Ok, so since I'm currently doing university while re-booting this, I won't have time to go into massive amounts of detail about the behind the scenes until next Summer, but to keep you in the light for the time being, I'll be presenting little updates like I did while working on Super Sheep in Hex-o's Exos during my time in college. With that out of the way, let's get going.
Update: 4/11/2022
Right now, I'm currently generating ideas for what this new version of the project is going to be:
Of course, since this is supposed to introduce all the characters, I'll need to think about how I can concisely communicate everyone's motivations to the audience without breaking the flow of the whole story
It didn't take me too long to think about each one to be honest although I'd say idea 3 is definitely my favourite out of the lot due to the potential for establishing a boat load of elements right off the bat.
Now I can begin working out what I want the characters to be like in terms of personality
Update: 5/11/2022
The way I'm choosing to go about this is that I'll write out two character descriptions, one of which will be how the character in question views themselves (which will be written in character so that I can get into their headspace) and another that explains their whole deal from a more neutral perspective to contrast what the character has to say about themselves.
I don't know if anyone else does this but I think it'll really help with characterisation in the future
Update: 10/1/2023
Ok, so I've managed to get all the main character cards finished and while I was doing this I ended up thinking to myself "you know, I'm not entirely sure I want to go with the plot where they try and stop the assassination of the human prime minister". With this in mind, I think I'll change it into what I had with idea 2 where Hex Moother tricks an army of crabs into trying to kill the non-crustacean population:
Before I did this however, I ended up finding out about yet another piece of open source editing software known as Kdenlive. With this in mind, I think I would like to give it a try by taking up a small project where I go and re-re-make my "PS2 Disc Intro but it's the PS5" (you know, the video I already made twice) as a means to experiment with Kdenlive (so if all goes well I may even use it as my primary editing software for personal projects), so without further ado:
Let's Get Busy
Since I have the next two weeks off of university due to the assessment period, I'll be able to go into more detail about what's happening here.
While I was busy doing the later character cards (I.E: Antler-Man and the like), I ended up deciding to port some of the original footage I recorded for the previous two versions of this video as well as recording new footage for games such as Minecraft, Astro's Playroom and even Sonic Frontiers since I'm at a point where I can use an even wider variety of games than last time. (also any excuse to insert Sonic into things is a plus)
I also went ahead and added in the PS4 Ratchet and Clank game to show off the backwards compatibility and I also plan on showcasing the cross platform play feature.
Recording all the footage was one of the easiest things in the world since all I had to do was hit the record button, play the game I want to record footage from, stop after a certain period of the time and boom, instant gaming footagem which I would then put onto my pendrive because this is supposed to be me experimenting with Kdenlive.
Of course, if we look at the original PS2 demo disc video this is all based on, some of the footage they use comes from video game cutscenes rather than gameplay:
Under normal circumstances, if I wanted to get the cinematics for a game like Sonic Frontiers, I would have to start that game all over again and remember to record the cinematics this time (which would take a little bit of time for the small bits of footage I want to use in the end). Luckily, I have a plan.
The plan involves me effectively using VLC Media Player's ability to stream internet videos combined with the video information feature to download footage I didn't record myself. How do I plan on doing this? let's go through it step by step
Step 1: Find video on the internet:
Step 2: copy paste the video's URL, open a network stream on VLC Media Player and paste the URL to get the video playing (I did this after trying to fix the functionality because it stopped working one day):
Step 3: go to the "tools" tab and click on either the "Media Information" or the "Codec Information" button (they both open the same window regardless so the choice is yours):
Step 4: copy the "location" URL just above the close button but below all the other bits of information.
Step 5: paste this URL into a new or existing internet browser tab and find yourself on a page like this:
Step 6: download the video:
Step 7: repeat until I have every video I need for the PS5 video.
Now that I've got the Sonic Frontiers cutscenes, I just need to show off both the cross platform play feature (which I will do via recording Minecraft: Bedrock Edition footage on my PC to go alongside the PS4 footage I already recorded previously) and even the PS-now service (mainly the part with the classic games despite the fact I'm not really a fan of said service) as a means of making the video seem more authentic. As such, how will I get footage of games from the PS1, PS2 and PS3 despite those consoles not having native recording functionality and the fact I don't have external capture cards for any of them? Well for this I will be delving into the world of video game emulation using two pieces of software called "Retroarch" (which is technically more of a front-end for emulation cores such as PicoDrive and PCSX1) and "PCSX2" (which is its own emulation core) to actually play the PlayStation 1 and 2 games. (since I already know my gaming PC can handle emulating those consoles)
I feel like I should explain what the heck emulation even is before we continue so without further ado...
What The Heck Is An Emulator?
