Bungie Weekly Update/04-26-01

This is the Bungie Weekly Update for April 26, 2001, originally posted at Halo.Bungie.Org, written by Matt Soell.

Bungie Update
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.