The Trailer (First Draft)

To create the trailer up to its current state i used the following clips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgpOfVsw62g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhEYvOYceNs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfr2-gDL9qo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UvUbnEenGE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5Y5SyjbHAA

I started off with by cutting all of the clip out of the source footage by opening the source footage and setting the start and end markers of each clip then dragging the clip into the clips bin. For the music i only dragged the audio out into the audio bin. I then started by dragging the the PEGI 12 clip onto the timeline. I then added the clip of the robot combat scene followed by the clip of the drop ship. I then faded it in using the opacity settings by clicking on the timeline with the pen tool to add points to the opacity line then dragged the one at the beginning all the way down.
After these three clips i added a title with the text 'IT'S COMING' then adjusted the scale on the first and last frames using the keyframes making the title on the first frame smaller than the title on the last frame so that the title zooms in to give dramatic affect. I also faded the title in and out using the same technique as before. I then added the asteroid collision clip and slowed it down by 50% and enabled frame blending to make the animation smoother. I then faded it out using the same technique as before and added the clip of the robot powering up after it. I then left a space after this for text to be inserted since i was going to do this in after affects to add some effects to it. After this space i added the clip of the robot's eyes lighting up and faded it in and out using the opacity controls.

After adding all of the clips, i unlinked all of them,except the PEGI 12 clip, from their audio tracks and deleted the audio. Then replaced it with the audio clip i made earlier, I zoomed in on the audio near the start of where the title would be then cut the audio track with the razor tool. I then zoomed in on the end of the intense part of the song and split that part too with the razor tool. I then removed the piece i had cut out then moved the rest of the song up to the start of the title. I then faded the song out at the end using the same technique as before except with the volume controls.

I after looking back through what i had made i saw that i could make the scenes look better by adjusting the colour and contrast so i added colour balance and contrast effects to the first two clips after the PEGI 12 clip. On the first of the two i set the the green highlights to -50 and the blue highlights to -29 and then set the contrast to 20. This helped to make the scene look less washed out and gave the scene more of a deeper colouring. On the second clip i set the green and blue highlights to 10 and reduced the red highlights to -40 to make the scene look more like its an earth type planet at around midday. It also brought the blue colour out on the vehicles to match the colour scheme of the title and cover DVD Cover. I added an RGB Colour Balance to the asteroid collision clip and increased the reds from 100 to 150 to make the colours more vibrant as there is a lot of red in the scene. This also shifts the scene to a more orange colour which goes with the orange and blue scheme i have on the cover. I then added an RGB Colour Balance to the scene of the robot powering and increased the blues from 100 to 125. Going higher than this made the scene look strange and slightly purple so i added blue Colour Matte then set the blending mode to overlay and set the opacity on the first frame to 0% then 38% at about 3/4 of the way through. This make the colour get more intense as the scene progressed to match the style of that part of the trailer. Finally i added an RGB Colour Balance effect to the last clip and increased the blue from 100 to 120 to make it look colourful, improving the general look of the clip.

I then exported everything in the quicktime format set at 25 frames per second and at a resolution of 1280x720. I also ticked frame blending and use maximum render quality to ensure the highest quality image is gained so i don't lose quality when moving between premier and after affects.
In after affects i imported the title from photoshop by moving the title into its own PSD file the importing that. I then filled the blank section of the trailer with the title and then started to add effects to it.
I adjusted the colour of it to a deeper blue by using the Change to Colour effect and sampled the colour i wanted to change then selected the deeper blue that i wanted. I also added a Gaussian blur effect to it and set the blur to verticle and played around with the blur amount on several keyframes to make the digital distortion effect. I also added random movement to the title to make it look better by creating the start and end keyframe, selecting them then using the wiggler tool to make random motion within the keyframes.
I intent on changing the 'It's Coming' text and adding the release details after the second distortion of the title.

The Spine

I updated the DVD cover by adding the spine art.

I made this by starting with the text. I rewrote the title in 22.29pt text then reduced the line spacing from the original title to fit into the spine. I added a thick blue stroke effect as well as an inner and outer blue glow.  Then i added a white radial gradient and flattened it with the transform tool then placed it in front of and between the two lines of text. I also added another radial gradient behind the text which covers most of the area behind the title.
I then added a blue reflected gradient centred on the text which covers the entire spine and changed the layer blending mode to overlay. I noticed that the white gradient wasn't being tinted very well by the blue gradient so i added another blue radial gradient over the top of the white one then set the blending mode to overlay. This made the white gradient have a more vivid blue glow. I then added a black overlay and masked out the areas i didn't want it to cover to make the gradient smoother.
I then added small particles using the brush tool by setting the blending mode to dissolve and the size to about 250 as well as setting the flow to 1% and hardness to 100% drawing a line along the text. I then enlarged the particles with the transform tool then added horizontal motion blur of about 10px. I added a blurred blue effect over the top to make it look a bit more digital looking. I did this by creating 2 blue boxes with the rectangular marquee tool then right clicking and selecting fill. I then added vertical motion blur to the layer of about 70-100px and then a Gaussian blur of about 1-2px.
I imported the PEGI 12 logo and gave it a black inner glow and set the glow blending mode to normal to make it actually show up. This glow made the logo blend a bit better. I then added a product code above the PEGI logo. Both these layers were then sent to the bottom so that the blue gradient would tint them slightly to improve how they blend with the rest of the spine.
I finally added a white square to the top of the spine and put the 'PC DVD' text in it, tinted the text blue by creating an orange radial gradient on a layer above it then masking it to the text and set the blending mode to divide. I then unlinked the mask from the layer and moved the gradient below the text to get the effect i wanted. I then put a blue rectangle under the white one to give it an underline and help it blend in some more.
Finally i added a black outline around the PC DVD logo, gave it a black glow and set the blending mode to normal. This helped it blend in a bit better.

Backside graphics

On the back of the dvd cover you would usually have some sort of graphic to go behind the screenshots and text. This is usually in relation to the theme of the content.
Since my game is a sci-fi game i will compare some existing game cover art

A similar game to the style of the game i've gone with is Supreme commander
With this cover you will see that they went with a mixture of metallic and holographic looking graphics. This makes it look clean and futuristic.
http://www.covergalaxy.com/forum/attachments/pc/8106d1269682957-supreme-commander-german-supreme-commander-cover.jpg

With this cover they went with a full metallic look, using a rusted/worn look. This makes you think of armour or machinery.
http://www.covergalaxy.com/forum/attachments/microsoft-xbox-360/9890d1294800765-supreme-commander-2-pal-cover-disc-scans-supreme-commander-2-front.jpg

I also looked around for other covers that use other styles to make a sci-fi look but i couldn't find any. It seems that holographic and metallic looks are common themes in sci-fi graphics so i will have to design some for my cover.

Transferring to the DVD Case

Since the front cover is almost complete i decided to transfer it onto DVD Case template to see how it looked. I realised that it didn't look right so i then had to copy each layer over separately and then moved the title up slightly.

I then added stars in the background. I did this by rendering monochromatic noise then using the crystallize filter. Then i added some larger stars by adding white radial gradients, flattened them with the transform tool, blurred them, then added colour overlays on another layer to add some variety and make it seem a bit more realistic.