Bungie Weekly Updates

[Wondermonkey]

November 10, 2006

If you thought there was a lot of Halo information last week, wait ‘til next week. A bunch of stuff is going down to celebrate the 5th anniversary of a little game we like to call Halo. In November 2001, Halo launched alongside the Xbox console, and the rest is history. Next year, Halo 3 will conclude the story arc begun all those years ago and next week, we’ll take a long lingering look at the series to date. There will also be some pretty BIG surprises and maybe announcements. Who can say?

Hey, ladies. Yeah, I’m talking to you, ladies. It has come to my attention that a significant chunk of our playership is female. I myself am constantly pooned and then humped by ladies. That is not sexy like it sounds, btw. It’s humiliating. Anyway, one of the things we’re looking at for Halo 3 multiplayer (Master Chief is all man) is adding a female voice to the Spartan character should you choose it as part of your custom character.

If we do it, it won’t be comical, stereotypical or insulting – we’ll pick a great, strong female actress who can pull off bloodcurdling death cries and rattles. And we’re not promising anything, we’re just trying to gauge interest. If you girls think it would be cool, then comment in the forums, spam me with PMs or start a petition on your own sites and forums. Then we’ll have to listen. If you think it’s pointless and patronizing and you’re happy just being a dude, then say so.

If you ARE a dude, we don’t care what you think, because we’re not asking you. Anyone who says anything stupid or sexist in the discussion forum will be megabanned.

Ghost of Onyx is the new Da Vinci Code. Kinda. Our latest Halo novel is swimming with the sharks in the deep end of the book sales pool.

The book is currently number 13 on the NYTimes Bestseller list (11.19.06) (paperback fiction category) of which the top 15 are officially bestseller status – and we’re still trying to figure out if this is the first video game novel to ever break the NYT list.

It’s number two at Publisher’s Weekly on their trade paperback fiction category for the week ending November 13.

See?

And it made number 24 on USA Today’s combo list:

It’s actually demonstrating the complexity of how book sales are tracked – making number 24 on the list (which is a combination of fiction, nonfiction, hardcover and paperback) for sales through November 5 (sandwiched neatly between Mary Higgins Clark and James Patterson).

http://asp.usatoday.com/life/books/b...e/default.aspx

Eric took a moment to chat with us about the success of the latest novel, in between sessions of rolling around in piles of money and having his car soapily-washed by Salma Hayek and Jessica Simpson.

Yo Eric, How has the reader reaction been to Ghosts of Onyx?

I’ve gotten a TON of email from readers. 99% of it is overwhelmingly positive with most people buying it and reading it in a single evening! The most gratifying thing is hearing back from the younger readers who tell me that normally they don’t like to read at all, but the HALO books are an exception.

To be fair, there have been a few negative things posted on the various boards. I’m constantly amazed by the stuff people say on the boards…varying from a collective intellect of dazzling sophistication—to random, near incomprehensible rants from slightly over-stimulated kids who mighta drunk too much chocolate milk.

What seems to be the reader’s favorite moment or character?

Kurt’s last line and the fate of a certain long un-exploded bomb….

What’s the biggest complaint you’ve received?

Readers wanting more. “What happens next ?” “Why is the novel (E.N.-- 95,000 words long, btw) so !&#%^ short?! Typos.

What’s your own favorite personal scene in the novel without spoilers?

Kurt’s last line. The final fate of planet Onyx. The entire Commander Lash story.

What other area of the Halo universe would you have liked to explore?

What happened to (and who the heck is) Grey Team? I had a great idea for a short story about Dr. Halsey and the first moment when Cortana is “turned on.” There’s a bunch of new territory (literally) at the end of GHOSTS OF ONYX that warrants “exploration.” It would be great to write something about what happens after HALO 3….

What’s next for Eric Nylund?

A big (200,000 word) new fantasy novel called MORTAL COILS. The Battle Star Galactica : CYLON WARS comic series. …More blockbuster games at Microsoft. A few screenplays, novels, and other graphic novel projects also in development.

Thanks Eric!

Congrats to Cliffy B and OF COURSE the rest of the team at Epic for the launch of Gears of War. The game is full of amazing art, music, audio and gameplay. A bunch of us have been getting together at night for some curb-stomping, chainsaw-wielding action. It’s a violent, gory blast and is apparently the only thing folks on my Friends List are playing. And congrats to rare for busting out Viva Pinata. I won’t be playing it myself, because it’s for kids, so if you see someone with my Gamertag playing hours of Viva Piñata, then that’s erm, my nephew Arvin.

