Here is my second attempt at taking a Halo 3 saved film clip and using the render to video beta service on Bungie.net. This time I battled my sons in an epic 2 minute game of Fiesta on 712342 (Sandbox). Green Spartan – youngest son. White Spartan w/o sword – oldest son.

Of note: this particular video cost 2 render points for SD and would’ve cost 10 for HD.

probably NSFW

I mentioned last year that Bungie was looking at implementing a render-to-video feature for Halo 3’s saved films that would allow you to view Halo 3 saved films outside of Halo 3 without using a capture card. As of yesterday, the render-to-video feature went live via a public beta open to all paid Bungie Pro subscribers.

the details:

- SD and HD renders have a point cost associated with them for each minute of film (and yes, 1:01 counts as 2 minutes), an amount currently defined by your Bungie Pro member status. Bungie has stated that if you need more points, you’ll be able to buy them. After choosing your rendering option, you will be told how many points it costs before you accept.

- File format is WMV.

- Feature/service is in beta – they’ve only allotted everyone enough points to upload SD videos, though they’ve said they’ll let us try HD out soon enough; only other beta testers can see the videos on bungie.net and the player is not embeddable – so you’ll have to download them then re-upload them to a hosting service for now if you want to show them off; Beta ends ‘sometime in July’.

As a quick test, I walked around my Sandbox creation 712342. I saved a 37 second clip, then put it on my Halo 3 file share and chose the ‘beta – render to film’ option for the clip on bungie.net.  It took the service roughly 2 minutes to render my video (and told me about as much) in SD and the above video is the result. It also gives you a nice idea of what my newest map is like. You can also view the video on bungie.net here.

so this is probably the coolest fucking thing I’ve seen in a while, someone sampled youtube videos of people just performing in front of a webcam and made some pretty awesome songs out of them – in video form. the first video i came across was actually the below track I’m New but after I went to Kutiman’s ThruYOU site I found Wait for Me to be just as cool. this is sort of in the same vein of Jack Conte, but I imagine this took a whole lot more time to compile.

Meant to put this up last month – Nine Inch Nails performs Wish with The Dillinger Escape Plan. Have to say I wasn’t that impressed with Puciato’s vocal on DEP’s cover of this but this performances is straight awesome.

a tip for survival if you’re ever near an elephant and haven’t had any water for days.

I couldn’t take it.

don’t remember where I snagged this from, but there you have it – the sleep forever pill.

It may take a minute for the GIF to load.

(SFW)

So, that’s how it’s done?

Jason Statham, Danny Lohner and Maynard Keenan in Crank: High Voltage.

(A poor random meets the business end of a gravity hammer skinned to look like a golf club)

I had been updating here with the goings-on of Halo quite often, so I thought I’d pop back in quickly to talk about the Mythic Map Pack that was just released for Halo 3. It’s 800 ms points and has 3 new maps that include Sandbox, Orbital and Assembly. Assembly is a cousin to Midship from Halo 2, Orbital is a great hallways map that reminds one of Elongation only much bigger – and Sandbox alone is worth the 10 bucks because of the ability to build in the sky bubble and the crypt as well as the default playable area. Sandbox is Foundry to the max(TM), only much bigger and as close as we’ll ever get to a full-fledged level editor in Halo 3 (and is, by the way, what they had alluded to last year).

Here is my first creation on Sandbox, called 712342 (download from my Halo 3 file share). It’s a very small two-sided map in the sky (pictured) designed for (what else) Fiesta gameplay. Aside from the requisite falling fusion cores, a nasty trap involving skids in the middle of the map makes one question the choice of grabbing the overshield in the middle.

(I take down both of my sons as an Elite after seeing them fight over the golf club)

(Younger brother gets blasted by older brother with the fuel rod gun)

And this next pic isn’t on the new map, but it was taken during the same session and I had to share it.

(Consider the fact that fusion cores fall repeatedly in the middle of Fight Club, so it’s pretty likely that the green random isn’t going to live very long)

i thought computers were supposed to be more precise than this? I can’t count how many times this green garage band slipped on their timing. Oh well – still pretty impressive that you can make some old machines emulate Queen.

ya know, i kinda rolled my eyes at the tax day tea party thing – but billy bob neck here makes it hard to argue with the concept of teabagging for Jesus.

id pay somebody to strip the audio from this and put it to a clip of some good ol’ Halo 3 teabaggin’.

Even though one might technically say this is SFW, I’d say that they’d be technically right.

This guy is upset about football, or something, and his teammates, or not. don’t skip ahead, the payoff at the end is more than worth it.

a man going by the name Major Douche informs us about the live incarnations of Puscifer in Vegas this February. the Major looks an aweful lot like that cop in some short film I saw a while back.

additionally, there is a new Puscifer track on the radio and at Puscifer dot com called The Mission with Danny Lohner and Milla Jovovich. This is an original track with Maynard and that chick from Resident Evil, sorta reminds me of Lovage (Mike Patton and Jennifer Charles). have to say MJK’s vocals are impressive on this track and the actress’ vocals aren’t too bad.

Nice of this lady to share the what the President and the First Lady do with fists.

not only does puscifer have a remix of Lighten Up Francis (its good, you can hear it on puscifer.com) coming out on a soundtrack…

according to blabbermouth.net - maynard keenan is again working with billy howerdel on some recordings for A Perfect Circle (guess ashes divide didn’t pan out?), though they might just only release a few tracks online (their contract with virgin was up after emotive). there is also the possibility of one-off live shows.

tool is expected to begin writing sometime next year.

mjk did some work for a documentary called The Heart Is A Drum Machine. the Flaming Lips did the soundtrack, including a cover of elton john’s Rocket Man with vocals by maynard (!). this has got to be the best combination since gears of war’s lancer (gun/chainsaw).

and, Puscifer will be doing three shows in Vegas around valentine’s day. there was a promo video up for it, but now it’s private.

(source)

A top question on change.gov (from the office of the president-elect) gets answered:

Q: "Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?" S. Man, Denton
A: President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.