In Response To: Bungie Weekly Update!!! (Frankie)
: Bungie Weekly Weekly Update: August 20th
:
: After the phenomenal success of last week's Bungie Princess update, we
: decided to keep the momentum going with a special in-depth superlook at
: Bungie Hair. First up, the highest maintenance haircut – NOT what you'd
: think. Although Alta's is often the most complicated aesthetically, it's
: actually Frankie's that requires the most upkeep. Bald, thanks to a bite
: from a radioactive turtle, Frankie is forced to shave his head each
: morning, except when he's hungover. He also rubs it with balms and
: ointments to make it shiny and smooth for "the ladeez."
: Brian's hair is newly shorn so that his fiancée will agree to go through
: with it. The wedding that is. He gets married next week, so ladies, he's
: off the market, like old fruit. Based loosely on the relaunched version of
: Duran Duran his new hairstyle borrows heavily from lead singer Simon Le
: Bon's coif of choice and stopping just shy of feathering.
: Alta has been switching rapidly from loose curls to neat bob, with a nifty
: purple streak, which while sounding garish out of context, is surprisingly
: subtle and almost elegant. Amanda's is currently tied back for efficiency,
: while Lorraine sports a layered bob, with bright, caramel highlights.
: Now, if you read this far, you probably pay attention to things, understand
: English and have that rarest of gifts, patience. Unlike the giant wad of
: flamethrowers who went bananas last week when the update was posted by a
: guest star. An update I'd like to point out that we provide, voluntarily,
: free of charge and with frightening regularity. So for you, the proud, the
: patient, we now present a regularly scheduled update. And I'd also like to
: mention, just for the heck of it, that calling people names because they
: don't do exactly what you want them to do, is what very small children do.
: In supermarkets. Just before they pee themselves out of spite.
: But today is actually a pretty big day. Harold, our test manager has
: mandated that we have to stay here until midnight to finish up some really
: cool milestones. That means tomorrow morning, extra cool stuff will be
: available for me to play around in.
: The graphics have taken a massive leap since I went on vacation. It was kind
: of nice to come back and see levels that I'd previously enjoyed with
: placeholder graphics, suddenly populated with dust, smoke, trees, grass,
: trucks, roadsigns – all the detail and drama that makes a level exciting
: visually.
: There are tons of new effects in the game that give it a new layer of
: flavor. Water, for example is a lot more detailed, while particle effects
: like the aforementioned dust and smoke add atmosphere and gameplay
: subtleties in equal measure. On one early level, the addition of distant
: buildings, telegraph poles and overhead wires and cables makes an
: astonishing improvement to an already pretty level. I often find myself
: pausing the game and just checking things out. More than cool looking, the
: buildings and objects look convincing, like this is a real, working city
: in the 24th century. Albeit one that's been smashed all to hell by
: marauding Covenant scum.
: The pace here has picked up tangibly. Bungie people always put in crazy
: hours, but from now until the game ships, it's going to be hardcore.
: People will eat, sleep and breathe Bungie. Food will be eaten on site,
: people will sleep on beanbags, and hopefully find time to shower. It's
: going to get crazy.
: Speaking of eating here, Alta, the Bungie Princess, and Amanda, the Bungie
: Baroness, went to get a month's supply of snacks for the Bungie snack
: station. She took a photograph to emphasize the sheer amount of wanton
: snackoonery that goes on here. Note: Snacks may include beer.
:
: Marty and the audio guys have basically gone into hiding. Although music
: scoring happens very close to the end of the process, there's now enough
: game for Marty to really get his musical (false) teeth into. We've already
: been treated to some sneak peeks (listens?) and it will not disappoint.
: A lot of the other audio stuff is near completion. All of the voice
: recording is done and dusted (there may be some teeny additions or
: changes) and has been implemented in game. That means the cinematics are
: in a watchable state. Some of the voice acting is a revelation – you're
: going to hear some quality acting in this thing without a doubt. After
: years of badly dubbed Japanese games, and plenty of lousy US ones, it's
: always nice to hear good acting in a game. It helps you forget that you're
: just playing.
: As far as the updates are concerned, that means that people will have less
: time to talk to me, and less bandwidth to report what they're doing. We'll
: try to keep these as detailed as possible but it's going to be insane.
