Destroy All Humans! - Behind the Scenes (Patreon)

Hey everyone, I'm back with another write up for Behind the Scenes! This time I've actually taken the time to gradually write this over a longer period of time, rather than writing everything in one go at the end of production.

Hopefully that means more things will get said, to save me forgetting bits! Anyway, let's begin!

How the video ame about:

I've actually wanted to talk about this series for a long time.

It's kind of weird that I know a fair amount of people that are aware of it, but didn't actually play it, or just don't remember it very well.

And with it being one of those ultimate "I remember it being quite good but I  have no idea if it hold up" kinda games, I thought it'd be a decent subject for one of my videos.

That, and after going through all three Crash games AND the N Sane Trilogy in the last 4 videos... I needed to get away from platforming for a while, as fun as it is.

How the video changed during production:

Not  a lot changed really, but in terms of getting the videos ready to go this is probably one of the best times I've had writing a script.

I think the platforming burnout had really kicked in so it felt quite refreshing to write about something else for a change. In fact... burnout has been a common thing surrounding this video now I think about it.

Not for the making of the video itself, but the reason I even recorded my playthrough of Destroy All Humans in the first place was from when I felt burnt out earlier in the year.  I just didn't fancy editing any videos for a few days so I booted up my PS2 and just played a game for a couple days.

Which is why I've had the footage for this game sitting around waiting for me since April! But yeah, not much in the way of actual changes, save from perhaps a couple of shots. 

This shot above where the PS2 controller and the DAH game case hit the chair was originally going to be me flying into the chair a high speed, adding in camera shake, with me falling on the floor but... I tried it and hurt myself doing it... and after all that, it didn't even look that good!

While I'd only written the script recently, when recording the game play back in April I had a vague idea of how I wanted to open then video with the laser shooting down to earth.

The main difference is that originally I had this set up to be out in a park, with an actual shot of me walking over to the crash site, and picking the games up on camera.

Again, like most ideas like that at the moment, I couldn't really do it due to me having no help with handling the camera out in public.

I'm not leaving my camera on a tripod in the open for someone to steal, that's for damn sure!

Trivia and other info: 

One thing I'm actually pretty proud of is something that isn't even in the video itself. The logo that's on the thumbnail, I made that myself.

I did this by using my graphics tablet to scale the original image up, do an outline of the whole thing at a much higher resolution, and then take the color scheme from the original and put it onto the new one. I'd say the result works for what I needed it to do.

Even if most people don't even notice that detail, it means I'll have done a good job on it!

Basically, for each of my videos I try to make sure I can put the game's official logo somewhere on the thumbnail if I can, and I couldn't find a good quality version of the logo for Destroy All Humans... so I made my own!

I thought I was on a good run when it came to rendering my videos without problems but once again I had a few issues getting the video finished. Some were beyond my control, one of them was completely my fault. 

I have no idea how common this is but every now and then I'll have this pop up and tell me for no reason whatsoever, that the program has to close upon opening my work. I've no idea what causes this, and I often have no idea how I eventually work my way around it.

Sometime I try and open the automatic backup version of the same file, sometimes I start a new project and attempt to drag the corrupted on into that... but yeah, I have no idea what I'm doing when this happens.

Sometimes I just works for a fraction of a second, and I'm able to "Save as.." to a new file!

So, to anyone who uses a software like this, my best advice is to do "Save as..." every hour or so, to a complete different file name each time. I normally just go for something like "Destroy All Humans V1" and work my way up, numerically.

I highly suspect down to the fact I'm using what is now 5 year old editing software. It's constantly telling me to upgrade, but I can't be bothered.

This thing aside, Movie Studio Platinum 12 has done wonders for my videos, so I'm reluctant to step away from it... Especially if that means forking over money.

The other thing which is completely my fault, is that I can't spell for shit. 

Yeah. I spotted that AFTER I'd spent an hour rendering. "Obviouslly". 

And that's a wrap! 

But in the end, everything worked out fine, And this is what the project looked like towards the very end of editing.

There's a bit missing from the top and bottom because I use so many layers, but yeah.

All in all, I think this went pretty well. A few hiccups with rendering the video towards the end, but it was a fairly smooth journey from beginning to end.

I've got a bunch of neat and new ideas in place for when I eventually cover Destroy All Humans 2 and you'll more than likely see what I'm getting at in an upcoming Progress Update on it :)

Thanks for reading, and for your support! - Pete :)