Here comes one of early drafts of games establishing shot and ring exit sequences:
Establishing shot is the critical one, on which I spent most of my time editing. It needs to quickly and smoothly communicate a number of important elements to the player:
- Saturn is to the right.
- You came from the left.
- Your equipment is bit dated.
- We are using real physics to fly these ships.
The exit sequence is far less critical – at this point player should have all the basic information covered. After a brief warm-up period the cruise control takes over and flies you all the way to Enceladus Prime station, where you can sell your output, repair and upgrade your ships.
Both sequences are rendered in-engine. Making a short video would be a lot easier, but in-engine sequences adapt to the screen resolution and allow seamless transition from gameplay to cutscene.
Both Enceladus and Saturn are real photos took by Cassini mission.