[Halo 2] Matchmaking continues to evolve - we’ve cut things and added things in the past and we’ll continue to do it in the future. In short, because it’s necessary to keep matchmaking balanced, fun and well-populated. It often causes lots of agro and hatred when we makes changes, so with that in mind, I’ll let NinjaonFire explain:

In the next matchmaking playlist update, we’ll see some changes to the number of playlists which are available in Halo 2 on Xbox Live. We plan to reduce the number of playlists, in an effort to condense the active population into fewer pools. This will allow us to maintain healthy matchmaking functionality, with a minimal sacrifice of variety-based gametypes.

There is a core Halo 2 experience, embodied by playlists such as Team Slayer and Team Skirmish, which we will of course persist through these changes. The playlists that we do cut while making these changes could possibly be brought back at some point in the future, so if your favorite playlist goes away make sure to let us know. Kicking and screaming isn’t going to change anything, so keep that in mind when voicing how you feel about this subject.

I'm still not ready to give a complete list of which playlists we will be removing or merging, but when all is said and done we will have a higher ratio of ranked playlists. Over the past couple years we’ve had the luxury of an exceedingly good population online playing Halo 2. While we are confident that we'll maintain a significant population even while other games are released in this upcoming holiday season, due to the fact that we can't react immediately when it comes to changing the playlists, we'll be making some changes preemptively.

One of the playlists that will be removed in the next update will be Team Carnage. This playlist is based on a project which will be put on hold over the holiday season, it will most likely return sometime early next year. Another playlist that will be condensed into our core playlists will be Team ActionSack. This playlist has a lot of really fun gametypes and we’ll be integrating a select number of them into playlists such as Team Skirmish and Team Training.

When we have more specifics to announce, we’ll let you know. Until then, I’m sure many of you have questions and concerns which you may address in the Optimatch forum of Bungie.net!

Thanks Ninjer. I hope they don’t kill you. Peace!

So Hao wanted me to demo my new HD DVD drive, so I was all, only if you show me your new water tech, -blam!-! And then he was all, I can’t show you it because it’s just programmer art. And then I was all, I don’t care, lemme see it properly. Do a demo!

So demo he did. The water tech is proprietary, Hao and his boyz created it especially for Halo 3, after looking at the varying ways water is used in other games. In some games, it’s purely eye-candy and in others, it’s fully interactive. In Halo 3, it’s somewhere betwixt the two. Here’s what ours will have, should it be implemented correctly (I always put these , IF caveats in here). It will look like water. If the waves reach a certain height, frequency and turbidity, foam (or other effects) will appear on its surface.

It will of course have waves and ripples. But the cool part for me, was the fact that objects passing through it will create their own wake. It’s hardly an invention, since I distinctly remember seeing that in like Baldur’s Gate 2: Dark Alliance, but this looks very real and it’s going to look SWEET in levels like Valhalla when four or five vehicles go tear-assing through the river. The water is both translucent and reflective, so if you look from a distance, you’ll see a realtime reflection of the sky. If you’re up close, you’ll see whatever’s under the water. Right now it looks amazing, but to Hao’s point, it’s just programmer art. When an artist gets to play with it, this will be world-class agua. Can you sense how obsessed I am with video game water yet?

Our playtest on MP yesterday sucked for me, because the rumble on the controllers had been accidentally turned off by a bug. It got turned on later, but the test we were in was for King of the Hill on Snowbound, and without rumble, it’s hard to tell where you’re being shot from, no thanks to the crazy jumbo yellow programmer art currently representing the soon-to-be elegant Hill circle. Everyone else was having a blast, but I need Rumble! Some folks turn it off on purpose in their control preferences. I will never, ever understand that.

Our good friends at the 1UP Show have exclusive MULTIPLAYER VIDEO!!!!OMG but don’t get too excited, because it is purely footage of them playing, with no screens or images in sight. You can however hear all the new sound FX and see some excellent interviews with the game’s creators. It’s not their fault, it’s ours, we told ‘em they couldn’t film it, so don’t flame them. Go download that huge-ass jumbo file HERE.

[Wondermonkey]

So the end of the Halo birthday week draws to a close, and what a week it’s been. We’ve had a ton of announcements and news, showed the first ever shot from the Halo 3 campaign and generally celebrated Halo and our fans for a week. If you missed the story…

STOP RIGHT NOW AND READ THIS!

As we close out, it’s time for some thoughtful retrospective on the events of the week.

