Modtacular! - Update 2

Well, well. Do I have a bit to write about today. First off, I just want to mention that this mod has gone way above and beyond what I had originally expected it to turn out to be. Here are all of the features built into this mod as of now:

- Original toggle timefreeze
- Original screencap tool
- Decrease/inscrease game speed (think smooth slow-motion)
- Cinematic mode (enables constant high LOD models and textures)
- Camera shift, depth, FOV, speed adjusters
- Save & load both camera-state & game-state
- Cutscene camera
- Third-person perspective (with proper reticle aiming)
- Chasecam perspective
- Stillcam
- Devcam perspective (move camera out of the Chief while game stays live)
- Auto hi-res screen grabber
- Image sequence capture (low, 10FPS)
- In-game letterbox toggle (cutscene-style, 1:85.1 widescreen)
- Wireframe mode
- HUD toggle
- AI toggle (not working correctly)
- In-game ambient, primary & secondary lighting controls (this allows us to position light anywhere on the chief, especially in dark rooms, PERFECT for setting up shots in a film)
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Yeah... I know that's a whole lot to swallow, but now I'm going to show you some pics of what some of the newer features do.

- Auto Hi-res Grabber -
Basically, what this command does is take many screenshots of a single frame in-game. After you get your camera in position to take a regular screenshot, you enable the hi-res grabber and immediately the mod will zoom into smaller 'blocks' of the overall image and take 640x480 screenshots of the zoomed-in 'block.' Afterwards, when all the blocks are strung together, they become one massive canvas at 2094x1136 resolution. Here is a sample image in high resolution: (click to show full-size picture)


- Cinematic In-game Widescreen -
Below are a few pictures showing the in-game widescreen feature at work. These pictures were all taken with the highest model & texture settings possible. The mod forces the Halo 2 engine to run any map with everything at full tilt. Think beautiful graphics. Of course, you would think that this would make the game lag severely, yet I was surprised at how well Halo 2 ran with everything enabled. I didn't experience any lag at all, except when I set Zanzibar to wireframe mode.



- Lighting Positioning on Characters -
Look at the two screenshots below. The first image shows the chief with 'default' lighting. It is hard to see the chief because his head is directly in front of the sun. But look at the other image as I maneuver the light primary and ambient light sources to slightly head-on shot. The chief helmet and armor are much more distinguished and color more vibrant. This is exactly what they do in real movie production; they position the lighting to best portray the scene. We're going to be pumping out some awesome film with this.



And so, this is the mod as it stands as of right now.


All these cool new abilities are a lot to take in, yet this will really help us create more of a true 'animation feel' to our films. The camera hack itself is amazing, as you can disconnect from the chief and move around the map while the game is still in play.
And then we have the highest level of detail (LOD) settings for all models and textures in any map enabled no matter where your character is. This means that everything that is way in the background of a certain shot will still be sharp and high-res. And then we also have the built in 1:85.1 widescreen, which will take so much work out of my editing in Final Cut Pro, as I can accurately judge where the camera needs to be as we shoot a scene. And the lighting feature... that simply speaks for itself.

Gah...

Wahttehhog App Update

Do you n00bs remember this?


Actually, some of you guys weren't even a member of The Wahttehhog way back when this was originally thought up.

Anyways, a brief explanation: I started this Mac app a while back, way back when we were much more n00bified than we are now. I actually got a good chunk of the original programming done, but then I just kind of forgot about it. Today, I was searching through my Xcode resource files and found this again.

So for the last few hours I've been building, compiling, and testing this simple app that tests a person's n00bness level. I plan to port it over to Windows eventually (once I release the Mac version), so all you squares running the Microsoft OS can test your n00bness too.

Note: Speaking of Mac apps, Ducktape, you could help test this sucker so I can get a stable build for release. I'll send you a package when I'm ready and if you want it.

Life before dead rising?

there was no life I can remember before dead rising.a 9.5 on the ricter scale of videogames about the same as capcoms other spawn re4.KILLING zombies is fluent a good upgrade system and a branching story mode thatpulls you in and keeps you wanting morethe graphics are great and even though hundreds of zombies are on screen at once theres near no frame rate problems.the one save thing is great if you ask me it adds difficulty other games lack.

Modtacular! - Update 1

I got a lot of stuff done in the past few days. There's a LOT of stuff that I'd like to talk about, but I'll keep it to the basics.
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These are some high-resolution images that I captured in a "freeze-frame" within Halo 2: (Note that this is being done solely on one modded Xbox)




The environment you see in each image is currently frozen in time (the center image is the chief running sideways, frozen in midstep) Basically, after time is frozen, the camera was disconnected from the MC and is moved to anywhere on the map, even outside restricted areas. Then, a screencap feature captures a high-res 640x480 image of whatever the camera is "looking" at. After that, I just download the RAW image files through FTP from the Modbox to my PowerBook, and convert them to JPG images.

And here's a video displaying the freeze-frame awesomeness.

Download H2_freeze_frame (5.8MB, Quicktime)

It's up!

(Image doesn't link to site. Click here to view permalink.)

Ancin Regime has passed the review thang and it is now up, check it out:

"Insert Quarter to Purchase Health" - Original

I uploaded our first movie in it's uncompressed format into the same directory as the other Wahttehhog media. You can now download the final cut of our first video, weighing in at a little over 200MB.

[Wahttehhog_IQTPH] 212.9MB, Quicktime

Enjoy.

