Helldivers 2 bullshittery - Update #1 (Patreon)

Good evening folks. Thank you again for partaking in that poll in the last post. Helldivers 2 was the clear winner. Therefore I've enthusiastically spent the last 8 days on it.

For those unfamiliar - at the start of each bullshittery project - a "master" project file is created. This is an Adobe Premiere file where all the standard templates can be added for my workflow. Most notably "sequences", little timelines of clips. Alongside other folders for audio, images, After Effects comps. Anything that needs to be repeatedly used.

What I've been doing since then is scrubbing through the livestream footage to find the good bits. Greatly aided by the accurate notes taken during recording.

Each time something notable comes up during scrubbing, it's assigned its own sequence in Premiere and given an identifiable name. Often with a number to denote how amusing it is. Sometimes little word tags to chain together clips taken from the same evening.

Sometimes I go alphabetically through fruit names, sometimes elements on the periodic table. This time I've gone with various types of snake. The result is 131 sequences to use. That's really, really good. A very healthy amount.

It's worth talking about the "DNA" of these clips.

Every bullshittery project is a little bit different and a lot of that comes down to the mechanics of the game in question. The bullshitteries are highlight compilations after all. It would be weird if mechanics had no effect.

Games like Rust or DayZ are slow with long periods of non-combat, where dudes can tell stories at their own pace. Divinity needs the context of the plot to make it make sense. And Rocket League is so fast paced that long conversations are nearly impossible.

Where does Helldivers 2 sit on that spectrum?

It's absolutely on the fast end. Slower than Rocket League, but not by that much. Clips are rapid-fire and frantic. Someone will fire a weapon and it'll explode a teammate. A mine will detonate and the others will giggle. Someone will jetpack somewhere high, then come crashing down as they get killed comedically.

It's also extremely buggy. As the enemies freak out through the terrain, or you spawn in the ceiling. Causing lots of visually obvious gags.

As such, I've made the decision to forgo the usual 1 2 3 compilation grading on the realisation that the clips are mostly 1's. A lot of 1's. So many 1's. Therefore the cut needs to lean into the frantic energy.

Another thing I'm noticing is that the tracking might actually be easier compared to most projects. For my Helldiver is wearing the same helmet at all times. Is almost always in the middle of the screen. And my teammates often have brightly coloured labels above their heads as they run in front of me. And the frame rate, with the exception of one level, is smooth as butter.

This is no Arma 3.

I'm anticipating satisfying automated tracking for much of the project, which is nice.

The pre-production is almost entirely complete. With some backtracking required to find some joke setup and only the most recent livestream missing.

The plan is to now make a playable bullshittery, just without the text. By Friday that process should be complete. And the text/animations phase would have fully started.

Thank you all :)