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Friday, Febuary 27th, 2004About the Fake Weekly UpdateSome Halo fan put up a reasonably convincing fake update this morning on a forum and caused a minor tizzy– needless to say, it wasn\'t us. Basically, if you\'re suspicious, just check out http://www.bungie.net – if we don\'t link to it from there, it\'s probably fake. Here\'s this week\'s short and sweet update.Working on the lightmap farm.Zach just told us he\'s been working on the lightmap farm. Maybe it\'s because I\'ve had a brutal head-cold, but I suddenly imagined him, sleeves rolled up, ruddy-cheeked and up to his elbows in the dirt, reek, and good honest work of a lightmap farmer. Of course, what Zach actually does is build a utility to make some computers share a tedious workload. It allows numerous machines (mostly Compaq rack servers) working diligently, to do some boring, time-consuming, but ultimately vital lightmap rendering, so that all that geometry is properly lit when it gets spat out at the other end. Some of the better lightmaps are starting to trickle onto current Halo builds and the results are very pleasing. The biggest difference I see, apart from an overall improvement, is really convincing bright sunshine, and therefore better transition into shade. You almost want to cover your eyes when you step into the light.So I peek into the lightmap farm, just because I\'m curious and Harold, who\'s the cigar-chewing Teamster-type who runs all of test said that I should get the hell out of the lightmap farm; "Toasted buttercake like you wants to be careful around these here computers. Wouldn\'t want to get your face elctrificuted, wouldja?" He\'s working on porting over old Marathon web content to the new Bungie.net. We\'re kind of doing that in reverse order – moving Halo 2 stuff, then Halo, then Halo PC stuff, working our way back through gigabytes of ancient materials. There\'s some really cool old pre-Xbox Halo stuff hidden in there, that even people here hadn\'t seen. We\'ll let you look at it one of these days…Mat\'s Secret Sound StuffMat Noguchi says he\'s been having some fun with the chaingun. I gotta go find out what he\'s been doing……back. He HAS been having fun with the chaingun. Along with Jay and the other sound guys. Basically they\'ve been tuning surround sound effects so that when debris kicks up around your feet and scatters, the sound effects are parsed correctly into 5.1. The effects will apply to any surface for ricochets and debris – dirt, snow and so on, but even cooler is the sound of flybys. In Halo, when a bullet whizzed by your head, it was actually a stereo effect, so you couldn\'t use the noise to tell exactly which direction it had come from – that\'s fully fixed for single and multiplayer this time.There will be different effects for each weapon, and some of them are artistic rather than realistic. A real sniper bullet for example, would make a very short-sounding noise if you were lucky enough to hear it miss. In Halo 2, for the sake of gameplay – they actually chose a longer, louder noise so that you\'d be able to associate that sound with that weapon. Much more detail later!Chris Creates Life!Chris Butcher has been tweaking and refining the controls for dual-wielding. As you can imagine, coming up with a scheme that doesn\'t alienate Halo players is tough, since every button was used in the original game. Suffice it to say that so far it works great and gives you plenty of options for swapping weapons, going back to single-wielding and tossing grenades. Naturally there are limitations – Master Chief can\'t dual-wield everything – why for example would you want to use two sniper rifles simultaneously? Anyhoo, of all the major game changes – I think this one will be the most smoothly implemented, based on what I\'ve seen and played. It\'ll be second nature after one or two games.He\'s also been playing around with implementing – gasp – ambient life in the new levels. And I mean ambient, you know, bugs, birds, that kind of thing. As opposed to rampaging herds of Triceratops. Small elements like that can really bring an area to life – and combined with the ambient sound effects, it\'ll make for a much richer environment. But as about thirty people mentioned to me, ambient life would be the first thing to get chopped if it didn\'t help the game, or if it became problematic for the schedule.Lorraine in Toy Shocker!Most of the Bungie team are perversely Halo nerds. They love Halo T-Shirts, mugs, posters, stickers and other junk. No surprise then that their favorite Halo memorabilia is the toys from Joyride. They\'re cool-looking and actually fun to play with. A few Halo art peeps contribute to how the toys look, but Lorraine