Ready or Not/SWAT 4 - Update #3

Good evening everybody. Hope you're all doing smashing. Another update during week 4 of the editing.

The last update was week 2 and I was making steady progress keyframing and properly animating SWAT 4/Ready or Not bullshittery. A process that continued in week 3 without issue. This is the week where I'm primarily trying to get the near-full edited video through it's quality assurance.

Here's a shot of the timeline in the final form. Note that the blue represents SWAT 4 and the green represents Ready or Not.

 The only major thing to bring up from week 3, is that I decided to replace the clips in the final 20% ish of the video. The original clips had SWAT 4 moments which will likely be better suited in a part 2 anyway. And I felt I needed to make the ending a bit more punchy.

I'm much happier with the structure, though it does mean that the last 3 scenes are unedited due to the time lost there.

Interestingly I've also made a brief start on the structure of part 2. Making a wee timeline and chaining a few clips together. Making some notes for future me when I get there. There's definitely enough for a combined part 2.

In fact, I think I was worried for no reason. I figured it would be mostly Ready or Not clips, with the odd SWAT 4 leftover. But after some scrubbing, there's easily enough for full standalone SWAT 4 videos. I was anxious over nothing.

I'll still continue the combi-bullshittery for this though. I think it works pretty well. As the interface looks the same, the people are the same, the gameplay is the same. It all meshes rather seamlessly. Just as Halo did.

 The process of quality assurance is well underway. I've made another sheet thing for your viewing - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1N-RO1qz04F_vQj7K-vJNxRgQwsbm70KePKylTijKLxg/edit?usp=sharing

I mention this every time, but for those new to my process: this is the part where I render the video, watch the video, spot errors, fix errors...rinse and repeat.

A process that used to exist as simple .txt files privately on my computer. But I figured I'd make a google sheet for the sake of transparency. And it's easier to simply gesture to the sheet when people ask what I'm doing.

Additionally, as is the standard now, I do a sort of 'phase 2 refinements' stage at this point. Featuring a bunch of really complicated clips left till the end. Lowering the risk that I'm going to sink 8 hours into animating something in week 2, only to cut the scene in quality assurance.

As always, I invite you to monitor my progress with the above sheet.

 As a specific behind the scenes update, let me tell you what I did in scene 01-02.

Cyanide and I are having a conversation ahead of a game of Ready or Not. Joking around and mocking each other. So naturally I figured I'd keyframe the two officers in the foreground for Ready or Not's main menu.

Simple null squares, auto-tracked to the helmet. Easy stuff.

 But then Cyanide's voice goes off into the distance as he gets up to go for a drink. And because he's joking about having a huge ego, I figured I'd make the text huge and in the distance. Slap a slight blur effect on it to make it look distant.

 And then...masking. My usual trick of duplicating the video layer, moving it to the top of the composition so it's above everything else. Locking it so I cannot move it. And then cutting shapes out of it with the shape tool, highlighting anything that's meant to be in the foreground.

 And now, anything Cyanide says, even if the text is massive or tiny. In English or in Swahili. It matters not, because it'll be automatically masked. The illusion that it's part of the scene. Neat, I think.

 I'll continue quality assurance rework this week. I'm aiming to get most of it done by the end of this week. And I'll soon let you know what I plans are for the next video.

I'm scheming my schemes :)