NEW VIDEO - Divinity Bullshittery (part 4) (Patreon)

Good evening everybody. I've managed to finish the latest bullshittery and have a link for you if you're interested. It's Divinity bullshittery (part 4) - https://youtu.be/8H_R8dJ7x8o 

Blimey that was a grindstone. It has been scrubbed and cut over the month of November, keyframed over December, and polished over January. A 25 minute long bullshittery with a lot of moving parts. Once again, thank you for always being so patient with me.

Normally I keep little private notes of what I need to fix after any given render. But for the last two bullshitteries I've decided to make a viewable Google Sheet version, simply so I can provide details for the curious - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VrffT-Zu48GjGUe5qJljJNOvXT4-_dPu5sAMgaWvdvY/edit?usp=sharing 

The quality assurance tab easily cleared 500 rows. A complicated beast. Many issues needed addressing in batches. From critical mistakes or missing features, to trivial keyframing oopsies.

There are some more fixes I'd like to make before the public release. But I worry I'm simply being a perfectionist. No sense withholding the link to you all.

And I'm sure there'll be a few things you lot will spot in the feedback that I can add to the pile. And thanks in advance.

As mentioned in previous posts, the structure of this video is a bit more traditional for a bullshittery. With assorted highlights - broken up in the middle by a 3 minute exposition dump that I deemed absolutely critical to the overall plot.

The keyframing of those scenes was very challenging. With the overwhelming majority of it being manually done (i.e. moving the invisible Null Objects in time with whatever motion was taking place). And due to the heavy camera rotation, zooming, or spell effects, automated tracking struggled to handle the text in a way that was satisfying to read.

And when automated tracking did work, it would often introduce an irritating skittishness to the motion that made the text annoying. The program simply not knowing when to hold off and let the text float. Translating every minute motion into the object.

One of the biggest challenges in this edit has been that lore exposition scene however.

Covered in a previous Patreon update, the "Hall of Echoes" meeting involved a private conversation (precisely as modern Baldur's Gate does with the "dream visitor") that sees the god of the player's selected race urge them to become the first to reach the central plot MacGuffin.

Unfortunately, in this first playthrough, I petulantly mistook him for a side-quest NPC, and skipped almost all the dialogue. Meaning I had to re-recording the encounter in a single player, so this character can explain our role as a godly champion.

But what ended up being more of a headache in this edit was the question of how to make it fit? How to transition into this moments smoothly.

In the base game, you encounter a character called Meister Siva. The leader of the Seekers. And she has you go to the basement and combine herbs into pot, in order to snort them, and "get in touch with the depths of your own soul". 

You do this three times in fact. With Siva verbally commenting every time. And then dying after the third due to a combination of severe injuries/voidwoken incursion.

My initial cut contained this basement, parts of Siva dialogue outlining the ritual, the chopping up the herbs, along with the presence of a convenient ghost character in order to setup that spirits of this world could talk to us. Relevant later as we start eating them to gain magic.

But in quality assurance, I judged this whole segment to be slow, meandering and without jokes. And found I lacked a way to properly communicate that the video was entering a serious 'lore mode' , distinguishing it from the comedic. Making it seem like setup for no payoff.

Exposition for the sake of exposition.

Therefore I decided to try something drastic. Or rather...more direct.

I modified an existing scene - an existing joke - to make it look as though my patron god had literally teleported me out of the bullshittery. That our character was yanked out of the playthrough and into the Hall of Echoes. With some ominous music to mark the transition into something serious.

I looped and slowed down a bit of footage from the town square, added a little "huh?" voice line, used a circular fade out to black. And then opened straight where we would normally go had we done the herb ritual.

This cuts out Meister Siva, the ritual, the basement entirely.  And I've made it seem like the Seven Gods are behaving like the Q Continuum from Star Trek. Simply pulling mortals out of Rivellon like they're playthings.

I felt it was a much better choice in the edit. Much more efficient. Certainly not how it goes down in the game. But more appropriate for a highlight reel that's running through the main story.

Sometimes its possible to overthink the edit when the answer is actually simple - god did it and he says its time for a meeting.

So now Rhalic "Q" has explained the main plot in this bullshittery - and has laid out the stakes for the next - it's a mad race to the Well of Ascension. Who can steal it first? Only one of you can actually complete the game. 

Once again I've also been blessed by excellent work by four other creatives. Bavon, Twistie, Ilse and BewBewDingo. Who have all contributed music or artwork.

BewBewDingo made something of a late addition to the edit, as I felt the opening couple of scenes were a tad weak with text only. She made a short three part cartoon.

Each of the assets were made in "smart layers" in photoshop. Which I then exported to After Effects and arranged in an identical layout. And then I carefully parented each layer onto the next as I often do (elbows to arms, arms to shoulders, shoulders to chest, etc), creating articulated "puppets" that can be moved around with a few simple keyframes.

And what fine puppets they made.

Additionally, Ilse did something very similar. Giving me a little version of Quebec that can Naruto run. Even going so far as to make six different versions of his cape that can flutter in the wind convincingly.

I didn't even ask her for that. Heck I didn't even ask for a cape. I was going to make it with a fabric simulator in After Effects. She went all out.

Let me know what you think about the video. My plan right now is to work on those additional tweaks ahead of a public render. And then soon I'll present some polls for your consideration regarding the next project. There's a list of available options and I shall edit to your pleasure.

Thank you again all :)