Halo 3 Trailer @ E3: Confirmed

[Acert93]

rarely does gameplay employ such camera angles

Correct.

Even if using the same rendering engine and assets, you will never get the exact same impact as you do with cinematic angles. e.g. in the Halo 3 trailer MC walks into a spot light after he passes through the smoke. Everything is setup juuuuuust right for that picture perfect entry. This principle is especially true of faces and bodies. Unless Bungie goes to a 3rd person perspective, MC wont be seen outside of cut scenes, on vehicles and mounted guns, death cam, multi-player, mirrors and reflections, etc Ditto the animation wont be as crisp and choregraphed.

I made the same argument after last years TGS when MGS4 was introduced and people wanted to compare the MGS4 in-engine realtime cinematics to Gears of War gameplay angles (ahh the beatdown I got for such a 'silly' stance hehe). It really isn't a very fair comparison because the focus shifts from looking at the basic engine technology and art quality to the artistic touches and how well acted and animated a cutscene is. Art is a huge part of graphics. I frequently go "YUCK!" when watching GPU demos. What a nice teapot you have there... NOT!

And I think this principle is carrying over some though. We have seen a number of games try new camera angles and even gameplay adjustments to try new camera angles to make gameplay more cinematic and allow the player to get better angles. I know traditionalists would probably hate something like a GRAW or GOW view, but Bungie could really push the series forward if they could execute a more cinematic camera system.

 

[AlNom]

And I think this principle is carrying over some though. We have seen a number of games try new camera angles and even gameplay adjustments to try new camera angles to make gameplay more cinematic and allow the player to get better angles. I know traditionalists would probably hate something like a GRAW or GOW view, but Bungie could really push the series forward if they could execute a more cinematic camera system.

hm... Halo not being a tactical cover-fire shooter, I don't know if they could do the 1st person to 3rd person switch on the fly and be accepted by fans. But I certainly wouldn't mind a view change button when I'm in a vehicle. Like have some angled view close to the warthog like in racing games (shaky cam!) or even a first person driver view and turret-firing view (option would be nice) for the warthog. In SP, I think it'd be pretty nice to have the camera follow a missile that is locked on.

 

[scooby_dooby]

So in other words, the gameplay will look nothing like that

like most cinematics it will probably take a drop, i wouldn't be surprised. At the same time, they are working on a new type of architecture, so you never know. It's definately not as far out there as the realtime GOW cinematics.

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

FP Warthog views?

Oh Yeaaaah. Cool-aid and all that.

In the last weekly update Bungie mentioned they have a new map with several objects with irridecent surfaces. Which I suppose is nice, since we can probably count the number of engines/games that implement things like that on one hand (at least this generation), but..... I've never felt more teased by Bungie than after the Halo 3 announcement. Teaser, tease.... I suppose it makes a minute amount of sense on some plane of existence. It's probably due mostly to the lack of any interesting games coming out from a while back up until early July. Hopefully there really is a Prey demo released on Live on the 22nd.

I've been watching videos (again) for some games like Resistance, MGS4 (goodbye 1 gig of my pathetic 80 gig HDD....), and so on. Going back to the Halo 3 teaser and documentary(not in any way comparing to either of those games, so please, no "well they do that too"), I started looking closely at things, and just thinking "wow, things just look really solid." By that, I mean that the smoke doesn't look like it's 5 or 6 distince layers of alpha-blended quads, but instead transitions very smoothly as you would expect real dust and such to. Other games might already do this, but there are plenty of games that still don't and annoy me. Behind all that dust and such, there really is a heat haze effect going on. And there's more debris around, so even though it's a desert, the part that was obviously in a closer-to-finished state didn't look as barren as Halo or Halo 2 were (or at least, the impression they gave of such). And the cloud effects are also really amazing. HL2: Episode One does alright with some spinning alphad textures and such, but if you look at it too closely, the illusion is broken and you see what it is. Halo 3 makes it much harder, and then you see the lightning light it up, and... it looks like a real storm is brewing out there, or there's real fog down there in the crater, or sand coming off those plates.
(Edit: So, yeah, go making use of the right effect where it's needed, instead of just splashing it everywhere to fill in some checkmark box (i.e., parallax mapping on the clouds))

Though, I hope the lighting transitions improve somewhat. At the time the chief walks into the direct sunlight and when he steps away from the edge of the cliff (documentary), you can see the harsh transitions between what I suppose would be the precomputed lighting areas. You'll actually notice this issue on the shadow on the Chief's gun in the trailer, but you really see it on how bright the front of the Chief's armor is when he steps away from the cliff or the shadow changing height when he steps into the direct sunlight.

