Purpose: To share the presenter's creative and technical process for making YouTube thumbnails.
Focus: Not a definitive guide, rather a personal method.
Key Concepts
Title and Thumbnail Relationship
The thumbnail and title must support one another.
Example: For a video about surviving 100 days in Minecraft, the thumbnail shouldn't be unrelated (e.g., a photo of breakfast).
Some creators plan the title and thumbnail before starting the video.
Example Project: Building a House
The example project: Creating a video on a Minecraft house build.
Uses Let's Play style videos focusing on builds or game progressions.
Critical: The visual style includes the Barebones resource pack for lower resolution textures.
Technical Workflow
Tools & Techniques
Survival Mode Challenges: Difficult to capture angles; use scaffolding or create a world duplicate in Creative Mode, or use free cam mod or Replay Mod.
Replay Mod: Start and stop recording, then navigate in spectator mode to get the best shots by altering FOV, angles, etc.
Framing the Shot
Consider distractions in the background and how thumbnails appear on YouTube with overlays (e.g., duration overlay in the bottom right corner).
Adjusting FOV: Lower FOV compresses the scene and reduces background clutter, higher FOV offers a wider scene.
Positioning the player in the shot, either during replay or post-capture.
Consider the player's motion and animations using techniques like Replay Mod.
Simple Approach
Capture dynamic gameplay moments and use screenshots as thumbnails.
Example: Most viewed thumbnail made using this simple method - capturing interesting gameplay moments.
Advanced Techniques
Custom Player Posing
Green Screen Method: Record poses in-game, use Replay Mod to capture scenes, and edit using green screen techniques.
Blockbench: Program for modeling and texturing. Allows for importing Minecraft skins and posing models. Easy posing using pre-set poses, then capturing screenshots for thumbnails.
Blender: 3D software for advanced custom posing, lighting, and rendering. Involves importing player skins, setting up cameras, and detailed lighting effects.
Lighting & Composite
Lighting in Blender: Set up appropriate lighting to match scene background, using sun, point lights, and environment lighting to reflect realistic conditions.
Photoshop Compositing: Blend the rendered player with the background, adjusting lighting, shadows, and highlights. Ensure matching of FOV and color schemes across elements.
Tips and Tricks
Photoshop Workflow
Check image brightness against a white background (similar to YouTube's UI) for accurate appearance evaluation.
Manually paint shadows and light highlights for additional realism and depth.
Final Touches
Avoid being too precious with exact world replication; minor edits for visual clarity are acceptable.
Example: Removing distracting elements (like a random tree) to clear up the image.
Summary
Encourages creativity; there's no single right way to make thumbnails.
Project files available for download and experimentation.
Closing
Engaging with the audience for questions and feedback.
Invitation to check out further resources as linked.