I’ve spent time away from graphics and 3D work for awhile to focus on game design, but now I’m back on my bullshit. This is a promotional video I did for someone else’s custom font, that can be used to create neat-looking “aetherships” just from typing.
This version of the video was technically assembled in Resolve, but I took a shot at using Blender’s Video Editing tools to recreate it and that worked perfectly. Here’s what went into this:
- Licensed music from the incomparable Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/search/)
- Cloud vectors and a paper texture from Shutterstock
- Assorted aetherships, constructed from the font itself (https://levikornelsen.itch.io/aetherships-font)
I created a plane and used Geometry Nodes to randomly distribute objects from a collection (my cloud curves) randomly across it. I duplicated that plane a few times, attaching the random seed to the Geometry Nodes input so I could give each cloud layer its own custom appearance. Then I animated them drifting across the screen at random distances.
Between those layers, I added text layers, using the Aetherships font for the text. These were also animated to move randomly, and were rotated so I had ships going both ways.
The compositor is just a Mix node, with “include alpha of second image” checked, that combined the parchment image and the scene.
So much for the graphics! How about the sound?
To use a scene in Blender’s Video Editing, you have to create a second scene. I made one called “Video Output”, and added a scene strip to the Sequencer. I added the sound strip as well. In the Output Properties, I set the Output file format to “FFmpeg Video”, and under there, in Audio, I set the audio codec. By default this is “none”, which means you won’t get sound.
From here it’s just Render > Render Animation, and upload the result to YouTube!
Clocktropolis 