Halo: Reach

Billy Idol said:
Here is a link to an interview:

http://www.edge-online.com/features/halo-reach-gutting-the-engine
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Thanks for the link.

We took a different approach to the 3D art pipeline compared to Halo 3. It’s yielded significantly better results.
ML We are definitely bending the Xbox as far as it'll bend, taking every advantage of everything on the CPU and GPU, and every bit of memory in order to produce the look of Reach beyond anything of Halo 3. We're pushing it as far as we can go. With every iteration we understand what more we can exploit with the hardware
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Someone said in the forums at Bungie after reading that.

Then hopefully it SHOULD be looking equal or better than mass effect2 and gears of war2 and at least run at 720p, as those games too are on the console as well.

There's no point in saying that it's going to take advantage of the console if others are doing it more and better.
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As of yet from what i'm reading things are still looking positive, though most of it's assets have been ditched or completely edited the Halo 3 engine ran HDR lighting and was capable of delivering some pretty good environments as it was. http://i46.tinypic.com/2n8rc0m.jpg

The only concern i have is the resolution. for a long time I've always had a theory that once a resolution has been picked for a specific game the resolution won't change in it's sequels or games that use the engine. like the COD series, and games that use the ut3 engine. and with ODST using the same engine i fear that the only things that will change are the things that we already saw in the Reach trailer. (excluding the heavy usage of anti-aliasing.)

The discussion of choice for native resolution of Reach has been brought up numerous times at the forums at Bungie.net, though never have once been hashed over with real employees working at Bungie disclosing anything. many fans over there are more than happy to start the topic over and over as a wish for improvement but nothing ever reaches to a concussion.

At the moment all that's being showed in the mags depicting reach are once again the same over handed bullshots that are used in many games that are advertised. and i wouldn't be surprised if that's all they're going to show on the net too.

The only thing that saves Reach from not running at 640p, is that Bungie never talked about running the game twice it's normal resolution or down scaling it from a high resolution.

It would be nice if there was a way for this memo to go out to Bungie in some form. Gamers are anxious to know how much of an improvement Reach will be and what assets will be kept from halo3......hears to hoping it's not 640p.:nope:

edit, fixed.
 
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COPS N RAPPERS said:
The only things that saves Reach from not running at 640p is that halo wars ran the same engine
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No, Halo Wars was from a different studio (Ensemble), and used an evolution of their Age of Mythology / Age of Empires 3 engine. You can't base any conclusions about Reach on Halo Wars.
 
assen said:
No, Halo Wars was from a different studio (Ensemble), and used an evolution of their Age of Mythology / Age of Empires 3 engine. You can't base any conclusions about Reach on Halo Wars.
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yes, my bad you are correct. Wars runs the Age of Mythology engine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_Wars#Development

anyways, Halo: Reach really does have a pretty slim chance of seeing 720p. (with a small chance of the set rendering target being completely revamped for the engine.)
 
The question (for devs and artists, not fanboys) is, is 720p necessary for great visuals? I seem to remember Carmack saying "no". Yet some people (likely not devs) seem to think a game rendering natively at 720p is automatically "doing more" than a game with a lower native res, but I don't think that is true necessarily. What say you?
 
NRP said:
The question (for devs and artists, not fanboys) is, is 720p necessary for great visuals?
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yes, it should look like that.

NRP said:
I seem to remember Carmack saying "no". Yet some people (likely not devs) seem to think a game rendering natively at 720p is automatically "doing more" than a game with a lower native res, but I don't think that is true necessarily. What say you?
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Both of Carmack's titles on 360 are 720p native aren't they?

well anyways, it only would make sense to chose 720p to show off your boasted increase in textures and polygon models better.

btw, Bungie has confirmed once again the shots that are in circulation are from a pre-alpha build.
http://twitter.com/vicdeleon/status/8042418010
 
So a straight res increase always trumps more advanced shaders in every case?

I think Carmack's comment was in regard to the "mandatory" HD res spec, but this prelaunch I think, so perhaps he changed his mind.

By the way, has id released any 360/PS3 titles yet?
 
NRP said:
So a straight res increase always trumps more advanced shaders in every case?

I think Carmack's comment was in regard to the "mandatory" HD res spec, but this prelaunch I think, so perhaps he changed his mind.

By the way, has id released any 360/PS3 titles yet?
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All I'm going to say is that Carmack has said nothing about the res of Rage.
 
NRP said:
So a straight res increase always trumps more advanced shaders in every case?
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No, the only thing i'm saying is, is why not push for both.
advance shadders is good but also good clarity is too, 720p is the standard for HD isn't it?

NRP said:
I think Carmack's comment was in regard to the "mandatory" HD res spec, but this prelaunch I think, so perhaps he changed his mind.
Click to expand...

His opinions has always been the same, i'm guessing it's his team that keeps on pushing forward. (or at least keeps up to the standard.) nothing on rage has been said though.

NRP said:
By the way, has id released any 360/PS3 titles yet?
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Wolfenstein. Aside from that some arcade titles. I don't know i don't keep up that well on them.
 
COPS N RAPPERS said:
No, the only thing i'm saying is, is why not push for both.
advance shadders is good but also good clarity is too, 720p is the standard for HD isn't it?
Click to expand...

Well, sure. But the way some people talk is that 720p is a "must have" checkbox feature that must be prioritized above all else, and they will instantly dismiss anything less, regardless of whatever else the game is doing visually.

Hence my question: Is 720p necessary, or will a combination of slightly lower res, advanced shaders, AF, AA, etc be a better looking choice?