:
: Lorraine McLees Implied...
: I threw a kick at the advertising guy. In jest of course, but he didn’t
: look none too happy. But apparently, the kick was authentic enough that
: his companion (who had been trained in martial arts) asked me if I
: presently studied. Sweet! I shouldn’t have been honest and said that I
: study martial arts… flicks. However, the largest sharp-edged weapon in
: the studio is in my cubicle…
:
: I had to say good-bye to a very talented 3D artist and web designer on
: Monday. I hustled off reference material to the sculptor for the next
: round of action figures and am trying real hard to get through the second
: pass of the art book without passing out. The workload is not easing up.
: I finished the geometry to something that will hopefully make it in. Shi
: Kai was pleased to see it and hopefully will be able to mount it on a
: Brute’s shoulder. With luck, the highest LOD of the little thing might
: make it into a cinematic sequence somewhere…
:
: Hey, we’re averaging about 100 hours a week here!
:
: Ryan Hylland Said...
: Doing some testing, you know
: Beta ends this weekend
: Played a lot of CENSORED 1 flag CTF
: Test team opened tons of bugs that we will close
:
: Michael Wu Quoth...
: We’re going to land without wheels. Making our final pass on some polish
: items. CENSORED work here and there. Lots of lighting added to several
: BSPs – to make it spooky. Earthcity gets it’s final pass from me today and
: then it’s on to CENSORED.
:
: Robt McLees Whispered Softly...
: This week I suddenly realized that most of us are working 100+ hour work
: weeks – I put in 116 hours last week. I’ve been looking to the future,
: polishing weapons, stenciling crates, abandoning facilities, repurposing
: trashcans, bad-mouthing journalists, dredging up the past, juggling
: corpses, narrowing my eyes, crushing bugs and providing liquid refreshment
: for all my buddies.
:
: Chris Butcher Starkly States...
: Been working on performance this week, trying to cram as much cool stuff
: into the buffer as possible. I am working on the game simulation side
: while Ben Wallace is working on the graphics side. We have a lot of new
: things in our game and with all the added stresses on our engine it’s
: starting to creak at the seams. Still only a 733 MHz processor in this
: thing, but we will work it out. Our three biggest consumers are animation,
: AI ray tests for perception, and visibility / rendering. The test guys
: keep posting graphs of framerate over the course of a level and I'm going
: to make it all better.
: Jen Martin Silkily Implied...
: So – PR is feverishly working away on any possible coverage at all…doing our
: best to ensure world domination by the Halo franchise.
:
: We’ve come up with a new campaign – which is to get Halo as an officially
: sanctioned sport in the 2006 winter Olympic games.
: We think it’s actually a fabulous idea…and are ready to pitch to the IOC any
: day now…
:
:
: John Butkus Grimly States...
: Okay, since I haven’t contributed to one of these things in who knows how
: many weeks, I’ll give it a shot this week. Since we last spoke, I’ve just
: finished my 12th minute of cinematic animation with an average of 6
: characters in each scene. Naturally, my eyeballs are pretty much melting
: out of their sockets and I’ve developed this nagging face-ache in my right
: cheek/temple area. A tumor, perhaps? The animation is looking pretty
: good, but of course the perfectionist in me wants another six months to
: polish it to death. Bill and Mike are also working their asses off on
: cinematics, and Mike just finished a scene last week that looks $#@#$%!!
: sick. Actually, my face hurts right now and it’s kind of a throbbing
: sensation, so for all I know a family of spiders could be living in one of
: my sinuses and they’re just waiting for an opportune moment to erupt from
: my face in a geyser of filth and horror. Where was I….oh yes – Bill is
: working on what has to be the most difficult cinematic of all time, and
: it’s looking great. The light is at the end of the tunnel, so soon it’ll
: just be miscellaneous bug fixes and polishing work until we ship. After
: we RTM I plan to do three things… F, RT, DN. In that order. I think one
: person out there knows what that means. I’ll let the rest of you figure
: it out.
:
: And last, but not least, here's Mister Chief, unhappy at his latest hairdo,
: which we call, "The Scout."
:
:
: I love the b word
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