Best E3 2006 In-game Graphics

[Bobbler]

BTW, have we seen MC unmasked?

Not that I've seen. If I recall, there was some description I heard mentioned from some Halo book (about another marine chick) and the description wasn't pretty, as these people spend more of their lives in the suits apparently. I don't think you'd find a Samus like situation (in that some beautiful person pops out of the suit, be it a chick or a dude) popping out of that MC suit.

 

[drpepper]

i'm sorry but how in this case you see a playing Halo3 ?? one character just exploring ???

He's just giving an example. From what you see in the trailer the IQ is amazing, but only 1 character is shown. If the devs devoted 100% of the resources for the 2 minute trailer then in order to maintain that graphic quality (in the game) it would only consist of you running in the dessert with only 1 character on screen at any time. Again, this is assuming that the 360 is maxed out.

The question is, can you make a game out of what you saw from the Halo 3 teaser.

Not that I've seen. If I recall, there was some description I heard mentioned from some Halo book (about another marine chick) and the description wasn't pretty, as these people spend more of their lives in the suits apparently. I don't think you'd find a Samus like situation (in that some beautiful person pops out of the suit, be it a chick or a dude) popping out of that MC suit.

Oh, so they're not human? I think with the power of the 360 it's time for an unveiling!

 

[RobertR1]

People always whine when the actual game comes out and is nothing like the CGI trailers....what a SHOCKER!!!!

From the video's I've seen.

Heavenly Sword
Lost Planet (awesome in 1080i/actually played)
Gears of War
Mass Effect
Rainbox Six

I'll watch the CGI's because they ARE cool! esp. the MSG4 one but I don't put any stock into them.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Um, lots! A simple cutscene isn't indicative of what you'll get from the game. The Halo 3 showing may have used 100% of system resources to show that scene, and the moment real complex scenes are involved they'll need to cut back on quality. I'm sure you've indicated as much on PS3 showreels(?). We don't know how this engine performs with a couple dozen people battling in a smashed up city, say (or whatever the battleground will be). eg. If Master Chief looked so good because they blew most of the GPUs poly budget on him, the moment more characters and scenery polys are needed they'll need to cut back. Or adding 4xAA my have more of an impact the moment you add a lot more geometry crossing the tile borders. Unless Halo 3 is played in sparse deserts with only one character running around, the demands made of the system in that trailer are not going to be anywhere near what the game will have, and so won't be indicative of in-game graphics unless that trailer was using only, say, 50% or less of system resources.

Well actually there's a couple dozen banshees, and a couple covenant ships all flying around rendered in realtime.

And the point is that neither MGS or Halo3 are representative of what you will see in the game.

To me, the texture detail alone in the Halo trailer makes it superior to anything I've seen in MGS. Look at his suit, look at the scratches, the pockmarks, it's an amazing level of detail.

 

[czekon]

He's just giving an example. From what you see in the trailer the IQ is amazing, but only 1 character is shown. If the devs devoted 100% of the resources for the 2 minute trailer then in order to maintain that graphic quality (in the game) it would only consist of you running in the dessert with only 1 character on screen at any time. Again, this is assuming that the 360 is maxed out.

The question is, can you make a game out of what you saw from the Halo 3 teaser.

I hope that this level of quality represent what we will see while playing i mean many chcracters + environment + ships + everything else. Otherwise if this is only a cut scene and 100% of GPU power is used on one character, so this don't tell us anything actually.

 

[AlNom]

Not that I've seen. If I recall, there was some description I heard mentioned from some Halo book (about another marine chick) and the description wasn't pretty, as these people spend more of their lives in the suits apparently. I don't think you'd find a Samus like situation (in that some beautiful person pops out of the suit, be it a chick or a dude) popping out of that MC suit.

He had freckles as a child... that's about all I can recall from the first novel. Maybe brown hair. In the second novel, his skin was described as being "too white", like he'd been living in a cave his entire life. But... he is still incredibly built (muscle-wise).

edit: brown hair, freckles, and a gap between his front teeth as a child (confirmed).

 

[EricVonZipper]

People always whine when the actual game comes out and is nothing like the CGI trailers....what a SHOCKER!!!!

From the video's I've seen.

Heavenly Sword
Lost Planet (awesome in 1080i/actually played)
Gears of War
Mass Effect
Rainbox Six

I'll watch the CGI's because they ARE cool! esp. the MSG4 one but I don't put any stock into them.

Couldn't agree more. Well said.

I'm going to get a PS3 and MSG4, but I realize much of the gameplay will simply be me, staring at the back of a crate/barrel/wall as I wait for a soldier to pass by!

 

[Laa-Yosh]

The first 25 seconds of the trailer are CGI, the rest after that is Real Time.

From 0:54 it is CGI again...

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Master Cheif "look" was designed for the Xbox1. The armor he wears was basically designed around the key advantages of the xbox1 hardware.

It's worth noting that the MC's design existed well before the game went to the Xbox; nevertheless, it has been engineered for GF2 level hardware so your point is valid.

However, Bungie should pretty much drop the specular highlights from the armor and go for HDRI reflections instead. Metal looks way better with blury reflections as seen in HS for example.

 

[Tap In]

....Metal looks way better with blury reflections as seen in HS for example.

yea, the lighting in HS is beautiful

 

[Laa-Yosh]

There was very little to Halo 3 though. A sparse dessert, a very detailed single character, some ships and a big thing in a crater. It was very hi quality, but not much there, and very little animation. No facials, no characters. Apart from a little arm motion and crumbling ground, all the animation consisted of linearly moving and rotating objects. Compared with the cinematic intro of vehicles and detailed character animation of Snake in MGS, that had a lot more of note to me. It wasn't just next-gen visuals, but next-gen animation and styling too.