First off, the screenshot. Here’s the deal. Brian grabbed a controller, moved the Chief up against a wall from a level in Campaign, and typed a debug command to take a shot. We ran the shot in Newsweek and then later, right here on Bungie.net. We took the shot at 2X so you could use it for wallpaper or whatever. But just to be clear, it’s a very ordinary, if atmospheric moment from the game. Well, ordinary in the graphical sense. Naturally that building is crawling with the Chief’s foes, and he’s not really going to get a chance to stand around chewing the fat.





There’s been some speculation that it’s totally different than that showed in the E3 trailer. Well, that’s just lighting. There have been some minor tweaks to the Chief model, but he’s about 99% identical.

We were on a bunch of stuff this week, including a upcoming 1UP podcast, and the Official Xbox Magazine podcast, talking about stuff while they tried to trick us into admitting other stuff. The OXM one is live now, and you can listen to it here. The 1UP podcast will have more swearing in it and goes live next Wednesday.

One of the reasons the update is short this week, quite apart from the fact that we already spilled our guts pretty good, is that I have been in two very important (and fun) meetings. Actually, three if you count one yesterday afternoon.

One (yesterday afternoon) was about something collectible you can probably buy next year. One was about some Halo fiction you can enjoy next year (we were chatting with Marvel comics and a couple of very famous comic book creators of some repute) and the other was about the Halo TV commercial that’s going to air on Monday Night Football in early December.

We just saw one of Digital Domain’s final submissions before the thing gets finished and has Mart-Music added to it, and I have to say, jaws were dropped. I am not going to overpromise to you guys, but the Bungie folks who saw it were very, very impressed. And there are a surprising number of clues and glimpses into the finished game, although it contains not a lick of gameplay in it.

We also asked the female players out there if they would like to have an option to change their multiplayer Spartan voice to female. We had a huge response, with literally 99% saying yes, they would like it. A couple of women had the legitimate concern that it would encourage pre-pubescent misogynists to give them a hard time, and of course, one or two dudes who thought that their opinion on the matter was somehow more important to the discussion than the females it actually concerned. And a lone voice who felt that the death screams themselves were uncalled for.

The good news is that we collated all the data, requests, polls and news stories and will look seriously at implementing the feature. So thank you for your input.

And that won’t be the only MP feature we’re going to let you customize, but more on that another time.

And now the part where I throw Ninja to the wolves. Matchmaking is a complicated business and juggling the playlists and the population available to make sure that most people are having a satisfactory experience, is incredible difficult and taxing. Please try t show some understanding and restraint when reacting to changes that you perceive as negative, and realize that we would not make these decisions were they not necessary for the smooth functioning of Matchmaking. There’s some news in here that will freak people out. And it’s not Ninja’s choice (or anyone’s really) so don’t blame him.

NinjaOnFire sez:

Last week we hinted at some of the changes that would occur in the next matchmaking update. We told you all about our plans to consolidate our total number of playlists in an effort to condense the population into fewer pools, making matchmaking function more effectively. We told you that Team Carnage was being put on hold over the holiday season, though we do plan to bring it back early next year. We also told you that Team ActionSack is being removed, with all of the popular gametypes from it being moved into Team Training or Team Skirmish.

All of these changes are being made to accommodate the population fluctuation that occurs around the holidays. New systems, new games and vacations all equate to less activity. While we have maintained an excellent population over the past 2 years and don’t expect it to drop drastically, the matchmaking system can be very delicate when the population drops suddenly, so we’re making these changes as a precaution. Moving forward into 2007 we may decide to bring some of these playlists back, it’s hard to say right now – we’ll have to examine our population and activity after the holidays.

This week we have finalized the changes to the hoppers and we’re almost done with the testing phase. In addition to Team Carnage and Team ActionSack, we will be removing the Multi-Team and Team SWAT playlists. These playlists both have unique aspects that set them apart from the rest, so it is sad to see them go, for me as well since they are two of my favorites.

Multi-Team has had quite the run, for a flavor playlist; perhaps we’ll be seeing this playlist again at some point. Team SWAT has been very popular over the past few months and has been a great flavor playlist. We let you experience it as both ranked and unranked and with a variety of gametypes. However, popularity isn’t the deciding factor in these changes. While it is a lot of fun and will remain in matchmaking; it will no longer have a playlist of its own. Gametypes from Team SWAT will be moved into the Team Training playlist with some extra weight, including SWAT Magnums which was removed from Team SWAT in a previous update.

Anytime we remove a playlist, we know there are people who are very passionate about the change. Please keep in mind that these changes are being made out of a necessity. We’ve explained that necessity in detail, so if you still have questions please visit the Optimatch forum. Perhaps your favorite playlist is being removed, make sure to tell us… as we move forward with future updates we will be looking at this feedback to determine what may or may not be brought back.

