Bungie updates on Halo 3 progress: water, weapons, multiplayer
Bungie’s having a field day with H2O, adding whole new water effects for that superb splashy effect you’ve probably already seen in Baywatch (wait, you do watch it for the water, right?). In fact, an effects artist has been focused on waterfall effects, with the bubbly foam, misty sprays and all that (wet) jazz. Vehicles and biped characters will all affect the water, from ripples to outright water spewing.
Weapons will sport some really nifty tricks to add that polished finish you’ve been wanting on your assault rifle for so long. And weapons on the ground now stand out, having some significant size increase as if it were telling you, “You know you want to shoot me…yes you do.”
The shine finish comes at a minimal processing overhead cost so there won’t be any noticeable frame-per-second drain on your beloved plasma screen. They’ve also been testing out some old and new maps, from a map codenamed Jub Jub to two new maps from Certain Affinity. But these are for Halo 2, which should be coming out to PC fans soon.
And those with depth-of-field (DOF) gripes with Halo 3‘s new visual repertoire on the Xbox 360, Bungie makes it clear: “We would never implement something in multiplayer that artificially obscured the playerÂ’s ability to decide what he or she was seeing.” DOF is that photo-realistic blur effect you’d get when you focus your eyes on one thing and force the other to become some bland blob in the distance.
Bungie will be adding DOF effects to make Halo 3 look oodles better than the Mona Lisa, but it shouldn’t deter you from picking off that frustrating sniper three clicks away. Most effects will need you to be stationary for a moment, so your eyes actually spot the effect. So no more complaints about the game blurring objects in-game, okay? And here, use this to wipe that smudge on your screen.
And, no, split-screen is not making a farewell performance in Halo 3. In fact, if you got anything bigger than your daddy’s plasma tube, you’d love the new look of HD in split-screen. But there won’t be any handicaps for folk who keep looking at the wrong half.
And remember Bungie’s note on the mic-hogging, ear-bleed inducing players who shoot off more from their mouths than from their in-game pistol? Well, Frankie demonstrates how he can just plaster on some duct tape over their annoying muzzles, in less than a second:
- Annoyed by player
- Press BACK button
- Right stick to select annoying player
- X to mute
Voila. Fragging heaven without the ear bleed. Plus you can still hear teammates calling for reinforcements a few feet away.
Bungie’s having a field day with H2O, adding whole new water effects for that superb splashy effect you’ve probably already seen in Baywatch (wait, you do watch it for the water, right?). In fact, an effects artist has been focused on waterfall effects, with the bubbly foam, misty sprays and all that (wet) jazz. Vehicles and biped characters will all affect the water, from ripples to outright water spewing.
Weapons will sport some really nifty tricks to add that polished finish you’ve been wanting on your assault rifle for so long. And weapons on the ground now stand out, having some significant size increase as if it were telling you, “You know you want to shoot me…yes you do.”
The shine finish comes at a minimal processing overhead cost so there won’t be any noticeable frame-per-second drain on your beloved plasma screen. They’ve also been testing out some old and new maps, from a map codenamed Jub Jub to two new maps from Certain Affinity. But these are for Halo 2, which should be coming out to PC fans soon.
And those with depth-of-field (DOF) gripes with Halo 3‘s new visual repertoire on the Xbox 360, Bungie makes it clear: “We would never implement something in multiplayer that artificially obscured the playerÂ’s ability to decide what he or she was seeing.” DOF is that photo-realistic blur effect you’d get when you focus your eyes on one thing and force the other to become some bland blob in the distance.
Bungie will be adding DOF effects to make Halo 3 look oodles better than the Mona Lisa, but it shouldn’t deter you from picking off that frustrating sniper three clicks away. Most effects will need you to be stationary for a moment, so your eyes actually spot the effect. So no more complaints about the game blurring objects in-game, okay? And here, use this to wipe that smudge on your screen.
And, no, split-screen is not making a farewell performance in Halo 3. In fact, if you got anything bigger than your daddy’s plasma tube, you’d love the new look of HD in split-screen. But there won’t be any handicaps for folk who keep looking at the wrong half.
And remember Bungie’s note on the mic-hogging, ear-bleed inducing players who shoot off more from their mouths than from their in-game pistol? Well, Frankie demonstrates how he can just plaster on some duct tape over their annoying muzzles, in less than a second:
- Annoyed by player
- Press BACK button
- Right stick to select annoying player
- X to mute
Voila. Fragging heaven without the ear bleed. Plus you can still hear teammates calling for reinforcements a few feet away.
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