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Shakeycam footage – for non-members
Mirrors have been popping up for the one free version of the demo footage – the stuff put up by TeamXbox. Blackstar has mirrored all four pieces on his server, Xbox4uweb (in Germany) has stitched them together and posted the 42 mb result (registration required), and Halo Orbit (also in Germany) has posted all four. If you’re having trouble getting them from TXB, grab ’em from a mirror! (And don’t forget to say thanks to TXB, for supplying content at no charge!) Update: Break Point has put up a mirror, as well. Update 2: And more – clarksbrother provides 2 mirrors of a stitched-together version.
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Behind the Curtain
Our very own Louis Wu has been interviewed by xbox.com.
This is a fun little read for those of you who want a glimpse into the life of HBO. My favorite part is at the end, where Louis exaggerates his sleeping schedule. Honestly, who could possibly believe he sleeps that much?
Kudos go to Tempus Fugit for pointing out the interview.
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And Rosebud is…
Calvin and Halo should have been posted yesterday. Or last week. Not my fault. Really.
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Another contest comes to a close
On January 30, c0ld vengeance started a contest to pick the Halo 2 release date; the first poster with the correct date would win a copy of Halo 2. Looks like that lucky winner is JPJ007… congrats! (Thanks, Gutupio, for doing the legwork.)
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IGN adds Hi-Res Demo Downloads for Insiders
ajenteks points out another IGN Insider download; the entire E3 Demo, in one chunk (212 mb in QuickTime, 92 mb in WMP9). This is very similar to the Gamespot vid (i’d say quality is a little higher; the image is brighter). They’ve come a long way since last year’s shakeycam capture! (This is listed as ‘Direct Feed’ – but the crowd is audible. Whatever the situation – quality is VERY good.)
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Gamespy plays Halo 2
The Gamespy crew managed to actually PLAY Halo 2 a few days ago (rather than just watch it), and have written up a Hands-On article. It’s a good read; it comes from folks familiar with Halo, but not immersed in Halo 2 – folks just like you and me. Go read! (Thanks, fludblud.)
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Halo 2 LE Press Release
It’s up around the net by now, but for completeness’ sake, here’s the Limited Edition Halo 2 press release sent to websites several hours ago.
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There was a ninth. You couldn’t have known. And I haven’t forgotten.
Once again, webmasters have neglected to account for nosy viewers. If you look through the new Halo 2 screenshots at Halo2.com, you’ll find that they BEGIN at image02.jpg. Like any good Bungie fan, Mr. Zarquon substituted image01.jpg into the URL… and found a ninth, unlinked Screenshot. (We’ve archived a copy here, in case it gets yanked.) It’s even a nice shot – not sure why it wasn’t released. Update: Wow, interesting – terd monkey found ANOTHER new one there; they’ve left out the ODST pic, and included this one, instead. Odd! (Again, a local copy in case it’s pulled is here.
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He’s only angry cause they left him in Redmond
daedalus found a new blog update by Mat Noguchi, the Angry Zen Master, discussing the tools released with the Halo Editing Kit (tools he created, not incidentally), and hinting that he might post some hints or tricks in the future. We definitely wouldn’t argue…
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Halo2.com Goes Live
As many have already noticed (and as could probably be guessed, by many hardcore fans), Microsoft scooped up the Halo2.com domain – and has used it to launch a new Flash-based promo site. There isn’t much info there that isn’t elsewhere, as well – but there’s plenty of room for expansion!
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Videos to fill your hard drive
The saturation coverage continues; Gamespot has a 235 mb version of the Halo 2 demo from the Press Conference available for Gamespot Complete members. (They’ve also put up their own ‘Impressions‘ article.) IGN has put up a 340 mb WMV raw feed of the entire conference itself (minus a 5 minute parody show that MS wouldn’t let them film) for Insiders. IGN’s Halo 2 media page contains 5 new short movies – low-res WMV versions for the masses, hi-res QuickTime for Insiders. I’m sure there’ll be more – but this is a reasonable start. (Remember, ALL of this stuff is shakeycam footage. Some of it is very GOOD shakeycam footage – but it’s not direct feed. That won’t come until later.)
