Art and design resource consolidation

[Ramsus]

I kind of like "The heroes of time return."

Zeality said that when we were thinking of stuff for the trailer site, and it just clicked. If you use it in your own CE videos, it'll match the trailer site and stir up some marketing synergy, but it's not important.

As far as the teaser trailer for the main site goes, we need to stir up lots of wow factor while keeping an aura of mystery, and narrating everything with text or throwing in special effects or distracting transitions will only take away from that. Not only that, but showing lots of gameplay footage instead of describing the game also implies a much more finished product (i.e. this is not in the idea and early development stage; rather, this is in the busting out the seams almost ready to release stage).

Anything else on the main site would just seem tacky and forced, like what Square did with their CTDS teaser trailer/site.

With everything else though, it's anything goes. If you can follow-up the main site's trailer with lots of your own videos on YouTube that include narrative text, neat slognas, special effects, non-gameplay artwork (which I'll try to create a lot more of), and actual descriptions, then we can stir up lots of interest before the game even comes out.

[FaustWolf]

The teaser's shaping up to be pretty kickass...expect it by Wednesday. I'm glad you said "lots of wow."

I can do "The heroes of time return" as the only text overlay at the very end. Should I use a certain font? Should I say "The heroes of time return this May"? "This May, the Heroes of Time Return"?

I'm still planning on three trailers total, and I guess I'll name them to whet everyone's appetite:

Atash Kedah (the first teaser -- don't worry, KZ's cover isn't blown, but he's shown to create mysterious badassness)
Death is Nothing to the Reaper (concept I outlined a few pages back).
Ladies and Gentlemen, This is What You've Been Waiting For (take a wild guess for the audio there.)

[Ramsus]

Since the trailer video is viewed in the context of the site (as soon as it ends, it fades out and the site fades in and flashes text with the teaser art), just leave out the text overlays and fade to straight black. That way there's a seamless transition.

[FaustWolf]

Here's the rough teaser cut.

Actually ended up being longer than I had originally intended, but it's much better for using the whole of "Darkest Omen." I need to do transitions yet, and I really need an image of the CE logo shrunken by better software than what I have. The best resizing algorithms Paint Shop Pro has are Bilinear Resample, Bicubic Resample, and something called "smart size," and none of these methods seems to cut it. It looks passable when viewed in its original 256x224 scale, but it becomes sucktastically pixelated if blown up. Sorry about that. ZSNES dumped all its movie footage in 1:1 zoom ratio (I thought I was going to get 512x448 frames), but it's too late to turn back now, at least as far as the teaser is concerned. I simply won't have time to go back and recapture all that beautiful bean footage.

As for content, the video constantly flirts with revealing King Zeal's identity, but actually tries to mislead the viewer into thinking this new sprite is somehow a representation of the Entity, and there may be this Entity vs. Lavos thing going on. Like the Entity is trying to take matters into its own hands. Should be a conversation starter among fans.

As part of the Compendium's viral advertising campaign, I think someone outside the CE team should drop a link to the teaser site in the GameFAQs Chrono Trigger/CT:DS forums and let a firestorm of speculation erupt.

[Agent 12]

Yea we should try to keep the compendium out of it as much as possible    Amazing trailer FW..... so much awesome footage from 6 chapters of a 23 chapter game

--JP

[FaustWolf]

Yeah. People will really get a sense of the breadth of the game by watching all three trailers that will eventually be made. I think I'll keep King Zeal out of the other trailers completely; should be enough material for that.

[Ramsus]

I'll make a special epic King Zeal battle at the throne painting for the King Zeal one, then make each trailer appear randomly, so people have to stop and wonder what else might be hidden on the site.

Of course, first I have to play through enough of the game to know the context in which to draw it.

[Vehek]

Nice video.
I think the Frozen Flame sprite might be a bit of a spoiler though. (In the past, Chrono'99 suggested the opened-up form should only first be seen at the Atash Kedah.)


Ramsus:
If you didn't know about it already, this is Chrono'99's sketch of King Zeal.

[FaustWolf]

The second trailer, Death is Nothing to the Reaper, is going have a very eerie feeling set up by zyko's intro audio, and things like Frog walking past dead Mystics and Porrean soldiers (neutral choice in Chapter 4), and the Zealian guy's dream of being chased by the Grim Reaper will appear. Then there'll be a 1:20 burst of some of the game's most exciting moments. That'll probably focus on Magus vs. Dalton, but I can be steered in other directions at this point. Maybe it'll feature Dalton, Montcrief, and whatever Ozzie's up to, and some reptite stuff (making it look like it's all taking place in prehistory, thus hiding the time traveling nature of some of the reptite characters).

The mood for the third trailer, Ladies and Gentlemen, This is What You've Been Waiting For, is completely up to you guys. I know nightmare975 suggested starting with Time's Scar and transitioning into "Ladies and Gentlemen."

