WTF
okay this is really weird on Assault on the control room a marine jumped on a ghost and attacked a tank. TRIPPY
Death by intelligence.
Combat Evolves In Higher Resolution
HBO and Mythica are hosting, via BitTorrent and Two Degrees, a new version of a great behind-the-scenes vid released during E3 in 2002 but just recently put out in high resolution on CD by PC Gamer in the UK.
It's got commentary from Marty O'Donnell, Shikai Wang, Rob McLees and Paul Russell. HBO has a list of mirrors. We don't have a version to host over here yet, but we hope we will soon.
UPDATE: We are now offering a mirror of the QuickTime version of Evolution of Halo.
Please bear in mind, Rampancy has been recently forced to limit the speed and number of connections for movie files; if the server is currently over its limit, you may see a broken QuickTime icon, a blank page, or R.net's main page.
Will you join a Halo 2 clan if XBL supports them?
March 5, 2004. Originally at HBO
Bungie Weekly Update March 05
Busy, 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.
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.
Xbox 2 SDK Running On Apple Power Mac G5s?
The Inquirer is reporting that the SDK for Microsoft's next generation Xbox is being released to developers. And it's running on a Mac.
Several years after being purchased by Microsoft and becoming a studio that developed games for MS' largely PC and Windows-based technology underpinning the Xbox, could Bungie be coming full circle, soon to be working primarily on Macs while they develop games for the PowerPC-based Xbox 2?
Only the Shadow knows.
February 27, 2004. Originally at TeamXbox
About the Fake Weekly Update
Some 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 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.
Harvest Time Down On The Lightmap Farm
[image:6997 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]After a short detour caused by a fake update, the real one went up in the TeamXbox forum. Some of the more interesting bits:
- Mat "Shunji" Noguchi has been working on getting scattered debris sound to work in proper Dolby 5.1
- Chris Butcher has been working on ambient life. (Nothing seemingly as big as the dinos in the E3 2000 video, though.)
- Lorraine "Mehve" McLees liked the final prototypes of the new Master Chief, Grunt and Warthog toys from Joyride.
Head on over to TeamXbox to read the full update!
IH8BUNGIE
When I first heard about Halo 2 (well over a year ago), they said to expect a late 2003 release. Then they thought it might be out in time for Christmas. Then I believe they said early 2004. Then they told me April. Now it's pushed back all the way to "Late 2004" and with the tease date of September 15th. Since E3 last May, the only thing released that shed any light on Halo 2 was Eric Nylund's book, First Strike, but we really haven't seen a whole lot of new info. I think we should kill ourselves one by one in Bungie's parking lot until they let us watch some new stuff or something.
How Will We Turn On The Flashlight Now?
Computer and Video Games is reporting that the Xbox 2, code-named Xenon but referred to some as Xbox Next, may lose the small black and white buttons from its controller. Apparently some studies they've done show these buttons are hard to find and little used.
Quick reality check: no kidding. How anybody could not know those buttons were going to be hard to find and little used, given their size and placement is beyond me. They were there in case games needed more controls than could be provided by the two sticks, two triggers, and standard diamond of buttons. So taking them out, just because some games don't need them and they're outside the normal set of controls just seems silly.
Unless, of coures, this is another cost-saving measure. You know, plastic is getting expensive these days. The article also mentions that the console is expected to be first shown at GDC next month. Microsoft UK would not comment on this "rumor", according to the CVG article.
Driveless Xbox One Step Closer To Reality
News.com's David Becker is reporting that M-Systems, a maker of flash memory, is announcing that they've signed a contract with Microsoft to provide memory systems for future Xbox products.
M-Systems currently makes a line of flash-based drives called DiskOnKey. Their CFO, Ronit Maor, says in the article that what they will be doing for the Xbox is "significantly higher capacity" than the 8Mb memory modules used now to plug into Xbox controllers.
This, along with the addition of online storage as part of future Xbox Live plans, is being touted as a way to decrease Xbox production costs and reduce the liabilities caused by having a standard hard drive in the box (i.e. hacking and Linux). However, if the flash drive offers the same capabilities, I don't see how it won't get hacked, too, and if it doesn't, I don't see how this won't cripple the box.
Cost reductions are speculated to be driven by a desire to reduce the home and entertainment unit's losses, which were $394 million last year, down from $412 million the year before, according to News.com.
Thanks Blackstar for pointing this out.
Anyone want Halo sheet music?
I've transcribed the sheet music for 'Enough Dead Heroes' for a string orchestra, and am well on my way to finishing the halo theme. if anyone wants copies, just post on the blog, or contact me at the personal messaging thing (never used it, so it might be best to just post ur e-mail adress or somewhere where i can send u jpegs of the music) GO HALO!!!!!!!!!!
Getting Chicks To Play Halo
Gaming Nexus has a piece on using the Xbox 'S' controller as a chick magnet:
Dont try to get your woman into HALO by throwing that massive Xbox standard controller at her, but at the same time dont patronize her. You have to take her feelings into account in this situation. Sure, you may have become accustomed to your one and only Xbox S controller but relinquishing control of your gamepad does a number of things. First it shows your care for her as youre willing to sacrifice your favorite piece of equipment, probably a sacrifice youre not willing to make for your other buddies. It also makes gaming much easier for her to begin with. People often assess whether or not theyll enjoy something by referring back to their first memory. So lets say youre a dumbass and you do give her the big Xbox controller. In short time her arms may tire, she may not be able to function the triggers properly or the face buttons might stick on her. Youve already ruined the experience for her and she might not want to go back. Try your best to accommodate her and youll have her killing those bastards in no time.
I don't know... personally, I have one 'S' controller and I don't even use it myself; I've just gotten too used to the standard one. And as for my girlfriend? Well, she plays Halo too, but she also likes the big one. I guess it's just personal preference.Thanks to Nick who pointed this out in the HBO forum.
Aquaduct Two Progressing, XBC Compatibility Working
PfhorSlayer let us know that work on version two of Aquaduct, the Mac OS X Xbox tunneller, is still ongoing:
Things are progressing very well, and we are gearing up for some internal testing and hopefully release in the not-too-far future.
Aquaduct can now tunnel games between Xbox users who have a Mac running Aquaduct and Windows users who have Xbox Connect; word is it will "probably" be out before Halo 2. Let's hope so.
Offensive Tetraboxing Part Two Coming Soon
Blackstar of Blackstar Productions, that yesterday released a video of the Offensive Tetraboxing LANfest held by HBO's Louis Wu, mentioned in the HBO forum that a second part of the video will also be available soon.
Blackstar Posts Offensive Tetraboxing Highlight Reel
[image:6820 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]Over at Blackstar Productions, Blackstar's highlight film for the Offensive Tetraboxing LANfest held on January 31 and February 1 by HBO's Louis Wu is now ready. It's called HALO: Offensive Tetraboxing and it's clocks in at a little over 9 minutes and 93 megabytes. It's encoded in MP4 and requires QuickTime to view; if you watch the QuickTime versions of Red vs Blue then you should be all set.
The word is that this is going to be the most sophisticated yet of Blackstar's fan films, with extensive use of rendered effects, including "original renders of the entire ringworld not seen in any Bungie version" according to the author.