I have to argue with that. Animating MC is the same as animating any other characters; and animating a nicely staged scene of that armada takes a lot of skill too, not to mention the camera work. It's not as good as MGS4 though, but don't think it's easy.

 

[El Leone]

It's worth noting that the MC's design existed well before the game went to the Xbox; nevertheless, it has been engineered for GF2 level hardware so your point is valid.

Ooh, I didnt know that. Still, I think he looks pretty good/kick ass in that trailer though.

Anyway, I'd Probably say the best looking games were Mass Effect, MGS4 and GOW. IMO Mgs4 doesnt seem as technically advanced as the Unreal 3 engine, but the art direction is of a usual high standard so things still look pretty beutiful. I'd like to say Halo 3, what we saw in the trailer looked of a high standard, but I just cant stop and admire it without thinking how good/bad everything else looks.

 

[blakjedi]

For me visually HS wins hands down... The last time I was impressed by hardware was when I was in the helo in GrAW (oh wait that was last month!) Anyway HS reminds me of a truely chaotic God of War scene. It remains to be seen as to gameplay as essentially the character was a in a multilevel arena kicking ass, but visually its HS all the way.

Next is Gears of War, Mass Effect, and Lost Planet in that order. I havent seen Heavy rain but I will look for it today.

What we've seen from Halo 3 is equivalent to MGS4's mini character unveiling at E3 2005... some character models, some iinteraction but nothing much. Remember it wasnt until TGS2005 that we were blown away with MGS...

 

[Laa-Yosh]

yea, the lighting in HS is beautiful

Er, it's not the lighting, but more the shaders that are used for metallic surfaces.
Specular highlights are a cheap fake for reflections, developed in the early years of computer graphics. They have various disadvantages, like uniform color, size, precision - they'll always act like a small, circular light source.
In reality, you won't only get reflections from light sources, but - with varying intensity - from every bright surface, or for example from the entire frame of a window to an overly bright outdoor enviroment. So you'll get reflections of various shapes, sizes and intensities; this is where HDR images and rendering come handy too.

The first game that has really made use of this approach was Half-life 2, where a lot of reflection 'spheres' were placed on the map; that is, enviroment textures that were used instead of specular highlights. The texture has contained a version of the enviroment with pre-adjusted brightness, because there was no HDRI support in the original version. Metallic pipes, tile floors, even antlions and some enemies have used these textures.

So, HS seems to be using this approach as well, but probably with HDR reflection maps instead; but the lighting is cool as well

 

[heavenlyglory]

PC: Crisys

360: Gears of War, Mass Effect, Lost Planet

PS3: Heavenly sword

 

[liverkick]

A lot of technology was also demonstrated, let's give the benefit of the doubt and say that destructable environments was shown.

This apparently was confirmed by Kojima himself.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=756410&postcount=94

Caused some of the slowdown I bet, but to me it also puts it on another level as far as technical demonstration is concerned.

And not to mention the chamleon suit.

Yeah, I thought the Octo-Camo was great too. I dont know whether or not something like that is very impressive technically, but as a special effect I really dug what I was seeing (especially the way the bumpier surface textures were replicated, just like an octopus uses special muscles to change its skin texture). Kojima mentioned that in the final game it'll go even further, say if you're by a wall with a bunch of bullet holes the suit will look like it has bullet holes as well.

 

[Tap In]

Er, it's not the lighting, but more the shaders that are used for metallic surfaces.
Specular highlights are a cheap fake for reflections, developed in the early years of computer graphics. They have various disadvantages, like uniform color, size, precision - they'll always act like a small, circular light source.
In reality, you won't only get reflections from light sources, but - with varying intensity - from every bright surface, or for example from the entire frame of a window to an overly bright outdoor enviroment. So you'll get reflections of various shapes, sizes and intensities; this is where HDR images and rendering come handy too.

The first game that has really made use of this approach was Half-life 2, where a lot of reflection 'spheres' were placed on the map; that is, enviroment textures that were used instead of specular highlights. The texture has contained a version of the enviroment with pre-adjusted brightness, because there was no HDRI support in the original version. Metallic pipes, tile floors, even antlions and some enemies have used these textures.

So, HS seems to be using this approach as well, but probably with HDR reflection maps instead; but the lighting is cool as well

thanks L-Y

 

[macabre]

Er, it's not the lighting, but more the shaders that are used for metallic surfaces.
Specular highlights are a cheap fake for reflections, developed in the early years of computer graphics. They have various disadvantages, like uniform color, size, precision - they'll always act like a small, circular light source.
In reality, you won't only get reflections from light sources, but - with varying intensity - from every bright surface, or for example from the entire frame of a window to an overly bright outdoor enviroment. So you'll get reflections of various shapes, sizes and intensities; this is where HDR images and rendering come handy too.

The first game that has really made use of this approach was Half-life 2, where a lot of reflection 'spheres' were placed on the map; that is, enviroment textures that were used instead of specular highlights. The texture has contained a version of the enviroment with pre-adjusted brightness, because there was no HDRI support in the original version. Metallic pipes, tile floors, even antlions and some enemies have used these textures.

So, HS seems to be using this approach as well, but probably with HDR reflection maps instead; but the lighting is cool as well

Have you seen the reflections on the kings armour in the Andy Serkis mo-cap vid ?
http://www.playsyde.com/leech_2648_en.html
What do you think ?

 

[pc999]

In any order:

Havenly Sword
Rainbow Six:Vegas
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
Splinter Cell 4

Meybe a few more.

 

[wco81]

All I saw of the Assasin's Creed were those tight shots of the assasin moving through that city. Was that gameplay or a trailer?

On G4, they had an interview with that playing in the background but nobody was playing it.