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Subject: Matt's Halo Update 4/27/01
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 17:41:56 -0700
x-sender: matt@mail.bungie.com
From: Matt Soell <matt@bungie.com>
To: <halo@bungie.org>

April 27, 2001

Welcome to another fantabulous Halo Update, brought to you by the good 
people of bungie.org, where the tru7h is sometimes hidden in plain sight.

- E3 is scant weeks away and as you might imagine the pressure is on to 
complete as much stuff as possible before the show.  Lots of little 
details to fix, and that's reflected in this update.  There are some big 
things being added as well, but they're secret. :-)

- Shiek is working on control panels for Covenant machinery.

- The motion sensor works.

- Decal animation is in.  Among other things, this allows Marines to 
spray blood when they find themselves on the wrong side of a moving 
bullet.

- We have a Cortana model.  

- Speaking of models, Adam is doing some nice work on facial expressions.

- Rob is working on different LOD models for all weapons.

- On the sound tip, we've got ambient external sounds in the game, and 
Marty has begun writing and recording more in-game music.  We've got 
placeholder combat dialog in the game; there's nothing quite so 
satisfying as "accidentally" tossing a grenade at a Marine's feet and 
hearing him scream as his flailing body sails past you.

- All cutscene storyboards are finalized.

- We may be adding a second multiplayer artist to the team shortly.

- The Mighty Chris Butcher has given the AI a knowledge model.  This 
means, for example, that if you're a traitorous turncoat who picks off a 
Marine when no one's looking, when the other Marines discover the body 
they'll go looking for the slain Marine's killer without knowing that 
it's you.  Of course, if someone were to SEE you doing this, the Marines' 
reaction would change appropriately.

- The first mission is getting a little bigger, with massive underground 
areas and major outdoor encounters set in what we would call "disaster 
areas" on Earth.


Matthew Soell
Community Guy / Keeper of the Bungie Way
Bungie Studios
matt@bungie.com
bungie.org