Halo has never looked so good!

In Frankie's latest weeky update he talks alot about the graphics and physics that Bungie hopes will be in the final build of the game like the water effects that they are playing with:

The programmers and artists are playing around with the properties of our water as it applies to objects in the game. So here’s an example I watched this morning, which may or may not make it into the final game, but it’s there right now. If it does something stupid, we’ll yank it – but here goes. If you die, in deep-ish river water in Valhalla, you’ll float briefly downstream until your Mjolnir armor becomes waterlogged and you sink to the bottom. You’ll tumble down the small-ish slopes with the flow of water, and make for some amazing death animations.

He then goes on to write about the way dropped weapons will react in the water:

Now, the same thing happens to dropped weapons, depending on their weight and properties, so it can have an effect on gameplay. In High Ground, which has some ocean frontage (and it may not be the only map with that feature) a dropped weapon can roll up and onto the beach with the tide. There’s a lot of tuning to be done to make the visual effect not be stupid, but combined with the ripples and flow around vehicles and people, the water’s behavior is becoming more and more fantastic, which fans of this update will know is a big deal to me.

Frankie loves the grass:

Now grass ain’t water, but it’s worth mentioning. There’s a new type of grass in the house. And by house, I mean beach. Because it’s most definitely some kind of reedy beach grass. It looks amazing. It still looks like Halo stuff – I mean, it adheres to our art style, but it’s so freaking detailed. Best of all, after a period of senseless jumping around, I noticed that the grass was being properly shadowed, with the shadow dipping in and out of the individual blades. It’s really hard to describe, but it’s exactly the kind of crap I get fascinated by. It was even bent in the correct direction for wind and weather on that level, although it does move slightly in the breeze too.

If you want to read the whole write up, click here.  He goes on about the new Halo 2 maps and much more.