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No silly title necessary
At the conclusion of Microsoft’s press conference, a ton of new Halo 2 content hit the net. Firstly, Bungie.net has 8 new screenshots from the Zanzibar level being shown off at E3. Secondly, there’s some info on the Halo 2 Limited Edition, which was only just revealed at the event. Thirdly, TeamXBox was the first site to post a shakycam video of the Halo 2 portion of the event, which is available in 4 parts here. That ought to keep you all busy for a while 😛
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A little bit of history repeating
So I think it’s now quite obvious why I haven’t updated in a month or so.
Linky
Since I’d probably get severely disciplined by the Bungie Webmaster if I scooped bungie.net, I thought I might reminisce a little bit today. Gearbox finally released the HEK (Halo Editing Kit for my parents), so now you all get to see what I got hired by Bungie to do three years ago. I’ve read some of the comments people have had over the quality and breadth of the tools in the HEK, and I thought I’d answer a few of them.
Firstly, if you have issues with the learnability of Sapien, you should understand that it was developed with the intent of always having a programmer (namely, me) on call to handle support issues. So, most of what is in Sapien is not documented anywhere. It also does not have any loading progress visualization, so if you see Sapien load up and then just sit there, it’s (probably) not hung, it’s just loading.
Secondly, if you’re wondering why Sapien doesn’t support more mapmaking features that you’d find in other game modding packages, namely, map creation, it’s because the primary goal of Sapien was to be what 3dsmax and Maya are to artists for designers. That, and it’s much more cost effective to buy an off the shelf 3d art package and write an exporter than to create a 3d modelling tool from scratch. It’s unfortunate that currently you need to own MAX 4.x-5.x, but as I understand that, Gearbox is working on a solution to expand the range of apps that will support exporting Halo models.
As for the overall quality of Sapien, I’m surprised that it is still working almost three years after we shipped Halo 1. Ah well; I’m looking forward to seeing what the Halo mod community creates with the HEK. I might even post one or two tips and tricks to using Sapien in the future.
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A little bit of history repeating
So I think it’s now quite obvious why I haven’t updated in a month or so.
Linky
Since I’d probably get severely disciplined by the Bungie Webmaster if I scooped bungie.net, I thought I might reminisce a little bit today. Gearbox finally released the HEK (Halo Editing Kit for my parents), so now you all get to see what I got hired by Bungie to do three years ago. I’ve read some of the comments people have had over the quality and breadth of the tools in the HEK, and I thought I’d answer a few of them.
Firstly, if you have issues with the learnability of Sapien, you should understand that it was developed with the intent of always having a programmer (namely, me) on call to handle support issues. So, most of what is in Sapien is not documented anywhere. It also does not have any loading progress visualization, so if you see Sapien load up and then just sit there, it’s (probably) not hung, it’s just loading.
Secondly, if you’re wondering why Sapien doesn’t support more mapmaking features that you’d find in other game modding packages, namely, map creation, it’s because the primary goal of Sapien was to be what 3dsmax and Maya are to artists for designers. That, and it’s much more cost effective to buy an off the shelf 3d art package and write an exporter than to create a 3d modelling tool from scratch. It’s unfortunate that currently you need to own MAX 4.x-5.x, but as I understand that, Gearbox is working on a solution to expand the range of apps that will support exporting Halo models.
As for the overall quality of Sapien, I’m surprised that it is still working almost three years after we shipped Halo 1. Ah well; I’m looking forward to seeing what the Halo mod community creates with the HEK. I might even post one or two tips and tricks to using Sapien in the future.
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November 9th
IGN is first out of the gate with a hefty preview of Halo 2. They start off the article with, surprisingly enough, a “firm” release date of November 9th. The rest of the article is so much info, I think my head exploded… and I only made it to page 2.
I don’t even know where to begin to tell you about the massive wealth of information provided in this article… so I won’t. All I can say is go read this article!
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Lots of goodies, coming soon!
The Microsoft Press Briefing from E3 kicks off in about 5 minutes; all the really good stuff will be shown here, first. No, we weren’t invited. However, SketchFactor posted a note at B.net a few hours ago, promising lots of goodies as soon as it’s over:As soon as the briefing concludes we’ll have our finger on the ‘submit’ button ready to unleash a barrage of screenshots and new information. Stay tuned!
There’s also some juicy info about what’s coming over the course of the week – go read the whole thing!
The latest news about the Halo series of games from Microsoft