 

[Nesh]

What are we discussing here? Halo3 or Halo2?

And I see no reason why should we doubt the quality we are going to get in the final game. It will look just as good.

There wasnt anything in the video that seems impossible to be produced on 360.

 

[rabidrabbit]

Self shadowing was in the E3 2003 build....

which ran on a PC (devkit).

well... maybe the fact that bungie realized that they shouldn't overshoot? They've already been through this once... shame on them if they repeat a mistake that they realized.

uh, it's not a mistake, it's called marketing

 

[Acert93]

uh, it's not a mistake, it's called marketing

To their credit 2 other games (Doom 3 and Chronicles of Riddick) were able to impliment stencil shadowing. From the little I have read the deadline for the game was pretty tight and that 3 levels were eventually cut to reach the November 2004 deadline.

They may have very well overshot in regards to their abilities, but the technique they were trying to use can be accomplished on the Xbox. Whether they intentionally deceived the public as a form of marketing, ran out of time, overestimated the resources for their game design or their abilities, is all conjecture. I am taking them at their word that what they produced was in-engine and collated into realtime (ala Heavenly Sword) with the goal to use stencil shadows and ended up having to cut the feature. It does happen. If HS had to cut some graphical features because they could not get them all implimented with a given deadline (yet other games used the exact same features fine) I would take it that HS was rushed. Personally I really hate pushing games to dates, but I can see how the GTA's and Halo's of the industry do need to come out on date_X to maximize sales and a missing level and turned off effect typically don't make a game "less good" just "less pretty". Of course Halo 2 could have used those 3 extra levels...

 

[_phil_]

, I started looking closely at things, and just thinking "wow, things just look really solid." By that, I mean that the smoke doesn't look like it's 5 or 6 distince layers of alpha-blended quads, but instead transitions very smoothly as you would expect real dust and such to. Other games might already do this, but there are plenty of games that still don't and annoy me. Behind all that dust and such, there really is a heat haze effect going on. And there's more debris around, so even though it's a desert, the part that was obviously in a closer-to-finished state didn't look as barren as Halo or Halo 2 were (or at least, the impression they gave of such). ......
....
...then you see the lightning light it up, and... it looks like a real storm is brewing out there, or there's real fog down there in the crater, or sand coming off those plates.
(Edit: So, yeah, go making use of the right effect where it's needed, instead of just splashing it everywhere to fill in some checkmark box (i.e., parallax mapping on the clouds))

Though, I hope the lighting transitions improve somewhat. At the time the chief walks into the direct sunlight and when he steps away from the edge of the cliff (documentary), you can see the harsh transitions between what I suppose would be the precomputed lighting areas. You'll actually notice this issue on the shadow on the Chief's gun in the trailer, but you really see it on how bright the front of the Chief's armor is when he steps away from the cliff or the shadow changing height when he steps into the direct sunlight.

A whole lot of wishfull thinking here.Nothing in these particles lead to believe they are not classic particle alpha-ed quads.

Just look better :the trees in the back ground are all the same ,the grass is classic cardboard .MC is probably halo2 cutscene model with new texturing,the lanscape seen in the making-of looks lik it's made of 3k-4k polys...

The only thing that stands out in there is the global picture filtering and the music score.Everything else is "fan colored googles",IMEO.

Actually ,a lot of details in there lead me to believe it was a quickly done demo for E3.

Now,Feel free to backfire.
*jiumps out*

 

[Deepblue]

A whole lot of wishfull thinking here.Nothing in these particles lead to believe they are not classic particle alpha-ed quads.

