I am planning to make a Machinima/CGI film using a combination of HALO 2 (XBOX), HALO: Custom Edition and 3ds max 5 (and possibly later swaping HALO 2 for HALO 3, I'm only planning on using HALO 2 at all because it has Bloodgultch and HALO 3 doesn't) (yes, I know Bloodgultch is actually called Coagulation in HALO 2 and is slightly different but to me there are both Bloodgultch). I have some experience in 3ds Max and HALO: Custom Edition and intend to use these for things I can't do on the XBOX or 360. (Complicate character animations like weapon switching (3ds max) and pelican drops (Custom Edition and maybe 3ds max)). I also have some video Editing Software and experience with using them (I have made two films using real footage filmed on a camcorder).

Anyway, enough explaining what I'm doing, on to my questions.

Firstly I cannot really capture from the consoles right now, so I would like some advice on a video capture device (I tried a Dazzle USB device as that's what I've seen recomended before but as I have already experienced with Pinicale Studio video editing software their products are very unreliable, I couldn't make the Dazzle work so I returned it.).

I am considering a ATI TV Wonder card as they appear to be able to capture and double as a TV card for if I ever decide to get Windows media centre. Some also have a hardware MPEG encoder which might be what I need to solve my frequent meesed up areas on the DVDs and MPEG files I exported previously. http://ati.amd.com/products/tunermatrix-euro.html that is a link to the TV wonder site, I live in the UK so I need a PAL device not the USA's NTSC stuff. If anyone has experience with these cards I would like advice on whether they are worth it, or advice on other good devices. My PC is a Dell desktop with Windows XP Home Edition, 1GB of RAM two hard drives (one's full and the other is 500gb with about 250ishgb left) a 3ghz Pentium 4ht processor and the video card is ATI with (I think) 128mb (I don't know what sort of card it is though, or if it's intergrated). If and when I move to HALO 3 it might be nice to capture in HD if that would result in better quality after being downscaled to standard def for editing, DVD and normal TVs.

Secondly I have questions on how to do a few things:

1. How to make the Spartan have multipurpose map colour change in 3ds max 5
2. How to replicatie the effect of detail maps on Bloodgultch and Coagulation ground shaders in 3ds max 5
3. How to make the text effect like in the Red vs Blue: Reconstruction trailer (it says "we are the meta" 'on the wall' and it flies and falls apart and reconstructs itself into another word.) I have Aodbe After Effects and Premire Pro 1.5 if either of those can do that.

First off, i hope your idea gets off the ground. Your head is in the right place on the video capture card ATI is good but personally i use a "Win TV" made by a company called Hauppauge. If it were me AND I had the money I would get the 600 PCIe. Check to make sure that you have a PCIe x1 (most dell computers do not but, will have a regular PCI slot).
AND on to the other questions...
"How to make the Spartan have multipurpose map color change in 3ds max 5?" That question requires more explaining about fade and change over time.

"How to replicate the effect of detail maps on Bloodgultch and Coagulation ground shaders in 3ds max 5?"
If the textures look blurred its just a matter of spending a LOT of time alighting the UVWs or scaling/ tiling them correctly. As for the bases, metal, and concrete just use the specular/ gloss to get them looking right. Try to avoid using specular maps from halo in my experience they do not work well in 3ds max (any version).

"How to make the text effect like in the Red vs Blue: Reconstruction trailer (it says "we are the meta" 'on the wall' and it flies and falls apart and reconstructs itself into another word.) I have Aodbe After Effects and Premire Pro 1.5 if either of those can do that."
I..... do not know. Sorry.

I would love to help get your brain child walking or at least crawling (pun intended). Drop me a letter at Boris308@gmail.com

On this I have recently made another few vists to PC World (before I realised I had a reply here), I showed them a photo of the free card slots in my computer and the staff there said they were PCI, so I don't have any free PCI express slots. They had some Hauppauge devices there and possibly the "Win TV" and I have a new question about that. On one of my vists to PC World I purchased another external USB device and tested it with my XBOX 360, which leads me to my question: if you live in the UK and have an XBOX 360 does your Hauppauge Win TV support capture from the XBOX 360 in PAL-60 mode (the external device I tried didn't support it (it messed up the picture, the device did work for PAL-50 mode though) so I took it back to PC World). (HALO 3 requires PAL-60 to run.)


The spartan model's base bitmap actually has white armour, the game gives colours to each player and team itself. To clarify, the question I am asking is how to make the Spartan have green (or whatever colour I feel like) armour just like the game does, but in 3ds max.

I think I'm only having a problem with the ground texture, the thing is in-game the .shader_enviroment tag for the ground references a base map, a primary detail map, a secondary detail map and a micro detail map. The base map is a very low-res bird's eye veiw of the map (with bases etc. removed) where the sand is basiclly one colour, no detail at all (this is what I have in max an it looks disgracefull). The Primary and Secondary detail maps actually give the detail to the grass and sand and I need to know how to implement the same effect these extra maps have in-game in max.


That's ok, maybe someone else will. Thanks for trying to help with my questions. I still need help with most, if not all of my questions, so to anyone out there please help in any way you can. Thanks in advance.



Edited by Rhydgaled Publications on Aug 11, 2008 at 05:54 PM