Sketch writes:

The Penny Arcade Expo kicks off today in Seattle and three days of fun await in the Bungie booth.

We've been teasing our PAX plans for a while now and at last the big day is upon us. The Expo hall at PAX opens to the public at 2pm today and we'll be there, ready to rock.  We will be rocking for three solid days, open to close, for the duration of the show. I know many of you can't make it to Seattle this weekend, which is a bummer, but we also know many of you are already en route or perhaps already here in town. For people attending PAX, here's the quick and dirty schedule of activities for our booth each day (subject to change!):

Remember that we will have Halo 3 multiplayer up and running in the booth all day, every day, including a brand new map, "Assembly" (formerly known as "Purple Rain"). We'll be awarding some random prizes during the day for people who do well in multiplayer matches.  In addition, we'll have all sorts of Bungie people available to chat, answer your questions and hang out.

Here's a run down of the activities as well as some of the people who will be working in case you want to talk to a specific team member or someone in a specific field (i.e. artist, designer, etc...)

BUNGIE is located in Booth #752

Friday (2PM to 7PM)
Activities:
3:00 to 4:00 :  Bungie Trivia Challenge   (flex your knowledge of all things Bungie to win a prize)
5:00 to 6:00 :  Recon Challenge  (2v2 against Luke and Shishka to win Recon armor) 

Meet-n-Greet Staffers:
3:00 to 5:00 Michael  (Engineer)
4:00 to 6:00 Max (AI Engineer)
3:00 to 7:00 Shishka (Matchmaking Designer)

Saturday (10 AM to 7PM)
11:00 to 12:00 :  Recon Challenge (2v2 against Joe Tung & Lars Bakken)
12:00 to 1:00 : Bungie Trivia Challenge
1:00 to 2:00 : Bungie Artist Alley (meet Bungie artists, get cool art signed and maybe even get a custom sketch!)
2:00 to 3:00 : Marty O'Donnell signs soundtracks and mingles with fans
3:00 to 4:00 : Recon Challenge (2v2 vs. Luke and Shishka)
4:00 to 6:00 : Meet Jen Taylor, voice of Cortana. With special guest, security expert Jerome.

Meet-n-Greet Staffers:
10:00 to 12:00 :  DMiller (Designer)
11:00 - 1:00 : Achronos (Bungie.net Overlord)
12:00 - 2:00 : Evil Otto (Artist, Graphic Design)
1:00 to 2:00 : Artist Alley (Lorraine, Isaac, Frank, Ken, Milton, and Vic)
1:00 to 3:00 : Nick (Test)
2:00 to 4:00 :  Ferrex (MP Designer) and Adrian (Engineer)
3:00 to 5:00 : Christian (Designer)

Sunday (10 AM to 7PM)
11:00 to 12:00 : Bungie Trivia Challenge
12:00 to 1:00 : Recon Challenge  (2v2 vs. Joe Tung & Abe Froman)
1:00 to 2:00 : Bungie Artist Alley
2:00 to 3:00 : Joseph Staten signs copies of contact Harvest and mingles with fans
4:00 to 5:00 : Recon Challenge (2v2 vs. Luke and Shishka)
5:00 to 6:00 : Left over prize clearance

Meet-n-Greet Staffers:
10:00 to 12:00 : Achronos
12:00 to 2:00 : Jason S. (Artist), Max (AI Engineer)
1:00 to 2:00 : Artist Alley (Lorraine, Vic, Jason, and Milton)
2:00 to 4:00: Matt (Producer)
3:00 to 5:00 : Jay (Sound Designer)
4:00 to 6:00 : Tim (Production Engineer)


We look forward to meeting as many of you as possible over the course of PAX. And please, be nice, the guys who are helping with the booth this year are not there to debate the BR spread or discuss why map X or weapon Y should be added/removed from Halo 3.

Bam!

I'm out of jokes about sniper rifles that meet the minimum maturity requirements for employment at Bungie.


Starting now, Team Snipers is back to star as the weekend Double EXP playlist. Long rifles paired with magnums or shotguns in a primarily slayer, somewhat objective playlist for two teams of four.

