EARLY ACCESS - Random Space Engineers bullshittery (part 3)

Good evening everyone. I hope you've had a smashing Christmas with lots of good food. Over on this end I took Lulu to my nans on Christmas Day. And there she was thoroughly spoilt with attention and treats, to the point that she was completely exhausted by the day's end. She slept like a log the entire night.

And what good is Christmas if you can't humiliate your pets by having them wear ugly festive jumpers, am I right?

I've managed to complete the latest Youtube project, which takes the form of Random Space Engineers (part 3). And it's available for early viewing to Patrons here, for those interested - https://youtu.be/ayEINfBKvzg 

My apologies for missing the last weekend deadline so thoroughly. The quality assurance process, which started at the end of last week, proved to be much more complicated than I'd expected.

In addition to the usual error fixes, I found that there were several After Effects compositions that were "good", but needed overhauling in order to make them "great". With many opportunities to use 3D text, which is generally pretty fiddly and doesn't really have any shortcuts. You've just got to eyeball it until it looks right.

And I also found that some scenes were better trimmed in order to improve the pace. This led to the problem of having to add additional sequences to make up the run time. Meaning that the quality assurance process involved a lot of difficult, fresh editing. I'm hoping you'll approve of the end result though.

So structurally, the video uses the usual bullshittery rhythm, compared to other more narrative focused videos like the Arma antistasi stuff. With many opportunities to use particle effects and three-dimensional keyframing to play with the space physics and the lunar gravity.

Additionally, this bullshittery sees the first use of the Pixel Polly tool. Something new I've been experimenting with. This lets me split my text boxes into hundreds of tiny polygons, which I can then control by keyframing velocity and gravity. Therefore, rather than simply break up the text letter by letter, I can now make the words explode into a cloud of particles that then bounce around in the scene in a rather cool fashion. You'll see this demonstrated in the final scene, where 6-7 different text layers explode into their own independently keyframed debris clouds.

And there's plenty of remaining Space Engineers clips in the master file. Another bullshittery is certainly available for the future if you'd like to see more.

Anyway, let me know what you think. Either in the comments below or in the video. And I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas. And have an excellent New Year.