McLees is the point person – and hse takes it very seriously, which is why it was a relief when she was delighted by the final prototypes of the new Chief, Grunts and Warthog. The characters are the three-inch tall variants, and Chief gets to sit in a correctly scaled (and therefore giant) Warthog. Best of all, it\'s the LAV version, with the triple-barreled rocket launcher. The new armor is fantastic looking, and seeing it in real-life is kind of startling. Makes you realize just how imposing the Chief really is. Plus, he\'s carrying the battle rifle!And here\'s the Chief, all three inches of him!New Multiplayer Map!Obviously there are lots of new multiplayer maps, but I just tooled around in a big, new, cool one that I predict will be as beloved (by me at least) as Blood Gulch. Of course, I haven\'t actually played against anyone in it yet, but it\'s my favorite kind of map – huge, and full of surprises. Just for context, my fave current maps are, Blood Gulch, Death Island (for PC) and Hang \'Em High. I think this new one has the coolest elements from each. If anyone gives a crap, I\'ll say which one it was after the game ships.That\'s all for this week, more next, until then, here\'s a pastoral scene to help you relax:
Friday, March 5th, 2004Busy, busy week at Bungie! Tons of stuff going on! Number of deadlines all converging! No sleep for many! I managed to stick my head in the middle and glean some goodies though. Check it out: Michael and the other environment artists have been tooling around with some very human geometry. A gorgeous bridge, worthy of a glossy spread in any architecture magazine, has been profoundly torn up by Covenant attack. The futuristic surface of the bridge is composed of bonded interlocking panels of a space-age material, and the damage is being carefully honed so that it reflects the rending blasts of Covenant energy weapons and the warping of the structural panels and concrete elements. The bridge can be driven on too, so the gaping holes have to be both obstacles and gameplay elements, so some of the bent panels can be used as ramps. That means there is a profound danger that you could eat it and plummet into the sparkling waters below either through the gap itself, or as the result of a poorly aimed jump.[/b] And on the subject of water (a personal favorite of mine) the placeholder water I thought looked pretty freaking good, is being replaced with what the graphics guys say is a much more convincing wave-based shader system. It\'s so far below that most of it will go unseen ? but the designers know that players will go take a closer look when they get a breather, possibly with a sniper scope, so they\'re making sure everything looks good from any distance. Why bother with realistic placeholder water at all? The designers could make their job a bit easier by simply inserting a big blue sheet of nothing. It\'s so that when designing levels, and tuning graphics, everything has the correct context for color and geography. Over at the Cananimators\' lair, things are progressing shockingly well. Looks finished to me boys! Ship it! But no, tons of work still to do, although you wouldn\'t know it to look at the brilliant new dual-wielding animations. Nathan has been tuning the idle animations and aiming stuff ? and he\'s made a few subtle, but vital changes. Two identical guns now look wholly natural, instead of just kind of stuck out in front of you. They reload convincingly, Chief will make slight turns and angle changes as he\'s blasting, and it\'s kind of hard to describe how much more realistic the difference in animation between hands makes it look. Just more organic, I suppose. The same thinking is being applied when you hold two different weapons, but that always looked more natural anyway. An even more subtle thing is the way Chief raises or lowers his arms when you look up or down, respectively. This lets you see more of the screen so that your arms aren\'t blocking what you\'re trying to swing and aim at. It\'s a teeny, teeny change, but it\'s going to make looking up and down much more natural ? rather than simply improving how it looks. He\'s also been working on a Covenant weapon that has been shown before ? but never discussed. The first person animation looks great, and the weapon has a zoom mode too. Nathan wants to see a really cool alien interface for the zoomed view, but that\'s something that\'s still being discussed.