Team Snipers is available from 11am PDT August 21st until 2am on the 25th. Legendary and Heroic maps are required. Cheers!

bs AngelOfDeath writes:

It's time for another fun community project hosted by I <3 Halo 3 Screenshots! This time around the focus is on the silver screen. The goal is to recreate memorable movie posters and iconic movie scenes in the form of (you guessed it!) screenshots from Halo 3.

The Halo Corpse Alphabet was so much fun that I <3 Halo 3 Screenshots! is happily hosting yet another fun community project. This time around our focus is on the silver screen. The goal is to recreate memorable movie posters and iconic movie scenes in the form of (you guessed it!) screenshots from Halo 3. The only requirement is that you must provide the movie picture you are recreating along with your screenshot submission. Otherwise there are no rules; you may use screenshots created in Forge, matchmaking, or campaign so let your creative juices flow. Find some inspiration from the examples given, and then have at it!

Halo Movie Scenes

mrsmiley writes:

Master Chief Theater 3000, the hit parody of the cult favorite "Mystery Science Theater 3000," has released their season 1 series finale through Youtube today! Check it out here, and read on for extras and more info.


MCT3K's first season takes all the cutscenes from Halo 3, and makes plenty of fun using the classic MST3K "riffing" technique. Featuring the writing and voices of mrsmiley (HaloBabies.net) and Pyroman, guest hosts, and plenty of sarcasm, this series has received more than 1.5 million views since it's first episode!

New episodes in the series are generally released every Friday, but Pyrosmile will be taking a short break before releasing Season 2 on September 5th. Check out their official site, Pyrosmile.org, for extra scenes, outtakes, and more!

Silent Vandal writes:

Laser beams, hostile invasions, and your Matrix isn't good enough for this Refuge's feng shui.


Another installment of the graphic novel Reclaimer is now available with another cryptic message from an unknown artificial intelligence referencing the equally mysterious [Eternal Refuge].

Thursday night (PDT, tomorrow) we'll be doing some upgrades in the datacenter where the file share runs, and it will be unavailable for a short time.

This means that uploading and downloading of shared files and screenshots will be offline for a while, and postgame stats from during the maintenance will show up after we're done.

locoskier78 writes:

HaloTracks.org presents the Racetrack making guide to end all guides. This guide will present the reader everything they need to know to make their track the best it possibly can be.


HaloTracks presents the most useful guide on HaloTracks.org. The guide, dubbed "The Unofficial Guide to Racetracks Etiquette", has become the most single useful article on the HaloTracks forums. Written by locoskier78 back in May, the guide will present the reader with nearly everything they need to know to make their track the best they possibly can. From how to formulate your start correctly, to the uses of a box.

Be warned, this guide is fairly long, but includes an index and is definitely worth the read for Racetracks makers new and old. You can view the guide on our forums here The Unofficial Guide to Racetracks Etiquette.

Episode 11 of Red vs Blue Reconstruction is up!


Red vs Blue Episode 11 is out!


Here's the link

Cocopjojo writes:

Over at Ascendant Justice, vociferous has just released an article which takes a look at one of Halo's most enigmatic enemies - the Gravemind.

Culling information from throughout the Halo canon, vociferous of Ascendant Justice has crafted an article which sheds light on what is arguably the most dangerous, and little-known-about, foe of the Halo series.

He details the Gravemind's history and physical makeup, as well as the tactics it has employed to become one of the most powerful forces in the known universe; tactics which include the creation and direction of a vast Flood army - as well as simple coercion amongst its enemies. Head over to the Ascendant Justice Blog for the full story.

Over at cnet.com, Josh Lowensohn writes about Gamevee's Grab Tool used for Halo 3. Check out the full news story!

"Over the weekend I played with a very cool tool from video host GameVee. It's called Grab, and it will pull saved videos from the console hit Halo 3 and deliver them to the cloud where they can be replayed without the need of local hardware or Halo software.

Typically to watch these videos you must first find and download them through the in-game video browser, then run them in the game's replay engine. More importantly, gamers are only given a certain amount of space to host their videos, and can only share six at a time without upgrading to an annual paid storage plan provided by the game's developers.

