This trick is a tad different from the usual flair we put up on this channel, not in style, but about the trick itself. The shadow of intent bridge room is a cutscenes area at the end of Floodgate. This room exists on three levels in total, and are located at the same exact place, at the origin. (0,0,0). This room may look very familiar to those of you that played Halo 3 in its prime. Back in the day, a gamer named "owlicious" found a way to enter the room on the Ark in theater. (http://forums.bungie....pl?read=846561 10/28/2007) From then on, gamers on HIH would try to get into this room with multiple attempts and different ideas.
The first thing we had to find out about the room on Floodgate is when it is loaded, and where it is located. By using Pancam during the cutscene, we were able to conclude that the area existed at the same exact coordinates it is located on The Ark and Epilogue (0,0,0) and that the loading done at the very end of the mission HAD TO LOAD the cutscene rooms because there was no other areas to load after. Once we knew the location we had to come up with a plan.
In relation to map landmarks instead of coordinates, the room is located near the "drop pod area" and the hallway leading up to the final outside area. This meant that if we were going to get into the room, we would have to try and get into it from the final area, because we had to hit the final loading done at the final area to load the cutscene rooms. At this point, there was just way too much solid space to survive through to get into the room and this was before MCC or even Halo Reach came out. There was not much we could do. Around this time, all we tried for ideas was to try and find overlap between the cutscene room and the playable area itself. We were able to find that it DOES overlap, but in a spot that we can't get too once the cutscene rooms are loaded.
We knew that we needed to somehow stay in solid space, and load the room around us at the point the room overlaps with the playable map. The only problem was how? At this point in halo 3 tricking, the only way a person could get stuck in solid space is if a person hit a loadzone in a spot that playable space doesn't overlap with the newly loaded area. Unfortunately this can only be used on a basis by basis case and isn't really something we could utilize. There wasn't a surprise loadzone at the end that loaded the drop pod area, so it was back to the drawing board for this trick for a long time. From 2011 until 2014, there was not much work going on with this room. It was not until we found out how to do the animation trick that we started to take another look into this room again.
The animation trick was first found on Halo Reach by accident. If your player assassinated an enemy at the same time your buddy deloads the area you are assassinating in, instead of loading with your buddy, you stay in the de loaded area unable to move. A slightly different version of this method also exists in Halo 3. What is different though, is instead of assassinating an enemy, you would have to exit a turret.
This was the biggest piece of the puzzle by far. This meant that if we were to somehow get a turret in the overlapped space, a player can stay in solid space, and the other player can move forward and load the room around the player in solid space. Sounds easy right? Not really. The first idea was to try to do the animation trick with the drop pod. The animation trick worked and we were able to load the room, but Unfourtunetly the drop pods are JUST outside the room. So unless we were gonna move those drop pods, it was back to the drawing board.
Since there was no turret in the overlapped area, we somehow needed a turret that was movable. The only option we had at that point was to use the phantom in the next area. We can move it easily and also do the animation trick in the turret. However, the drawbacks to the phantom idea were daunting. We had to find a way to backtrack through the mission with the phantom, (somehow finding a loadzone without the phantom deloading) put it in position, and be able to move forward through the level until the very end without soft locking on the way. Testing proved it wasnt feasible to find a possible loadzone that goes from the final outside area to the drop pod area.
Finally eureka. All the pieces are coming together. The final piece to the three piece puzzle was spawning. All this time we had tunnel vision and were not looking or considering all the cards that were delt to us. When we were messing with the phantom trying to figure out where the loadzone is, we noticed how far the spawn radius is when a player is in a phantom. So the train of thought was, if we were to do the animation trick, as close as possible to the room from the final outside area, even if you were not in an overlapped area and unable to load the room around you, maybe it could be possible for a dead player to spawn inside.
It makes sense when you think about it. When a player is in the turret, and another player is trying to spawn on him, the game knows it can't spawn a player in non-livable space. So the game looks for the closest area that is safe to spawn at. Since the spawn radius for the phantom is considerably bigger than the spawn radius for a person or warthog, the phantom is able to "find" the livable space, and spit out the player spawning. This happens to be the cutscene room, because the cutscene room is much closer to the phantom than the playable space that you are suppose to be in.
In all, this trick was all about putting the puzzle together. As we found the pieces to the puzzle, we worked on how those pieces were to interact with each other, and how to put them all together to make the final picture. I know this is very long winded, but I believe that this trick deserves this, since I considered this room "the holy grail" ever since I was in middle school in 2009. This trick had three main pieces to it. The pieces were the phantom, the animation trick, and spawn radius. Once we found all three pieces, the final image was easy to decipher. Overall, this has not been the hardest trick we've ever done, but this trick did involve a lot more critical thinking than usual to figure out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KIgHSbt3sI
