Whats a good presentation for workshop?

tja

I've been looking at the workshop files, and I noticed items with a good presentation have much better scores and feedback.

So, I'm wondering what you think is a good set of images etc. for presenting your item/set.

heboltz3

I think after you have a killer piece of art, and it's really poppin, as long as you have clean and informative marketing materials for workshop you will be fine.

It's always good to go above and beyond, examples being the Guardian of the Eternal Seasons (id link it but dunno if I should spam.. look it up if you haven't its a baller NP set for spring 2014) video and banner. But as I said, I would use the marketing to primarily inform, and then zazz.

I think a banner image(be that painted or just a touched up game view), in game shots of day/night are always useful and needed. Past that if it moves I would have gifs, and even a video. Past that a SFM video can never hurt and can just bring the hype.

From what I see tho, it's really hit or miss. Having great marketing won't guarantee you to get a bad add 5 star in the game, but it can't really hurt either, unless it's really uninformative.

belkun

I made a really quick breakdown of the presentation from my Abaddon sword here, which some people really liked.

I think that the presentation is one of the most important parts of a submission, because it's the first thing that people see when browsing the Workshop. I personally like to get a render from Marmoset and paint a lot of stuff over it, bringing more attention to the item.

Hope that helps!

tja

Thanks guys, really helpful stuff.

BladeofEvilsBane

Oroboros posted a really good look at item creation, and I've always found this piece of information to be really helpful in particular. I'll quote it for brevity's sake, but here's the link to the full guide:

"Now for submission I cannot stress enough how important marketing is to your items success. Sure, the item needs to look damn good, but if the thumbnails for the workshop are so bad that nobody sees it, you're out of luck. You need to create marketing images that catch people's attention, while not being gaudy. This is where the graphic designer in you must come out."



"A little trick that I use is mocking up what my icon might look like next to other items in the workshop. Does it pop? Is it too loud? Are the colors a good choice for helping the item shine? This technique will save you a ton of time in the long run."

bounchfx

sadly enough (though not surprising in the least) presentation gets most of the votes, whereas just having a really high quality item that looks great in game will do almost nothing on the workshop without fancy presentation to back it up.

Makes me sad, but it's not hard to understand why.

kite212

I pretty much use the method Vlad details, super easy and gives amazing results for how little you really need to do. This is a great place to start, then refine your process from there

http://www.workshophatemachine.com/2013/03/28/promo-images/