Over the next week we will be wrapping up final testing on these changes, so stay tuned to the Optimatch forum for more details!

Thanks Ninjer. We will not reveal your top secret undisclosed location. In 123 Fake Street, Bellevue.

Next week – high res versions of the multiplayer shots (at last) and some chat aout what they do and don’t contain. Anyway, somebody asked me who would win in a fight between bender and Mister Chief, seeing as how “they both have crazy teefs.” Apologies to Matt Groening and Co.

[Wondermonkey]

Hey we were playing “Pimps at Sea” on Xbox Live last night. I have never had so many messages in one session before. I ended up attaching a USB keyboard to the 360 just so I could respond with either polite declines or hilarious jabs, depending on who was sending me messages. KP sent the rudest ones, I might add, since he was jealous. Of whatever we were playing last night.

Obviously Pimps at Sea is a codename for something else right now (Halo 3, dur). So when we do actually begin work again, on the epic life-changing experience that the “real” Pimps at Sea promises to be, nobody will believe us. The Bungie who cried wolf.

Anyway, we had a blast playing whatever it was, and were even able to get some stats. Think of it as a mini-Humpday challenge.

Here’s how it went down…

There was a very special Pimps at Sea Humpday last night, the first night in which players were able to take each other on in the Alpha. One of the playlists that’s being tested in matchmaking right now is Rumble Pit, which is the same as Halo 2’s except it’s set to four players right now. Last night a very special match occurred with some special participants.

Frankie- Frank O’Connor, Bungie.net Content Manager
New0001- Joe Tung, Multiplayer Producer
UNIDENTIFIED GAMERTAG - Michel Bastien, Producer
SECRETZ TAG- Anonymous Nub



Game: Rumble Slayer
Snowbound, normal weapons
Game Duration: 6:32
General Tone of Game: Tung-shattering

The match to end all matches, as a certain Scot might say, took place last night at 6:18. As you may be able to tell from my use of an actual game duration and the fact that I know what time the game took place, we do have stats being reported for these games. Reported to a secret location. Note that the stats you’re looking at were just sort of cobbled together with bits of Bnet code we had laying around. The scoring, ranking and stats shown here are simply not representative of Halo 3’s stuff, and should be ignored except in how they demonstrate the graping Tung received.

Frankie spent most of the game rockin’ the assault rifle. Most of his kills came from peppering his opponents while charging them and then getting in the melee before they could counter. Sadly, one of Bungie’s (former) best players, Joe Tung, got completely reamed. He got on a roll with a killing spree for a little bit, but couldn’t find a way to out-duel Frankie. Michel, our first unidentified hero also totally owned Tung. Joe’s pathetic performance was second only to SECRETZ, who was probably doing something important like running the studio at the time.

The match ended closely, but not really. Rumor has it Frankie let up on Tung just so that he doesn’t remove the assault rifle, melees and Snowbound from Halo 3. Truly, Frankie’s actions last night not only defined him as a winner but as a hero to Halo fans everywhere.

We also talked a little bit about the TV commercial this week, which is causing quite a stir. Here’s the details, as clear as we can make ‘em.

• 
  The commercial is 60 seconds long.
  
  
• 
  It will air during Monday Night Football on December 4th. Sometime around 6-ish, PST.
  
  
• 
  That’s the US date. Everyone else will get a chance to see it soon.
  
  
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  An HD version will appear on marketplace fairly soon.
  
  
• 
  The commercial is a mix of CG and Live Action.
  
  
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  It is not supposed to represent gameplay.
  
  
• 
  It is supposed to show pure action from the Halo universe. Think of it like the Graphic Novel.
  
  
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  It was made by Hollywood effects house, Digital Domain.
  
  
• 
  Digital Domain did base its stuff on our in-game 3D models.
  
  
• 
  It is packed full of clues and stuff.
  
  
• 
  It is nifty.
  
  
• 
  We may host it on Bungie.net at some time in the future.
  
  

To celebrate the commercial, which we do so love, we made a Halo 3 theme which will be downloadable on Xbox Live marketplace sometime in the near future. Looks something like this (although it's subject to change).



We’re recording combat dialog today. It’s kind of a test pass to get the process ironed out – there will be some new technology and features in the way our combat dialog is selected, and we need to make sure that the technology and the process are compatible. The first test of combat dialog will be the Grunt, played by our very own Joe Staten. His dialog today will of course be used in the final game and next week, we’ll have a couple of other actors in to reprise roles. One of them is a huge fan favorite.