Just look better :the trees in the back ground are all the same ,the grass is classic cardboard .MC is probably halo2 cutscene model with new texturing,the lanscape seen in the making-of looks lik it's made of 3k-4k polys...


1. No, they are not. Furthermore, you can see them swaying in the wind. Same with the grass.

2. That's why the armor is different in the gloves. Hmmm.
http://server2.uploadit.org/files/DeepblueWA-hahaha.jpg

3.The landscape seen in the making of is only a tiny portion of the whole thing, namely just the cliff. And you are way off. That's far more than 3-4k polys as someone who works with that kind of budget models for modding.

The only thing that stands out in there is the global picture filtering and the music score.Everything else is "fan colored googles",IMEO.


1. You mean global lighting.
2. Yes, Marty O'Donnell rocks.
3. How about the incredibly high-resolution real-time reflections?
4. How about 13 miles of landscape rendered with many many other objects on screen?

Actually ,a lot of details in there lead me to believe it was a quickly done demo for E3.


1. It's an in-progress portion of the game about 2/3 of the way through. So no, Bungie learned there lesson from Halo 2 and did not take time away from the final game to make a demo for e3. The main purpose of the teaser was not to show off the graphics (because there really isn't that much to see, though what they do show looks nice), but rather just to let people know that Bungie is indeed working on Halo 3.

Now,Feel free to backfire.
*jiumps out*

Good, now stay out.

 

[Deepblue]

deepblue - how did you screengrab? i wanted to get some grabs from the 1280x720 version, but it wouldn;t seem to let me through crtl+i nor would it let me printscreen and paste into photoshop (just came up with a black square)....


although thinking about it i didn't try turning off acceleration in the mediaplayer settings which normally helps with that... regardless, how did you get them?

So, did you get it to work?

 

[_phil_]

Good, now stay out.

sorry ,but your arguments are a joke..

1.
yes they are the same.And you never seen any other game where wind is simulated ?
You'r trying to tell me ,we have real wind and weather simulation ?
2.
this pic doesn't prove your point...95% of it confirms mine(we don't really see the glove).

1.
"global lighting" here can be one paralel light + ambiant occlusion for what i can tell.PR..PR..PR....

3.
'incredibly high resolution reflection' is just a render target.for what i can tell , a 1024*1024 would be overkill,but why not.

4.
so what ? you can see as far in SOTC.The ability to see far is not really an outstanding feat,you know...specially when there isn't much things on screen.
what are these many many objects btw ? the 800 polys structure ? the Heavily LOD ships (they can be very low poly since they are so far)?
..please....


to finish ,we agree ,there is not much to see ,really.

Good, now stay out.

sorry to shake your boat...

 

[Acert93]

MC is probably halo2 cutscene model with new texturing

this pic doesn't prove your point...95% of it confirms mine(we don't really see the glove).

We do see the glove clearly in the trailer and it is different from the Halo 2 model's glove which totally underminds your "comment" that they would not even create a new MC model for their new game...

Lets be blunt: It says a lot about your posts that you would suggest a large budget 1st party game 18 months in development would cherry pick a cut scene model (not even the source model!) from a 2004 game and put it in their trailer. It says even more when a well known fact about the model (different gloves), observable in the trailer, is presented contradicting this claim it is the same model and you ignore it and act as if it confirms your point. Like heck it confirms you point!

It would do you good to pull up the old threads on this title. In them someone went to the effort to compare the Halo 1, Halo 2, Spartan in DoA4, and Halo 3 models.

There are clearly changes to each, and the Halo 3 model has more detail and better lighting/shadowing and texturing etc than the fighting game with 2 (!) players on screen.

 

[rabidrabbit]

There are clearly changes to each, and the Halo 3 model has more detail and better lighting/shadowing and texturing etc than the fighting game with 2 (!) players on screen.

Uh, what's your point. The Halo 3 trailer had only one character on screen, very sparse environment compared to those on DOA4, and little of that extra load an actual game carries over a "realtime" demo.

 

[Acert93]

Uh, what's your point. The Halo 3 trailer had only one character on screen, very sparse environment compared to those on DOA4, and little of that extra load an actual game carries over a "realtime" demo.

