How Video Game Cutscenes Lie to You (ft. Halo 3 & ODST)

[@callusklaus2413]

My dawning horror that you crunched the Chief into a grunt rig

[@iNoToRiOuS]

Never would have guessed they where physically IN the drop-pod with you

[@RekttalofBlades]

The site of Buck and Dare shoved into the sides of the pod made me giggle

[@Gashnor]

@@RekttalofBlades legitimately shocked me the first time I saw how they did that

[@gonnsolo8506]

I love master chief with no torso

[@ToastyBits]

Yeah, the heck was that! 😂

[@TheStrayHALOMAN]

The area Lord Hood is in is actually the same room that Miranda spoke from in Halo 2's In Amber Clad.

[@Spartan_Tanner]

yeah, iirc its the same scenery tag too, inamberclad_bridge in cinematics\human\

[@callusklaus2413]

I would love to see Halo Reach's cutscenes get broken down! They did such a good job of giving us an AI's perspective after slapping a camera on so many random little objects. I would love to see how Long Night of Solace or The Package was dealt with

[@UnstableEquilibrium]

Actually amazing algorithm recommendation.

[@VideoGameMantis]

thank you for captioning "tO wAr" as such added a nice chuckle, as I was anticipating the line but didn't expect the gag

[@smileyfacism]

I almost vomited when I heard it the first time

[@ChristopherGray00]

@@smileyfacism easily one of the most cringe one liners in gaming history

[@Vulture_edm]

I died as Chiefs crunched body came into frame looking like Ned Flanders walk. good overview of cutscene tricks that work beautifully. the man behind the curtain.

[@PANCAKEMINEZZ]

This is one of those necronomicon tier videos that has forbidden knowledge that will forever change your perception of things... I wilk never be able to look at the first cutscene again without thinking of Buck and Dare's contorted bodies sitting just outside my pod.

[@Aussiewhites]

Wow i love this. I'd honestly watch a whole playlist of this "behind the camera" stuff for halo.

[@ALEX7DX]

Shows how much effort went into the bungie era games.

[@PotatoFi]

I had no idea that the drop sequence in ODST included In Amber Clad. I’ll be sure to watch for it next time I play through.

[@Gashnor]

@@PotatoFi I remember trying to spot it on my 14" CRT back in the day, it was basically like a single pixel Now if you play 1080p or higher it's clear as day if you're looking for it, pretty cool continuity on their part

[@Spartan_Tanner]

funnily enough tho, its not the the proper frigate model that the IAC uses in halo 2. Halo 2's frigates are canonized as Stalwart class Frigates. Halo 3's frigates are canonized as Charon class Frigates. Halo Reach frigates are Paris class. Halo 4 frigates are Strident class Halo Infinite's are Mulsanne class. So basically the IAC is a Charon class frigate in ODST because bungie did not find it necessary to port the halo 2 Stalwart frigate model. Its possible the bungie ship artists simply tried retconning the frigates but new lore explicitly states each new frigate design is a new class of frigate. Also also the exploded frigate seen above the cloud layer in Prepare to drop has a nameplate of HU_MIL_SHIP, which is just the generic nameplate for halo 3 frigates, which wasn't disabled for reasons.

[@aaronfernando2258]

This randomly showed up on my home page and I'm glad it did! It's super interesting seeing behind the scenes of games like this, and you did a great job explaining and showcasing the tricks they used

[@Gashnor]

I'm glad you like it and got it suggested!

[@davidvanderven]

The wonders of real time cut scenes over pre-rendered.

[@ReachTea]

Video game cutscene methodology will always interest me, I love the smoke and mirrors

[@JuiceboxCE]

I see why stuff like this is no longer done all that much, it's easier to just run it raw. But, seeing stuff like this really does show limitations inspire innovations, and nothing for me beats a hand-crafted experience:)

[@thebrotacogamer2944]

You know what is also amazing? Halo had better scope reflections in those days compared to a lot of games these days, which are incredibly basic by comparion. I know you nerds have a special name for those types of reflections, but it actually is really cool how those things work, I remember a video about how it worked for Halo and how much effort was put into it. And then we come to today and we have incredibly plain reflections. OG Bungie really was a different breed.

[@hannibalrekruit]

Super cool video. Love your custom campaigns too btw!