Writing the dialog is a fairly challenging process and has been eating up my evenings pretty ferociously for the last few weeks. You can expect the combat dialog in Halo 3 to not only equal the sheer variety and volume found in Halos 1 and 2, but to do cooler things in terms of how it’s selected.

You’d be amazed how much effort the programmers, designers and audio guys have to put into this stuff. Writing it, by comparison is a breeze. And acting it is even easier – Joe just sits there, drinking Cristal and having his feet rubbed by Salma and pausing occasionally to polish his monocle and squirt out a grunt line. I kid Joe, I kid.

Joe in fact just came back from a session, he’s on a break, but his voice is already wrecked. I asked him to give me a sample line from the dialog but his favorite line was a grunt giving away something really big and secret about Campaign gameplay. His second favorite was a Grunt yelling, “Oh no! The Demon. No wait, he not have enough rivets on glove.”

The good news is that Jay Weinland, our audio guru, has promised to give me a sample MP3 or two next week for you to listen to.

The sheer amount of rage created by the removal of the Team SWAT playlist was expected, and still unfortunate. Again, we don’t remove these things for cruel fun, we do it to balance out the population loads and for other boringly mathematical reasons. So we are as they say, sorry for the inconvenience. And it’s possible that Team SWAT will come back again. In the meantime, you can find more SWAT modes than usual in team training. We upped the frequency to accommodate you, our buddies. Also please note that it is in fact against the law to send death threats, even by email.

Steve Scott, one of our amazing artists, showed me a new weapon today. No exaggeration to say that it is the single coolest graphical effect I have ever seen. He’s busy trying to make the effect look cool from every angle – it looks amazing in third person, or even when it’s in your face, but needs tuning in a first person view to look cooler, even though technically it looks the way it should. Sometimes artists have to exaggerate things to make them more obvious.

And finally, somebody asked me what a Mister Chief theme would look like. Booyah.

[Wondermonkey]

The funniest thing about the reaction to last week's TV commercial was probably the oft-repeated claim that the CG on the two kids looked super fake. Which is especially amusing given that the kids, and even the clumps of grass around them, were real. It was all filled with real actors in a real studio. The CG doesn't begin until you see the Chief's helmet for the first time.

And of course, in spite of all our attempts to be clear about the content of the commercial, some folks still claimed we were trying to pass it off as gameplay. It was not ever designed to look like gameplay. It was designed to make the Chief look like an unstoppable badass. Mission accomplished!

There was also tons of understandable confusion about the beta. If you go to www.halo3.com, to sign up for the beta, it becomes abundantly clear that it is aimed squarely at US and Canadian residents. Not to worry. This is "phase one" of the beta process. There will be other ways to get into the Halo 3 beta, and it will be open to other countries. We'll keep you updated as we get more details - such as when you can find out if you're in the beta, and what t do next. But basically, nothing to worry about.

But on to the matter at hand. The commercial itself. Lots of you wanted to know more, and so, we bring you more. Lots more.

First, we chatted with Ed Ulbrich, the president of Digital Domain's commercial division.

Bungie: First off, great work Ed, the guys at Bungie were pleased as punch with the final commercial. Can you tell us a little bit about Digital Domain and what the company has achieved in the past?

Ed: As you're probably aware, Digital Domain is an award-winning, full-service digital studio and creates SPX and other visual imagery for feature films, commercials and music videos. As a pioneer in digital effects, our business units have been recognized with top industry awards, including five Academy Awards(r), multiple BAFTA awards, numerous advertising honors including 34 Clio Awards and 8 Cannes Lion Awards, and our work has even earned MTV's Music Video of the Year Award and a Grammy.

Since our beginnings in 1993, we've worked to create next generation technology and truly innovative approaches to extend the boundaries of visual effects to create seamless environments, whether it's creating the 1945 reality of sands and seas of Iwo Jima (including the thousands of troops and ships involved in the battle), as in our current work in the film Flags of our Fathers, or the impact of a new ice age in The Day After Tomorrow.

As you might not know, Digital Domain has made several extremely strategic moves over the last year to grow into new and pretty exciting areas. The company was acquired in May of this year by Wyndcrest Holdings, which includes director Michael Bay as a member. As one of the world's most successful action directors (Bad Boys, The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor and Bad Boys II), Michael understands visual excitement and how to take action to the next level. We've also hired three top executives in our industry, Mark Miller, Cliff Plumer and Kim Libreri who most recently worked with Industrial Light and Magic, who have a shared vision for convergence of media and technology that we believe can really take our industry to the next level.

Bungie: What kind of assets did Bungie supply you with for the commercial CG?

