Halo 3 : first infos *

I'm surprised they are hedging against the visual style of Gears this early on. I mean, most of us of course know what they're talking about - even if they don't convey it as well as they could - but I think it's dangerous in this present 'textures-crazed' environment to say you're actively not going that route.

Just don't say anything about it at all and people will default to 'looks beautiful' on pedigree alone. Now everyone's going to be taking the textures to the microscope instead to see what exactly they mean.

I agree with ya on this. Halo is already established with its own graphical appeal and style. But I guess everyone and their mom is comparing every game to GOW in terms of graphics now. GOW is the bar for the forseeable future it seems to many esp the media press.
 
I'm surprised they are hedging against the visual style of Gears this early on. I mean, most of us of course know what they're talking about - even if they don't convey it as well as they could - but I think it's dangerous in this present 'textures-crazed' environment to say you're actively not going that route.

Just don't say anything about it at all and people will default to 'looks beautiful' on pedigree alone. Now everyone's going to be taking the textures to the microscope instead to see what exactly they mean.

I agree it's not wise to mention that. People want insane detail. From the scans, it looks good moderately detailed. I wouldn't expect anything less. However, hearing those comments is disappointing. However, I do like the clean style. I get tired of seeing dirty decaying environments. But now they are going to start a flame war between Gears (and other Epic UE3 games) and Halo 3 on what looks better.
 
remeber this is a scan of multiplay. usually multi play graphics are not as good as the single play graphics.
 
It look quite good IMO, althought once it dont pack so much detail per area it wont give a big wow factor, but it seems like it does have some massive maps.
 
It looks very similar to Unreal2007 , very good but not something groundbreaking.


Halo 2 MP looked nowhere near the SP Part. Oh an yes on that "nothing groundbraking" thing, because it is way to hard to do something groundbraking nowadays. Everything has been done like 39385091872394 gazillion times, vechicles etc...

But i do trust in Bungie. They are capable of marvelous things.
 
Mutiplayer and single player have always had the same graphics in Halo.

No, at least in Halo 3. In the interview it is said that the single player engine is made from the ground up and the multi is using the base of previous multiplayers engine.
A quote from a preview in a spanish magazine ,that was also in the Halo 3 preview and that also has pics in its november number:

"A samall fragment, of six seconds, from the history mode was enough to go deaf to fifteen professionals of the videogame sector".
 
On graphics
"A lot is still missing in this build. Weather- and water effects are missing, and most of our HDR isn't in there yet. We're still at alpha stage, but when everything is in place, Halo 3 will be the best X360 has to offer." --Brian Jarrard

heh.... I'd rather either see a monthly screen release schedule from Bungie outlining each screen and details of the build about what they added recently and what's missing as it progresses, or NOTHING at all until near final.
 
Pics shown are in alpha stage. Here is more info from the interview:
On graphics
"A lot is still missing in this build. Weather- and water effects are missing, and most of our HDR isn't in there yet. We're still at alpha stage, but when everything is in place, Halo 3 will be the best X360 has to offer." --Brian Jarrard

The recent Bungie update also said that the lighting was a placeholder and many of the textures were temps, and they explained why they were showing Halo 3 in this state: Because they felt the Multiplayer Gameplay was in a state worthy of showing and wetting the mouth. Because of some of the misteps before them I am not sure that is the best idea (i.e. let them play, but maybe only allow select media from "full engine/feature" stills) but based on their history of gameplay I cannot knock them from showing playable MP almost a year before launch.
 
The recent Bungie update also said that the lighting was a placeholder and many of the textures were temps, and they explained why they were showing Halo 3 in this state: Because they felt the Multiplayer Gameplay was in a state worthy of showing and wetting the mouth. Because of some of the misteps before them I am not sure that is the best idea (i.e. let them play, but maybe only allow select media from "full engine/feature" stills) but based on their history of gameplay I cannot knock them from showing playable MP almost a year before launch.

They showed MP for Halo 2 almost a year before launch too I believe.
 
heh.... I'd rather either see a monthly screen release schedule from Bungie outlining each screen and details of the build about what they added recently and what's missing as it progresses, or NOTHING at all until near final.

Ditto. I really liked how PGR3 did that. I think that could save a lot of face for FM2 in doing a weekly/monthly. I think going from bare models and showing every 2-4 weeks a new feature, to show gamers how graphics work these days and all the hard work would be really, really cool.
 
... I cannot knock them from showing playable MP almost a year before launch.

true, the online multiplayer design and implementation has been the best in the console business and they have a right to be proud of showing the progress of Halo 3 in that regard.
 