Using GameVee as a host, gamers can easily bypass these restrictions if they want to post their best (or worst) moments for all to see. GameVee lets its users upload as much content as they want as long as it's under the 500MB threshold. In the case of these Halo replay videos, the files are tiny since they're being delivered as commands that run in the game's rendering engine. GameVee creator and Chief Creative Officer Jason Bradicich wouldn't tell me the specifics of how the Grab system works, but presumably he and his team have found a way to automate the download and playback of these files into equipment with a capture card that's pumping the video to GameVee's servers.

Bradicich says Halo 3 is hopefully the first of many games that will be tied into the Grab service. In the meantime, he tells me getting Bungie, the creators of the Halo series onboard is the most important part. The title has been out for just under a year and is still logging more than 2 million matches a day. Many moments from those matches are being recorded and pushed up on Bungie's hosting service for sharing. Up until Grab, there wasn't an easy way to get them up on a video host without using your digital camera to grab some shaky cam footage, or throwing down on some capture equipment for your computer.

Some developers have decided to go the other route for their games, allowing gamers to push their replays straight to the cloud. For instance, Electronic Art's Spore Creature Creator let users push their monsters straight to YouTube as long as they had a log in. Similarly Skate (also an EA creation) lets its users send saved replays to its servers, but like Halo had a cap on how many files they could keep up at a time.

As console gaming progresses, expect to see more services like GameVee's Grab pop-up. Sony has already included YouTube uploading into the Playstation 3's API, but giving gamers more ways to share their content with a more focused audience could be highly profitable. Here is an example of one of the videos I converted. One thing to note is that the video should only run about 17 seconds but goes for a full 31, so there are definitely still some kinks to work out."

If you've been singing the blues because you didn't make it to this year's San Diego Comic-Con, and thus, were unable to order our Halo 3 Con exclusive - you're in luck.

As long as supplies last, you can order this pair of figures through our online store. This special offer features two of McFarlane Toys' highly sought-after Halo 3 action figures in a commemorative combo.

An exclusive Spartan Soldier (EVA "HellSpartan") is paired with an exclusive clear Spartan Soldier (CQB Active-camouflage) figure. Production of these pieces was limited to 3,000 sets. Although packaged individually, the two figures will be sold ONLY as a set for $30 (plus shipping). There is a purchase limit of 4 sets per person.

HOW TO ORDER:
You must be a member of our Collector's Club to order this exclusive combo. Becoming a member is quick, easy and FREE. Log onto your account.

IF YOU ARE ALREADY A MEMBER OF OUR COLLECTOR'S CLUB:
Click here and follow the simple instructions to place your order.

It's sorta like Quidditch with gigantic gravity-warping hammers. Also, no broomsticks!


That's right, starting today Grifball is back as the weekend double EXP playlist! Warm up your hammers and break out your playbooks. If there's anyone left out there that hasn't yet played Grifball, here's the basics: Neutral Assault, Gravity Hammers, and shenanigans. Of course there's more to it, so feel free to read the official Grifball website for more info!

Grifball is available from Thursday, August 14th at 11am PDT until Monday the 18th at 2am PDT. Heroic Map Pack is required. Have fun!

No more lo-res versions on other web sites, click inside to see the hi-res versions of the recent G4 and Edge awards speeches that have made their way around the Internet.


In the last week, two small videos slipped out into the ether. By now, you've presumably seen small versions of these videos and today we're making them available here on Bungie.net. The videos were created as acceptances for two awards we were unable to be on-hand to receive. The reasons why we couldn't be on-hand are certainly alluded to these flicks. Enjoy!

G-Phoria Video
Reasonably-sized WMV
Chongo-sized WMV
Fairly-sized QT
Girthy QT

Edge Acceptance Video
Slow Internet Version WMV
Real, Adult Speed Internet WMV
360p Quicktime
720p Quicktime

In German this is called week "Zwei" of the Halo 3 Academy's stint on Bungie Favorites. A quick Q&A with these folks awaits you.


Last week was The Halo 3 Academy's first week on Bungie Favorites. Now here's their second batch of entries, as well as a lengthy Q&A with the folks that make up this Bungie.net grown group.

What are your favorite maps?

Guardian, Ghost Town, Valhalla, Blackout, The Pit, Standoff, Avalanche, Rat’s Nest and Foundry.

Favorite Gametypes?

