Red Bull Pin Drop brings Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 to life at Kona Skatepark
The event featured professional skaters including Jamie Foy, Leticia Bufoni, Zion Wright and Bam Margera, who competed alongside gamers on a hybrid leaderboard combining virtual and physical runs.
Participants first played a two-minute session on the Kona level in the new game, followed by a one-minute real-life run judged on-site.
Classic elements from the game were recreated at the park, and skaters embraced the crossover theme with in-character costumes.
Jamie Foy and Marlon Moreno topped the leaderboard with their precise performances on Kona's newly resurfaced terrain.
Foy expressed his excitement at being included in the game, describing the process of motion capture and voice recording for his digital likeness.
Kona Skatepark, the world's oldest surviving skatepark, was a focal point for the event and has long been featured in the Tony Hawk franchise.
Foy and Margera shared their personal connections to the park, with Margera recalling historic moments such as Danny Way's iconic gap ollie.
Leticia Bufoni also spoke about her experience with the game series, revealing it played a formative role in her skating journey. The title introduced her to trick names and influential female skaters.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Express Tribune
5 days ago
- Express Tribune
Red Bull Pin Drop brings Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 to life at Kona Skatepark
Red Bull Pin Drop merged gaming and real-life skateboarding at Kona Skatepark in Jacksonville, Florida, celebrating the launch of the remastered Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4. The event featured professional skaters including Jamie Foy, Leticia Bufoni, Zion Wright and Bam Margera, who competed alongside gamers on a hybrid leaderboard combining virtual and physical runs. Participants first played a two-minute session on the Kona level in the new game, followed by a one-minute real-life run judged on-site. Classic elements from the game were recreated at the park, and skaters embraced the crossover theme with in-character costumes. Jamie Foy and Marlon Moreno topped the leaderboard with their precise performances on Kona's newly resurfaced terrain. Foy expressed his excitement at being included in the game, describing the process of motion capture and voice recording for his digital likeness. Kona Skatepark, the world's oldest surviving skatepark, was a focal point for the event and has long been featured in the Tony Hawk franchise. Foy and Margera shared their personal connections to the park, with Margera recalling historic moments such as Danny Way's iconic gap ollie. Leticia Bufoni also spoke about her experience with the game series, revealing it played a formative role in her skating journey. The title introduced her to trick names and influential female skaters.
Express Tribune
15-07-2025
- Express Tribune
New Tony Hawk's Pro Skater to remove "disrespectful" Guitar Hero Easter egg after player concerns
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 will remove a Guitar Hero Easter egg after it attracted attention from players. The Easter egg, found inside a trash can on the Waterpark level, appeared as a game box referencing Guitar Hero, a series developed by Neversoft, which previously worked on Tony Hawk titles. The discovery was shared on the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 subreddit, with one Reddit user stating, 'Goes to show Iron Galaxy's respect for Neversoft.' Some players viewed the inclusion as a sign of disrespect towards the earlier franchise, while others considered it a joke referencing the past. Iron Galaxy, the developer behind the remake, confirmed the removal on its official Reddit account. The studio stated, 'We have the utmost respect for anyone who makes games, we're investigating how that got in there in the first place.' The post also thanked the community for bringing the matter to attention, confirming that the asset will be removed in the next update. The Easter egg appeared in Waterpark, a new level in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4, alongside Movie Studio and Pinball. These new levels, combined with returning locations, feature the franchise's signature gameplay while introducing expanded Create-A-Skater and Create-A-Park modes. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4 was released in July, bringing the third and fourth entries of the series to modern hardware, allowing players to revisit iconic locations and perform signature combos with up to eight skaters in multiplayer.
Express Tribune
10-07-2025
- Express Tribune
Is Hollywood warming to AI?
Gone are the days of six-fingered hands or distorted faces — AI-generated video is becoming increasingly convincing, attracting Hollywood, artists, and advertisers, while shaking the foundations of the creative industry, reports AFP. To measure the progress of AI video, you need only look at Will Smith eating spaghetti. Since 2023, this unlikely sequence — entirely fabricated — has become a technological benchmark for the industry. Two years ago, the actor appeared blurry, his eyes too far apart, his forehead exaggeratedly protruding, his movements jerky, and the spaghetti didn't even reach his mouth. The version published a few weeks ago by a user of Google's Veo 3 platform showed no apparent flaws whatsoever. "Every week, sometimes every day, a different one comes out that's even more stunning than the next," said Elizabeth Strickler, a professor at Georgia State University. Between Luma Labs' Dream Machine launched in June 2024, OpenAI's Sora in December, Runway AI's Gen-4 in March 2025, and Veo 3 in May, the sector has crossed several milestones in just a few months. Runway has signed deals with Lionsgate studio and AMC Networks television group. Lionsgate vice president Michael Burns told New York Magazine about the possibility of using artificial intelligence to generate animated, family-friendly versions from films like the John Wick or Hunger Games franchises, rather than creating entirely new projects. "Some use it for storyboarding or previsualisation" -- steps that come before filming -- "others for visual effects or inserts," said Jamie Umpherson, Runway's creative director. Burns gave the example of a script for which Lionsgate has to decide whether to shoot a scene or not. To help make that decision, they can now create a 10-second clip "with 10,000 soldiers in a snowstorm." That kind of pre-visualisation would have cost millions before. In October, the first AI feature film was released — Where the Robots Grow — an animated film without anything resembling live action footage. For Alejandro Matamala Ortiz, Runway's co-founder, an AI-generated feature film is not the end goal, but a way of demonstrating to a production team that "this is possible." 'Resistance everywhere' Still, some see an opportunity. In March, startup Staircase Studio made waves by announcing plans to produce seven to eight films per year using AI for less than $500,000 each, while ensuring it would rely on unionised professionals wherever possible. "The market is there," said Andrew White, co-founder of small production house Indie Studios. People "don't want to talk about how it's made," White pointed out. "That's inside baseball. People want to enjoy the movie because of the movie." But White himself refuses to adopt the technology, considering that using AI would compromise his creative process. Umpherson argues that AI allows creators to stick closer to their artistic vision than ever before, since it enables unlimited revisions, unlike the traditional system constrained by costs. "I see resistance everywhere" to this movement, observed Georgia State's Strickler. This is particularly true among her students, who are concerned about AI's massive energy and water consumption as well as the use of original works to train models, not to mention the social impact. But refusing to accept the shift is "kind of like having a business without having the internet," she said. "You can try for a little while." In 2023, the American actors' union SAG-AFTRA secured concessions on the use of their image through AI. Strickler sees AI diminishing Hollywood's role as the arbiter of creation and taste, instead allowing more artists and creators to reach a significant audience. Runway's founders, who are as much trained artists as they are computer scientists, have gained an edge over their AI video rivals in film, television, and advertising. But they're already looking further ahead, considering expansion into augmented reality and virtual reality — for example creating a metaverse where films could be shot. "The most exciting applications aren't necessarily the ones that we have in mind," said Umpherson. "The ultimate goal is to see what artists do with technology."