[@Gashnor]

@@hannibalrekruit thank you, I appreciate it! This vid was definitely a byproduct of my discoveries

[@omnipotentkhan634]

I'd love a breakdown of the cinematic towards the end of The Covenant when arby kills the prophet and all that good stuff since so many things happen and characters are in and out of frame. Also the final cutscene of the game starting with the warthog flying into Forward Unto Dawn.

[@JamesTDG]

I have a theory with Lord Hood's position changing randomly, I believe they were initially planning on Hood's interruption being a little more cinematic, before changing it partway through, and figured that they would just move the rest of his animations to where the prophet's texture camera would be. I think something could have bugged out, so they kept part of the animation in the skybox. Well, either that or they did not have enough time to move everything to where the prophet would be.

[@LittleWhiskey]

I always thought scripted cameras would’ve been the next step for machinima including ai mapping and such but what a missed opportunity

[@Gashnor]

@@LittleWhiskey Ironically it's kind of coming back with people fully utilizing mod tools to make proper machinima cutscenes now. It just wasn't really available for the era of something like RoosterTeeth

[@BossDrSample]

Ive always wondered why the gold thing behind truth looked like it wasnt attached to him and was just a static model or texture

[@yasugi0153]

2:57 I love this

[@CathodeRayKobold]

I highly doubt the removal of actors is for optimization. These shots are computationally trivial, even with the dynamic lights. It's more likely to avoid t-posing actors and random lights showing up on camera--you can see what happens when this care isn't taken in the opening cutscene of Sonic Boom.

[@Gashnor]

Good software design always entails removing unnecessary data while not needed, I wouldn't doubt Bungie designed these with the intention of keeping only the necessary information. Seeing how they handle scripts in the game too to remove old areas of the level as you progress, their garbage collector, or even handling squads for removal once specific sections are hit, they seemed very consistent with optimized usage of data and removal while not in need Good practices carrying over to this makes sense. Most of the characters would be off screen even if they were t posing, I don't think it has anything to do with framing conflicts based on what I've seen. But these are just my assumptions I came up with as a professional software engineer and hobbyist modder, it just makes sense to me from my own work experience

[@PutkisenSetä]

I would assume spawning dudes around would be much harder since it has to be right to the millisecond, otherwise you'll get pop-in.

[@ToastyBits]

This was a great deep dive into how cutscenes, at least in the Bungie halo games, worked. It's a great glimpse into the art of in-game cinematics.

[@Camera-Guy_ODST]

There is so much that Halo 3 did that should still be used today but isn't Like they keep going for 4K textures when you could just use detail maps and masks making the VRAM usage go through the roof

[@novakonstant]

excellent video! Pace, technical content and presentation are all really good. Def deserve a subscribe, hope to see more of your content in the future!

[@Gashnor]

I appreciate it, thank you! I'm glad people are finding it as interesting as I did

[@PleuraYT]

wow, first the rocks on the covenant, now this. i dont know what to believe anymore

[@ArizAmuuru]

Gash what the hell is that abomination you have cursed me to witness in the last 40 seconds of this video? 🤣

[@Gashnor]

I'm not ready to answer for my sins (This is what happens when you force Chief to use full Grunt animations)

[@PutkisenSetä]

You know we want to see the reverse, right? Unggoy-MAN. As if Pikaman wasn't cursed enough.

[@nickjordan2833]

sad bungie never made a game with stencil shadows or realtime lighting. they were so held back by deadline and the current tech

[@terraxcvii]

Why didn't they just create video file instead?

[@Gashnor]

Logically? If I had to guess, it's because setting up the tools in engine is dramatically cheaper than hiring a studio to do CGI work. It's also nicer now because these cinematics run native resolutions, whereas if this was prerendered, it would be locked to 1080p max for a game from 2007/2009. The bonus is for modders, we can go in, grab existing animations, and extend or modify the cutscenes however we'd like. All in all, I'm glad it was done in engine because it just aged better

[@jonskillings1258]

I doubt that they made characters disappear to save on hardware resources, since they'll have 5 on screen at times anyway, and also when you're in game, there will be over a dozen enemies at the same time. It is most likely that the scripts are made with only certain characters being in the script, and the scripts are made in chunks, so they're not really disappearing, they were just never set to appear. The other possibility is that the more characters loaded, the higher the chance of slight glitches occurring (errant sounds or shadow shenanigans), and they wanted none of those happening.