Is there some way of crediting trailer audio sources and acknowledging Square Enix copyrights on the trailer site?


EDIT: This is going to sound corny as hell, but I think I could add a filter in Virtualdub to fuzz out the Frozen Flame's open form as if it were some kind of censored nudity...

[ZeaLitY]

Is there some way of crediting trailer audio sources and acknowledging Square Enix copyrights on the trailer site?

Perhaps we could set up a small "Credits" link somewhere that would list them?

The Black Dream preview video is great. As for the FF, I guess it's okay, considering the teaser site background totally shows the Frozen Flame anyway.

[ZeaLitY]

If you can pull it off, work in the mon (attached to an earlier post) after the Peach Mountains logo (perhaps that sequence can go slightly faster to allow 2-3 seconds for the mon). Just invert the colors so the lines are white; then it'll fit with the black preview screens.

[FaustWolf]

Sure, I'll toss it in. I still need a CE logo that's resized better than the one I used, but not sure if it's even possible.

[Ramsus]

Ramsus:
If you didn't know about it already, this is Chrono'99's sketch of King Zeal.

Actually, I hadn't seen that. Thanks.

Is there some way of crediting trailer audio sources and acknowledging Square Enix copyrights on the trailer site?

I actually hadn't considered it for the trailer site, since I'd been focusing on the idea of keeping things anonymous and mysterious until after the game's been released. Not just to build tension and generate interest, but to deter any C&D letters until after the game's already out there and everyone knows about it.

That means that until the game is released, we should try to avoid:

• Admitting that this is a ROM hack or even an actual game
• Identifying related projects, resources, and sites
• Identifying anyone involved with the project
• Associating this too much with Square Enix, even just to acknowledge their copyrights (a handful of people might just see Square Enix and think it's a new official game, because nobody on the Internet actually reads anything)

There should always be the slight doubt about whether or not this is a game, a flash video series using sprites and backgrounds, a giant fanfic with fake gameplay footage trailers, or just a complete hoax. That's why it's essential to only have what's needed on the site and in the video to stir up interest and nothing more.

However, the release site will just be a skinned Wiki with Dream Team edit rights, so there's no problem making an About page and a Credits and Acknowledgement page. Once the game is out there, the game itself is not very likely to disappear, regardless of what happens to the site or the team, so we can explain everything in full detail and give kudos to people then.

In the meantime, I suggest simply letting anyone whose music or media you use know that you're using their stuff and that they'll be acknowledged later.


EDIT: To be more clear, these restrictions are only with main site, since its target audience is the general gaming community as a whole, rather than the Chrono series community or the ROM hacking community. As such, we should approach visitors as though they have no clue what Crimson Echoes is, and try our best to keep from stirring up a real storm until the release.

Sure, I'll toss it in. I still need a CE logo that's resized better than the one I used, but not sure if it's even possible.

Actually, I'd go ahead and replace the Peach Mountain Shoguns thing for now with the mon image, and shorten the entire pre-teaser logo thing as much as possible. Most visitors will have left by the time they get to the game footage.

Or you could let it play the "Crono..." dialog box, cross fade to the mon image for a few seconds (no text, not even "Peach Mountain Shoguns"), cross fade back to "Good morning, Crono", cross fade to Kajar Labs, and then start the video. I wouldn't even put the CE logo in the video itself, since it makes for more impact to show it after the video.

The video looks great though. I can't wait to see the others.

[FaustWolf]

For the teaser preview, the Marle and Crono audio track is:

"AD794 - Celestia - Square Music Arrange Festival - Epilogue -My Dear DTMers- [Goodbye for a While]"

But I'm not sure where the author/s are in that. The Chrono Symphonic team should be pretty reachable. I'm not particularly up for asking Nintendo if "The Peach Mountain Shoguns" can borrow Goemon audio, so...

...should we just run with it? Aside from the Goemon audio, it's fan music, and videogame music copyrights don't seem to be nearly as heavily enforced as mainstream music.

There's not a whole lot of work to do on the teaser trailer since it's going for a minimalist feel to begin with, so I can have it ready on Wednesday.

EDIT: Okay, I'll take the CE logo out altogether. It works best that way for now. Should we actually just have the mon image play without the Kajar Labs logo and get right into the video within the first five seconds?

Or I could do the following:

"Crono..."

Mon image

"Crono!"

Kajar Labs image

Rest of the video plays.

I'd feel bad about not using the Peach Mountain Shoguns logo at all because it's so awesome, but it's your call. I could work it in somehow. On the other hand, representing the team with only a symbol and no words would effectively leave people in the dark as to who's behind all this, which adds to the mysteriousness and effectively covers your tracks.

[Chrono'99]

The AD794 Celestia track is from a Japanese remixer... Mhm, I wonder if it's okay to use that track? There isn't much contact between the Japanese and English Chrono communities, but we don't want them to think we're stealing their music or something.