Slayer, SWAT, Team Snipers, MultiFlag, Infection, MLG, Assault.

What would you like to see in Matchmaking that isn’t?

A Permanent Team Snipers playlist is something most people in the group want to see with a permanent Grifball playlist in close second. Also an Objective based FFA hopper that would include Oddball, KotH, Juggernaut, Infection, etc. This would let people get some medals you can’t get in ranked and make Lone Wolves pure slayer. Other notable mentions were the Guass Hog, Team Actionsack and Headlong…..


What inspired your  Forge map, The Hive?

Seeing as I'm a part of this great community known as the Halo 3 Academy, I figured I would make a map that would be great for training those who wanted help in different aspects of the game. So I made this map, The Hive (featured last week in Favorites), with trainees in mind. It's design is interestingly tied to different parts of Halo 3 multiplayer that are quite important to understand in order to improve your game.

A few examples:
The map is designed with floating platforms that players must jump to in order to get more powerful, long ranged weapons including the Battle Rifle, Covenant Carbine, and Sniper Rifle. Therefore, while players are jumping between platforms, they must learn to aim their weapons while jumping, a critical aspect of the game tied to the Bumper Jumper weapon layout. Players must also learn to shoot jumping targets, a closely related skill that must be mastered.

It's a free for all map, so players must be able to watch their backs and be able to tactically make it up to the higher levels in order to control the map better. Once up to the top, players can use the weapons used at longer ranges to learn how to control a map better. Spawns are fairly easy to learn, so players can learn how to watch the spawns, as many more advanced players do in any multiplayer game.

These are just a few of the ways the map was designed to help trainees improve in various aspects of the game. However, the map was not just for trainees, it was also made for any regular custom game. After I created the first draft of the map, I recreated it to make it more balanced for various other gametypes. These are the gametypes that work with the map:

• Multi-Flag
• Slayer (FFA)
• Team Slayer
• Neutral Assault
• KoTH (FFA)
• Oddball (FFA)
• Infection

How long did it take to create?

Well, the first draft of the game was created while I was still at college. I originally had the idea that I wanted to create a training map with free floating platforms, and I basically just built on top of that. So, as you can imagine, it took a great deal of tweaking and hoping for things to fall into place, I would estimate about 16 or 17 hours.

After a bit of map testing (within the group) and some reviews as well as hints from fellow H3A instructors and trainees alike, I was able to tweak the map and create a second, more finalized draft of the map that was cleaner and more balanced for gametypes other than FFA. Using new forging techniques that I had picked up since the first draft, this second draft took about 8 to 9 hours to complete. Not too bad, I guess.

What aspect took the longest to get right?

Definitely the upper catwalk around the perimeter of the map. I had recently learned how to merge objects together (a basic technique, I know) so I used this to make the catwalk nice and clean all the way around. If you know how to merge objects, you can imagine the amount of time it took to line all of the bridges properly and merge them together so they were even and looked nice all the way around, not to mention all the time I spent waiting for objects to reappear between rounds and merge together. I even made the entire catwalk once only to delete the whole thing and start over to push it out towards the edges of the map and give some more breathing room to the middle and those hopping around there.

How could The Forge be improved?

Well, there are 3 things I would suggest:

1. One of the most annoying things I have dealt with in The Forge is picking up an item that is already placed. I don't like how when you pick up a previously placed object, the object floats towards you a bit as if you have pulled it forward. This can be a big nuisance when you are only trying to tweak or move something you already placed just a little bit.

2. A 90-degree turn for objects would be nice. It would make it much easier for us to align objects that we want to be perpendicular or parallel with one another. There would be no strange angles or orientations to make our maps asymmetrical when we want them perfectly symmetrical. You have no idea how many community members we have out there spending hours trying to align everything just perfectly.

3. The layout of Foundry is sometimes very difficult to work with. I know some fellow forgers who have complained about the strange U-shape to it. My biggest complaint is with the overhang at the top of the map. If you play the Hive, you will notice that it is difficult to jump from the platforms to the catwalk on the sides because of the overhang. There is really nothing I could do about this except lower the catwalk, which would have made it difficult to place the platforms correctly. Either way, my point is that some of us forgers would like some more even maps to work with.

plodconquer1 writes:

Cocopjojo provides an in depth and detailed perspective of Halo 3's seventh chapter, The Ark...

