Jay Versluis
patreon
Workflow Timelapse Series
🕑 Added 2021-12-16 17:28:03 +0000 UTCI've been inspired by some of the workflow time lapses I've seen around, and thought I'd make some of my own. I was working on a thumbnail image for the next DAZ Live Stream this coming Saturday, which is going to be a "boot camp" for new users who want to create their own NFP-like PFPs (that's short for ProFile Pictures by the way).
I thought it would be fun to create some of my own that look like they could belong in the NFP collection for the thumbnail, and I recorded my screen as I was creating them. I've made four recordings in total, the first of which is already live on YouTube and the others are listed below.
To be honest, I had somewhat underestimated the amount of time it would take me to put them together. Recording the screen and speeding it up isn't the problem, but narrating over it so that it makes sense does take some time. I don't work with scripts and like to ad-lib everything, which usually works well - but the technical aspect is a tad daunting. Let me explain.
To record my screen o my main PC I use Camtasia, which is a really nice full featured editing app as well as screen recorder. While it excels with transitions and creating presentations, its audio processing is terrible. It's so bad that the company behind Camtasia have decided to sell a separate app called Audiate just to address its shortcomings. I didn't fancy using it (or buying it for that matter) and have instead recorded my overvoice through my streaming PC using OBS. It's setup and ready to go, and it has excellent live audio processing features built-in. After the narration is done, I then take these videos into Premiere, edit out bad takes and export a WAV audio that I then import into Camtasia and mix in the music.
While this seems convoluted, it's actually the most straightforward way for me to work as I don't have to invest time into learning new tools. Premiere is usually my go-to editor, but it's a little slim on handsome looking transitions. I'm sure I could buy some, but honestly I wouldn't know where to look.
All in all it took me a whole day of post production, including the thumbnails that I made in Photoshop. I'll talk a little more about some of the effects I've used in the third and forth episode. Here are the ad-free versions of all four time lapses:
- The Librarian: https://vimeo.com/657245427/652e36cde5
- Alien Pirate: https://vimeo.com/657245537/9559b497ff
- The Surgeon: https://vimeo.com/657247564/16e8f6ce61
- The Sucker: https://vimeo.com/657247622/e2c63a7892
Let me know what you think of this approach to showing workflow, and what you think of the profile pictures. They're fun and easy to make, perhaps I should turn them into their own mini NFT collection?
I'll put them up on my ArtStation page for now and see where we go from there. Have a smashing weekend everyone π
Comments
Jay Versluis
I hear you! I do like the aspect of "productising" something we do anyway and turning it into a mixture of memento, achievement record and learning opportunity for others. I can see how most people just put out a time-lapse without commentary because it's just so much faster to do, but I feel like yourself that the narration makes for a much nicer viewing experience. I totally agree on the chicken-and-egg situation, I remember the days before I had an M2 drive for playing back such footage, it previewed at 1 frame per second so narration would have been impossible without a proxy render. The real question of course is: would the time spent on doing these types of edits better be spent on making more artwork? Food for thought!
Brian Cramer
I've started doing more of my videos in this general style in that it explains a workflow without someone having to (or more likely never) watching for hours. Unfortunately, it is the most time consuming way of making a video, and a little awkward in a chicken-or-egg kind of way. You need to edit the video to your audio but need the video done to narrate to it. I usually watch the raw footage and write a script as I go, keeping in the back of my head the rough timing of it all. Then I'll put the raw footage and the audio into my editor, and start chopping up and timelapsing the video as needed. Every once in a while I may need to modify or insert more audio. It's very time consuming, but I think it makes for a better watching experience for the ten people who bother to watch my videos. But I'm not bitter. π
