Here's a project I think a lot of people missed including myself. Its cgi film that came out in Dec according to IMDB. Terrence Stamp and John Hurt are some of the voice actors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarines:_The_Movie You can buy it here: http://ultramarinesthemovie.com/
I've recently seen it. The animation leaves a fair bit to be desired, it's better than Doctor Who Dreamland, but not by much and they obviously ran out of budget and had to scrimp on a lot of the textures. But it's elevated from mediocrity by the script and the high quality of voice talent used. Every actor is pitch perfect in my opinion. While it may not be worth forking out £26 on the collectors version, it will be in stores in the UK in the new year for a cheaper price and it's worth a look if you like the Games Workshop settings. And it does bode well for future releases. Ultramarines was the first cgi film made by Codex Pictures, and if they can get the voice and script right first time round, a little bit of extra cash should make their next efforts even better.
Just had a look at the trailer on youtube and I have to say the animation looks surprisingly poor. I seam to remember the pre-rendered cutscenes in the DoW games being of a much higher technical quality as well as being better animated by a very wide margin.
Honestly, I wish they had used regular 2D animation for this. Pure CGI stuff doesn't really have the flow of 2D and with CG as bad as this, they would've been better hiring some animation studio to do everything and saving the CGI for ships/vehicles.
I came to a conclusion...while the CGI isnt the absolute best, its really evident they put a lot of effort into it, there's a lot of minute detail in the armor and the atmosphere FX are believable. I don't really know anything about the Warhammer universe, but I did at least find the story engrossing. RAMA
A game might have, I dunno, 10 minutes worth of pre-rendered material vs seven or eight times that for a full movie. A movie requires a lot more money and time.
^I'm aware of that and I can understand the concept of budget limitations but I've seen actual game play footage of certain games that looks better than some of this and that's rendered in real time. I think the real difference is that this film was key animated when perhaps it should have been a performance capture job.
I was a Warhammer/40K player for close to 20 years now (not anymore but that's another story) so i'll give it a shot. To put it bluntly.. the movie sucked.. hard. When i watch a TV show or a movie (usually at my computer) and start looking at other websites without pausing what i was watching it usually means i lost interest and this happend quite frequently during Ultramarines. Technically it was mediocre to say the least. The animations were stiff, the general vibe was a bit soulless and it just didn'r click. The story was boring as hell.. rookies need to investigate a mystery while led by 2 veterans who spout off the usual one liners to show they have experienced more. For most of the movie they are just wandering through the haze and nothing happens.. it got boring real fast. Then we have their enemies.. Chaos Marines. To put it into perspective.. Chaos Marines are the evil equivalent of Space Marines who broke their oath to the Empire 10.000 years ago which resulted in a huge, galaxywide civil war which could only by stopped by huge sacrifices and losses. So they should be the equals of Space Marines at least.. equipment wise, skills and tactics yet here they attack mindlessly towards the Ultras getting shot down because they rush at them over open ground Perfect example of the Stormtrooper trope and it had me very disappointed. Then the storyline with the possession of the Captain.. been there, done that a thousand times over.. boring. That movie was awaited by the community with great anticipation.. up until then we only had small minimovies out of games and the occasional pre-rendered cut scene from these so a full feature movie was something very exciting. Sad to say they dropped the ball on that one and only due to story.. i get it that they probably didn't have the funds of a major hollywood studio but there's little excuse to have such an uninspired and boring movie. The 40K universe has such a rich background and it was nowhere to be seen.. there's so much cool in it that you could have drawn up one heck of a story but we got something that seemed to come from a beginner. Wasted opportunity that movie.
I didn't think it was too bad. It was incredible short and with that you pay the price in character development and in some extents the story. The budget probably had a lot to do with that and it almost seemed like a cautious approach to their first foray into film. The voice actors were good and so was the sound and the music really set the mood. It was Gothic and imposing. While the animation wasn't Avatar in quality I think it did do quite a bit in setting the mood and in bringing at least some of the universe alive. It was difficult to keep track of who was who as the Ultramarines all looked the same when in full armour. The Apothecary was easy as he was in white and Severus had a helm and chainsword. The only difference from most of the others was their chest plates had slightly different emblems, oh and the land speeder gunner had a red helmet. But by far the best looking character was an Imperial Fist Chaplain. It was fairly gory but not quite on the levels as depicted in the novels or comics. Plus the Marines all fell a tad easily. They were against Chaos Space Marines but quite a few just dropped to one shot and save for one guy they were all killed, no fighting on through horrific injuries, which Space Marines are often depicted as doing. On FPAlpha comment on the Black Legion's attack, it doesn't make much sense if their primary goal was to wipe out the entire Ultramarine squad, but that wasn't the ultimate goal of Chaos. I'm tending towards Silent Bob's view, decent first hit out and there is enough good in there to be hopeful of the future.