Random Gooseshittery - Update #3 (Patreon)

Good afternoon all. It's currently the end of week 4 of 10 on Random Gooseshittery. And I've finished about 11 minutes of 36. Here's a shot of the timeline:

I plan to reach the halfway mark of 18 minutes at the end of next week. And then take some time to polish what's behind the playhead? Perhaps even getting it to a point where it can be half released on Patreon? It really depends on how far the polish goes. As it would be missing some artwork and other finishing finesses.

The first thing to talk about with this project though, is the extreme ease of the autotracking. I've mention before that the ratio between automated to manual tracking varies wildly from project to project.

Something like Counterstrike often has an exceedingly high ratio of automated to manual keyframing during bullshittery editing. Often an absurd 90-10 split. And from the gif here you can easily see why.

There's lots of high contrast and colour differentiation between the characters and the environment. Clear and distinct text above heads. And it's often clear where the "head" is.  I'm guessing that distinguishing character from the map is an important consideration in a competitive scene.

And if they're on your team they even have contextual UI elements which remain present even when the character is blocked by the terrain. A god-send for auto tracking. 

Then in the opposite corner is something like Arma 3. With an automated to manual ratio of 10-90. Have a look at this gif and understand that the tracking software needs to consistently find the head:

It's tricky for a piece of software to even identify where the person is - let alone the head. With vegetation, weapons and bulky chest gear obscuring limbs and familiar features. The head is often blocked by a backpack or their weapons, especially if they have an anti-tank rocket. And often there are helmets with literal camouflage as part of the milsim nature of Arma. Moving over 3-4 different coloured backgrounds. Confusing automated algorithms as it blends into the dirt, or rocks, or the foliage.

There's a little squad chevron sure. But good luck tracking that with camera that's swinging so wildly. And then consider that the gif above is playing back 50% slower.

So where does Untitled Goose Game sit between that spectrum? Well a quick look at this gif and you can guess. This is NOT stabilised, merely zoomed in.

It's damn near flawless. Either the orange beak, or the black dot of an eye. Or the shape of the whole head. It's more like 98-2 automated to manual tracking.

Untitled Goose Game has NONE of the problems that plague Arma. The goose is usually the ONLY white thing in the frame, with the exception of the cursor. And due to the isometric perspective of the camera there's rarely anything in the foreground to break the continuity (such as weapon optics or other players). As a result, the software rarely get confused when ordered to follow "RGB white in the square". Or "follow the black dot in the white".

I'm only really having to manually step in when the duck spins or changes direction rapidly. And usually then only to select a new tracking point.

That being said, the camera can be a little fidgety. It moves in and out based on how many subjects are in the frame. And those subjects patrol around. This can sometimes make it zip in and out rapidly. On a couple of occasions I've felt the need to "restrain" the camera. Physically locking down all motion by using stabilisation tracking.

The gif below is an example. It's still a bit wobbly. But it's not rapidly zooming in and out as it was before so you can SEE what's going on in the frame - a broom getting nicked.

Where masking is needed, the geometry is often very complex however. It's certainly nothing simple such as health/ammo interfaces, or even a firearm in the players hand. Here it's often scenery or NPC's or shrubberies. Something of a pain, as you can tell here.

I'm also going to need to make a decision about the font being used. As I think my typical font, Dillenia UPC in Bold, is so far looking a bit...mechanical.

It's clear enough. But stands out a bit in such a colourful game with soft edges. Maybe something a bit like the font Bazooka. Fitting the character of the setting a little better. To be decided in the near future. Just something a little softer and less sharp-edged?

Another thing I want to do later is see if commissioned artists can replicate the Goose Game art style precisely. I was going to do a test commission later with a cutaway gag. But since the character models are actually very simple...a devious thought entered my mind - placing new characters into the scene as part of cutaway jokes. Literal characters, animated in a similar fashion. Maybe.

For the moment though, please know that editing week 4 of roughly 10 is complete. By the end of next week I'm hoping to reach the middle point and either push forward with the rest. Or polish what's behind. Either way I need to decide the final look of the font. But animation is going very smoothly.

Hope you're all doing well :)