A Halo CE Roadtrip Redux

Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything remarkable here, but I just spent the last week or so remaking a pet project of mine that some of you probably remember from way back in the day, A Halo CE Roadtrip.

About 4 years ago, after attempting my own map and realizing how complicated the process was, I was impressed enough to make a sort of tribute to the mapmakers who have made the CE community so fun to be a part of over the years. At the time, I had a very poor computer setup, with an ancient nvidia graphics card and no ram whatsoever, so the original Roadtrip, though solid in concept, lacked the quality to accurately show off the CE maps.

Now, with a system light years ahead of the old one, I've done my best to remake the old video in larger resolution, full graphics, and nicer-looking maps where needed.

The original video, for reference. Note: Halomovies doesn't seem to want to work for me right now- the streaming doesn't load. D: Here is the youtube version, though the audio does not sync properly, unfortunately.

I present: A Halo CE Roadtrip Redux

Youtube, low res - muted
REVVER- 480p, BEST STREAMING VERSION
Filefront, 480p -dead atm
Filefront, 720p- fixed

The quality is about 80% HD, due to the odd filming system I had, but it's still decent.

Feel free to comment.


Edit 5/6/09: NOTICE: Youtube has muted all videos using any music copyrighted under the Warner Music Group, including Roadtrip. As a result, both the new and old versions are silent. I've reuploaded the 720p version to filefront, and the link above is now fixed. There is also a new link for the Revver video, which is unmuted and currently the best version to watch without downloading.

I'm about 2 minutes in and this is pretty neat.

Mind giving us a list of maps in order of appearance?

Heh. I'll make a list if I have time. I managed to procrastinate doing all my college homework to finish the editing. :P That's an interesting idea though- for some reason it didn't even occur to me.

Ok, here we go:

Intro: Hugeass

Timelapse shots: TSC

POAspace (2 shots)

Regret

Decoy

Municipality

Abyss

Concealed

Autumn Slay

Ndugu

W4rtorn Cove

---------------------reference point- 1:54

Islandhop

Yoyorast Island

Covie Engine Room (made for Dust to Dust- I decided it needed use somewhere)

Nightcamp CE (3 shots)

Camtrack Arena

Gate

TSC

Area 53 (the talking heads, what else :P)

Fast shot sequence #1:

TowergulchXL

Hugeass

Concealed

TowergulchXL

cs-v2

Valkyrie

Tension

Icetigaurus-beta

mp_Aotcr_b

Paradise 2

Lavaflows

Deep

Lightningstrike2

Coldsnap

-End Fast sequence-

Casualtygorge

Lightningstrike2

Portent

Hydrolysis

---------------------reference point- 2:54

Awakening_Beta

Quagmire

The Halo HQ (2 shots)

TSC

Prime_C3

Mystic


Fast shot sequence #2:

Deep

Engineroom_beta

H2_Newmombasa

Inner_Poa

Sky Twins

North Galeton (also made for Dust to Dust)

Claustrophobia

Concealed

Lavaflows

Gate (2 shots)

Paradise 2

Yoyorast Island

-End Fast sequence-

TowergulchXL

End credits- No Remorse- I love the skybox on that map.


There's everything. Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. You will notice some repeats, but that was to keep me from going insane when filming.

Pretty good. The editing followed the music pretty well.

Will post when watch.

This would probably attract people who don't even play Halo CE!

Auesome!

Best halo ce video I have seen.


Srs.

That was awesome camera work. I would have tried something like this...but uh, I don't have Halo installed on my brothers good computer. It's fine on this one, I don't care. Did you download all the maps and go through or did you go through a few, delete, download, and go through again so you didn't have to wait 5 hours for Halo to start up?

>.> Are you serious ODX?

1. Make more folders in your maps and put the maps you dont play in there.
2. Download a map manager
3. Wtf.

Very cool, I appreciate this very much!

Nice work. It's damn fine.

I stopped it after I saw you using the Halo font, then restarted it after I saw Sel's comment.

