Major Silva of the United Nations Space Command Defense Force (a Halo fansite) interviewed Claude "Louis Wu" Errera of HBO. Asked how there were enough hours in the day for him to keep up with all the news in the Halo universe, as well as delete forum spam, run a business, have a family, and sometimes even play Halo, he responded:
Brannon Boren made good on his promise over the weekend, putting together a nice little retrospective on the thinking process that went into creating the parts of the Halo Bible that deal with artificial intelligences like Cortana.
Just about everything that he mentions is revealed, in one way or another, either through the games or the novels, so there are not any spoilers. However, it is interesting to see the choices that were made and the reasons for them.
[image:38939 right hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] There's a lot of goodies in this week's Bungie Update. Not a whole lot of it pertains to Halo 3, except possibly the logo, but that at least is something.
From the Bungie Update:
"over a period of several months and literally hundreds of files, we have the final Halo 3 logo. We hope you like it and if everything goes according to plan, you’ll see a LOT more of this in the months ahead!
Looks like the color and texture of metal on the underside of the Halo rings; although at a distance, the colors also look like an Earth-like world seen from a distance, the mix of blue, green, and white.
Dean Takahashi caught up with Hamilton Chu of Giant Bite to talk about life after Halo. Chu spent three and a half years working on Halo; before that, he was part of the Oni team.
Game-Spectrum, purporting to cover the entire spectrum of gaming, gets a nice interview, along with threats of physical violence, with its interview of Bungie's own Kevin "KP" Paul, covering his turn-ons, turn-offs, and how he sleeps at night knowing all that stuff about Halo that we'll never even know we don't know.
According to Frankie in Bungie's latest Weekly Update, the artificial intelligence in current builds of Halo 3 seems to be quite a step up from the previous games.
Jordan117 has put up a nice bit of analysis in the HBO forum alleging that various artistic and design choices in Halo 2, specifically those made in the Outskirts and Metropolis levels, indicate that Bungie is postulating increasing global warming in Earth's future.
While probably not essential to the plot, if it's true it does demonstrate the insane attention to detail that Bungie puts into its games.
KP's latest piece at Bungie.net is for all the fans who wish they could work at Bungie like he does. It's probably fair to say that Bungie has hired more than its share of its own fans over the years, so while it's certainly a long shot, it isn't impossible, if you've got education, determination, and skills Bungie needs. Check out the article for tips from other Bungie staffers on how to get in the door, how to get noticed, and how to get hired to work at Bungie.
Eastbeast314 posted up links from Let's Kill Dave to the PPT presentations at this year's GDC, as offered by Microsoft. The Graphics Track (caution, direct link to large file!) includes a portion called "HDR The Bungie Way" about HDR lighting.
The latest Community Spotlight at Bungie.net by KP is on Recon54, who is currently on an extended mission ordered by the greybeards of old school Bungie fandom to observe noobs in their natural habitat, interacting with Microsoft's "magical humming box". In addition, he drives the Spambulance and has a healthy fear of Shishka, which certainly any rational person can understand. Head over and give it a read if you haven't already.
DoomBatINC created this image for a SomethingAwful Photoshop Phriday feature fusing food and videogames. Certainly, the "long lasting rampancy bar" enriched with "Strauss protein blend" must be how an ordinary cybernetic security guard was able to face down the Pfhor and two rampant AIs over three games without ever once sitting down to a real meal.
San Jose Mercury News columnist Dean Takahashi, also author of books on the Xbox and Xbox 360, has a new column up saying that a small team of developers within Bungie Studios, led by Jason Jones and Chris Butcher, aren't working on Halo 3. They're working on something else:
Josh Rodgers and "Stosh" recently joined Bungie officially after spending time involved in other capacities. KP drew the short straw and had to interrogate them about their deviant proclivities, super secrets, scrumptious sandwiches and the use of Mat Noguchi's rage radiation as a source of warmth. Check it out.