We collaborated with Flashbulb Games to create their latest game trailer for Trailmakers 2.0: Pioneers. Working from their initial idea, we developed the story and handled all aspects of production, from storyboarding and animation to lighting and rendering.
Trailmakers is the fourth trailer we have made for Flashbulb Games. We have previously made three trailers for their game Rubber Bandits, and all three projects have been mutually satisfactory for both parties. So when they needed a trailer for an upcoming expansion on their existing game, Trailmakers, they turned to us once again.
When Flashbulb approached us, they had a rough idea of what they wanted their trailer to tell. We had some suggestions on how to make the story stronger and we started honing in on the story together. When we felt we had enough to work on, we made the first pass on a storyboard. We uploaded the storyboard to Ftrack so the client could easily give feedback. From then on, everything we worked on was uploaded to Ftrack regularly so the client could be part of the process all the way to the finish line.
When the story was in place, we started looking at assets needed to tell the story. How many assets already existed as 3D assets in the game, and how many did we need to create from scratch? Could the assets be used as-is, or do they need a remodeling overhaul in order to be represented in the best possible way in the final picture? Could the rigging on the character models from the game be reused for the animation in the trailer? In the case of the Trailmakers character, we remodeled, refined the textures and shaders, and re-rigged the model. Flashbulb also provided 3D models for the props and vehicles from the game, which all got an overhaul in modelling and shaders.
The space station was not an asset from the game; it was only a concept drawing and an old model from a previous game. We kitbashed it with our greeble set to create a highly detailed model, heavily inspired by the old Star Wars miniatures.
Concurrently, with the asset being finalized, we converted the storyboard into the actual 3D shots, thus making the first pass on the animatic. The transition from a drawn storyboard to 3D shots with moving cameras and assets always requires a bit of adjusting in timing and camera angles to get the best flow between the shots. When that was approved by the client, we could then start the animation process.
While animation was moving forward, lighting of key scenes started in parallel, as well as landscape generation, destruction, and explosions. We created destruction elements and landscapes in Tyflow. Tyflow has a superfast landscape generator, which can generate near-final landscapes in minutes and renders in real time in the viewport. There was some back and forth regarding the planet and landscape designs to create something that looked like high-end feature animation quality while also honoring the feeling of the game, and we worked closely with the client’s art director to nail this.
With animation approved by Flashbulb, the character animations were cached and brought into a lighting scene, along with smoke and fire simulations. For lighting and rendering, scenes were typically set up to render in a single beauty pass, with light sources split up for compositing. Lens and motion blur were rendered in 3D, ensuring a high-end result free from the artifacts usually associated with adding these effects in compositing.
Shots were first rendered with low resolution and low samples, which gives shots that render at 10% of the cost but look 80% finished. From these temp renders, we could assemble the whole film and have them approved before moving on to the costly final renders.
All our rendering is done in Chaos Cloud. As a small boutique, having a render farm and maintaining it is not feasible. Chaos Cloud Rendering is perfect for us, as we can render a hi-res final quality shot in a few hours, including upload and download. So despite our small size, our clients never have to worry about whether we can render on time.
As the last step, the render passes were assembled in Nuke. We have a Nuke template script which auto-composites the passes and, combined with auto setups for lens distortion, grain, chromatic aberration, lens flares, and glow, tweaking per shot was super fast. And rather than using the typical AOV render passes (reflection, specular, etc.), we preferred to render out per-light source, also known as “light selects”, which gave us all light contribution per-light source. We could then tweak each light source in compositing, rather than controlling surface properties like reflections, etc. All the shot were assembled and sent to the client as the final film.
We’re incredibly proud of our small team’s ability to produce high-quality trailers—essentially short films—quickly and efficiently. Our combined decades of industry experience and extensive production knowledge enable us to achieve this. As a cloud-based studio with a remote freelance network, we can scale our team to perfectly match the demands of any project, and with cloud rendering, we can further accelerate the process. Essentially, a client can go from a rough concept to a polished trailer in just a few months, with us handling all the heavy lifting, from initial story development to the final render.