2D animation trailer planning (P2, M2, D2)

Initial Ideas:

My first idea to make a suitable 2D animation is to have a large portion of gameplay and the towards the end of the trailer have an animation (similar to my web banner) of the name of my game being hit with a barrage of arrows. This trailer would be fairly proficient at advertising my game, because any potential buyers would know exactly the type of game they would be purchasing, due to the amount of gameplay include in the trailer.



My second idea is to have a 2D animation of my game main character having a battle with the last enemy of my game. In this trailer the main character would be on the left of the screen firing arrows and provoking the last enemy, the enemy would then approach from the right of the screen and letting out roar followed by firing a ball of fire at the character. the screen would then go blank and my games logo and title would appear for added advertisement for my game. I believe this would be an effective method of adverting my game because it would build a degree of suspense and causing the target audience to want to play the game.



My third idea is to combine specific aspects of both of the two previous trailers. In this trailer the fight would begin in actual gameplay and then phase out into a 2D animation of the battle. This would be a good trailer in terms of advisement because it gives the audience a preview of how the game looks and then keeps them entertained by using the 2D animation.

Storyboards/Dopesheet:

Trailer Storyboard
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7Go5XyQzJkuYkdmcDJQcnNMR00/edit?usp=sharing

Dope Sheet:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7Go5XyQzJkuQjFrTHpTNmF2TDQ/edit?usp=sharing

Idea Storyboards:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7Go5XyQzJkuc2NLdEtqN2VuT1U/edit?usp=sharing

Script PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7Go5XyQzJkuUWVyVWcwRlhaSWs/edit?usp=sharing

Trailer Schedule:

Animate the Helmet and Game Title Moving Access the Screen (30 min)

I believe that this will take me around 30 minutes to complete. This is due to the fact that I will have to start a new composition and find all of the necessary images need for this part of the trailer

Animate the arrows flying across the screen (4 Hours)

I believe that animating the arrows for my trailer will take around 4 hours, this due to the level of detail I will need to put into each arrows individual flight and animation path, although this processes may be shorted due to the ability to copy and paste one arrow, and then slightly edit the new arrows animation and path.

Create and Animate Fireball (6 Hours)

I believe that animating a fire ball will take me around 6 hours; this is due to the fact that I may need to follow some step by step tutorials on how to achieve this. I will then need to spend some considerable amount of time changing the fireball with skills I have learnt from the tutorials, to suit the style of my game trailer. Once I have created the fireball, I will then need to insert the composition into my trailers composition, and animate the fireball to fly across the screen at a suitable speed.

Fadeout into Gameplay (45 minutes)

I believe that this process will take me around 45 minutes, this due to the fact that I will need to reduce to opacity of any of the object left of the screen (arrows and title) before starting my games gameplay clip. I will then need to collect gameplay from my trailer and then insert that file into my trailer composition, so that it begins to play as my animation finishes

Soundtrack and Sound Effects (1 Hour)

I will then need to go back through my trailer and add any sound effect for objects such as the arrows and I will need to include the trailers soundtrack. I believe this will take me around an hour, due to the fact I will need to find suitable royalty free mp3 audio files using the internet.

I will then import the audio files I found and position them in appropriate places within the trailer. 

Trailer Schedule Log:

Animate the Helmet and Game Title Moving Access the Screen.

I found that this part of making my trailer took around 15 minutes longer than expected due to the fact that I had to edit the images before I could import them into the composition.

Animate the arrows flying across the screen

I found this part of making the trailer easier than expected, due to the fact that I just had the plot the flight path for one of the arrows. I then copy and pasted this arrow and changed the starting position, the time it started and the animation as it hit the ground I then did this around eight times. Then I added a mask to the head of the arrow to give to illusion that arrow head was embedded into the background.

I the process took me around me estimated 4 hours to complete, but I now feel I could now do it much faster, due to the fact I am much more familiar with the GUI of AfterEffects.

Create and Animate Fireball

When I was creating my fireball I found that it was extremely to have a step by step guide on how to make such a complex composition. I feel that producing this composition helped improve my knowledge of AfterEffects. I also fell that I did a relatively good job on my fireball considering this was my first attempt.

Fadeout into Gameplay

I found that this part of my trailer was relatively easy in comparison to the rest, and in fact the hardest part was finding a piece of software to record my gameplay footage. This part of the trailer only took me around half an hour.

Soundtrack and Sound Effects

This part of my trailer wasn’t difficult, due to how easy AfterEfeects GUI is to use. The hardest part of this process was finding royalty free sound effects for my arrow, but eventually I found a suitable sound. This process only took me around 30 minutes  

Evaluation:

After creating my trailer I feel that I am much more competent using Adobe AfterEffects, this is due the variety of tools that I used for aspects such as my fireball. I also fell that the research and planning I put into the trailer really helped me produce a well throughout finished product. I also fell that I worked relatively well and completed my trailer reasonably fast and to a high quality. 

Influences for my Trailer:

Before I planned my trailer I researched some trailers for games of a similar genre. I found that one games company in particular had a trailer style that I particularly liked and that was Capcom. I liked the Capcom trailers due to how much action was packed into their trailers. After looking at various trailers from Capcom I saw a game the developed called monster hunter, this game trailer was exactly the sort of game trailer I wanted to make. After looking at various monster hunter trailers, I decide to try and replicate how action packed they are. I did this in my planning by including one of the main enemy’s in each of my ideas and having a big action sequence that would keep the viewer interested in the trailer and the game.