My gut feeling is the answer is the latter, but I want to hear from the people who actually are involved in making these decisions, not laymen who have been drinking too much of the marketing dept's kool-aid.
 
AlStrong said:
You do realize that shaders operating on pixels means more work meaning you're likely to sacrifice framerate, don't you.
Click to expand...

NRP said:
Well, sure. But the way some people talk is that 720p is a "must have" checkbox feature that must be prioritized above all else, and they will instantly dismiss anything less, regardless of whatever else the game is doing visually.

Hence my question: Is 720p necessary, or will a combination of slightly lower res, advanced shaders, AF, AA, etc be a better looking choice?

My gut feeling is the answer is the latter, but I want to hear from the people who actually are involved in making these decisions, not laymen who have been drinking too much of the marketing dept's kool-aid.
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well reading about the revamping of this engine's new capabilities of "scaling" lets say that they're past the point of worrying about limited resources, or system resources being overworked. they already stated the ability to fluctuate has given them more room for greater detail on closeups. with that out of the way the 10mbs of ED memory should be able to output 720p with some AA. (at least rendered at two tiles.)

from what is written down on paper on these mags is that they're able to work with lesser geometry and scale it as they need to.

Gaminformer-page 56.
"The new LOD [level of detail] system allows us to build and populate much larger spaces for exploration" Lehto emphasizes. In simple terms distance objects are rendered at far lower polygon counts and with cheaper shaders.
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everything it seems was already made for freeing up more system resources.
 
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Dr. Nick said:
Not everyone who wasn't impressed with the screenshots is a hater. I own every Halo and I wasn't impressed by the screenshots that were recently released. There was until someone said something posted that there has been improvements a reason to be doubtful that there would be much change in the final product because the very first screens of Halo 3 gameplay didn't seem that far off from the final product either. I do understand that these aren't official shots but the timing of them is eerily close to the timing of the Halo 3 alpha/beta shots. First shots of Halo 3 gameplay came in January of the year it came out.
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What you fail to comprehend is that the pics from the GI issue is from a pre-alpha build of the game.Even then, Reach already looks much better then Halo 3 and its only going to look better when Bungie is done with the game.Im not doubting Bungie as I know they're a very capable developer and im excited in getting to play the mp beta in the coming months.
 
ShadowWolf64 said:
What you fail to comprehend is that the pics from the GI issue is from a pre-alpha build of the game.Even then, Reach already looks much better then Halo 3 and its only going to look better when Bungie is done with the game.Im not doubting Bungie as I know they're a very capable developer and im excited in getting to play the mp beta in the coming months.
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char models sure but environment looks much better in halo 3. For NOW reach looks very empty im not impressed with gfx either (screens and trailer) and i also own every Halo game realased to this day. I wish to see some magic on screen since it was a lot of talking who did bungie hire for this project. And beta-pre alpha games dosent have to look bad just look at Dice bf:bc2 it looks fantastic already.
 
Enviroments by their nature are the last to get finalized in any game. You need to lock down the gameplay of the entire area completely if you don't want to waste your artists' time - they should only move in and dress the area once placement of every large object, vehicle and enemy is set in stone. If designers can still move structures, terrain, cover and stuff around then any piece of grass may be subject to change as well and is therefore work that's wasted.

What the environment artists have had to complete by now is the larger set elements like buildings, crates, vegetation elements, textures and such - and in the ~6 months of production time that's left, they can add as much dressing to the levels as the engine can support. Considering that the screenshots are almost 2 months old, it's reasonable to assume that they had not a sinlge 100% complete level to show off at that time.

Same's going to be true for the multiplayer levels in the beta. Maybe we can dig up some comparision shots from the Halo 3 beta vs. final release...?
 
Laa-Yosh said:
Enviroments by their nature are the last to get finalized in any game. You need to lock down the gameplay of the entire area completely if you don't want to waste your artists' time - they should only move in and dress the area once placement of every large object, vehicle and enemy is set in stone. If designers can still move structures, terrain, cover and stuff around then any piece of grass may be subject to change as well and is therefore work that's wasted.

What the environment artists have had to complete by now is the larger set elements like buildings, crates, vegetation elements, textures and such - and in the ~6 months of production time that's left, they can add as much dressing to the levels as the engine can support. Considering that the screenshots are almost 2 months old, it's reasonable to assume that they had not a sinlge 100% complete level to show off at that time.

Same's going to be true for the multiplayer levels in the beta. Maybe we can dig up some comparision shots from the Halo 3 beta vs. final release...?
Click to expand...

found on neogaf halo3 beta vs reach beta(alpha)

http://i.imgur.com/aZYLV.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/omg6P.jpg
 
I've meant how much the multiplayer maps have changed between Halo3 spring beta and final autumn release. Considering that it doesn't make sense to add the final dressing to a multiplayer map that you might end up changing based on player feedback.
 
NRP said:
The question (for devs and artists, not fanboys) is, is 720p necessary for great visuals?
Click to expand...

Simple answer: I, as a gamer, don't care for the resolution. They should just drastically improve the IQ (with what ever trick they want to choose!) because in HALO3 'teh jaggies' are sometimes so pronounced that my buddies and I were a little bit dissapointed (remember when you after the initial forest, walk outside the 'cave', where you have to fight along the bridge to the other side: I was shocked in the first moment). Because such obvious flaws overshadow all the positive other stuff, in my opinion of course.
If they have to sacrifice their HDR method to achieve acceptable IQ, my answer is clear and simple: do it!!
 
 
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