Ed: Bungie was extremely open and helpful to us. They literally opened up the studio to us and gave us an amazing view into their upcoming game, Halo 3. From the start, Bungie wanted us to give their fans a new and unique visual experience for the Halo Universe. To accomplish this, Bungie supplied us with all their models, textures, and game footage, for all of the characters, weapons, and vehicles seen in this commercial. With these files from Bungie as reference, we modeled, textured, and animated these assets to fit the demanding needs of this spot.

Bungie: What software and processes do you use to turn those assets into a CG movie?

Ed: We began with modeling Master Chief and all of the other assets you see in the spot in Maya and Lightwave. We then textured them in Deep Paint and Photoshop. After that, matte paintings of all the skies, mountains, and select terrain were done in Photoshop. We then started the animation process. For the effect we wanted, we started with motion capture that Joseph Kosinski directed. Then, based on our needs, we key framed on top of it in Maya. All of that was then pushed into lighting. We split this duty between Max/Vray and Lightwave for the characters and terrain. We used Houdini to create fx elements like the sand explosions and blue mortars, and Lightwave for the flowing grass. When all of these things were ready, we composited it into a final image using our in-house compositing software, Nuke and Autodesk's Flame.

Bungie: How did you feel about working with someone else's models and IP, and the Halo franchise generally?

Ed: Sometimes it can be difficult working with someone else's IP, but in this instance that wasn't the case. Bungie had everything together, allowing us access to really top quality models, textures and footage, and worked very, very closely with us. One of the great experiences of this project was that everyone pulled together with the common vision of creating an end product that is truly spectacular.

Bungie: What kind of similarities do you see between game production and movie-style CG creation?

Ed: For us, there's really no difference in creating visuals for games, feature films or commercials - we're in the business of making a vision real, whether it belongs to a developer or director. At Digital Domain, we're very much focused on convergence - it's something that we have been talking about for some time and we're now beginning to see it come together. Our belief is that as we create digital assets, there is an ability to easily repurpose those assets for features from games or games from features - allowing games and features to each have extremely high production values and an extremely realistic look and feel.

We've begun using in-game engines and assets to render gaming commercials - with this approach, we can provide an accurate depiction of actual game visuals and game play, because we're using actual game assets in our commercial development. And we feel that this technique may open up a new genre of feature and/or game-related films that are built in realtime engines. This kind of digital asset sharing and convergence in production really is the wave of the future, and cross development will begin to blur the lines of effects being created for features or games.

Bungie: What was the most challenging aspect of creating Starry Night?

Ed: Basically, it was time. Bungie, Microsoft, McCann Worldgroup, and Digital Domain wanted to create an unforgettable "bridge" spot in the Halo Universe. A filmic look at what Master Chief has been through in the last two games and where he is going in Halo 3. And we all needed to do it in less than five weeks! I must say, the best thing about this commercial for me, was watching everyone at Bungie, Microsoft, McCann Worldgroup, and Digital Domain pull together and giving more than they had to make this event happen. I'll never forget that.

Bungie: What are you guys working on after this?

Ed: We do have several revolutionary projects that we expect will open a few eyes. We've finished a series of commercials that will launch in January that take virtual humans to the next level. We're also working on two major features that use this technology to do things that haven't been seen in visual effects. It's all part of a substantial and ongoing R+D effort we've undertaken to make tremendous advancements in this space and bring more realistic characters to gaming. And, we are in discussions for the first converged film project with shared assets for gaming, so we do have some pretty exciting times in the months ahead.



The Chief's "bubble shield." Does it represent something used in-game? That would be telling. Although a surprising number of theories have emerged about what it would do to gameplay.*

Next up was audio. Lots of folks have remarked on the lovely audio design in the spot, from the screaming explosion midway through, to the stirring Marty music in the end. Now the music is all Marty, but the sound effects were by Machine Head, and we chatted with Stephen Dewey, the Sound Designer and founder of machine head.

Bungie: Although the music is by our own Marty O'Donnell, you guys did the very interesting audio design. Can you tell us what inspired you and how that process worked? (Machine Head)

Stephen: I was inspired from the first instant of seeing this spot. For me, creating sounds that are futuristic, that have an 'I have not heard that before quality' yet are plausible to events and objects that are familiar to us humans in 2006 is the most fun I could have. This short film has an abundance of opportunities for all the things I love to do, voice manipulation, the juxtaposition of tiny sound filigree to enormous explosions, fantasy devices, good solid foley and enough time to show it all off. The process was fantastic, everyone involved was very supportive and collaborative, special thanks to Joseph Kosinski, the director and all from the agency who allowed me to run off into my sound playground. I was given some initial broad direction, then after I had made my first pass of interpreting what I saw on the screen into the sound realm, there followed a series of sit downs with Joseph and the agency team, experimenting and refining the elements of the soundtrack.