I'm glad I did; that was really well done.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. To answer some of your questions, I loaded all the maps at the same time. By the end I had almost 3 GB of 50+ maps. One of the reasons I wanted to go back and redo my original video was because I recently built a computer that is somewhat of a beast. CE, even with all those maps, starts up in less than 20 seconds. It makes me happy. :D

One interesting thing I noted, and maybe some of you could enlighten me, is that when filming CE seemed to have major issues depending on the map. With the original video, the graphics were on low and there was a constant level of visual lag. With the new system, the graphics were on full, yet sometimes the game would run perfectly and other times, for no apparent reason, it would lag horrendously. Dm7Fear, a relatively simple but large box map, for instance, was so bad that I had to replace the shot with a whole new map. In the end, I liked the new shot much better- it's the Municipality overhead shot near the beginning, if you're interested.

In the video info I guessed it had something to do with portalling- the more advanced the map, the less lag there seemed to be. Does that sound right?

And to SuperSunny, I tried for a while to get some good shots from Valkyrie, but the closed spaces meant the only movement I could get was quick, perfect for the fast sequences. I even took a slow test shot involving the lighting in the lower hallway, but even my comp didn't like the lighting effects enough to stay at a good frame rate. D: Still damn pretty though. :P

And lol @ Jelly. I would have had the same thought, but I didn't really think about it since I was copying my earlier style. Glad you enjoyed it.

Was the computer running Vista? The nVidia drivers for Vista sometimes have issues with decals in Halo.

It was, 32-bit. I had read about that issue, and I tried turning decals on and off in those situations, but it didn't seem to change anything. Again, the example of Dm7fear- large, one texture, no decals, and barely any shadows. If it was the decal issue, it had a strange way of showing it. I can normally run it with decals working fine- it's when fraps enters the equation that the framerate drops to a jittery 26-28 frames per second. The solution I found in some cases was to take the shot very slowly, then speed it up to the correct speed. This resulted in some accidental, but cool nonetheless, timelapse shots of Yoyorast Island, Islandhop, and part of Camtrack Arena. They're a bit hard to see unless you're watching the higher-res versions.

On the note of interesting shots, did anyone spot the red MC I accidentally left in a shot? I usually hid him in some corner where I could film in peace, but in one shot the camera reveals him on the other side of a wall. :P I didn't notice until I was watching the 720p version today. I'm fairly certain you can catch it on the youtube version, though it is harder.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Heathen

>.> Are you serious ODX?

1. Make more folders in your maps and put the maps you dont play in there.
2. Download a map manager
3. Wtf.

---

What's a ...folder?...*Smacks self* I knew that.

Very nice video.

It sucks that lots of great maps aren't played. All I ever see is mostly yoyorast, snow_grove, coldsnap, and extinction. Though sometimes there might be a game of hydrolysis with 8+ people.

Most impressive.

Nice music choice, and the camera work was also good.

Sweeett camera movements.


I agree with Heathens. I have never seen something actually this good.

Also, Heathens?

Meh, better than calling me Heather >.>

Omg I'm getting excited, I'm downloading now, will edit when finished! :)

been watching it for the last 7 hours eh?

dude that was somply amazing! I bookmaker of ok my iPod. Keep it up. FTW!

Really good video. I'm hard pressed to fault it (except for the silly halo font).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Heathen

been watching it for the last 7 hours eh?

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Couldn't be fucked editing my post. But I watched, and enjoyed. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by n00b1n8R

Really good video. I'm hard pressed to fault it (except for the silly halo font).

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Don't worry- I'd only ever use the Halo font in a video about the game itself. :P

Have you uploaded this to the halo movies section over at Halomaps?
http://www.halomovies.org/

Awesome. You had almost all my favorite maps.

Very. Nice. Very. Very. Nice.

I wonder how many people still play CE any more... and play on maps other than the standard ones / Yoyorast / Coldsnap / etc. at that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by n00b1n8R

Have you uploaded this to the halo movies section over at Halomaps?
http://www.halomovies.org/

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Yes, I have. It'll just take a while. Hopefully, the version I submitted works correctly. There is a black-boxed youtube version, and there is a 640x480 widescreen version which when uploaded to youtube or other like systems appears vertically stretched. :/ Can't remember which one I stuck in the ftp box. D:

wow, that was awesome...

loved how the music fit in with the video clips.

btw, whats the song called?

Never saw something like THIS so unanimously loved by the entire community.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alwin Roth

btw, whats the song called?

