Star Trek : Reunion Episode 1 The Gathering Storm

[BX470299L]

looks like and walks like second life. you need more people in the background walking and

talking to each other.

[DBro65]

Looks like a SIMS episode.

[ROTJ24]

Acting sucks



[stoneman127]

Nicely done. Interesting story and the visuals are pretty good.

[bryanttillman]

well....I do kinda like the Serengeti...animation's a little stiff.

[foosterman0154]

wow.this game is SUCK!!!!!!

[mrlogicalman1]

oh well i look forward to seeing some episodes and commenting on them cheers

[mrlogicalman1]

i suppose you could try using arms to simulate fear, surprise ect. . anyway i hope these stories are not sumat weve seen already . maybe 1 or 2 'Q ' stories would be welcome tho...

[cerberusfilms]

@mrlogicalman1 Haha... Do you play STO?

If not, then you probably won't know that we can't control everything about the characters... There are only a small number of set animations we can use.

The overall story is completely original. The whole premise of this series hasn't been seen in star trek films/series before.

As far as I know, we have no Q involvement...

[mrlogicalman1]

crew expressions dont matter, you can use body language its just as good and easier. aswell as 2/3 crew being on screen on the bridge like the actual tv show is better than 1 at a time since the bridge is so big. to get more in you have to show bridge from a distance, which is not good. maybe if you make the bridge smaller.

[cerberusfilms]

@mrlogicalman1 We can't use a smaller bridge. This is the smallest we can use. Until More bridge assets are made available to us, we have to make do.

Body Language isn't particularly easier either...

Do you play STO?

[mrlogicalman1]

also i think although a big bridge looks nice it is unpractical , aswell as you cant see much of the bridge crew at once like in the show you can clearly see atleast 3 or 4 cast members. you wana see the crew expressions or something theyre too far spaced.. in a battle theyd have to run from console to console.....

[cerberusfilms]

@mrlogicalman1 I actually agree with you on this, but we can't do anything about it for the moment anyway.

Crew Expressions... they're our biggest nightmare... The games facial expressions, even lip movement is extremely difficult to do...

Another reason why episode two has been delayed once more

[mrlogicalman1]

yes they want story but without some space , or nebula scenery, and some technological displays . like say the CONN , or engineering displays to impress them a story on its own will be 'futile' the fight scenes must be short aswell a little is better than too much.

[cerberusfilms]

@mrlogicalman1 This series is different to most Star Trek. Unfortunately it requires some setting up which requires some traditional elements taking a back seat for a couple of episodes.

Ep 2 actually has a lot of exterior shots but the story is based almost entirely on events inside a Starship.

We are limited by what Star Trek Online and particularly the Foundry Toolset have to offer. We have various displays to put it but that takes even more time to do a decent job of overlaying them

[mrlogicalman1]

so boring, people wana see space and stellar objects not be underground

[cerberusfilms]

@mrlogicalman1 Most Star Trek fans want story.

However, We have extremely large scale combat (hopefully to the degree of the latter series of DS9) coming towards the end of the series and Space is shown to it's full potential in STO by the 3rd Episode, when we finally get there. So hopefully we can cover all bases.

Episode 2 is and will be much improved on episode 1.

We have many delays due to it being such a large project but we're pushing forward for a release as soon as possible.

[sajakram1]

i had this starship , id be so happy , people would beg for a tour of the solar sysytem or a blackhole awesome

[CaptJXVille]

I can understand the pilot for a series has some kinks to work out, but overall the concept of applying STO to a series that even non-players could follow is outstanding! Also, the captions of the different ships give it a feel of being further into the future that the last TNG film. I do agree with the comment that our Cardassian character should have more gall in his portrayal of that proud race. In perspective, TNG's pilot wasn't that good when it aired, looked how that ended. SB for EP2.

[tinytottles]

im on STO, and this is truly amazing, may i ask where is the music from, :D cheers.

Vice Admiral Adrian J Buckle C/O USS Victory

Rear Admiral Upper Half 2 C/O USS Independance.

Look me if ya want :D

[cerberusfilms]

@tinytottles The Current theme music is from a royalty free music library. :-)

[JeffreyGodwin]

[iminent=WAUczlR59l2] sweet !

