Can't see where I'm going, but I'm going anyway!

(6:30) Level 2 ('Halo') on Heroic. Continuing with exploration of the valley heights, the invisible ground was already noted in the last movie but now let's venture out and see how far it goes!

Released October 13th 2019, gameplay recorded October 5th-10th 2019.

00:02 At the start here, all the rockslide dropships have left (though a valley dropship is sill present) and I've let the music end. I head out into the invisible ground and eventually hit a wall, then start going along it. The valley dropship has by now departed, because I looked its way sufficiently close.

01:10 Eventually I hit a corner, at which the waypoint readout is 503.4m. You can use shells to get a sense of the geometry, and the AR is best for that. Fortunately, Stacker is kind enough to volunteer his weapon for the job, and the corner appears to be a right angle.

01:53 I continue along the next side and get some nice views. If you're wondering why I didn't snipe the Jackal when the opportunity seemed to present itself, the opportunity wasn't really there. My shot would've been blocked by the invisible ground.

02:17 Eventually there's another corner, at which the waypoint readout is 957.5m. Once again we seem to have a right angle. From there I carry on along the third side.

02:49 Finally there's a drop. Just before I fall though, I manage to snipe a Grunt in the valley. He was deposited by the dropship seen in BCM376 around 4:11 (which spawned after I'd handled the hillside survivor area).

03:11 That drop extends across to the grass. Here's a clip of me falling off near the grass.

03:28 The invisible ground is also sloping near the drop, and this leads to some fun. You can watch a bunch of AR shells slide off. A cute sight! Notice that the shells make no noise on the invisible ground, just like you make no footstep sounds. Later in the movie you hear what sliding shells sound like on normal ground.

03:50 Ther's likewise a drop on the other side of the normal ground. Here's a clip of me falling off close in, plus some shells sliding off.

04:32 In that vicinity the invisble ground forms a kind of interior hill with a fatal fall. From below, the base of that hill is wall-like. In the 5:31 clip I use AR shells to reveal part of the base line. It's fun to see the shells sliding along it, with zoomed view.

Incidentally, that line actually extends all the way to the corner at which I fall off at the end of the movie. And as you go along the line, the height of the hill reduces to nothing (so that towards the end, it's possible to fall off it and not die).

06:04 Remember the first wall I encountered? Now I'm going along it in the other direction. Eventually I meet a corner, at which the waypoint readout is 866.0m. I'm not sure what angle this corner makes, but when you slightly alter your direction, you fall off. End of the line, cyborg!

Closing remarks This was another tricky movie to make, and took me longer than I wanted. The problem being, the invisible ground is so extensive! To begin with I wasn't sure what I'd be able to fit into the movie, but I started with backing off from the rockslide and going around the wall, and that started giving me some movie structure. Eventually I got the structure more fleshed out, and later did quite a bit of work improving many of the clips, using various saves derived from my orginal one. Saves in which I'd got a delayed checkpoint at the place I wanted to record takes, to get a relatively good one.

One thing you probably noticed is that there are often bits of scenery vanishing and reappearing as you move around or look around. Initially I'd been thinking to make that a joint theme of the movie, but ultimately there was no room to give it any focus. So I've only left it as an incidental aspect, witnessed along the way. Perhaps I'll do a separate movie on it later.

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