Cut Scene

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In the Halo series, a cut scene, often spelled cutscene, is an in-game cinematic movie in which the player(s) temporarily loses control over their character(s). Cut scenes, often used to show storyline events, are usually played in between Campaign missions. They are sometimes played during a mission.

Cut scenes in the Halo games are not pre-rendered movies; instead, they are rendered in real time, using in-game assets. Because of this, cut scenes can sometimes be altered by moving objects into the locations where the cut scenes are about to take place. In several cases, cut scenes are rendered in hidden areas that are (usually) totally inaccessible to players; the Secret Room On The Ark is an example of this. The Pan Cam in Halo 3's Theater mode can be used to "break into" some of these areas. In Halo 3: ODST, the first cutscene "Prepare to Drop" is accessible through the Firefight lobby by means of a glitch. This will allow players to free roam around the entire area where the cutscene takes place.

[edit] Pre-rendered Cutscenes

While most cutscenes in the Halo Series are not pre-rendered, there is only one known cutscene in the Main Trilogy that is pre-rendered. The cutscene appears after the credits in Halo: Combat Evolved where it shows 343 Guilty Spark flying around in space. This cutscene is part of the Halo Credits video file which is entirely pre-rendered using Bink Video.

Ensemble Studios' Halo Wars uses only pre-rendered cutscenes created by Blur.

[edit] Glitches

If you place an object right where a character will walk during a cut scene, that character will walk through the object when the cut scene plays.
In Halo 3, certain cut scenes can be altered by other glitches, such as the Time Travel Glitch.
If you skip a certain cut scenes early during a Campaign mission, then the events in the cut scene will still continue in-game. This can be observed in Halo 3's level The Covenant when you are deactivating the towers. If you skip the cut scene right away, you can still see the towers deactivating when gameplay resumes.
Sometimes the music in a cut scene may not load or may become out of sync with the video. This is usually caused by lag.
In Theater Mode, if you fast forward during a cut scene, the dialogue will be cut short or overlapped with other lines, and nearly all non-dialogue sounds will refuse to play.
In Halo: Combat Evolved, it is possible to manipulate enemies and relocate them in the areas where cutscenes play; they can also be modded into such positions. When this happens, the enemies will frequently interfere with the playback of the cutscene, performing such actions as pushing characters out of their scripted paths, blocking their scripted paths, or even killing the characters. Sometimes, this interference will pause the cutscene, as the actors involved wait for an action to be performed; other times, the cutscene will continue as if no error ever happened. Examples of such anomalies can be seen here; the Shafted Cinematic Glitch also involves this phenomenon. In some cases, if you get killed immediately after the cutscene begins, the game engine may still try to animate the dead body causing the body to stand up in a strange position but not move completely.
On Halo 3's Campaign level Halo, Auto-Turrets can be deployed right before activating the Control Room cutscene. The Auto-Turrets actually turn on the Chief before the fight with Guilty Spark; during the cutscene, they will fire on the Chief, Arbiter, and Johnson. (They will only manage to drain the Arbiter's shield and damage the Chief's.) Apparently, deployed equipment is not removed before a cutscene.
If Halo 3: ODST's Prepare To Drop cutscene is accessed in Firefight over Xbox Live, your status will show that you are playing Firefight on an unknown map.

[edit] See also