pstencil
From Halopedia, the Halo wiki
pstencil was a lighting engine worked on by Bungie during the production of Halo 2.[1] As-envisioned, pstencil was intended to provide dynamic shadow volumes and self-shadowing on objects similar to games like Doom 3, though ultimately proved too technically expensive to implement, leading to its removal from the game.[2] This led to massively downgraded lighting in the final release of Halo 2 compared to that shown in early pre-release trailers and press screenshots.
Overview[edit]
The project was primarily worked on Software Design Engineer Bernie Freidin, alongside engineer Adrian Perez and Lead Engineer Chris Butcher. Freidin begin work on implementing stencil shadows into the Blam game engine shortly after Halo: Combat Evolved shipped in November 2001,[1] with the intent being to build Halo 2 with this lighting in mind. It continued work throughout 2002 and was used in the Halo 2 announcement trailer.[2]
According to Adrian Perez, pstencil's lighting was intended for use with directional light sources, while traditional lightmaps provided ambient lighting for a level. This would allow for lighting contributions from weapons fire and grenades to be much more dynamic and striking, something which was tested out on a night variant of the Combat Evolved map Blood Gulch. However, this ultimately proved too costly to implement: in a best-case scenario the game would struggle to reach a consistent 30FPS, and to implement it in the entire game would require massive sacrifices in the geometry and lighting fidelity across the board.[3] According to Jaime Griesemer, implementing pstencil would have required only having one or two characters on screen at any time, and would still sometimes reduce the framerate to 3FPS.[2] Griesemer also noted that it is unlikely that a delay to launch Halo 2 on the Xbox 360 would have helped with pstencil's implementation, as the shadows did not work at all in exterior environments.[4]
According to Marcus Lehto and Nate Walpole, the pstencil lighting engine was abandoned after shipping the Halo 2 announce trailer.[5][6] However, Adrian Perez and Martin O'Donnell have claimed it to have been used in the 2003 E3 demo.[2][3]
Gallery[edit]
Halo 2 announce trailer[edit]
Screenshots from the Halo 2 announce trailer with pstencil lighting.
Miscellaneous[edit]
![A screenshot of Blood Gulch from January 16, 2003, running in the pstencil lighting engine, allowing for dynamic lighting from weapons fire and explosions.[3]](https://halo.wiki.gallery/images/thumb/3/35/H2_BloodGulch_pstencil_Screenshot.jpg/160px-H2_BloodGulch_pstencil_Screenshot.jpg)
A screenshot of Blood Gulch from January 16, 2003, running in the pstencil lighting engine, allowing for dynamic lighting from weapons fire and explosions.[3]
Promotional image of a Warthog.
Promitional image of an M270 Mongoose.
![A screenshot of Blood Gulch from January 16, 2003, running in the pstencil lighting engine, allowing for dynamic lighting from weapons fire and explosions.[3]](/File:H2_BloodGulch_pstencil_Screenshot.jpg)
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Sources[edit]
- ^ a b Xbox.com, Master Chief Bernie Freidin, Bungie Software Design Engineer (Retrieved on May 15, 2007) [archive]
- ^ a b c d VICE, The Complete, Untold, History of Halo (Retrieved on Oct 22, 2025) [archive]
- ^ a b c Bungie.net, One Final Effort (Retrieved on Jan 27, 2013) [archive]
- ^ X.com, Jaime Griesemer (@32nds) (Retrieved on Dec 29, 2025) [archive]
- ^ Twitter, Marcus Lehto (@game_fabricator): "Good eye. That was early in development when we were using the now infamous stencil shadow version of our engine. Looked cool, but turned out to be way to expensive for rendering. We ditched that feature after the H2 announce trailer was done." (Retrieved on Jan 5, 2020) [archive]
- ^ Twitter, Nate Walpole (@bentllama): "We ditched a lot after the H2 announce trailer, including sanity. The scars, they teach." (Retrieved on Jan 5, 2020) [archive]
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