Ditto. I really liked how PGR3 did that. I think that could save a lot of face for FM2 in doing a weekly/monthly. I think going from bare models and showing every 2-4 weeks a new feature, to show gamers how graphics work these days and all the hard work would be really, really cool.

I don't. Bizzare still hasn't to this day released a single actual ingame image from PGR3. Kinda shady imo, and really taking the low road as opposed to Forza. Maybe the real approach of showing a WIP makes for less effective marketing, but it's much more interesting to me as an observer than faked bullshots.

Hard to see much detail from these shots, the lighting already looks really good though, it that's just a placeholder I can't wait to see the final implementation.
 
RE: GoW vs. H3 Graphics

With the understanding that GoW and H3 are 2 very different types of games, I still expect BIG things from H3.
GoW is using UE3 and, therefore, hasn't been 'built from the ground up' for the 360 hardware. H3, on the other hand, had better be bringing every nuance of the 360 hardware to bear. Predicated tiling for 'free' 4X antialiasing, MEMEXPORT, etc. Any and every feature crammed into the box should be utilized with MS's flagship title, right? I mean, MS should have had close conversations with Bungie about the hardware while in development.
I can understand early titles not using some of these features (esp. tiling). And I can understand games like GoW that use middleware (UE3) not incorporating some of the unique features of Xenos and Xenon. But H3? If H3 doesn't take full advantage of the architecture, then the architecture is flawed. No?
I expect H3 to be great.
Can't wait!
 
I don't. Bizzare still hasn't to this day released a single actual ingame image from PGR3. Kinda shady imo,

Yet you can play the game in any 360 Kiosk and a lot of sites (like Xboxyde, not to mention those who released 1024x600 grabs... remember that??) have released shots. The demo track looks amazing, the biggest difference between it and photomod being aliasing and photomode's ability to adjust camera settings to get the "right" picture. The game looks far better than some of the crap/overcast shots some here have tried to pull out of their ### as a point of "contrast".

Maybe the real approach of showing a WIP makes for less effective marketing, but it's much more interesting to me as an observer than faked bullshots.

Did I say anything about bullshots??

Nope. I am referencing Bizzare Creation's series where they outlined a number of techniques, effects, etc they added to the game. e.g. The ambient occlusion maps to the wheels, the crowd size/reactions, the art asset creation, car models, car reflections, etc i.e. demonstrations of what they are working on and have implimented and how it improves the IQ of the game.

Basically WIP with update reports. May not interest you as much, but as a gamer on a technical site it interests me. As for their current path, yeah, it is interesting because... oh wait, it isn't because all we have are a couple Turn10 select screenshots and shaky cams because they are not releasing media :???: Oh, and they have stated themselves they think it looks great (first horrid shots). I understand the concept of WIP, but not the bubbly "it looks great" and such after all the PR buzzing. I would rather let actual media do the talking (even if just demonstrating technicalities), but to each their own :smile:

Hard to see much detail from these shots, the lighting already looks really good though, it that's just a placeholder I can't wait to see the final implementation.

Oh so cruel to talk about screenshots most of us cannot see! :devilish: :LOL:
 
Yet you can play the game in any 360 Kiosk and a lot of sites (like Xboxyde, not to mention those who released 1024x600 grabs... remember that??) have released shots. The demo track looks amazing, the biggest difference between it and photomod being aliasing and photomode's ability to adjust camera settings to get the "right" picture. The game looks far better than some of the crap/overcast shots some here have tried to pull out of their ### as a point of "contrast".

Did I say anything about bullshots??

Nope. I am referencing Bizzare Creation's series where they outlined a number of techniques, effects, etc they added to the game. e.g. The ambient occlusion maps to the wheels, the crowd size/reactions, the art asset creation, car models, car reflections, etc i.e. demonstrations of what they are working on and have implimented and how it improves the IQ of the game.

Basically WIP with update reports. May not interest you as much, but as a gamer on a technical site it interests me. As for their current path, yeah, it is interesting because... oh wait, it isn't because all we have are a couple Turn10 select screenshots and shaky cams because they are not releasing media :???: Oh, and they have stated themselves they think it looks great (first horrid shots). I understand the concept of WIP, but not the bubbly "it looks great" and such after all the PR buzzing. I would rather let actual media do the talking (even if just demonstrating technicalities), but to each their own :smile:

I did like the tech demo's/features bizarre showed, in fact the whole marketing effort leading up to launch was excellent and very intresting, and I also do agree that Turn 10 put their foots in their mouth big time.

Still I do think it's important to call them out for the fact they never ever released real media for their game.
 
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