[ageshero]

This is awful... its got that silly horrible Mmo rpg feel.

[holonat]

Almost 10K views! :D

[l3reak]

I don't really like the sound of the Cardassian. He sounds like a Vulcan, he's too calm & flat. He should watch some footage of Cardassians, or you guys should change the character.

The opening was really cool, but I'd prefer if it just focused on one ship rather than a montage. I didn't watch the whole episode, so maybe it explains why they're showing a bunch of ships, but a small focus tends to work better on shorter series.

[regemo]

A pleasure to watch. Best parts for me were the ship and space scenery. And the first scene in the bar with the jazz music. I'm surprised you got the character interactions to actually be watchable. Good editing skills and voice actors.

[MilestonePictures]

This is simply horrid... what did you record this all on different mics? over the net? -_-

[cerberusfilms]

@MilestonePictures Could you be more specific in your reviews please, we can't improve without constructive criticism.

Yes we were forced to record using different setups as we have voice actors from all across the world, UK, US, Australia etc...

We did the best that we could with the equipment we had at the time.

It will be much improved in episode 2

[l3reak]

@cerberusfilms

"It will be much improved in episode 2"

Good to hear. The low quality of some of the recordings bothered me, too, but I know how hard it is to put something like this together. I respect you guys just for putting together a coherent, whole piece.

Actually, the worst thing with the quality isn't that it's bad, it's that it varies. I would suggest trying to make all your recordings sound the same, so it's not jarring when you hear one that sounds worse.

[MilestonePictures]

@cerberusfilms Well the voice acting was pretty awful. as was the script. and the audio quality of the voices.

overall I found it pretty unbearable to watch.

but good luck with episode 2

[Kawil12]

Not bad. Acting is a little stilting but it's good. I thought the lighting was a bit dark but that could just be my setup. Very nice indeed.

[Redliner500]

opening music is from?

[cerberusfilms]

@Redliner500 A Library of music (Pro Scores if I remember correctly), we're in the process of making a new original piece for the series.

[JamesKOgden]

Good job so far, I think the voice acting needs some work. I'd like to say that the music intro is excellent!

[TheHumphreyking]

what is this?

[NCCKILLER]

there sould be a love button on youtube:)

[johnnyhrex]

@NCCKILLER If that happens justin biebers fans will make a love bar visible to the human eye for 2 seconds.

[OhHenryDude]

This is a good first start.. but it is lacking many of the key components that can create a compelling storyline...

Keep improving and you'll get there!!

Some tips:

i) Act naturally. The voice-acting is stilted, it should flow.

ii) Create in-depth characters, including their history. Allow each character's past to be revealed during the show's run.

iii) Use mood to enhance the story.

Good luck, all the best!

[Browncoat1984]

@OhHenryDude I agree with all of your points, especially the voice acting. This is so often the problem with fan productions, whether they involve voice acting or physical acting, the acting is so stilted that its distracting. I think the best voice acting was the female trill captain, she was great and she should give pointers to the other actors. Also, try to remove microphone distortion as it can also be distracting

[cerberusfilms]

@OhHenryDude i) That's being worked on and we won't release Episode 2 until we're happy with it

ii) We're already doing that, each script focuses on a different character. If you want to read more about the characters go to star trek reunion .com and look for the character bios :-)

iii) Already doing this aswell :-)

Thanks for the comment though

[greenfrogthing77]

It was alright, though the voice acting was a rough. I think it was Dax Hamilton who was awful....I don't say that to be rude, but when you played it back couldn't you tell he was really trying to over-act way too much and be to soft with his tone?

[cerberusfilms]

@greenfrogthing77 hehe, Dax was played by me :-P And yes it was awful, I do promise that it'll be better in episode 2.

[duanewoods]

for a first episode i am very impressed at the work and care that was put into this series, can't wait to see the rest of the episodes, grats for an excellent 1st episode

[yokorose]

there was some nice voice acting in that and cant not wait to see the next part really love hearing the acters

[Stu82r]

Good to see some STO Machinima. Really nice to watch and im sure they are only going to get better. Keep them coming. :)

[Yurai81]

Maybe Cortak might have been the aggressive one (being a tactical officer) and she could have tried to calm him down with her wisdom and be the mediator between the two groups. And this may have contributed to Cortak’s current diplomatic demeanor. Of course her “aggressiveness” may be due to her personality but I do hope I was able to point out what I mean.