The term "emulator" (mostly associated with video games) refers to software that tries its very best to mimic another piece of hardware (I.E: A PS2) in order to allow you to run software that wasn't meant to run on the hardware you're currently running it on, I.E: playing old SEGA Mega Drive games on a PC. Usually this sort of stuff is associated with homebrew software created for PCs but companies such as SEGA and even Nintendo use it for games and services such as Sonic Mega Collection for the PlayStation 2 (which uses emulation for all the Sonic Mega Drive and Game Gear games. Oh, that includes Ooze and Comix Zone too) and even the entire virtual console line of games spanning from the Nintendo Wii all the way to the Nintendo Wii U (which mainly focused on old Nintendo games from the NES to the Nintendo 64 with a few of GBA, DS and Wii games added during the Wii U's time).
How emulators work is that you take a ROM file for any given game for a given console (I.E: Sonic Spinball for the SEGA Mega Drive) and you use an emulator (in our case, the version of PicoDrive on Retroarch) in order to effectively trick the game into thinking that it is running on original hardware when in reality, that's not the case.
I should also say that depending on how you choose to go about emulating games the legality can be questionable, especially if you grab random ROM files from the internet (like I've done) rather than dumping the game (where you put the contents of a copy of the game you own onto your PC) yourself (which is what you're technically supposed to do in the first place) but as someone who's been using emulators to play older titles for a while now, I find it to be quite fun.
Recording the Ratchet, Crash and Minecraft footage on my PC wasn't very hard thanks to OBS Studio (which I can confirm, is still better than Loom in every way) was easy since all I had to do was press the record button, play the games for a bit and I was good to go. The Minecraft Bedrock PC footage did take a little bit of extra set up but it was still easy.
As for stealing the footage from Ayee and GLHalcyon, that was a bit difficult at first but once I got VLC's streaming function working again it was a synch, but the videos took a long time to actually download.
Now that that's all out of the way, it's time to actually get on with the editing process
The Editing Process
Much like with Shotcut, Vegas and Premier Pro, I'll need to go ahead and assemble all the files I need into a project bin so that I can pick and choose which ones to put into this project.
due to the amount of files I've got in this project, I'll need to wait for all of them to process. Another thing I have to wait for afterwards is the creation of what are known as the "proxy" versions of all the clips. (which are basically lower resolution versions of the recorded clips meant to make editing more manageable) With this in mind, it's a perfect opportunity for me to begin writing Super Sheep in Crustacean Chaos while waiting.
It's Writing Time
This line is used in order to let the film crew and actors know where a prospective scene is supposed to take place, thus allowing the storyboard and animatic departments to draw up the rough backgrounds.
Back To The Editing
Now where were we...
Right now I'm getting a feel for the editing software itself since I never really did much testing with it before hand so this should be an interesting process.
I'll mainly be using these to turn the volume up and down on various clips but I might experiment with moving some of the clips around in strange ways.
I speculate that if I can just figure out how to add in a transition that isn't a cut by using these "compositions" (as Kdenlive calls them), the potential for taking this version of the video to the next level will increase dramatically.
all it took was for me to utilise the ability to have more than one main video (and to a lesser extent audio) track to place one video on top of the other!
Now if I could just figure out where those text tools are kept, I can...
Not to mention I also have an effects search bar I could use to help me find the effect instead.
Here in Kdenlive, you've got to instead right click on the clip you want to speed up or slow down and select "change speed", from there you can change the speed via a slider or even by typing it manually in the percentage box.
Ok so as it turns out, I can add in more than just pictures and clips. I can also add in things like title cards, colour clips (which are just a solid colour that can be set to any colour you want, perfect for black screens or flashes of white) and more. This will prove to be quite a nifty little feature. I also found out that much like with Adobe Premier Pro, I can adjust the default duration of images, thus rendering meaning the one potentially good thing that would have made me consider switching to Adobe isn't actually exclusive at all, allowing me to effectively replace Premier Pro, Davinchi Resolve and Vegas with little to no issue.
I have a feeling figuring out how to do the split shot is going to be relatively difficult, so I'll need to figure out how to get it to work
Ok, so all I had to do was put one piece of footage over the top of the other, apply the "position and zoom" effect to both clips, make them 50 percent smaller and then place them side by side to get the desired effect.
Now all I need to do is get the proxy clips back to full resolution and start rendering the whole thing out
Well, I would say that overall, this experiment with Kdenlive has turned out to be a rousing success. As such, it will effectively be replacing ShotCut as my primary video editor.
Granted, I did end up confusing PlayStation Now for PlayStation Plus and I didn't end up using every piece of footage in the video itself (especially since using all the footage would likely have been impossible) but it was nice that I got to use a variety of games rather than it coming off as a showcase for one game with a few others strewn about, especially since I'm doing this now while the PS5 has more games available for it rather than closer to launch when the only note worthy games (that I owned) were Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Astro's Playroom.
I also liked having an excuse to shoe-horn Sonic The Hedgehog into things via Sonic Frontiers footage.
Now that I've finished this video and established that Kdenlive is a viable option moving forward, it's time to get back to making the script for Super Sheep in Crustacaen Chaos.
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