Skyward Sword Boss Keys - behind the scenes

So, this Skyward Sword video has a lot of motion graphic fun in it. From 3D maps to graphs to composite videos to silly gags, a lot of work went into it.

I thought it might be fun to share my process, so you can get a better idea of what goes into a video like this.

How I research Zelda dungeons

So, the first thing to do is to actually play the dungeons. My approach is to get to the dungeon as quickly as possible, doing as little in-between stuff as I can get away with.

Once I get to the dungeon I save, quit to the menu, copy my save game into another slot, and then play. I play the dungeon through "blind", not thinking too much about structure or anything - just deciding whether I enjoy it, whether I get stuck, and so on.

Before I get to the boss I take a screenshot of the map screen and save it onto my iPad, in the app Paper.

I then finish the dungeon, save, and load up the second save game so I can start the dungeon again.

This time I go through more slowly and methodically, noting locks, keys, obstacles, items, backtracking points, and other interesting things on the map itself.

I then sketch out a graph for the dungeon. Here's the one for Ancient Cistern: the i represents a puzzle where you need to learn information from another room. I simplified the end of the dungeon, as shown, simply because that annoying stone tablet would make the graph way more complex than the game itself.

(There's always a bit of subjectivity in these graphs, like what I consider a single-room puzzle and what's a wider dungeon-wide puzzle).

Once I finish the final dungeon (I rarely finish the game itself, it's not relevant), I put my notes together, get some kind of structure sorted out, record vocals, and start editing!

Zelda 1 Mega Map

So this is an animated map of the first dungeon from Zelda 1, where Link is exploring all of the rooms at once.

This idea of considering a dungeon as a whole, instead of a single room, was a critical part of this video and so I wanted to open the analysis with a very visual representation of this concept, to get it stuck in the player's mind.

The idea was to have some footage of a single room, which zoomed out to show it as part of an entire dungeon.

I experimented with using a static map of the dungeon but it looked kinda dead, and it was really hard to match the colour and size of the video of the original room.

And I just thought, man it would be easier if I just stuck 17 videos together to make up all the rooms. But that would be time consuming and probably make Premiere crash. So that's what I did!

I made the zoomed out view of all the rooms except for the original one, and nested them - and then could change the scale as necessary. I synced it up with the footage of the original room and bob's your uncle.

I then put little notes on the map to help explain why you need to consider the dungeon as a whole (remembering the location of locked doors, for example).

Ancient Cistern Map

So, starting with the Water Temple I have been experimenting with animated 3D maps for some of these dungeons. I did that one in Photoshop myself, but have since used some 3D rendering help from a pal to do dungeons like the Great Bay Temple, Lakebed Temple, and now Ancient Cistern.

The whole point of these is to explain the architecture of a dungeon in a way that a 2D image, voice over, or footage from the game would not be as clear.

I provided this draft to my render guy, along with some reference screenshots from the game.

And this image of the statue's face. (It should have been smiling more).

After a few iterations of the model, I textured it and set up lighting. And then we animated it. In the final video, I put annotations over the top to highlight key areas.

Pleased with this one. Wondering what the heck I'm going to do about Breath of the Wild...

Timeshift image

I tried to think about the best way to represent this. I played around with an overhead map and thought about 3D. But decided a side-on image would be most clear.

I used some Skyward Sword screenshots for reference, and then built these doors in Photoshop using vector tools. I like the door on the left, but the one on the right is horrible (file name: uglyassdoor.png). I didn't have a lot to work with, it's pretty hideous in game.

The laser beams are a picture of a blue zig zag, with a Wave Warp effect on top to produce the cool animation. I like it!

I had to decide what sort of Link to use. I decided on this nice 3D art of Link, and had him waddle in like a penguin. 

The graphs

Once I've made the graph sketch, I turn it into a Photoshop image. I have a bunch of symbols I can use to put the graphs together.

They are built on a grid system to keep everything in line. I have some rules for how everything works, to keep the graphs consistent. I'll be sharing more about this stuff soon.

The Sandship one went through many revisions. The whole boat thing really screws things up (which is great!) and I came up with this bespoke solution of having the past and present timelines as two sections on the grid, and then this one line that passes through the timeshift stone from past to present.

Challenges

It's important to do callbacks in videos, to reinforce concepts discussed earlier. So I introduced this idea about micro and macro challenges at the start in Zelda 1 graphics, then reused it again at the end with Skyward Sword examples.

Phantom Hourglass

The benefits of keeping your old effect presets! It was effortless to emulate the DS border from the previous episode of Boss Keys.

Here's what I captured while playing the game, using a 3DS with video out capabilities. I then put two versions of the video on my timeline and put two different presets on them (with various crop, scale, and positioning settings) - one for the top screen and one for the bottom.

Reduced map icons

This is a subtle one. I wanted to show that the map reveals lots of information about the dungeon.First, I wanted to show a map containing the sort of information seen in previous Zeldas. This required the completed map, like this:

And this frame of animation where there are no marks at all on the map. I put a frame hold on that and put it on top of the video of the map.

Then I made a quick picture of some black boxes in Photoshop and used it as an image matte on that frame. This meant that only the bits of the map I wanted - the chests and boss room - showed through.

Then, when I was ready, I could make the rest of the information appear also.

Ending joke

I came up with this goofy joke on a whim and decided to spend a little time making it.

I got my 3D guy to render a quick Skyward Sword box and animate it spinning. It then put it over the top of some footage of Link holding up a key.

To get the box to go behind Link's fingers, I made a duplicate of the video, but with a quick mask around his hands in the Opacity effect. And then used a colour key from the orange background to isolate his hands.

I then sandwiched the box between the two video layers to make the effect.

For the text, there's a single frame where the text box is completely blank before the "You got a key!" text appears. I ran a frame hold on this, and used the crop effect to isolate just the box.

I then made the text in Photoshop and saved a bunch of images where each picture has one more letter of the text visible. 50 images later and I could turn it into an image sequence, run it at half speed, and plop it over the empty text box.

And there we have it. Hope you enjoyed that, and let me know if you have any questions.