[/b] Rob (who does the designs for almost all the Halo weapons and vehicles) has been working all this week on the same weapon Nathan is animating. He\'s changing little details on the way the gun looks, and also building in the geometry for the collision detection ? so that the gun can bump into walls, or if it\'s in the way when the Elite holding it gets shot, the gun itself is struck, not simply the creature wielding it. You know, getting to design weapons and vehicles all day ? that\'s a pretty freaking cool job. The sound guys have been working on alien Covenant noises. And alien voices as a matter of fact. Expect to hear a lot more artistic nuance in the voices of all sorts of alien scumbags, including a very cool surround based effect for a particularly epic encounter. Mat Noguchi has been working on "an intractable problem, the equivalent of proving or disproving the existence of God." He wouldn\'t elaborate, claiming that the very revelation of the problem would destroy any possible solution. Which is pretty esoteric, to say the least. Maybe he\'s been trying to give kitty treats to Schrödinger\'s Cat. Mat is also pondering some kind of amusing "promotion" for the escalation of grenade explosions. That may or may not happen, but you might want to try playing around with ridiculous numbers of grenades when the game ships, just in case something cool is attached to a cataclysmic escalation of explosions! You know, apart from the epic amount of destruction. Marketing guys have been going bananas with packaging issues all week ? one of the items being designed right now is the box. I\'ve seen a mock-up with one of the proposed illustrations and it\'s very cool and when you see it on the box, it looks even cooler. Chris Butcher chatted about the Live stuff that we\'re planning and it\'s all pretty cool. Some of it is secret, but some of it simply takes full advantage of Live\'s already stellar features. The way your Halo games will find the best and closest servers (for Quickmatch) is going to have some excellent options attached to it, especially for groups of friends who want to play together. The Xbox Live datacenter is actually located here in Redmond, so all of the matches are filtered through here ? even for European, Australasian and Asian gamers. But naturally that\'s not ideal for connection speed ? so once you\'ve found, filtered and started a match, the connection is much more direct. In fact, Live will check for the closest geographic location, and often try to match up service providers ? so if two guys are using a Comcast cable modem in the same part of town, there\'s a higher likelihood they\'ll find each other in a quickmatch. That\'s stellar news for ping times and of course, the dreaded lag. That matchmaking isn\'t totally unique to Halo 2 of course, but the game is going to do some cool and radical things to take advantage of it.[/b] Faxing is stupid. As a technology, it\'s right up there with square wheels and turd-filled pizza crust. So not only can you never be sure that what you just faxed ever went through, the recipient actually has to go look for it. Imagine if to check email you had to drive to a bad part of town and stick your hand down a dark hole? That\'s what faxing is like. Kinda. Anyway, while I was faxing something this week, I wandered around the corner from the fax machine and discovered heaven. For me anyway. The Microsoft Game Studios TV Lab. Drool. It\'s literally set up like a museum. There are rows and rows of TVs for testing and reference, with little cards that explain the technology and the purpose. They range from an RF-only--capable black and white set, to a giant Sony Plasma display. There are also TVs from other countries ? a Japanese NTSC HD set ? a UK PAL set with digital capabilities. They just go on and on and on. I tried to sneak out of there, but the receptionist knows that I don\'t have a 42 inch rectangular physique. One last thing: I wonder what Mister Chief will look like after Halo 2 ships?[/size]
Looks finished to me boys! Ship it! But no, tons of work still to do,
Friday, March 12th, 2004Short and sweet this week, just the way you like it. Nightmare Armor Guys! Two of the guys from Nightmare Armor, Justin and Sid popped in to show us their latest build of the Master Chief Halo armor. They nearly caused a mass conniption. First we gave them a hermetically sealed tour of the office – where they get to see our microwave oven, Laffy Taffy stash and no Halo 2 whatsoever - and then Sid (who\'s pretty intimidating in the flesh) suited up and went on patrol. With his giant Frankenstein shoes and vast hulking mass, Sid really looked the part. The suit was almost perfect, and we couldn\'t have been more pleased with how it looked in real life. The overall effect was awesome. Bungie old-timers giggled like sissies as he stomped around the office, posing for photos like some lethal Mickey Mouse. Sid was a great sport too, stopping to corpse-hump a fallen BentLlama. We then took him into the Microsoft Game Studios