How to Record & Edit a Game Trailer for FREE! A Step-by-Step Guide for Indie Game Developers
These are the 4 simple steps to help you create a more professional Steam launch trailer. This article is for indie game developers and small studios working on their own game trailer for a Next Fest demo release, gameplay launch, or update trailer.
Here’s what you'll need:
- Your Game Build (with debug options to turn off GUI and music)
- Gameplay Recording Software - OBS Studio (Free)
- Video Editing Program - DaVinci Resolve (Free), Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro (Paid Subscription)
Real quick: I’m a freelance game trailer editor with more than 10 years of professional experience. My game trailers have more than 6.3 million total views across Steam and YouTube and have also been featured on IGN, PC Gaming Show, Best Indie Game Showcase. Credentials. Credentials. Blah. Blah. Blah. Let’s get into it!
Also note, there is more than one way to make a trailer. This is simply how I recommend making a trailer if you are a game dev first and not as interested in the art of game trailers, instead you simply want a one and done method. I have also released 4 games on Steam mostly as a solo developer so I know making a game is a large enough task on it's own so hopefully this will help developers looking for a free and simple solution to getting their trailer done in a pinch.
STEP 1: Set Up Your Game Build
You are going to need a build of your game and it does not need to be at all feature or content, ideally the core mechanics and art style is there and mostly final so the trailer can represent the game accurately. First program some debug and UI toggle buttons into your game.
I reccomend you set up tools to remove the game's UI interface. Most ideally, you can remove specific parts of the UI that works best. The reason you need this is because players should only be focusing on a single thing on screen at any given time so GUI is only taking away attention from where you want it to be. For Steam trailers if you think it's important for players to see GUI to understand the genre or your game is mostly GUI then you don't need to follow this rule but rememeber that GUI can be distracting and try to
Music Off and Sound On: Make sure you can toggle and adjust the music and sounds in your game. Here is a simple trick to make your trailer feel more cinematic! When recording your gameplay. Turn off all music and only record game sound effects (you will add the music in your edit). Make sure the sound effects are not too loud or quiet, usually %50 works.
BONUS - Camera tools - Being able to alter the camera which is following the player or focusing on the main actions and mechanics the player is interacting with (note I still would focus mostly on the default camera set up so that players will understand and feels like they are playing your game) Setting up a free roaming camera and doing cinematic is more advanced and not necessary for budget game trailers and unless they are really great players will often skip them.
STEP 2: Record Your Gameplay
There are a few ways to record your screen or game footage but I highly recommend using OBS as it is quite powerful for free software and you can easily customize the bitrate for the best quality results.
So first install OBS studio which is commonly used for streaming and also an effective tool for screen recording, you can ignore the streaming settings and look only for the recording ones. Here are the settings I use based on the PC performance.
Here are 3 settings you can use:
Low Budget Settings
Format: MP4
Rate Control: CQP (Constant Quality Parameter)
CQ Level: 20 (Essentially higher number means more compression so worse looking quality but smaller file sizes)
Preset: P4: Medium (Medium Quality)
Multipass Mode: Single Pass
Balanced Settings
Format: MP4 or MOV
Rate Control: CQP
CQ Level: 16 (Basically lossless threshold for Steam trailers)
Preset: P6: Slower (Better Quality)
Multipass Mode: Two Passes (Quarter Resolution)
Max Lossless Settings
Format: MOV
Encoder: NVIDIA NVENC HEVC or ProRes
Rate Control: CQP
CQ Level: 12 (Almost 0 compression)
Preset: P7: Slowest (Best Quality)
Multipass Mode: Two Passes (Full Resolution)
Then create a scene which records your ‘Game Capture’ with the audio recording checked on so only your game audio is captured.
If you don't have space for larger video files or struggle to hit a stable 60fps while recording do not be hesitant to lower the quality of the recording. It is not as bad as you think to have a lower quality recording. Here is why: Compression! As soon as you upload to Steam, YouTube or any other social site your videos will lose all that crispy quality that your raw footage possessed and replace it with pixels and grain (if you pay attention or look too closely) The reality is viewers don't care about quality of footage they care about the content. So as a developer and video editor you should focus on content and clarity to make your message clear and deliberate as possible.
To make capturing easy, create your entire trailer while centering on your player or where the main gameplay actions/animations take place. Also unless your GUI is the main focus of your trailer in that shot I would recommend turning it off to remove clutter which distracts from the center action you want the viewer to focus on.
STEP 3: Edit Your Trailer
If I was a game dev making my first trailer and not a video editor I would put %50 of my time capturing the best possible footage and %50 editing and selecting the absolute best captures into my trailer with straight cuts that means: no transitions, no effects on your footage, no text or graphics besides your ending title card.
To keep things simple, most of your work should be cutting down your recorded footage for the best possible moments focused on player actions, then placing footage together with one simple rule starting with your best looking gameplay moment to start on a hook your viewer.
Then simply make a sort of visual tutorial for how to play the game showing one mechanic at a time ending with all the game mechanics coming together.
Once players understand the game genre and mechanics you can make a montage of interesting moments and show off variety.
Then you end your trailer by creating some sort of curiosity gap. So players are left wanting more.
To summarize here is a list of tasks you can go through step by step:
- Find a Music Track that is about 60 seconds (This could make or break your edit and will work as the base which you build your trailer from)
- Cut down to only the best footage
- Organize Your Footage
- First shot should be clear and as hooky as possible
- Middle is like a tutorial show player how to play the game
- Have the trailer escalate get more crazy overtime show more variety towards the end
- End on a shot with high intensity and linger on it for some time
- Add a Title Card at the end your games logo, background and a CTA.
STEP 4. Draft and Publish
If you are overwhelmed and struggling with more advanced elements or getting bogged down by the specifics of your trailer that is normal! You want to give yourself time to fail and make a couple of revisions. You will probably have to make a couple drafts of your trailer to get it right. Feel free to share your trailers in communities such as the HTMAG discord for free feedback!
Even if you're still not happy, think of the trailer more like a tutorial or a best moment showcase of your game. If the player can at least understand what the game's core loop is about and imagine themselves in the game then that is a good trailer!
Remember, just like a game, a trailer is never really completed or ever perfect it just gets finished eventually usually because there is an approching deadline. You can always update your trailer on Steam by the way so it does not need to be perfect.
Regarding rendering, you can simply think of bitrate as higher equals better quality where lower equals worse and so even though you should render at a higher bitrate as said before it will get compressed anyway so don’t worry about quality too much.If you still have questions.
If you still have questions check out this talk by Derek Lieu which goes into more details regarding capturing gameplay footage:
You can upload your trailer to Steam, you can also combine it with a presskit and request press like IGN cover your game. You can leverage it to promote with the press, influencers or get into game festivals. If you don't have a new trailer you may be replaced by a developer who does.
Thank you for checking out my article on how to improve your Steam trailer. If you want to reach out and talk about game trailers feel free to email me and have a wonderful day!
- Jerome
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