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Welcome back explorers,
we have recently published a cinematic video about the latest DLC released for Distant Worlds 2, Distant Worlds 2: Factions - Ikkuro and Dhayut.
Since you appreciated a lot the video, we thought you would also be interested in knowing more about the creator of it: Tim Barton.
Slitherine: Have you ever been a space/sci-fi enthusiast?
Tim Barton: Yes absolutely, I am a big fan of science fiction. I enjoy sci-fi audio-books like The Expanse series, Project Hail Marry, We Are Bob series, and many more.
Slitherine: How long have you been working on the Distant Worlds 2 brand?
Tim Barton: I've worked on the pre-rendered cinematic trailers since January 2021.
Slitherine: Did you use a different approach than other videos while producing this video?
Tim Barton: I've learned a lot since I started working on these trailers, so one thing I did from the beginning was get the ships set up properly in Blender and looking nice before even starting on the overall scene itself.
Slitherine: How many elements of the video are part of the video game and how much is created by you from zero?
Tim Barton: The spacecraft and space stations are the only game elements used. It turns out they look very good in a path-traced render engine! I do add the engine trails behind the ships myself though.
Slitherine: What was the most challenging part of the video in terms of production?
Tim Barton: I tend to bite off more than I can chew in terms of camera movements. I love doing everything in one camera shot. Unfortunately, this means that any changes to the beginning of the video would propagate out and throw off all the timings later on. Getting ships to stay in frame while they are moving, and while the camera is moving is actually very difficult!
Slitherine: How long would it take to create a video like this and what software/program do you use for this type of production?
Tim Barton: I use Blender and Davinci Resolve. Setting up the scene from start to finish takes about a week, and then I start the rendering phase. For this latest video I had my render farm of 12 Geforce RTX 3080s going for 20 days nonstop! Compositing takes about a day, and often I find issues with the footage that require me to go back and re-render certain layers of the animation, like stars for example. The 3D nebula itself makes up 90% of the render time.
If you are interested in Tim Barton's other works, check them here.
