Bungie Depot

Next week, we're doing something cool on the site. Tune in Tuesday for a small surprise. It should be cool – a little thing that the community team has whipped up.

The Griespit

Jaime has been very busy, finalizing Ghost and Warthog handling so the sound guys can work with confidence. The need to make sure that sound ties in correctly with motion is obvious, and all of the sampling, including the gravel on tires recording done with the poor Subaru Outback we abused, is ready to be applied and processed. The Ghosts in particular (in my opinion) are starting to sound brilliantly "alien" and cool.

Jaime has also been finishing up the connections between rooms for one of the early levels with Paul and Dave. He wouldn't elaborate on which level, BUT I can reveal that you might have seen something like it already.

Jaime is also figuring how CENSORED will work on (gasp!) a new CENSORED!

When he wasn't doing that thing we can't talk about, he was working on new triggers for combat dialog. So that Marines and others will say cool stuff when they're supposed to, and won't just blabber away when they're not supposed to.

But one of the coolest things Jaime was doing this week was adjusting the scale, type and shape of damage done by a new weapon. I've tried this one before Jaime's ministrations and it is BRUTAL. And no, that's not a pun on the word Brute. It's just a vicious bone hammering bastard of a weapon.

 

The Animation Station

John Butkus has been animating his ass, or perhaps more properly, his elbow off. Monday and Tuesday he was going through older (Halo 2) elite/marine animations and just making sure they worked with all weapons when sitting in various vehicle passenger seats. Weird stuff happens with weapons in different scenarios, and as new ones are introduced, it's important to make sure that they look cool under all circumstances. John had a busy week, though...and probably created somewhere in the region of about 80 unique moves.  His aforementioned elbow is killing me and he says, "my eyes feel like someone has thrown sand in them, but I wouldn't have it any other way."

 

Our Princess is in another Castle

Alta, the Bungie Princess, is working on secret goodies as well as a certain annual tradeshow, as she tells it herself, "This week has been chaos!  In addition to taking care of the boys as usual, I have been busy working with some different people on some cool things that will start showing up as we get closer to launch.  Fans will love what we have in store."

But back to the tradeshow, as Alta continues, "E3 is right around the corner…so I have been dashing around making arrangements for that.  We have some cool stuff planned and I am wrapping up details for a mystery guest at Fanfest.  There is definitely a buzz around the studio with E3 coming up and the countdown to Halo 2 launch.  In the mean time I am just going to get as much time in the sun (yes sun in Seattle) as possible before the true chaos hits.  That’s all for me this week.  Cheers!"