Redspark's Visionaire Tutorial Series Rebooted?

  • #1, by redsparkThursday, 08. June 2017, 17:10 7 years ago
    Hi Everyone,

    Now that Visionaire 5 is nearly released, I want to start back up my video tutorial series but for VS 5.  I moved to a new house and have a dedicated room that I'm going to convert into a hobby recording studio to improve the sound quality.

    However, I'm wondering if the way I did my video tutorials was useful.  Do you like the short task based videos where they accomplish just one task or would some other way be better for you?  Are the videos too long?  I actually had someone comment that I talk too much during the videos -- giving too much explanation.  If that's annoying, I can cut down on explanation and cut to the chase. 

    I was thinking that once most of the basic tasks have been covered, I could move on to make a full course for a very specific type of adventure game like Hidden Object for example.  What do you think?  Any suggestions for improvements? 

    Thanks.

    James

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  • #2, by afrlmeThursday, 08. June 2017, 18:21 7 years ago
    I think the single task or bunch of minor tasks that make up a specific topic is the best approach. Can't comment on the other stuff.

    A lot of people tend to babble whenever they record themselves playing or creating something - just pick a twitch streamer or youtube let's play content creator at random. Any will do. grin

    I don't think it really matters as long as you get the point across. The videos should be as short yet as easy as possible for viewers to understand what is being said/shown to them without needing to watch a 10 hour lecture on how to launch the application or something equally as boring. I don't remember how long your previous videos were, but I'd say anything under 20 minutes is ok, but 10-5 minutes or less is even better. I know not all topics/subjects can be covered in such a short amount of time...

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  • #3, by sebastianThursday, 08. June 2017, 18:36 7 years ago
    Mostly the viewers tend to watch shorter videos. But it depends really on the content. If there is a tutorial (like here) viewers would whatch until the end, no matter if you make more videos with less playtime or lesser videos with longer playtime. Because they want to learn something. And if its good, they keep watching.

    But overall you should make it depending on the content itself. 
    Makeing a video about "a scene" and talk about all possible stuff you can do there would stretch the video too much because there are to much sub points you can talk about here and most points are maybe not good to talk about in the beginning because they build up on a separate topic you may talk about later either way. 

    For my tutorials i planned to create a "demo project" and explain while doing all the neccessary stuff. So intracting with the objects in a scene will come after i introduced to interfaces as a separate video. Interacting with items on an object or on a character will first come when i talked about the item/inventory system ...
    This will lead to several more or less short videos (10-15 (or 20) min) but sometimes i take my time and give it a 30+ minutes to do e.g. a coin/scumm interface because there is more to explain. I guess the playtime will raise after some time because the topics get more complex...

    As an advise for you: Keep it like you did in the first series. These were great for beginners and gave a good overview. 

    Would love to see that Icecream shop again razz

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  • #4, by afrlmeThursday, 08. June 2017, 18:56 7 years ago
    Mostly the viewers tend to watch shorter videos. But it depends really on the content.
    Shorter videos are easier to digest & you are much easier to pause & follow than overly complex tutorial videos that last over 20 minutes. Some tutorial creators actually talk about what they are planning to show in the video & as a result you end up with them talking for about 10 minutes at the beginning of each video & you're thinking "will you just shut the *@$& up & get on with it already!"

    Shaun Spalding makes great tutorial videos for Game Maker Studio (original & gms2), but I tend to skip through his videos a bit as he's a waffling rambler (like me).

    I originally planned on doing voice over for the reference videos I created to go with some of my text/image based tutorials I shared on the wiki, but I found it awkward to talk into the mic while I was working as it slowed down what I was doing & then I tried after recording, but that felt really strange & I have lots of background noise here all the time due to wind from living near coast & having a shit ton of animals here & round about that are constantly making noise & it didn't seem fair to subject anyone else to that, so in the end I opted for silent reference videos showing the process of what I was showing/explaining in the text/image based tutorials - & here I go again, waffling on. razz

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  • #5, by ke4Thursday, 08. June 2017, 19:54 7 years ago
    I think videos made in shorter parts for about 10 minutes or something will be eaiser to understand and follow. Making short chapters for each thing separately.
    I also like when people are showing the final result at the beginning of the video so you can clearly see if that's something you want to be learning.

    Btw i was thinking about making some tutorials myself either. But i would have fun doing some advanced Lua stuff. The more advanced the better grin
    I don't think i'm gonna do it though as i'm not able to create english voice-over. If any of you are interested in doing something similiar either i can offer you a help in doing that. (scripting, animations)

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  • #6, by redsparkFriday, 09. June 2017, 00:50 7 years ago
    Thanks for the suggestions!  Most of my videos are around ten minutes or less but some are more.  I like the idea of showing an example first and then getting into it.  I agree.  It will help people skip what they already know.  I think if I keep the videos short and to the point it will help viewers and make it easier to produce them.

    Something else that I thought might be nice is to present a list of Prerequisits that would be linked to other videos.  So if one video needs an existing character in the game before you can start the current video, then there would be a link to another video on how to create a character at the beginning of the video.

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