I hope you won’t mind my humble opinion. Looking forward for the rest of the series. Good luck.

[Yurai81]

She and Cortak looked down on them and almost called them morons. And the funny thing is that the Klingon captain wasn’t bothered with this. Instead he made up other reasons to be angry. If I was a peaceful Klingon, I would try to kill them after they insult me like that. I think a Federation captain, especially a Trill with so many lives under her belt could be a bit more diplomatically manipulative than that.

[Yurai81]

Chep is obviously a comic relief and being Tellarite his temper is a sign of his race. And even though I found his “customer is always right” mentality to be a bit archaic for a 25th century Federation captain a bit unfitting, I didn’t mind it because that’s his character. However, in my opinion there were some problems with Lynya’s lines. She, herself said Federation’s first mission is to peace however she constantly attacked the klingons verbally.

[Survic84401]

Nicely done. It's amazing what you can do with STO. I'd love to learn to do this kind of thing someday. Enjoyed the show, can't wait to see the upcoming episodes.

@Krothos on STO.

[cerberusfilms]

@Survic84401 We'll be putting out a couple of tutorials as episodes go by if people want them.

[SmedleyDouwright]

I'm looking forward to episode 2.

[igard81]

This was great. Very well performed and a great premise.

Well done and, keep it up.

[FiveofDave]

I love the opening credits theme, absolutely beautiful. Did Devon write it? Will it ever be available as a sound file? Thanks for this enjoyable first episode!

[cerberusfilms]

@FiveofDave No she didn't but she may be writing the new piece. The current piece is a slightly altered premade score from a music library.

Thanks :-)

[MCATS1]

Hello. I think the program you've made is absolutely amazing using STO and you've really proved that there are some talented people out there... you: D

Yours thankfully and sincerely,

Alan - Evo@Droc-lionia - FED VA Jupiter Force

[enforcerknight]

The Reman part was my bad,lol, with the dark lighting and the cape, it made him look like a reman,lol, sorry. I posted my hole post on the sto forums in your topic, YouTube would not let my post any more,lol. And i am looking forward to part two, and if you would like any outside input, i'm always avalible. SO you know, i make wedding dvds as a hobby and helped other with Sim video's, Plus you might here me of the radio every week,lol.

[enforcerknight]

2-For quick reshots of a single toon, get all your cast to save there toon and go to:

C:\Users\Public\Games\Cryptic Studios\Star Trek Online\Live\screenshots and get them to send you there toons pic that's the .jpg image that is 300x400. You place these in your folder and you can load them in your game.

[cerberusfilms]

@enforcerknight We're already recostuming all the Actors, none of the main characters are actually costumed in the correct costumes. So we're a couple steps ahead of you there ;-P

Thanks for your feedback though.

I hope you'll stick around to watch our (much improved) Episode 2. We learned a lot from this one. And of course... if the first is perfection, there's nothing to work towards ;-)

[enforcerknight]

1- You took the time to make this, i'll take the time to help you. First, shoot your table talking in Tribble, and yse the vivox by teaming up with a cast mate and hitting B so your mouth moves. You don't need to rebuild the hole sceane, jest a wall in the back is needed.

[cerberusfilms]

@enforcerknight We'll be using Vivox as soon as it hits Holodeck, we won't use it on tribble (especially in it's current condition) as any patch on tribble could invalidate the demo files recorded or put the Foundry out of action again.

[enforcerknight]

And as a viewer, why were the Remans fighting the away team? Klingon's don't hide under a hood.

The scenes in the cave are way to dark to enjoy the show, and the bar table scenes IMHO is the worse. Ither the table is to big, or its the seating, or its the camra, or all that kills the feeling of being organic.

Now you probably hate me, and for that i'm sorry but you need this feed back to challenge your self as a film maker so that your next project with be better.

[cerberusfilms]

@enforcerknight They were not remans and none of them were wearing hoods, I'm not sure where you got that from.