Late nights, rule breaking. Sound pranks. Kudos to Marty too for coming up with a musical score that mapped the emotional curve without bombastically overpowering the soundtrack, and to Jeff Payne for getting all the sounds to sit so well with each other in the mix.



The audio and music from the commercial were a big hit. Notably the "screaming" explosion that introduces the Chief about halfway through.

And last, but not least - we chatted with the ad agency responsible for the entirety of the project - McCann Erickson SF's Group Creative Director, Scott Duchon.

Bungie: What was the inspiration behind the theme of the commercial?

Scott: The inspiration for the commercial came from us wanting to do something that would resonate with the Halo Nation as well as someone who only has a passing knowledge of the Halo franchise. But the idea to show a young child and then jarringly switch to a battle weary soldier came from Tim Stier. By day he's an Art Director at McCann Worldgroup, SF, by night he's a Halo fanatic. We felt this misdirect would allow for people who had no idea who Master Chief was to be able to connect with a more human side of this war, and the Master Chief's plight, while the Halo Nation would relish the idea of seeing what goes on in the heat of battle.

Matt Priestley, currently hard at work on the ever-more impressive looking Halo 2 for Windows Vista, wanted to chime in with a quick update about the project:

We know some of you want to hear more about the online plans for Halo 2 on Windows Vista. Microsoft will soon have a lot more to say about the Live gaming and entertainment network on Windows, but what we can tell you now is that you'll be able to play H2V online and even interact with your friends on the Xbox 360 at zero cost (although Halo 2 doesn't support cross-platform multiplayer). Now that said, there are going to be some very tempting reasons for you to upgrade to a full paid Live Gold membership. We're sure you want to know more, but you'll just have to wait until Microsoft is ready to spill the beans.

Finally, it wouldn't be an update without a suitably themed Mr. Chief. This one is full of secret.

PS, happy birthday to Mat's Mom. We know you went through hell. Thanks for gifting him to us, by the way. Class move.



Note: Wacky kids have already made YouTube mashups of the commercial with inappropriate, MA-rated music tracks. We do not approve of this kind of malarkey.

[Wondermonkey]

Without power to the Bungie building, I can't post a Mister Chief. I am writing this from a coffee shop, the only building in a ten block radius with power. As a result, it looks like a refugee camp. The manager is a Halo fan though, so he probably won't kick me out, as long as I keep promising to de-nerf the pistol.

This week got a little mental, when some of our friends in Belgium "revealed" that a documentary feature would be on Xbox Live Marketplace next week, and "reveal" that the Brutes were playable characters in Halo 3. Well, they're not playable characters.

The fact is, Brutes in Halo 3 will be significantly more exciting, clever, graphically impressive, terrifying, numerous and angrier than in Halo 2, but they won't be playable, especially since you, in the role of Master Chief, will be spending a significant amount of effort and ammunition reducing their population.

The documentary mentioned on the interwebs, does indeed exist, as I have mentioned before in previous updates. We're keeping the exact contents as a kind of holiday surprise for the faithful, and you'll be able to see the entire thing in 720p and surround sound some time next week. It's a very interesting piece. especially if you're interested in Campaign mode.

And if you don't have an Xbox 360, don't panic. We love you, and we're going to ensure that everyone gets to see it next week. Just know that the 360 version will have the best resolution for pausing, staring at something and saying, "Is that what I think it is!?"

Anyway, sorry I can't tell you more about that today, but then, that IS the point of a surprise, right? Even if those chocolate-munching, Tin-Tin reading, waffle-snarfing Belgians are just too excited to keep a lid on it.

One other note - we made it to the Penny Arcade Child's Play auction on Wednesday, a charity auction to raise money for Children's Hospitals, and one attended largely by video game folks, who gave generously of prizes and cash to raise money for an excellent cause.

Congratulations to the Penny Arcade guys for raising literally hundreds of thousands of dollars, and congratulations to the successful bidders on the Bungie items, one of which was a chance to have a voice-over appearance in Halo 3. The winner of that bid was a surprise to us, and probably a pleasant surprise to you guys. More news about who the deep-pocketed community-favorite is, at a later date.


Peace out!