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The song was Above, by the Blue Man Group.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Heathen

Never saw something like THIS so unanimously loved by the entire community.

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Neither have I. I'm pleasantly surprised. : )

Yes, very nice montage! Good job.

Wow I just took the time to come to this thread. I just realized that I was missing out, big time. :O

Wow I totally remember the last one you made. Actually I thought it was the same one (same intro and music) until i noticed some of the maps.

You rascal you =D

Amazing.

:o Rascal, eh? =P Thanks for everyone's overwhelming approval. I'm truly glad I could pull something off that everyone liked.

For lulz I say go take a look at the original youtube version- link is in the first post. You'll see that it's not only the maps I used that changed. xD Or even: the HD version of the new one. :iia:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by soloblast

play on maps other than the standard ones / Yoyorast / Coldsnap / etc. at that.

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This never happens.

Unless it's organized, which isn't often.

And that is very true. Tbh, I'm gonna make sure that the servers I have access to have custom map, mapcycles! :D I'm sick of stupid bloodgulch and sidewinder.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Heathen

Never saw something like THIS so unanimously loved by the entire community.

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You also missed my video then, because it was pretty much unanimously liked by the entire community.

This had some good flow, I think it would have been cooler if you actually had no HUD footage of you driving through the maps you showed though, i.e. a road trip.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Freelancer

You also missed my video then, because it was pretty much unanimously liked by the entire community.

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I for one certainly did miss your video. =) I like it. I can assure you, the few shots that are similar to ones I used in mine are completely coincidental. Though I see you had some of the same fly-by portalling issues I did. The best example is in Prime C3- the lower support flickers in and out of existance when you try to film it from outside the main map are. :P Nice camera work though- I purposefully did my best to avoid panning shots whenever possible. You dove right in and focused nearly singularly on those, and the result is cool. Great work.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Freelancer

I think it would have been cooler if you actually had no HUD footage of you driving through the maps you showed though, i.e. a road trip.

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Yeah, I guess I did take the definition of roadtrip a little loosely. =D I haven't experimented that much with using fp no-hud footage in movies before. I'll take a look into it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Freelancer

You also missed my video then, because it was pretty much unanimously liked by the entire community.

This had some good flow, I think it would have been cooler if you actually had no HUD footage of you driving through the maps you showed though, i.e. a road trip.

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What song did you use for that? I came 12 buckets of awesome while watching it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Siliconmaster482

I for one certainly did miss your video. =) I like it. I can assure you, the few shots that are similar to ones I used in mine are completely coincidental. Though I see you had some of the same fly-by portalling issues I did. The best example is in Prime C3- the lower support flickers in and out of existance when you try to film it from outside the main map are. :P Nice camera work though- I purposefully did my best to avoid panning shots whenever possible. You dove right in and focused nearly singularly on those, and the result is cool. Great work.

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Oh no! I wasn't implying that you stole or copied any of my work! I was just quoting Heathen's reply about video montages of Halo CE maps not being widely accepted by the community. Basically I was join pointing at my video to show him that it was pretty much completely accepted, just like yours!

I hated those portaling issues, and if I had known about Pats "CamFlyer" application at the time, I would have definitely used that for all of my panning shots. It really smooths out the turns and animations, though if you space them out to much you can really notice the "jitters" or "bumps" in the camera movement as it changes angles.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by n00b1n8R

What song did you use for that? I came 12 buckets of awesome while watching it.

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From my video thread, a little ways down the page:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Freelancer

The song is Insurrection, here's a download:
http://rapidshare.com/files/73460742...ReMix.mp3.html

You can download it from OC Remix (ocremix.com), so I figured I'd throw it on Rapidshare as well.

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However, the link has been removed from RapidShare because of lack of downloads, I do believe that it's on my Halo Music Compilation website though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by n00b1n8R

What song did you use for that? I came 12 buckets of awesome while watching it.

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Source got posted for that ages ago :S

As a matter of fact you're the one who showed it to me when the video was first posted and I asked for sauce

:raise:

at any rate, thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Freelancer

I hated those portaling issues, and if I had known about Pats "CamFlyer" application at the time, I would have definitely used that for all of my panning shots. It really smooths out the turns and animations, though if you space them out to much you can really notice the "jitters" or "bumps" in the camera movement as it changes angles.

