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Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine

howacarworks.com

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Re: Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine

#31

Post by sleavey »

AlexMuir wrote: post #29
laurencei wrote: post #19

IMO what is really clever about this is that it is a "sales" video - except you dont realise you are being sold to until the end, by which time you've enjoyed the video so much, the pitch at the end is reasonable. And you've shown what the value is long before I asked myself the question "how much" - which I usually ask early in the process - but not here. At least that is how I found it... great work. Would be inter…

I can't really share conversion stuff yet. But one interesting observation off the top of my head is that my customers MASSIVELY prefer paying with Paypal to Stripe, even though I deliberately steer them towards Stripe. It was a massive pain to implement Paypal and I hated every moment of it but it produced an uptick in payments.

Note the typo on your sales page at https://www.howacarworks.com/video-course#intro: "We're taaking a Mazda MX5 Miata to pieces"

Re: Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine

#33

Post by AlexMuir »

sleavey wrote: post #31
AlexMuir wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't really share conversion stuff yet. But one interesting observation off the top of my head is that my customers MASSIVELY prefer paying with Paypal to Stripe, even though I deliberately steer them towards Stripe. It was a massive pain to implement Paypal and I hated every moment of it but it produced an uptick in payments.

Note the typo on your sales page at https://www.howacarworks.com/video-course#intro : "We're taaking a Mazda MX5 Miata to pieces"

Thanks, fixed ready for next deploy :)

Re: Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine

#35

Post by AlexMuir »

burntwater wrote: post #32

As a hearing-impaired person, I just wanted to thank you for clearly mentioning that it's subtitled. That shows it's more than just an afterthought, and seals the deal for me!

I don't understand why everyone wouldn't subtitle their content. I used rev.com and it costs $1 per minute and the results are great. So to subtitle three hours cost $240. With many non-native English speakers as customers it is a no-brainer.

It's good to hear this too, because the text in that box originally said 'Filmed in 4K' and I only changed it to 'Fully subtitled' at the last moment.

Re: Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine

#36

Post by rl3 »

AlexMuir wrote: post #30
rl3 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're also modeling the whole thing in 3D ... Can you elaborate on the process for this? I'm curious what software you're using, how many modelers you have, and if you're using 3D scanning equipment. Modeling everything by hand has to be unimaginably laborious. Incredible work by the way, you've already sold me as a customer. :)

We're making it all by hand because it needs to be relatively low poly for the app and website :) I'll write about the process when we've figured it out completely. I'd say we are about 70% done on the modeling. Rigging and animating is a whole other animal. This was the state of the engine a few days ago - all internals are done. https://twitter.com/howacarworks/status/895417122385481728

Very nice.

In that case, I suppose the most utility 3D scans would have is as references to enable a faster low-poly modeling workflow.

Then again, scanning would likely incur a non-trivial time cost—one that can't outweigh the very benefits the process affords.

Re: Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine

#37

Post by jacquesm »

AlexMuir wrote: post #30
rl3 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're also modeling the whole thing in 3D ... Can you elaborate on the process for this? I'm curious what software you're using, how many modelers you have, and if you're using 3D scanning equipment. Modeling everything by hand has to be unimaginably laborious. Incredible work by the way, you've already sold me as a customer. :)

We're making it all by hand because it needs to be relatively low poly for the app and website :) I'll write about the process when we've figured it out completely. I'd say we are about 70% done on the modeling. Rigging and animating is a whole other animal. This was the state of the engine a few days ago - all internals are done. https://twitter.com/howacarworks/status/895417122385481728

I'd be as much interested in a 'making of' as I am in the final product you are making.

Re: Show HN: A stop-motion video of an engine

#40

Post by sdrothrock »

burntwater wrote: post #32

As a hearing-impaired person, I just wanted to thank you for clearly mentioning that it's subtitled. That shows it's more than just an afterthought, and seals the deal for me!

Same here. One reason I love the advent of GIF-videos is that the GIF format basically forces people to subtitle anything they want to say... and it seems to be spreading to regular video.
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