A look inside the AAR process (Patreon)

I haven't done a "how this all works" post for a while and seen as though it's Admin Monday and I'm uploading this week's Rattenkrieg batch to Youtube, I thought I'd give you all a quick look. This is a screenshot of the other half of the Rattenkrieg battle rendering. Or, trying to render: I took the screenshot because it had stalled and I was going to need to find the video file that had so offended Movie Maker 17. It's a little complicated, so I'll break it down:

In the upper left, we've got all the project files- all the different bits of video and audio that I'm using for this video.

All in all for this one, there's about 350 video, audio or image files weighing in at roughly 4.75gb.

These all get put onto the tracks down below where I cut them to size and slot them in where they're needed:

Video tracks are all layered up: the 'Text' track at the top has all the overlays for the maps- these are PNG files with transparent backgrounds so they can sit over the actual image or video footage in the 'Video' track beneath.

That 'Video' track is paired with the 'Audio' track under that, so that the audio component of the video files always syncs up.

At the bottom is the 'Music' track- that's just the default name for it, I use for the voiceover. Sorting that out is usually the most... not annoying, but grindingly boring part of video production: streamlining the narration by reducing any gaps, deleting any extraneous noises, stuff like that. Listening carefully to my own voice will never not be weird! It is pretty helpful for the next part where I input the footage though- usually the narration ends up with clear sections corresponding to topics, events etc in the voice over, which can make it easier to sync things up.

I find it infinitely easier to record the footage as I progress, gradually builidng up the video, than having to search for and slot in footage that I've recorded previously. As I go through a battle, I save each turn and note down anything interesting that happened, then when I reach a point in the script where I need some specific footage, I just consult my notes, load the turn, film it and then slot the video file into the project.

Methodically going through the project from start to finish, grabbing the footage as I go and keeping all the files in date order makes it easy to keep track of how much I've done, how much I've got left and what I need to grab next.

It's pretty straightforward, but I've been doing it for years so I would think that!

Anyway, that's a look at the video-editing side of my videos. Let me know if you guys would like to see more of the behind-the-scenes stuff. 

Now I'd better get back to planning out Operation Whetstone Mission 3...