Best Way to Make a Trailer

firezombie444

I'm currently working on my 2nd game, it's a pretty big one so I wanted to make a trailer for it before it's released. Can anyone give me some tips on making one? (I'm willing to spend a little for a camera program if I need one.) Thanks!

StormyStudio

Record the screen:

You cna record the screen for free using Quicktime on a mac. (possibly on Windows too?). It does'nt give much control or produce the best results.

Pay for software (I personally use 'iShowU HD'). $30.00 ish.

Or Camtasia is a quite a bit pricier but rock solid.

Convert you captured video to a suitable format for After Effects. i.e. Quick Time Pro Res 422 Progressive. MPEG streamclip is a great free program for the Mac that will let you do this (You may need to download the free ProRes codecs from Apple if you don't have them already). *You don't have to use ProRes you could use the Animation codec or similar.

Get the Adobe After Effects trial (or sign up for subscription.. I love and work everyday with after effects but if you can do the needed work in 30 days the trial should suffice this time.)

Goto Videohive.net or Revostock.com or a similar animation template website.

Buy a template you like for around $15 to $20 (search for game promo, iphone promo etc. or just browse). There are tonnes of very well made templates out there.

Open the template in After effects, if your willing to learn, then change colours, camera moves, cut out bits you don't want etc to make the template exactly as you want it. I've been using After Effects for over 10 years now, it's amazing what can be done with it and 3rd party plugins.

If you're not into learning a whole new package, then simply put your video clips into the placeholders for video/images and position them as required. You'll have to learn the basics of After Effects but its worth it for a professional end result.

Change any key word text, add your logo, call to action (web address) etc.

Render out of After Effects to a Pro Res mov (or animation codec).

Buy a music track from audiohive.net or similar again very well priced $10 to $30.

Edit it together in a trial version of Adobe Premiere Pro (or another editing package i.e. Apples Final Cut), make any final video cuts, adjust the sound, add sound effects, any additional colour grading. It should be fun.

Finally export a HD mp4 with h.264 encoding 1920 x 1080... with a bit rate of 8 to 10 mb. Perfect for Youtube etc.. and can be downsized as required.

Sorted.

You could of course find cheaper or free alternative to the above software but I think there's a lot of value in learning the basics of the industry standard software. Plus if you do more in the future you'll have useful skills already in place. Plus Adobe now do their monthly creative cloud subscription, which isn't super cheap but if you use it enough (you may already be using Photoshop for game asset creation) then it's worth it.

jamie_c

This is a nice tutorial as well:

http://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-make-an-indie-game-trailer-with-no-budget--cms-20825