I'm afraid that was as bright as they could be, brightening them in post production made them look awful.

the bar scenes, I see where you're coming from, we're working on that aswell (again, game limitations)

I don't hate you :-P We've picked up on just about everything you've talked about, I've been a film-maker for 6 years, believe me, I'm already challenging myself and the team :-P

[TheHirdyGirdy]

@cerberusfilms i thought they were hoods too, it was probably the hair and the fact that you couldnt see any faces due to bad lighting

[enforcerknight]

This is my one big turn off of this show, it feels rushed and sloppy, like reusing scenes where the Klingon's shoulder pads fade out and in or that really cool ground scene before the fight where you see 3 shadows that belong to no one.

There are some points story wise that make no seance, like the Vulcan saying "it should have been me", an emotional response, and why did the commander report in after beaming to the ground? This could have been a cool transporter room scene.

[cerberusfilms]

@enforcerknight unfortunately we didn't see that until it came time for the exporting, (the shoulder pads i mean).

The shadows are a problem with the ingame lighting, as much as we tried, there was nothing we could do about it.

It makes perfect sense as Aurius is not a pure vulcan, we're releasing the bios very soon and later episodes make it very clear.

Limitations of the game made this very difficult I'm afraid, and linking in with the script aswell would have been tricky.

[enforcerknight]

First i would like to say, Great effert from you and your cast.

I loved the title shot, awesome, but the rest was...

This all seemed rushed. First, don't give any release dates until you have a 100% finished copy that is checked and screened by you and your staff, hence the last part of the show was missing lines. Once this is done, set a date a week later to give your self time to advertise, and fix things if need be.

[cerberusfilms]

@enforcerknight lordy where do i begin.... erm... thanks for the feedback....

yes, this first episode was slightly rushed, but for different reasons than you're thinking.

[AlexOoiue]

Storyline was great yeah. The character's were fun but the KDF captain was just dumb. No KDF captain in my experience would act that way and personally, I would just kill the officers then and there with my KDF to get them out of the way. They were armed so it not be dishonourable :P

The dialogue of this was like the others have said, dry and wooden. No ambient sounds in the background.

Its your first episode so there are bound to be some difficulties.

[Magmafire2374]

I enjoyed this very much. My only grip is that the intro with the ships is too long IMO. Maybe have the intro with the characters instead of the ships to get us familiarized with the cast better?

[cerberusfilms]

@Magmafire2374 This is something I REALLY WANT TO DO... it's something we're working on, I want it to look just right though so it's taking some time. we may have it ready in time for episode 2

[cerberusfilms]

Thanks everyone for your constructive criticism, it;s appreciated.

We learn't a lot from Episode 1, in terms of what works and what doesn't.

We had a lot for problems with VO's this time, due to people recording on different systems and setups all over the world, we have worked out ways of recording and editing now that will balance the Voice Overs out better.

There is an ambient sound running through ALL of the cave scenes, perhaps it wasn't loud enough due to the dialogue. I'll look into it

[deke76]

My comments are basically the same as dracopalin's. The audio breaks immersion and needs work. Other than that, very cool! It's nice to see original stories coming out like this.

[holonat]

Excellent work!

- That intro was absolutely beautiful!

- Great choice of background music

- Nice sound effects and editing, however, some sounds are a little loud when characters are talking

- The story is very well-written, and the characters were very well done.

- Voice acting was great, especially the part with the preserver.

- Chep is quite a character! (Hope you get that last dialogued fixed)

- Amazing use of the Foundry, especially Starfleet Academy!

[dracopalin]

over all not bad, the camera work is nice and yes the title sequence is Epic.my complaint,and I am trying to be constructive not rude.you need to find a way to do your lines all in the same room responding to one another. There is no organic feel to your acting.its very wooden and dry.

one more thing...find a way to get the ambient sound to play during your dialogue.the dead silence when you speak is an emersion killer. That said I look forward to episode 2. good luck..

[Galactrix2000]

Still seems to have a silent Chep at the end?

[cerberusfilms]

@Galactrix2000 Yep working on that. It's in the exported file when played but doesn't upload to youtube... which is REALLY weird, I'm trying to fix it :-)

[icampbell444]

Beautifully done!