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o_0 There's an app to do that stuff? Link, now. =D That sort of thing could come in incredibly useful for my next project.

Edit: Found it on halomaps. W00t. I had never heard about this one. :D

You didn't use it? O__o

Quote:

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Originally Posted by n00b1n8R

You didn't use it? O__o

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No, if you look at most of his footage he just tried to avoid panning the camera, thus minimizing the chance of jittery footage.

lol, I remember making this random machinima that is loss to time (and the fact mythica closed down) that had to do with these SPARTANs going on a trip through a30 >.<, but that has nothing to do with it other than the fact that it was a road trip of sorts

anyways, good job my friend

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Freelancer

No, if you look at most of his footage he just tried to avoid panning the camera, thus minimizing the chance of jittery footage.

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Indeed. I also used a joystick in combination with flycam whenever I did need a panning shot. A great example of one of these is the long shot of the space skybox near the beginning. I brought the joystick with me to college solely for that purpose. :P

After experimenting with the camflyer a bit, the changes in direction are very evident. I may use it to record camera points, then plug those into sapien to utilize the "curvy" nature of its cameras.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sevlag

anyways, good job my friend

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=D Glad you liked it.

*bump*

Just went to find this on youtube and found that those fuckwits disabled the audio.
Remove the Blue Man group bit from the end (but make it something good too) and I hope that should fix it.

I :gonk:'d when i saw it had no sound, i wanted to nostalgia-gasm :((((

E: and can someone host it somewhere?
The filefront links are broken :smith:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by n00b1n8R

*bump*

Just went to find this on youtube and found that those fuckwits disabled the audio.
Remove the Blue Man group bit from the end (but make it something good too) and I hope that should fix it.

I :gonk:'d when i saw it had no sound, i wanted to nostalgia-gasm :((((

E: and can someone host it somewhere?
The filefront links are broken :smith:

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This.

ReRail: Nice vid, too bad there isn't any audio.

Noo I wanted to dl the HD vid!

I have the 720p version, I could upload, but I have a shit upload it will take forever. But fuck, I'll do it anyway. Any bets someone will beat me to it. :(

/Will post link in the morning.

E: 720p version: http://files.filefront.com/13604496

<33333

Haha, np nubcake, love you too! :)

Wow. I definitely missed this whole incident completely. I hadn't even noticed that Roadtrip had been muted. Frak my life. The "more info" box on youtube has been updated with newer dl links (720p only, 640 is being odd). Filefront had even deleted my HD uploads when I wasn't looking. - _ - Thanks so much Ducky for helping those who wanted to see it again. :)

Upload to revver!!

New unmuted Revver video is up! The audio sync is close enough that I won't bother messing with it any more. Silly video upload sites. Link is here, and the front page has been updated as well. Enjoy!

Suggestion:Make a 5 year anniversary video for halo custom edition..Throw in some neat words and some of the better maps ect..And a good song ofcourse..

An interesting idea. That's something I could do over the summer. However, for the moment I'm busy with finals. I would also need to find a new song to use. :P

Oh god this one please this one!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by n00b1n8R

Oh god this one please this one!

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Very cool music track- I think I've heard it before somewhere. If I do do a 5th anniversary video, it won't be for a bit, but I'll keep that song in mind. I may want to pick something totally non-halo related, just for nuance, like Roadtrip. Thanks for the link!

its in 6 days you know:P USE N.I.N Every day is exactly the same... Or Jacks Mannequin - The Mixed Tape

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5NIQ...eature=related

I know it's coming up soon, but even if I started it now it would take me quite a while to make, and I have school work to worry about. Assuming I do the video at all (we're just speculating right now), I'd rather have it a little late than never. And we'll see about the music.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Siliconmaster482

Very cool music track- I think I've heard it before somewhere.

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Possibly here?

http://www.lancersedge.co.cc/hmc/

I have all the good Halo songs, D:

(always willing to update this if anyone has more)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Freelancer

Possibly here?

http://www.lancersedge.co.cc/hmc/

I have all the good Halo songs, D:

(always willing to update this if anyone has more)

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Yeah, actually, I think it was. I browsed the music page a while back, and must have listened to it. Thanks!

I personally like "Halo Master and Chief" as well.