spartanerik found a bizarre little Flash animation over at Newgrounds – Halo Mathness Demo. It wouldn’t run for me; I had to step through the dialogue at the beginning, one frame at a time… but maybe it works better on a PC. Answer math questions, kill Covenant. Oddness to the nth power.

Wow, awesome find. And1balla2829 noticed that there’s a new Halo novel listed at both ISBNdb.com, and Amazon.com. (Amazon also lists an 18-copy lot, for bulk orders, I guess.) The book is being published by TOR Books – whose website is woefully out of date, so there’s no info to be had there… so at this point, the sum total of the info we have about this book comes from these sparse entries:

• Author is Eric Nylund
• Title is “Ghosts of Coral”
• Publication date is October 31,2006
• Length is 384 pages

As we learn more, we’ll be sure to pass it along!

Jamie98s used a pretty cool technique in his recent ‘Mombasa Massacre‘ film; he had battle scenes with many more than 16 fighters onscreen. He’s not the first to do this (ipushmycar did it in Biohazard, about a year ago, and I’m sure someone will remind me of other examples), but he’s the first to write up a tutorial to help others use the technique in their own films. Swing by our Miscellaneous section to read about it in detail!

The MPRRS passed two movies in quick succession this morning; the first we just posted, the second is called ‘Totally Random Act 4 – Playing With History’. It was submitted by KeyboardKiller, of Pothole Studios, and tells the story of a couple of friends who invent a time machine, and then try and figure out decent uses for it. Pretty funny, nicely filmed! Go watch. WMP9 version is 15 mb, QuickTime version is 17 mb. (It was originally submitted in DivX 6.1.1 format, but some of the reviewers had trouble with that, so switching to our standards seemed to make more sense. If you really want to see the original, you can grab it here – 20 mb.)

Se7en One has been experimenting with fully-rendered movies in 3ds max; his most recent offering is called ‘A Hole in my Soul’, and it’s a music video, with a Grunt band playing Aerosmith’s “A Hole in my Soul”. I love the concept, and I think it has great potential; personally, I wish the MPRRS had sent him back to do another iteration, because there are a number of small faults that take away from the power of this one. (Timing is a bit off, the drummer’s got no sticks, there are some graphical glitches, and he stuck with the band onstage for the entire vid, rather than intercutting other footage.) They didn’t, however, so we’re presenting it to you; you can grab it in WMP9 format (18 mb) or QuickTime format (20 mb). Here’s hoping the technique is explored in greater detail, and continues to be honed!

X1Zero found a few eBay auctions – there are a couple of the small Muckle Master Chief statues (here and here, same seller – Buy It Now prices are really high; remember that the last dozen or so of these to pass through eBay have sold for less than $200), and a new magnum. This is listed as the M6C, not the M6D, and is NOT the same as the pistols we’ve mentioned a bit in the past few months (the most recent one of those can be seen here, for comparison). Halo is still big business on eBay!

SEspider posted an update about his Miniature Halo series – along with some links to recent artwork he’s done. Go read!

SteelGaribaldi found a pretty subtle Halo reference in an old Unshelved comic; given the discussions on video game violence we’ve had on our forum, this is pretty funny. Check it out!

Jamie98s has created another gorgeous piece; I’m starting to wonder if there shouldn’t be a fast lane for certain moviemakers, with respect to the MPRRS. This one is called ‘To Heaven’, and tells the story of one Spartan’s journey to heaven. Superb camera work, wonderful composition, and a perfect music choice. Absolutely worth watching. WMP9 version is 22 mb, QuickTime version is 20 mb. Go grab.

Demonelite wanted to put together a Halo graphic novel using in-game shots, modified in Photoshop – last night’s announcement of an official one prompted him to post his efforts so far. (There are higher-res versions in this post.) Fantastic stuff!

SteelGaribaldi noticed that Halo showed up in today’s Foxtrot. Heh.

Gah – and even one MORE! (Last one of the night – I promise. I have some green beer to drink!) enigMa sent a link to this YouTube vid – it’s a Halo dream animation he made for class. Pretty nice work!

And in case you’re not movied-out, you can swing by Halo2Forum, and grab a copy of shook on3’s montage. Really, REALLY heavy on the effects… but the sniping’s quite good, and there are a couple of very cool clips which use great machinima techniques in a pretty unique way, as far as montages go. 103 mb, WMP9 format. (5:33 long.) First heads-up came from shoeler, but I don’t generally post H2F links unless they come from Z (which this one did, eventually). Update: There’s a QuickTime version here (61.3 mb) for anyone who needs it.

I was totally wrong when I said the movie night was ending; there are more. Dennis Powers pointed out a St. Pattys Day tribute from EchoZuluFilms that I didn’t get to in time… go grab a copy now. 16.6 mb in WMP9 format, 18.3 mb in QuickTime format.

The Red vs Blue crew has been busy – Episode 76, ‘Two for One’, went up for sponsors a few hours ago. (That means freeloaders can grab a copy on Sunday, probably.) Sarge proves he’s not the pointiest chevron on the sleeve, Tucker is… well, I can’t tell you, and Caboose is sad. Very, very sad. Eight and a half minutes of RvB goodness round out this Friday movie night here at HBO! Thanks to Psychophan7 for the heads-up.

Halzred submitted a montage trailer he’d created for Frantic to the MPRRS – and the reviewers liked it. You can grab a copy in WMP9 format (21.5 mb) or QuickTime format (23.8 mb)… the final montage should be pretty cool! (Side note: hisTALLness, check your email, wouldja? I’ve now sent three emails to you about YOUR montage, with no response… and you clearly want it posted.)

Wow. Bungie’s Weekly Update is certainly worth reading this week… they’ve announced what looks to be a pretty darned spectacular product, coming this summer… a Halo Graphic Novel, put together by some amazing names. Go read it; I can’t do it justice with a news post. (It’s at B.net, of course, but it’s also local, in the BWU Archive.) If you’re wondering about that link name… check this forum post from earlier this afternoon. Moral of the story – Frankie can be petty, don’t cross him.

Elnea (who’s known around here for her artwork, and around Red vs Blue for her funny journals) and OboeCrazy (who’s not known around here at all, but is pretty visible at RvB) put together a trailer for an upcoming machinima that does what hasn’t been done yet, that I know of – it incorporates footage from Halo, the Sims, and World of Warcraft (and in fact integrates them, so a Sims character is talking to a Pelican pilot who’s flying over a WoW landscape, for example); this is pretty cool stuff. You can grab a copy in a whole bunch of different flavors:

• MedRes – 540×360: QT (28.7 mb) | DivX (20.6 mb) | WMP9 (30.9 mb)
• LowRes – 360×240: QT (11.6 mb) | DivX (11.2 mb) | WMP9 (11.6 mb)

Actually, the large WMP9 is 720×480… but I was too lazy to cut it down. (The 540 versions actually look better, in my opinion.) Go grab one… and then let them know what you think of the idea!

Dennis Powers points out that you can now play all the Halo PC campaign levels in HaloCE; all you need to do is download one of the custom UI files that supports the ‘Campaign’ menu function (like this one, or this one, or this one), and then grab the Single Player levels off this page, and you’re good to go! (He warns that the campaign level conversions have not undergone strict quality control, so while each one has been played through successfully, you should use at your own risk.)