Halo 3 engine upgrade analysis (for ODST)

[Rangers]

This is simply not true. Most people can't tell you why the game with AA and AF looks better, but they can surely tell the difference. I've done blind tests in HL2 on my technology illiterate friends and every one of them chose AA+AF. They just couldn't say why. Lots of comments like "I don't know it just looks better".

Anecdotal, useless. A lot of people probably dont know theres a huge difference between the Wii and PS360, let alone ascertain AF levels.

Maybe in a blind test more of those people could see that the AF version looks better (but who knows, I bet a lot couldn't), but that doesnt mean theyd ever miss it if it wasn't there in the first place.

I'm sorry, did you just say grandmaster's analyses are "anecdotal"?! I can't discuss anything with you when you say stuff like that.

No, obviously I was saying this statement

Actually, a common note i see on grandmaster's videos is that the PS3 has better AF. Not saying every game or blah blah, just for whatever reason, AF is implemented on PS3 with seemingly more regularity.

Is anecdotal.

Seems fairly clear since, I qouted it, actually.

First, we dont have hard numbers on grandmaster analysis via AF levels by platform.

Second, if we did and Xenos proved deficient, it doesnt even prove anything. Maybe it's just a anomaly on the very minor subset of games grandmaster analyzed.

 

[Rangers]

the easiest way is to look at polygons at obliquish angles to the camera (ground,walls, or in this case also the gun)

16xAF vs no AF

Thanks, so I guess I'm basically just looking for blurry textures.

I guess the problem is in a comparison pic its easy to spot, but in a stand alone game it wont be as easy for me.

But I'm going to try to start looking at it more. Not sure it'll ever be as binary to me as tearing and AA though.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I saw this screenshot in another thread, the ground would look a lot nicer with some decent AF (also it might be using billinear filtering instead of trilinear, but hard to say for certain)

Actually I don't think you can tell what type of filtering it's using from that particular picture as it seems to heavily use Depth of Field in that particular shot. Note the scenery off the track. In other panning shots that were pulled back from the car where DOF isn't as extreme textures are much sharper. Even the guard rails are already significantly more blurry than other pull away shots that have been shown.

BTW - this isn't to say that the game may or may not be using bilinear, just that you can't tell from that shot.

Regards,
SB

 

[homerdog]

Anecdotal, useless. A lot of people probably dont know theres a huge difference between the Wii and PS360, let alone ascertain AF levels.

Maybe in a blind test more of those people could see that the AF version looks better (but who knows, I bet a lot couldn't), but that doesnt mean theyd ever miss it if it wasn't there in the first place.

You're probably right, nobody would miss AA or AF. Had Pixar known this all these years they could've saved a ton of render time

 

[zed]

Thanks, so I guess I'm basically just looking for blurry textures.

sorta though Ild describe it more as a smudge, like someones gotten their finger out + gone wipe along the screen,
blur operates both ways (whilst the above game does have DOF blur in it, see background eg grass) the ground is definitely suffering from no AF (or at the best very low AF).

about the bilinear filtering look at the ground to the right of the front wheel notice the ground, theres a line seperating the two shades of grey (this is where the mipmap changes), if it was trilinear the line would be less distinct.

but u prolly want to ignore this as u might start getting distracted whilst playing your games, + start seeing things u never saw before + saying to yourself 'shit that looks crap'

though ive changed my mind about the reflection cubemaps, they are prolly higher than 128, perhaps 512

 

[nightshade]

Uncharted 2 doesnt use AF according to Grandmasters analysis. Another I recall was Resistance 1.

I remember Grandmaster's analysis but the no AF part in the UC2 video was limited to the chase sequence when Drake is running away from the Truck in the small alley.
Its uses some rather good filtering rest of the times acc. to the analysis.

 

[AlNom]

Its uses some rather good filtering rest of the times acc. to the analysis.

Filtering quality doesn't change... the angles make a big difference. There is no AF in the entire video.

At any rate, this is getting very OT...

 

[Neb]

From no AF to 8xAF is a massive difference in texture clarity. Granted for this to be the case the textures need to be of decent quality to. 8x to 16xAF is minor but still noticable for very distant textures. Fo a console game I would rather they downgraded some graphical aspects to enable 8xAF, massive difference aslong as the texturs are decent like in a handfull of games..

 

[brain_stew]

but u prolly want to ignore this as u might start getting distracted whilst playing your games, + start seeing things u never saw before + saying to yourself 'shit that looks crap'

Don't remind me of that, stuff like this never used to bother me but once you know its there and you get use to proper texture filtering on the PC side it becomes a huge eyesore. Ignorance is bliss! :smile:

I think lack of AF bothers me more than AA in most cases actually, despite the fact that so many made a huge deal about the lack of AA in Halo 3 it was the lack of AF that really stood out to me like a sore thumb. It seems such a shame when you can tell some artist has painstakingly created these beautiful textures only for them to become an ugly, blurry mush 90% of the time.

 

[Rangers]

Heres some "forum" rumors/info. All sounds reasonable and I want to believe :smile:. But it of course has no corroberation at all.

I'm an inside member of the biggest italian videogames forum community (Forumeye.it), and I've some friends that followed E3-09 directly, and talked with some MS employers in the show, asking about Reach to everyone. They can't say a lot cause it's still everything top secret for now, but that's what they told to me:

-It's an FPS, and not a MMO or similar (and ok)
-It's more Multiplayer/Online oriented then previous Halo, and the SP Campaign will be something "different" to what we've seen so far with the previous games.
-The game is under development since after Halo 3, and for more time then ODST (that is developed by a small part of the team, and it was done in 1 year and an half)
-New graphic engine!
-The multiplayer will be different/new.
-It's the "next big Halo" for Bungie and Microsoft, same importance as an Halo 4
-It's everything "darker" and more serious.
-150 people are working on the Project since 2007

You can trust me or not, you can take those info like rumors or not, but I know my sources and I trust them completely, and Halo: Reach really seems to be huge like we supposed!

