New project

[Chris101b]

Okay, after this next weekend, one of my classes will be over, so I will have much more time to devote to Alice. I have decided to start working on a new project. I am not going to make War Zone 2, and I am thinking about if I will continue making Infiltration 2 (I think I may because I am already so far into it).

My next project is going back to my roots... recreating scenes from the video game series Halo. The videos that put me on the Alice radar in the first place. The video that I am going to recreate can be found at the bottom of this paragraph (start at 4:01). This orbital drop is going to be a monumental task that I am prepared to tackle. It will not be that long, but so many things are going on at the same time that I think it will turn out great. I have already started making the scenery for the movie and can't wait to fully start on production. Hope you like the idea!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLkVrydpiKs

[Chris101b]

Sweet! Preliminary tests have been great so far. I have decided to make it so that you can look around the pod during the drop (just like you can do in the actual game). I have been testing this effect out and so far tests are good. Here is what I have so far. This is just the camera having the ability to look around. This will make this video pretty cool because not only will it be a movie, but you will be able to interact with that movie. I don't think that I have seen any other alice movie do that before. Tell me what you think. (Probably wont think much of the world I posted before, but it is just a test... so just tell me of what you think of my idea)

[x2495iiii]

Good to see that you're back. I never was much into Halo, but I do like the way you set up the restricted camera movement and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished movies anyway.

[Chris101b]

Lol, halo is my life. I just love the iconic set pieces that it has in its games. As soon as I played ODST and saw that opening drop, I knew that I had to make it in Alice. Also, recreating scenes from halo is what got me into the whole "big budget" alice movie making. So I thought that I would go back to my roots. See if I could do it all over again. The only thing is that this is going to be much bigger. I am going to try and incorporate movements of the mouths in the characters so that when they talk without their helmets on, their mouths move. Also, I want to add my own textures to the world to make it more realistic. Also I want to try and make objects that are off screen to disappear so that it saves memory and wont lag as much. That will take up a bulk of the work. But it should allow people with average computers to watch the movie. Also there will be minimal lag when I record it and put it on youtube.

As for the restricted camera, I was going to adopt a method used by someone on the forums (Forgive me for forgetting their name) where you use the mouse to look around, but the only things I didn't like were that you had to calibrate it in the beginning, it was fairly laggy, and that I didn't make it, so tweaking it so that it could be restricted would be much more difficult. So I did what I usually do... I simplified it and made it my own. The other way would work great for a game, but not for a movie. Especially one on this scale.

[x2495iiii]

I've played Halo exactly once, and it was with a six year old boy who owned the game (and by extension, owned me when I played against him). Not a great first impression. Also, I'm all for action games, but not bloody, gory, clean-the-screen-cause-of-the-splatter games. Just not my type of hype.

Anyway, if by disappear you mean set isShowing to false, that's possible, but deletion of objects in the world while the world is running is impossible.

[Chris101b]

Yes that is what i meant. I just couldn't remember the phrasing. I just recently found out that by making objects out of view "isShowing False" It increases the frame rate considerably. That is one big problem I had in war zone. People with average computers couldn't play it. It was so laggy.

Also another thing that I learned from past recreations is to not have one big audio file in the video. If the video lags at all, the sound will be off for the rest of the film. So I am going to split the audio into a bunch of different files so that it is easier to have the sound synch to the action.

You should try halo not as much for the competitive multiplayer as much as the story. I love the story. It just has that emotional value that few games have. Also, you should disregard a game based on one play session. The kid had obviously played the game before. See the good thing about halo 3 is that when you start off, you are going to get matched up against people who are as good as you are. And as you learn and get better, the skill of your opponents increases as well. I play it basically every single day and it never gets old. There is always something to do. And now with ODST out and Halo: Reach on the horizon, there is so much to look forward to.

[x2495iiii]

Well you definitely have my interest piqued. Unfortunately, my second reason for not playing halo is that of hardware: I don't have an xBox or an xBox 360. Believe it or not, I actually won a contest (involving Alice, no less) where one of the prizes was a free copy of Halo 3, but I turned it down because I didn't have an xBox 360.

I'll admit I was seriously tempted, though. The other prizes weren't that great and one of my biggest hobbies is playing video games (big shock there, right?).

[Chris101b]

Well the original halo came out on the PC remember. Once you play that, you will be hooked. You will fall in love with the characters, the story, the universe, the mythology, etc. It is just one of those games. Halo 2 is also on the PC and I can tell you right now that Halo 3 alone is worth buying an xbox 360. This is because no matter what kind of mood you are in, there is always something to do. If you feel creative, make a map or your own gametype, feeling artistic, take screenshots, competitive, play matchmaking, bored, get in a custom game with friends and mess around. It is true when they say that it isn't as much about the game as it is about the people you play the game with. I have so much fun every day going into parties with my friends and just having fun. Halo 3 is infinitely replayable... hands down.

Other games such as Bioshock, Call of Duty, Red faction guerilla, they are all good games, but they don't have the content to back it up. Once you finish the Bioshock campaign, thats it. You can play it again, but other than that you are out of luck. In Call of Duty, you can play matchmaking, or custom games..... that's it. In halo, you have such a multitude of features that it never gets old. And once you get good at the game, the fun never stops.

That is the final good thing about halo 3. It is not all competitive. I play games all the time where there is a track on the outer rim of the level and in the center of the map is a "zombie" with a rocket launcher. The people who spawn on the track have to get in vehicles and drive as fast as they can to try and get around the whole thing so that they can go through the teleporter and kill the zombie. The zombies mission is to use the rockets to long-distance-shoot the people on the track before they make it. So much fun. That is just one of the INFINITE number of games that people have come up with.

[Chris101b]

Work on the project is going well and the scope of the project is rearing its ugly head. This is going to be a big one (don't even say anything). Anyway, I am well on my way to building the ground section of the movie and it is coming out better than I expected. Below is a picture depicting the scene from the game and my current scenery (I am not done with the scenery, so some of the textures are not there and I am still messing around with color). Tell me what you think!

[dubastot]

Now that is what I call awesome terrain. I think what your missing is that cockpit part though.