Random Mount & Blade Bullshittery - Update #7

Good evening folks. It's the second week of the second half of the Mount & Blade bullshittery on Youtube. Here's an update on progress.

So midway last week I predicted I'd be at roughly the 18 minute mark by now, aiming for the first week of April completion. I'm actually on the 16 minute mark, which is approximately 3 days behind schedule I'm afraid. Sorry about that. This is because I've entered the most complicated 2 minute of the edit - a big battle sequence that occurred on stream in which I was swept up into a castle assault. And of course, made an ass of myself.

Remember how at the start when I said I was going to try and put ARGHHH's above the heads of people in combat? Well in my typical over-editing fashion I'm at the part of the edit where this pays off.

The bold colours in this gif make it look a bit crap (they're much softer in the real thing), but what I'm hoping to present is this boiling sea of ARGHHH's in the battle which my character has to attack through. Which I'm hoping will a.) look silly and amusing. b.) act as an appropriate visual metaphor for the craziness of the first big battle.

This does however come at a cost - this 2 minute section is about 4-5 times the editing effort. Hence the three day slip. 

As an example, have a look at this gif here. Each of those red squares is what's called a Null Object in After Effects. These (normally) invisible objects are what's being keyframed in order to present the illusion of physically attached text. The text objects are then parented onto them, hijacking their properties of movement, scale, etc. Normally there are one or two of them in each scene. But as you can see here, there are six. And this is the case for approximately 40-50 seconds of this footage.

But hopefully once I'm past this bit it will normalise and I can get back on track.

But all in all, things are moving ahead just fine. Just need to get past this really complex part. Which I'm hoping will look really nice :)