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Yeah, Bungie doesn't want to do any other Halo games after part 3, so that's why we get ODST and Reach. Not that I'm complaining, but what would we get if they wanted to do more Halo?

 

[groper]

- ...and the SP Campaign will be something "different" to what we've seen so far with the previous games

There are some rumors that Halo Reach may be more of a sandbox approach that its previous iterations.

I recently checked Bungie.net, and I noticed new job listings; one that caught my eye was titled “Gameplay/Systems (Sandbox) Designer“. The key word is “SANDBOX“.
The section under that title reads: “Bungie is looking for a passionate, creative and hard-working Gameplay/Systems (Sandbox) Designer for our next project”
More importantly, if you click on that job title, the most important part reads: “As a Gameplay/Systems (Sandbox) Designer at Bungie, you will work with the Senior Designer and our Object Artists on the style, quality and implementation across a wide range of sandbox elements in the game, including vehicles, weapons, controls, motion models, player feedback and environmental objects”.

source

 

[Chisholm]

Yeah, Bungie doesn't want to do any other Halo games after part 3, so that's why we get ODST and Reach. Not that I'm complaining, but what would we get if they wanted to do more Halo?

Apparently, Bungie still had to make a couple of Halo games as part of their contractual obligations with Microsoft when they decided to become independent. It seems reasonable that they want to finish both as soon as possible.

Still, there are quite a few people at Bungie who still love making Halo games. Most of the hardcore Halo fans within Bungie are supposedly working on ODST, though. I wouldn't blame Bungie either if they decided to make more Halo games for their profitability. Especially at this stage, after becoming independent, it's not a bad idea to make some spare cash in case their original IPs are not as well-accepted as the Halo franchise.

As for the the Halo: Reach rumours, they sound quite reasonable to me. A new engine was already confirmed by Bungie, and also the fact that the game was an FPS. What is really exciting is the departure both in gameplay and in art style. The former can already be seen in ODST, with a more sandbox-y approach and a more Halo 2-like take on storytelling. The second is going to be quite difficult to assimilate, I guesss, because of the long-established look of the Halo franchise.

Speaking about the engine, as has been said time and time again, better texture filtering should be their number one priority along with a cleaner image -more resolution and AA-. I would be more than content if they managed to pull that off without sacrificing their superb lighting.

 

[Rangers]

As for the the Halo: Reach rumours, they sound quite reasonable to me. A new engine was already confirmed by Bungie,

Do you have a link for that?

 

[Chisholm]

Do you have a link for that?

I'm afraid I don't, because that might not have been officially confirmed after all. I guess I've read about the possibility of a new engine so many times that I ended up believing that it had been announced somewhere. Sorry about that.

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

Texture filtering, shadowing (8 shadows doesn't really cut it...), and AA should be high on their priority lists for their next graphics engine.

There are some rumors that Halo Reach may be more of a sandbox approach that its previous iterations.

While that may indeed be the case (and would be very welcome after the very linear Halo 2/3), the way I read that quote doesn't really support that in anyway. Bungie has been referring to those objects (weapons, vehicles, equipment, etc.) as part of their sandbox for several years now, since before Halo 3 was released at the very least.

 

[Iron Tiger]

I want better animation, dammit. That and human faces are Bungie's biggest shortcomings. For a studio that gets high profile actors doing voiceovers and has tonnes of money to build games with, there's no excuse for the focal point of cutscenes to be below bargain bin standards. Even in gameplay, the floaty character animation annoys the hell out of me.

 

[NRP]

Personally, I never understood all the flak about human faces in Halo. Sure they look like ass, but who cares? You spend a lot more time looking at and shooting aliens, which do look pretty good. Halo is about the combat first and foremost, and I'm glad Bungie spent more time on gameplay than worrying about human face modeling.

Now animation is another story. I agree they could use some help there.

 

[ShadowWolf64]

Personally, I never understood all the flak about human faces in Halo. Sure they look like ass, but who cares? You spend a lot more time looking at and shooting aliens, which do look pretty good. Halo is about the combat first and foremost, and I'm glad Bungie spent more time on gameplay than worrying about human face modeling.

Now animation is another story. I agree they could use some help there.

Im really about Halo Reach because its going to be very dark in tone and will play differently from the previous Halo games yet maintain the fps viewpoint.I would like a deeper hand to hand combat and melee system giving the Chief some of the abilites that are found in the Halo books.Another thing, is that Bungie should have destructible enviornments as that could open up some more gameplay possibilties as well.

I agree that the animations do need some work and hopefully Bungie is addressing the issue with Halo Reach.

 

[AlNom]

Personally, I never understood all the flak about human faces in Halo. Sure they look like ass, but who cares?

I don't think it was the texturing so much as the extremely low polygon count; in general it is not so terrible (just marines sans helmets), but the fact that they reused those same low-res meshes for cut-scenes and in close-ups, speaks of a certain lack of polish. The worst had to be the extremely angular heads in the last cut-scene as the camera flew past right behind the marine heads.

Spoiler

They could have been recycled from the first game seeing as I could count the edges on the back of their heads on one hand.

Even the main human characters looked... off.