What changed
0 fixes0 additions3 changes1 removal
removedSome of you might remember that the first trailer we had wasn't exactly great. It was something created over 6 months ago, meant as a teaser; however, compared to the game, it has not aged well. We realized that in order for the game to get some traction we'd need to create something better. Fun fact about the old one, after we've removed it from Steam, the game seems to have done better in terms of impressions and wishlists so it's clear it was actually doing us a disservice.
changedSince neither of us had done any marketing before this, we were learning as we went, encountering a learning curve with some aspects. I don't believe I've ever considered what makes a trailer good before but pondering about it for a while, I realized that it first needs to captivate the audience and then inform them about the game's features, progression, and general gameplay.
changedThe duststorm, a highly anticipated feature, was still in the experimental stage. We had no meteor strikes, and another threat, which we'll discuss later, was only in the conceptual stage. We've had medical beds in for a while but without any sickness there's nothing much to show. The mining equipment, even though fully functional, had no animations and while that can look great in screenshots, it doesn't work as well in video footage. The list here goes on.
changedSolving the Dust stormIn order to work well within the game the effect has to do 3 things: 1. It needs to be stable spatially. The player can pause the game and then move and rotate the camera, so any tiny piece of dust needs to stay where it is. 2. It needs to have a constant density in relation to the zoom level. Otherwise said, it should look just as dusty when zoomed in as it does when zoomed out. This as it turns out is not something that works well with the first point. 3. It needs to not draw in certain parts of the screen like where the base is or where colonists are (even though colonists should not be out and about in such events)
Red Dust Colony changes
removedSome of you might remember that the first trailer we had wasn't exactly great. It was something created over 6 months ago, meant as a teaser; however, compared to the game, it has not aged well. We realized that in order for the game to get some traction we'd need to create something better. Fun fact about the old one, after we've removed it from Steam, the game seems to have done better in terms of impressions and wishlists so it's clear it was actually doing us a disservice.
changedSince neither of us had done any marketing before this, we were learning as we went, encountering a learning curve with some aspects. I don't believe I've ever considered what makes a trailer good before but pondering about it for a while, I realized that it first needs to captivate the audience and then inform them about the game's features, progression, and general gameplay.
changedThe duststorm, a highly anticipated feature, was still in the experimental stage. We had no meteor strikes, and another threat, which we'll discuss later, was only in the conceptual stage. We've had medical beds in for a while but without any sickness there's nothing much to show. The mining equipment, even though fully functional, had no animations and while that can look great in screenshots, it doesn't work as well in video footage. The list here goes on.
changedIn order to work well within the game the effect has to do 3 things: 1. It needs to be stable spatially. The player can pause the game and then move and rotate the camera, so any tiny piece of dust needs to stay where it is. 2. It needs to have a constant density in relation to the zoom level. Otherwise said, it should look just as dusty when zoomed in as it does when zoomed out. This as it turns out is not something that works well with the first point. 3. It needs to not draw in certain parts of the screen like where the base is or where colonists are (even though colonists should not be out and about in such events)
Some of you might remember that the first trailer we had wasn't exactly great. It was something created over 6 months ago, meant as a teaser; however, compared to the game, it has not aged well. We realized that in order for the game to get some traction we'd need to create something better. Fun fact about the old one, after we've removed it from Steam, the game seems to have done better in terms of impressions and wishlists so it's clear it was actually doing us a disservice.
Since neither of us had done any marketing before this, we were learning as we went, encountering a learning curve with some aspects. I don't believe I've ever considered what makes a trailer good before but pondering about it for a while, I realized that it first needs to captivate the audience and then inform them about the game's features, progression, and general gameplay.
So we sat down and came up with a script that does just that. First a pleasant looking, advanced base and then a walkthrough of the features, explained by narrator building up until the end. Writing the features part of the script however, made us realize that we are in fact lagging with some of them.
The duststorm, a highly anticipated feature, was still in the experimental stage. We had no meteor strikes, and another threat, which we'll discuss later, was only in the conceptual stage. We've had medical beds in for a while but without any sickness there's nothing much to show. The mining equipment, even though fully functional, had no animations and while that can look great in screenshots, it doesn't work as well in video footage. The list here goes on.
Solving the Dust storm
The first effect created for this looked pretty good but it didn't really work that well with zooming in and out and it didn't actually allow seeing the base through the storm. At that time I used photo editing software to test out what the final effect would look like by deleting the dust over the base using a mask.
In order to work well within the game the effect has to do 3 things:
- It needs to be stable spatially. The player can pause the game and then move and rotate the camera, so any tiny piece of dust needs to stay where it is.
- It needs to have a constant density in relation to the zoom level. Otherwise said, it should look just as dusty when zoomed in as it does when zoomed out. This as it turns out is not something that works well with the first point.
- It needs to not draw in certain parts of the screen like where the base is or where colonists are (even though colonists should not be out and about in such events)
I spent a few good days trying things and nothing seemed to work as well as I wanted it. Eventually I zoned in on a sort of idea and as I was doing research further I found out that this is essentially what a technique called "ray marching" is even though my math was a bit more specialized for case in the game. The good thing about it is that since this is a graphics area that's got lots of enthusiasts it means there are a lot of examples to look at and plenty of things to read. Sadly, I hit a bit of a wall because none of the examples that I've seen out there