Uh, what is my point?

My point is a poster is making wild "claims" (i.e. Halo 3 is using the Halo 2 cut scene model) and when posters provide proof this is not the case (i.e. differences pointed out in the models) he continues on as if no reply was given.

As for the DoA4 comparison, DoA4 has a maximum of 2 players on screen in very confined "arenas". The Halo 3 trailer had excessively long view distance, a large [forerunner] artifact, dozens of ships, etc all on screen with a much better lighting model -- I don't remember DoA4 having any of these. Now that is not saying much to a certain degree (the new Team Ninja VB game has excellent self shadowing for example... but then again the number of games with poor lighting and shadowing are in the majority so far) and just shows DoA4 was a launch title. But it is worth mentioning that a next-gen title with a model of basically the same character had less texture detail and a less detailed lighting and shadowing. You act as if the forerunner, ships, view distance, self shadowing, etc are all trivial and present in DoA4 or could be added.

All this dovetails with the original point: The Halo 3 MC model looks substantially better than the Halo 2 one. You can vere off topic with reasons why DoA4 could not have looked better (are you suggesting MC will only ever be the only player on screen?) but it does not change the topic at hand: What was shown in the Halo 3 trailer is much better than what we saw out of Halo 2. And they are not the same model.

 

[rabidrabbit]

ok, all I can say is size does not equal (textural and polygonal) complexity.
As for the Halo2 model being used for the Halo3 trailer, and whoever claimed so... I didn't believe anybody could have taken that seriously.
(Edit: Though the Halo2 "PR models" are closer )

 

[_phil_]

There are clearly changes to each, and the Halo 3 model* has more detail and better lighting/shadowing and texturing etc than the fighting game with 2 (!) players on screen.

I already said texturing was better in halo3 ,and lighting probably too.

On the pic DP posted ,we don't see much of the glove ,and the rest of the model is probably 95% the same(i count 5% for the glove,but maybe nextgen gloves 's costs are way higher..)
Now ,Ok ,they made new gloves.I should take your word for that.

*note:the term 'model' is here used in consideration for polygons only.Raw crude polygons.

BTW ,MC is designed for low poly budget(it's not like he has to be a sexy chick ,he couldn't be with that budget).
There wouldn't be no point to add more polygons to MC (well ,with probably the exception of making new gloves...)

 

[rusty]

So, did you get it to work?

sorry, forgot about this thread... yes it worked thanks!

 

[El Leone]

http://www.bungie.net/images/games/halo3/screenshots/h3_e32006_Custom_ChiefCliff.jpg
http://www.bungie.net/images/games/halo3/screenshots/h3_e32006_ChiefIntro.jpg

You can see there. There are also other changes, although very minor (some done to the hemlet and teh legs).

Features in MC are more apparant, Instead of a simple texture with a black line, you'll actually get grooves, dips and so on in his armour. If that means anything that is.

 

[rusty]

I already said texturing was better in halo3 ,and lighting probably too.

On the pic DP posted ,we don't see much of the glove ,and the rest of the model is probably 95% the same(i count 5% for the glove,but maybe nextgen gloves 's costs are way higher..)
Now ,Ok ,they made new gloves.I should take your word for that.

*note:the term 'model' is here used in consideration for polygons only.Raw crude polygons.

BTW ,MC is designed for low poly budget(it's not like he has to be a sexy chick ,he couldn't be with that budget).
There wouldn't be no point to add more polygons to MC (well ,with probably the exception of making new gloves...)

all that the picture shows to make your point is that the models look alike... which is hardly a shock given that they are both meant to be MC! imo the halo 3 model is clearly higher poly as well as having better textures.

 

[rabidrabbit]

Actually, I think I remember there was some comparisons some time ago (before the Halo3 trailer?) how a next-gen master Chef model would be able to be accomplished with less actual polygons than for example in Halo2, by using advanced shaders.

Maybe it was some magazine I saw it, Edge maybe. I'll update this post if I can find it.

That shouldn't be taken as I think the Halo3 being somehow inferior, may I add