Daily Archives: 02/27/2013

Special Halo Reach Easter Egg (In Real Life)

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Tweeted by Halo.Bungie.org, this cool “Easter Egg” isn’t in a Halo game. It’s in REAL LIFE! Article on Kotaku.com by Jason Schreier

The people at Bungie are famous for putting obscure Easter Eggs into their games. Halo‘s creators have packed the massive sci-fi shooter franchise with all sorts of references and secrets, and fans love finding them.

But sometimes, Halo‘s little secrets are so obscure, nobody ever sees them.

A tipster—who asked that we not use his name—pointed us to an Easter Egg in the special edition of Halo: Reach that we believe nobody has discovered yet. While it’s possible that someone somewhere has stumbled upon it, of course, we couldn’t find anyone talking about it on the web anywhere.

Halo spoilers follow.

The limited edition of Halo: Reach, released in 2010, came with an ID card for scientist Catherine Halsey, an important character in the world of Halo and the creator of the AI bot Cortana. While some people noticed that something was up with the image on the card, nobody noticed one strange secret: if you take a blacklight to it, you can see a strange photo that’s sort of half-Halsey, half-Cortana that looks like a blue, Cortana-ish version of Halsey.

Here’s the card:

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Now take a black light to it and…

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Source link: http://kotaku.com/5987211/a-halo-easter-egg-that-took-years-to-discover

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Okay, so here’s you’r homework folks, find this card and take a pic of it with you. If you’ve got a blacklight, then let’s see that too. I’ve got to find mine. This is VERY cool news, even if it’s from a now “old” Halo game.

-Sal

The making of Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn CG pre-visualization.

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The following article was sent to me by the writer himself: (As per requested, I’m removing the bulk of the article and replacing it with a synopsis of the article. To read the whole article, please go to the source link.)

The making of Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn
By Ian Failes (Synopsis/Paraphrased)

Microsoft’s experimental Halo live-action miniseries Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn has received over 50 million views since airing online last year. The five ‘webisodes’, produced by 343 Industries and directed by Stewart Hendler, were shown on MachinimaPrime’s YouTube channel and are now available on DVD/Blu-ray.

Sniper fire

In one sequence from the series, Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 assists the United Nations Space Command in fending off a sniper attack. The attack was filmed at the Simon Fraser University Library, a location, like others in Forward Unto Dawn, that Arc measured and photographed extensively.

Shootout_previs

In some locations, such as the forest seen in the later episodes, photogrammetry proved difficult with the complicated tree surrounds.

Production filmed the sniper attach based on detailed storyboards and previs.

“The rule of thumb was that the good guy’s weapons were treated as if they were typical gun powder weapons, the bad guys were more sci-fi looking.”

Shootout_final

A military advisor on set also proved extremely helpful. He referred to Master Chief as a ‘weapons platform’ and suggested that Chief wouldn’t fire indiscriminately. …those subtleties really make a difference.”

Not so welcoming wagon

Arc’s environment work included shots of a space elevator, and its destruction by Covenant vessels in one of the eps. Interior shots for the elevator were made of greenscreen hallway plates and CG geometry, with exteriors rendered as matte paintings and set extensions. …when the elevator actually fell apart we turned the piece off in animation and effects took over to trigger the crumbling.

elevator

Delete the Elite

One of the creatures brought to life by Arc for Dawn are Elites, Covenant warrior aliens.

elite

Hunting the Hunter

Even more imposing creatures were the fierce Hunters in a fight against Master Chief. On set, an 11 foot pole stood in for the Hunter to provide camera and actor eyelines.

hunter

Rendering Master Chief

In only a few shots, Arc was required to create a CG Master Chief. A live action practical suit built by Legacy Effects was used for most shots.

…capturing the majority of that material in camera goes towards the believability of the digital work…

chief

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Wow, that was a cool article. I love to see how things are made. Thanks again to the writer of the article for the link, Ian Failes.

-Sal

Halo 4 Fileshare is now active on HaloWaypoint! (I’m talking internet folks, not XBOX!!!)

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I was made aware that you can now access your screenshots and download them via HaloWaypoint on the net. SWEET! That was one thing sorely lacking at launch. I’m SO glad 343 has caught up on this.

To find your files, log into HaloWaypoint. From there you will see a menu bar across the top of the page. (If not, go to the main HaloWaypoint.com page. Once there, go to the “Career” tab on the far right (see pic). (Click pics to make bigger)

Career tab on Waypoint

 

Next click on the “File Share” tab (see next pic):

Fileshare tab on Waypoint

 

From there if you have uploaded any files to your fileshare you will be able to access them. (I had some but deleted them before posting this article. Might I also suggest that when viewing them to use the “List” option (second icon to the right of “View”). (See last pic)

Fileshare screen

 

This will allow you to directly download the image from the list option. If you view them as thumbnails, you’ll be directed to a new page to download a specific pic you have clicked on. Then you’d have to go back a step to get back to the thumbnails. Having it in list mode makes it faster to download your images.

Have fun and HAPPY SCREENSHOTTING!

-Sal
P.S. (Now if we could only have this for Campaign and/or Spartan Ops…sigh, SO much in both I want to take screenshots of.)