Easily one of the most entertaining experiences to be found in the entire trilogy, Halo 3's "The Ark" has now been covered in Ascendant Justice's ongoing Hindsight: Halo 3 series.

As with every entry of the series, Cocop handles the subject matter with intricate and impressive detail, meticulously covering all aspects of the mission, both apparent and hidden. From the intial sniper insertion on this new mysterious world all the way to the heart-stopping tank run at the foot of the towering cartographer - all is revealed.

So whether you've visited this mission recently or haven't played it in months, take a look at Ascendant Justice's examination of one of the best levels in first-person shooter history...

Hindsight: Halo 3 - The Ark

The tenth episode of Red vs. Blue's Reconstruction series is available.

In Chapter 10 of Red vs. Blue Reconstruction Washington is forced to confront the Reds.

Silent Vandal writes:

Spartan meets Reclaimer meets artificial construct meets electronic manifestation.


The 75th installment of Reclaimer is now online, with the Reclaimer beginning to learn some of the secrets behind Ferial and the Cavalcade.  Read it here!

Chunky_Lover writes:

Weta has been working for nearly a year to produce a stunning line of limited edition sculptures from Halo 3...

Weta has been working for nearly a year to produce a stunning line of limited edition sculptures from Halo 3.

At this stage, they are just finalizing the last details and Weta be starting to take pre-orders shortly.

Halo 3 Collectibles

Shock Theta writes:

The 'Best of Forge' voting has come to a close over at Forge Hub. Around 3000 votes were cast in the determination of the best maps in each category ranging from slayer to infection, design to originality and of course the best overall map of this half of 2008.


The 'Best of Forge' voting has come to a close over at Forge Hub. Around 3000 votes were cast in the determination of the best maps in each category ranging from slayer to infection, design to originality and of course the best overall map of this half of 2008.

Come check out the winners and runners up in each category - there's something to please every taste and preference. Meanwhile, the forging community is hard at work trying to raise the bar even higher for the second half of the year.

Skittles x writes:

Want to get your amazing Halo 3 videos onto the internet for all to see but don't have a capture card? GameVee.com (formerly GeeVee.com) will do it for you!


GameVee: Grab is a free utility that will take videos from your Halo 3 fileshare, and host them on your GameVee account for all to see.

When the popular GameVee Grab public beta ended late last year, users were left with no details on when the ever-so-popular utility would be returned public use. Recently, the long awaited final version was released.

By creating a free account and providing some basic information about the film you wish to "grab" (gamertag, film name, etc.) GameVee will capture your film directly from your Halo 3 fileshare and post it to your GameVee account.

All it takes is a few clicks and, in a matter of hours to a few days (depending on website traffic and video length), you have a video to show to your friends!

GameVee offers exceptional video quality, but, due to the way theater mode in Halo 3 works, the capture will show the video timeline on it. Even with this minor annoyance, GameVee.com is a very good alternative for those who cannot afford a capture card.

NL FooFoo writes:

Ever heard of "Trick Jumping"? If not, you need to watch this video and discover the underground world of Trick Jumping among the Halo Community.


Trick Jumping is the act of using the map's geometry, and your A button/skills, to get around the map in unique and creative ways. Some trick jumps are very helpful in MatchMaking, others are just fun to watch. A sect of Trick Jumping known as "Stacking" is the art of using your own grenades/rockets/brute shots/explosives to fly around the map in extremely unique and entertaining ways.
This video, Fracture, showcases both styles of Jumping.

Luis Wu of HBO liked it enough to Front Page it. Z of Halo3Forum also loved what was done. And the crazy folks at HighImpactHalo loved it enough to get it on their Front Page. You really can not miss this one.
Watch this video, and get exposed to one of the most contagiously fun aspects of Halo tricking.
Enjoy!

[Direct Link to Video]

El Zoid0 writes:

An unofficial video has surfaced parodying last year's Halo 3: Believe campaign, this parody is for Rare's upcoming Viva Pinata title.

Hilarious fan-made send up of the Halo 3 "Believe" ads starring the characters from Viva Pinata. Check it out here.