Cafeteria, where he nearly caused a riot. People actually cheered when a seven foot Master Chief ringer unexpectedly popped in for a Pesto Wrap and a smoothie. Sid, sweating it up a storm inside the (un-air conditioned) helmet, continued to be patient as Justin begrudgingly adjusted a dangling crotch strap. The gun he\'s carrying is a one-off 3D model of the battle rifle we conveniently had laying around. Seeing the detail and lovingly crafted accuracy up close, was kind of mind-blowing, right down to the brilliant blue LEDs glowing in the leg parts. Makes us wonder how they got that through airport security. Magazines! We\'ve been preparing for two separate visits from two big gaming magazines. Each will run a story some time in the near future on different aspects of the game. We\'ve got a lot of work to do preparing assets and taking screenshots (yes, it\'s laborious and sloooow) and as the game progresses, the people who can help us are getting busier and busier. The upside of that is that Brian, Zoe and I are able to get our hands on versions of the game with everything turned on. Currently we tend to play single and multiplayer builds with bits missing – like textures that are turned off while an artist tweaks them, or levels with Joe Staten yelling insane inanities in place of real speech. But pretty soon, we\'re going to have very polished versions of the little bits we\'ll be taking screenshots of. Multiplayer we\'re used to, but I can\'t wait to get my hands on plot-ruining sections of the Campaign mode. We also have to round up some very busy, very stressed animators, programmers and designers, so that they\'re available to chat and well-prepared when these crack (smoking?) journalists show up and ask them supertough questions, like, "What\'s your favorite color Marty?" and, "Will Master Chief fall in love this time?" Luckily they\'ve been "media-trained" so they don\'t accidentally give away playable builds and hard drives full of source code. Because that\'s what they\'d do you know. Drama! Joe Staten has been polishing and editing cinematics. The new game engine looks glorious when it\'s applied to the cinemas, and one, the intro to a mid-game level, looks astonishing. Although some pieces of the cinemas are missing, like certain animations, they\'re very polished looking and now they have the actual actor dialog instead of Joe and Co talking. The cinemas are tricky for animators, because they contain a ton of animation that isn\'t in the game, so that has to be custom-created. In the game – the characters have a (huge) set of animations that they cycle through as the AI demands, but in cinematics, two characters, say, shaking hands, has to be hand animated. It\'s time consuming, but rewarding. A lot of that work is done, and Joe is busy editing the cinemas for style and impact. One scene was cut yesterday – a cool, but ultimately redundant interaction between two Elites. Must be pretty heart-rending to chop out a week of work, no matter how much smoother it makes the scene play out. But Joe\'s job is to keep the story bouncing along, and that\'s exactly what he\'s doing. Readers complain a lot about the lack of specific information we give here – but I can tell you for certain that Halo 2 is exactly 183% more dramatic than the original. Idiot! (Me) Zach set me up with a web server, now I can see my horrific mistakes on the new version of Bungie.net (still coming soon etc) before I post them. Genius! (Everyone Else) Aaron and Luis have been automating the stress testing. That means they have about 35 debug Xbox systems running overnight, with Master Chiefs running around pretty much randomly, tossing grenades and jumping around blasting aimlessly. In theory, if he gets near a vehicle, he could jump in and drive it around too, but since the system is automated, nobody\'s actually around to witness the insane nocturnal antics of 35 Master Chiefs. The purpose of all this is some very useful data gathering. The guys can come in first thing in the morning, see if anything crashed, look at a newly compiled database and see exactly what caused the crash – or at least what master Chief was doing when the crash happened. In the long run it means that testers are getting more stable builds of the game and reducing test time is a big deal. A similar reduction in lightmap rendering time is also saving time – time that will be filled up making the game better and better. Flying! Just watched a cool aerial dogfight – Banshees, turrets and a bigger Covenant ship.Big buildings, cool textures and some genuine surprises. Upside is that months of playing PC Halo mean I should be better at flying Banshees next time around.
Originally posted by mm 30 fps and they only use one model?
