Shoot the birds!!

Well, come Halovember, we all know I'll pretty much be "uncontactable" (is that a word) due to the gaming greatness that will be Halo 3. I checked the Bungie blog today and read something that whilst not a massive gaming revolution, had me grinning from cheek to cheek

But on a more literal scale, one of our contract 3D artists is working on birds. So far I’ve seen seagulls and what appears to be some kind of cockatoo. Both kinds flock, wheel and fly in very large numbers. Who knows what those numbers will grow or dwindle to in the final cut, but right now the demo was about 50 seagulls wheeling and cawing above a cliff top, and looking remarkably like Discovery channel footage of an otherwise boring scene.


Perhaps more importantly, the seagulls and cockatoos can (at the moment anyway) be shot. They will then fall, individually out of the sky and you can go take a look at how detailed they are. Believe me, we’re not wasting any processor cycles on this stuff, so if it causes a hit, out it goes, but hopefully they’ll be there. There are at least two keen hunters on staff who want to go grousing in Halo 3.

The prospect of Mal running around shooting the birds (giggling as he does!) while I snipe him from a nearby tower is too good to be true! lol!

The full bungie update is here loads of stuff about the environment and little AI tricks... and Seagulls.. Gotta love them seagulls!