[Souls wanted] Help make the Release Trailer!

After releasing the Gameplay Teaser, the general feedback was that our release trailer needs to be bigger, badder and as epic as it gets. In this sense, I've decided to focus on showing off the most impressive and visually stunning parts of zero-k, even if it doesn't perfectly represent the common zero-k game.

Unlike my previous videos, I would like to keep this one unreleased until the actual game release is announced. But there's still a reason for me to make this thread: I know there are many of you with the ability to make great gifs, now this will be your chance to make a part of the official trailer! (You'll also get to see it before anybody else)

This means I'm looking for concepts, ideas and most preferably actual footage. Before you start investing all your time in recording your idea, be sure to let us know about it so we can give some feedback. The recordings should be in 1920x1080 or higher resolution, feel free to share them with others on the forums.

To start things off, here's an animation I made as a possible introductory shot:



Don't be discouraged by criticism on the forums, I know how much time goes into recording a simple clip and I'll be happy for every recording available for the trailer.
Help make this the trailer zero-k deserves!

Generally what I'd recommend is to first try ShadowPlay(Nvidia only), but even though my card supports it it doesn't work for Spring in my case. So the next thing I'd recommend is OBS Studio but that didn't work for me either as it never achieved 60 fps.

In the end I had to resort to using old fraps again. Together with a RAM Disk this allows me to record 60fps 2560x1440 footage, but really uses every last resource the PC has to offer.

For recording I'd recommend slowing the game down to half or third speed and if it still stutters (as it did in my case) disable all UI widgets. As camera I used the FPS Camera which allows free rotation in all directions without the added performance cost of COFC. When the video is sped up in editing, it will mitigate the lags you experienced at slower speeds.

Make sure to turn up all the graphics effects to the max before recording. They most likely won't impact performance as Spring is usually CPU bottlenecked. Also check the ingame settings for things like HDR and dynlights.

Use your keyboard for camera movements, ctrl and shift can slow down/speed up the camera.

Alternatively there are widgets to animate camera movements and render animations, but then you'll have to run every game twice or more.

Wow, pretty cool intro DeinFreund!
It could be improved by showing what it does with the moon, does it push it away? Not clear because camera also changes.

Regarding trailer we can totally show standard ingame footage, in fact huge battles with lots of going on is pretty much "mandatory" feature of the trailer, because that looks reasonably well.

In terms of ideas, a nice-looking section could be as follows:

- base with a shield and an annihilator
- cloacker with 3-4 jacks is moving toward base
- when close, jacks jump out of cloacker and start invading the base and destroy the anni

Funny, I never had this impression. But we can remove the shield from my scenario. Cloacker is required though.

what is the timebox to submit footage?

I'll start by saying the the video is stunning, however, I have some critical issues with its planned use.
1) No clearly stated goals - Is it supposed to complement the current trailer? To replace it?

2) It is too long. Trailers that are the first interaction of a potential player with ZK have to be 1:00 - 1:30 long. 30 seconds before showing anything ingame or exploding is way too much.
This leads me to the next point.

3) You have to start with action or with something that resembles it, you have a single digit number of seconds to grab a watcher's attention. While we know what Zenith is, no one else does and curiosity doesn't exist unless it's artificially produced (may be difficult to do that in 5 seconds). Remember that explosions are universally understood.

4) Forget that it's difficult to see that the zenith moves the moon, even if it was clear it puts us in a very big problem: Comparison with PA.
We don't want to be compared to PA in any way. If people think you can crash moons into stuff in ZK due to the trailer and ZK doesn't deliver? terrible! If people say: "it's a PA clone!"? maybe even worse. We may be able to live with: "this is how PA should have been", but that's also bad.
Starlight may be preferable, or if you can think of a way to show Zenith doing what it does ingame without implying any remote association to PA.

That intro video looks cool but I don't think it achieves its purpose. It spends 25 seconds doing very little when it should be showing what Zero-K is really about. The significance of the Zenith will be lost on most people. The double planet system also makes it look like we're trying to be PA.

Well yes, however, the trailer should not create inaccurate expectations. Also, if a trailer looks like it's going to take a long time to show me anything relevant then I'm unlikely to watch it to the end. Zenith opening sequence is not cool enough to overcome those two issues.

quote: (Also consider Tron trailer defeated Feature trailer in the A/B test and it shows comparatively little of ZK)

You say this to cast doubt on my judgement. However, I don't think you think that I think that feature trailer is a good trailer. True, its issues do not stem from not showing gameplay relevant things. It has many other issues though so I expect it to lose at A/B testing vs Tron. Also, Tron has a lot of ZK in it even going so far as to show the UI and raiding.

We cannot really compete with AAA budgeted games at CGI. But this zenith thing is awesome, catches attention and creates a mystery. If it's followed by gameplay footage then its fine..

Gameplay should focus on our strength, like units in actions, avoiding, running around, advancing and retreating in chaotic patterns etc.. We cannot match Supcom visuals and epic feel, but notice how its units are more or less static, while ZK can look very dynamic with much faster action, flashes, explosions etc..

Combine that with some cool scene like amphib attack, sumo or even some silly newton stuff and it's done imo.

Even if people move the video slider during the zenith thing they will move it to action and the zenith just makes the game look more pro and polished.