Birth of a snow machine, seen for the first time.

(8:09) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. While recording for the last movie I suddenly found myself with a new snow machine, albeit an initially quiet one. Here's how that happened, plus my subsequent attempts to get some noise going.

Released October 23rd 2024, gameplay recorded October 16th-22nd 2024.

00:02 (How I got it) So, here's how the new snow machine came into being, on October 16th. Starting with the (checkpointed) suspended hog from the last movie, I was actually trying for an example of 'pass-through', in which the Scorpion passed through the tree. It's a phenomenon I'd already experienced, and I thought I might include an example in the movie (though eventually I didn't). While pushing with the tank, I heard churning snow and then saw some when the camera briefly showed the interior of the hog, around 0:32. At that point I quit pushing, dismounted, and found that the jam held together, and snow was flowing. Snow machine created!

00:51 (Checkpointing for exploration) I subsequently checkpointed (with a delayed tunnel checkpoint as usual), to save the situation for later exploration. After finishing and releasing BCM520, that exploration began on the 19th. I was hoping I could get some noise started up, though there was also the possibility of altering the snow flow in some way.

The examples in the rest of the movie are predominantly in chronological order, and in that sense I'm largely giving you selected highlights as things developed. However, a few segments were obtained later on and added in, to improve variation or whatever, and I'll flag those as inserts when we get to them.

00:57 (Faint sound but no snow) In this early try, a Banshee shunt causes some sound to start up. However, it's a bit faint, and also the snow has stopped. It at least served to indicate some potential for noise. While briefly in the hog's driver seat, I notice that the front left tyre causes snow flow when turning, and it makes me suspect that the snow flow from a snow machine may be down to hog contact with the tree branches. I'll be giving this some attention, going forward.

01:42 (Hog impacts, 136 bpm) Less than two minutes after that, I got some excellent full-volume noise. Very clear hog impacts at around 136 bpm, making this quite dissimilar to any of the five hog impact variations flagged in BCM519. When I pop into the hog's driver seat to hit the gas, I go nowhere as expected. But also, the dismount turns out to be deadly! Actually I'd already experienced 'dismount death' in some other situations, including in the preceding case of faint sound, so I wasn't all that surprised.

02:30 (Fragility demo) I happened to get those last two examples quite early on, but in general it was hard to get good results. All too often, a shunt (of a type which might sometimes do something interesting) would simply dissolve the jam. This insert clip is there just to highlight that fragility, and to mention the need for perseverance in trying to get new interesting changes. My original sound machine was far more obliging in regard to getting sound variations.

02:41 (Tank-cam view) This insert clip shows an interesting view I noticed I could get when in the tank. Specifically, a good close-up of some hog instrumentation.

02:57 (Silent snow) So far, the hog has been towards the back of the tank. But with this shunt, the tank slides back and stops before the jam fully frees, leaving the hog in front of the turret. There's no noise, but we've got some silent snow plus accompanying bark. In a late change to the movie, I've added a short clip of the view from the hog's side-seat.

03:26 (Silent slow at the back) Another insert segment, this time I hit the tank's turret from behind at a suitable angle, to get a heavy snow cascade at the back. This was quite easily repeatable. I'd obtained a similar cascade earlier with my more usual approach direction (seen multiple times already), but I've opted to show this later example as it used a new approach direction which gave the result a lot more reliably.

03:45 (More silent snow, but then hog impacts, 144 bpm) After what appeared to be a delayed reaction, I get some silent snow. It's not particularly picturesque this time, and I decide to board the tank to see if I can make a change. And it works nicely! Just a little tank movement causes hog impact sounds to start up, and when I dismount, I'm pleased to find that things hold. The noise is pretty similar to what I got earlier (see 1:42), but with a slightly faster pace of about 144 bpm.

04:33 (New checkpoint) Having by now been quite starved of good noise in my many attempts, I decide to checkpoint (and make a save), to focus on trying to tweak this new situation. Maybe it would be easier to get sound variations from? Happy to say, that turned out to be the case.

04:39 (Another fatal test-drive) With the hog being in a somewhat different position than before (relative to the tank), I try a quick test-drive. But again I go nowhere, and again the dismount is fatal.

04:55 (Resilience demo) The jam had considerable resilience to shunts from behind, as demonstrated in this clip. Three shunts and a Banshee blast appear to make no change.

05:10 (Quite chaotic noise) After a Banshee blast stops the noise, I get a new sound variation with a few shunts. Quite chaotic sounding, and not featured in BCM519. This segment ends with a zoom-in on the amusing wobbling aerials. Excellent craft from Bungie there, to make the aerials dynamic.

05:42 (Speed increase) This time I get what sounds like just a speed increase of the original sound. And actually, it seems to be a slower version of the "very crashy" variation 8 from BCM519.

06:09 (Great rhythm revisited) This insert segment, added quite late on, was the result of seeking further sound variations, as I thought there was likely more potential. What we get here is actually variation 5 from BCM519, which I captioned as having great rhythm. Nice to see it cropping up again in this quite different situation.

06:48 (Arhythmic hog impacts) After a Banshee blast turns off the sound, a rear shunt results in hog impact noises starting up, but it's strikingly arhythmic, which I find interesting, and I think it's the first time I've had that. It's like variation 16 of BCM519 except slower and with broken rhythm.

07:30 (…and more) I actually checkpointed that situation, and it gave me the opportunity for making a decent ending to the movie, a problem which had started to weigh on my mind as the movie filled out. Playing around, I found that plasma blasts could cause changes, potentially resulting in a new sound variation. So I made various tries at that, and this clip was the winner. In it, we actually end up with the sound of my original snow machine from BCM518, except a bit quieter. I liked how that took us full circle, so to speak. Plus it was a nice rhythm on which to end, very different to the preceding hog impact racket.

Closing remarks In my closing remarks for BCM519 I voiced my suspicion that other snow machines would give sound patterns broadly similar to what I got out of my original. This new case lends weight to that. The only really novel feature was the arhythmic nature of that one variation featured near the end.

I suspect I could get further variations from that last jam I checkpointed, without too much trouble. However, once I got that situation, it wasn't long before the movie was pretty much filled out, so I didn't need to keep going.

© 2004-2024 by Rockslider