200th Post

This is the 200th post on the Wahttehhog blog. ^_^ Moby-bir...

LAN - 8/19/06

I am having a 24 hour LAN next saturday the time is 2pm-2pm. Let me know who can come I have one xbox and 2 controllers so I am going to need lots of stuff.
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UPDATE: (By Matt) This is all the stuff we are going to need (that I don't have or simply cannot bring):

- As many Xboxes, controllers, and copies of Halo as possible.
- Money for food.
- Money for website. We need 60 more dollars and then we'll have enough for the hosting plan.
- Good spirits.

And I really can't think of anything else because I HAVE everything else...

Modtacular!

As you can see from the image below (taken write of a sequence I was throwing together in FCP), I have finished removing the HUD from Halo 2 on Jon's Modbox.


From now on, we will be filming in 1.85:1 widescreen format, which allows us plenty more space than cropping the HUD (old method) and will let us allocate the widescreen bars wherever they fit best on the picture. As you can see from the above image, the actual picture space is much greater than our previous films. Beautiful!

The Conversion is Complete

Sadly, Apple recently announced their fastest and last Mac to switch over to the Intel chipset. The new Mac Pro is the fastest Mac ever, with Quad Xeon 64-bit processing.

Check it out here.

LAN - 8/10/06

possible lan tomorow(thursday) please answer

"Ancien Regime" of the Sans-Culottes Series

Welcome to the beginning of something great.

Download the awesomeness: (Please Right-Click & Save-As)

[Ep. 1. Ancien Regime] 10 minutes long. 575.5MB large.
In original, uncompressed quality.

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A Note of Thanks: I would like to thank the Wahttehhog Organization for making this film possible. I, for one, know that I am glad to be a part of such a great group of guys who willingly show up to every LAN and work together to create such a masterpiece.

Thank you, The Wahttehhog.
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And now onto Ep. 3! ^_^

We are near...

Episode 2 is done. Ryan and I completed the final cut yesterday. We exported the highest quality film at 640x480 resolution yesterday as well. We applied absolutely NO compression to the video, because we felt that the experience of watching this episode is much greater if one views it at it's original quality.

And yes, we are going to host all 575.5MB of the file on our own server. (HBO can host it too if they want (they'll probably compress it), but I will be dishing out the original exported version through our own web directory.)

The upload process is underway as I write this (it's been uploading all morning now). I will make the public directory to download the film available as soon as the file uploads.

And no, I don't really plan on ever releasing a compressed version (not HBO included) unless the bandwith burned (from people downloading the file) exceeds well over what is reasonable.

The Wahttehhog Welcomes "Ducktape"

This letter is directed by the Wahttehhog Organization as a whole, including all current active members. These are the terms of acceptance that [Matthew Gabrenya] must comply to in order to join our group. These terms have been modified to suit Matt's situation. The terms are:

1. The Wahttehhog pwns you. You are never above the Wahttehhog.

2. You must comment on this blog at least once a month. You are forbidden to use the phrase "lol" or any other phrase of that nature on this blog.

3. Because you DON'T live that far away (like Gerk), in Lexington, you should try to participate in the majority of LAN/filming sessions we host here in Billerica. But as long as you can make it to a few LAN's year-round, we really don't care.

4. Try your best to type in proper sentences. This means correct punctuation and grammar and stuff. Yes, there are members here that can't figure this rule out, but no one cares about that either.

5. When creating a post on this blog (not a comment), don't just post aimlessly. All posts must be something interesting or informative to the Wahttehhog.

6. There might be some other rules that I forgot and stuff. So just enjoy your stay here.

We will send your invitational email once you comply to these terms. Just create a comment in this post that states that you comply to these terms.
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Cheers!

I dont tell you guys 5h17 do I

Today my dad got married.Im in maine finishing out this wierd week.well I felt this info was to large for a comment but not worth a paragraph.
matt une(or one in english) Please finish the episode I need some normality.

Episode 2 - Update

I have been working my ass off over the last week trying to wrap up this episode. And it is actually coming along very nicely. Over the last few days I have managed to:

1. Re-edit the ENTIRE "Zanzibar Intro" scene. (It's a really cool scene now.)
2. Correct all the audio levels for final export.
3. Strung together all the separate scenes into a single sequence.
4. Added an entirely new scene which incorporates footage that I had discarded at an earlier time. (The scene is the one about the base going to full alert, with the "air-raid siren.")
5. Finished editing general scenes that needed to be completed.
6. Realized just how awesome we are, and how unbelievably good this film is.

I've also determined that final runtime length for the episode:

10 minutes, 3 seconds & 12 frames long.

I personally think that this video does not suck and will be accepted as the greatest Halo machinima piece to date in the entire living Halo community.
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You guys are gonna' love this. Especially the new Zanzibar scene, and all the extra outtakes that I finally decided to place back in the final film.

Shabu Village Restaurant Website

Currently, I've been building this website for a new restaurant called Shabu Village in Brookline, and I'm getting paid big bucks to do it. (Ryan, you helped me film that video, which you can now watch incorporated on the home page.)

Visit the first draft of this website at ShabuVillage.com. (I have only finished the home page and menu page so far.)

By the way, this website is hosted off teh StartLogic "ProLogic" plan, which is what I mentioned to you all earlier as our option for web-hosting service.
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I mainly created this post so you guys can basically "beta-test" this site for me. In other words, if you come across any errors or problems while visiting the site, PLEASE tell me.

Thanks.