- A number of (modern) tropes: the uber-competent girl fighter who wipes the floor with her opposition, opponents waiting their turn to fight instead of leveraging their superior number. Maybe that is because the video is supposed to be inspired by actions movies of the 1980s but to me it just looks not very realistic. But perhaps that was the point.
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Loved it! A fun three minutes with some fantastic visuals (felt like Drive meets Squid Games) that made me pause and rewind more than once. Overall it does feel that style is emphasized over the intensity of the action (I think this kinda goes into Nirwanas comment about the lack of effort) but I was good with that. Kind of a neon slo mo vibe out of a Winding Refn flick.
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Thanks so much for your feedback, am working on those technical issues as it’s a learning process to work with animation in iClone and UE. Will improve in the next work.
Yes, this piece leans more on style—lighting, mood, and even the fights. Unlike Batman’s grounded brawling, Karate Jane channels the flashy kicks of ‘80s-‘90s HK martial arts films. Thanks for watching the film.