[Wondermonkey]

So this is the last update before we head off for the holidays. The office is empty, with only the rustle of tumbleweeds, and of course, the universe shaking howl of bitter anguish that is Noguchi’s rage. Next week, no update at all, as we sit around a log fire drinking eggnog, even though it makes us gag and the fire has heated up all the metal rivets on our jeans and burned our tender parts. Yes, the holidays are a special, special time, as anyone trying to park at Target or Best Buy this weekend will discover.

This week was fairly uneventful, as the office started to empty for the break. Screens, usually aglow with interesting stuff, were occasionally dark and sleepy. Hao’s screen however, was awash with more water – he’s been working on what I can only describe as some sort of fluid dynamics system, but he’s too busy to interrupt, so I can’t tell yet if it has physics or just especially clever animation – but put it this way – it moves like water, it looks like water and it’s getting better.

He was also toying around with some shadows, especially the way they fade away to nothingness as strong, low sunlight scatters them. It was a perfectly still screen with four simple pillars casting their shadows, but the reason I noticed at all, was that it looked exactly like a photograph.
Lighting is one of the things folks commented on when they watched this week’s Vidoc – a short documentary about Brutes that we released as a kind of holiday treat. It included a brief glimpse at some of the Halo 3 Brute models and a hint at a lone indoor environment – yes – the same location the Master Chief is pictured standing in, in a recent screenshot.

We were not so naïve as to think that it wouldn’t cause a calamity on the interwebs, since after all, the tubes that supply the interwebs are lubricated by rage. So common complaints we saw were that the graphics didn’t look finished. The graphics that we said were unfinished. But we saw that coming, it’s one of the things we have to absorb in order to provide you guys with interesting stuff to look at. And that’s the point. We’re showing the game in development, like an X-Ray of a baby bird.

Right now, it’s going to look at times like a fluid-encased, bug eyed reptile. But when it’s born, in 2007, don’t sweat it, it will have grown into a shimmering peacock, tail fanned and feathers gleaming.

You’ll have to take our word for it. There’s no spin, or damage control and we’re absolutely unapologetic. Halo 3 is in development and when we’re ready to show you polished graphics, we’ll do that in our own good time. But we’re still going to continue to bring you peeks behind the curtain.
The other main concern voiced was about who you will and won’t fight against in Halo 3. We wanted to debut the Brutes, because they are going to be a ferociously important adversary in Halo 3, and more importantly, their behavior, their abilities and their differing roles are going to make them easily the equal of Elites, in terms of how they operate on the battlefield. So we’re paving the way. But they aren’t going to be fighting you alone. We won’t give too much away, but believe us, the Brutes and Brute packs will have plenty of allies.

As far as gameplay is concerned, you can make up your own mind early next year, when we give you the chance to play the Multiplayer beta. It won’t contain all of the cool new features from the game, but it will be a nice taste of what to expect. There will be more news about that in the very near future. Anyway, we’ve enjoyed spending another year with you guys – so enjoy the break and share the season’s warmth with your friends and family. Peace (and goodwill)!

[Wondermonkey]

Hey, I know we said there’d be no update this week, because of the holidays and all, but I can’t help myself sometimes.

There’s some info floating around the interwebs about ways to enter the Halo 3 multiplayer beta… we’re not able to comment on that just yet but we do know that Microsoft will be formally revealing some new details next week. The initial sweepstakes registration on halo3.com was just the first stage of participation in the beta program.

We can comment, however, on our plans to roll-out a small pre-beta program to ramp up our scale just prior to the true public beta next Spring. Bungie will be tapping active members of our worldwide community to help us transition from the ongoing internal alpha multiplayer testing. Our hopes are to call into service experienced and active players of Halo 2 on Xbox Live, along with people who spread Bungie love (in safe, hygienic ways) and foster our community. Unfortunately we won’t be able to include everyone in this but we are hoping for quite a few (think thousands) spots. Once all the specifics are finalized we’ll provide more details on Bungie.net.

Last night I was privileged enough to visit HBO’s Deadly Night Halo LAN/Beer/Pizza event, if only for a couple of hours. I drank soda, ate some mashed Jaffa Cakes (thanks Jillybean, now I know why the “orangey bit” is referred to as “smashing”) and discovered that Schooly D is from Texas. It took some wrangling to get him to confess, but confess he did. If none of what I just said makes one metric lick of sense, then fear not. KP was there, documenting the entire thing and he’ll bring you back a report next week. Hopefully with pics.

Didn’t play too much Halo 3 this week because I was eating Figgie pudding. At least I hope that’s what it was. Anyway, that’s all for now. Happy New Year from everyone at Bungie except Noguchi, and may 2007 bring you the most incredible stuff you ever hoped or dreamed for. Including, but not limited to Halo 3.