dragonelite
Veteran
Haven't played the beta but i heard Valhalla got a nice upgrade too
Haven't played the beta but i heard Valhalla got a nice upgrade too
IMHO the most noticeable change from Halo3/ODST to Halo:R is the change in artwork to what appears as a more.... Epic/Unreal/Gears style, a style that we know but cant really pinpoint with words. Reach no longer seem to have the vibrant Halo look...so is this what Bungie meant by a darker approach to their Halo franchise? It could also be the use of slightly sharper normal maps on more objects...
As expected, the first trailer is pre-rendered bullshot....probably closer to what ND did with Uncharted1...where the videos and ingame look a little more distinct than UC2.
As expected, the first trailer is pre-rendered bullshot....probably closer to what ND did with Uncharted1...where the videos and ingame look a little more distinct than UC2.
COPS N RAPPERS
Regular
correct.
before
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/...s-shots-20061121102544053.html?page=mediaFull
after.
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/734817/halo-3/images/halo-3-20070511004943556.html?page=mediaFull
as what Laa-Yosh said earlier, finishing touches to the environments usually come last, after once all the core gameplay is debugged. usually developers make test maps and put some environmental props in them (with some collision.) things like plants, trees, and whole vegetation gets added after performance has been adjusted. as you can see in the after shot the water still didn't have reflective and specular maps applied, and most definitely didn't have ripples and water like collision attributes.
The Forerunner structure has quite clearly been tweaked on those two images as well. And even May 11 is before Halo3's actual release date, so maybe the final map is even more different. We could more then likely also find differences between the KZ2 levels and so on - that's the reasonable way to do it. So these Reach shots are not final, and their most obvious weakness is that the environment is far too empty - let's hope Bungie knows this as well and plans to polish them until the release.
But isn't that what's troubling people about the Reach screenshots? That they're not looking good enough?
What I'm trying to say is that it's the natural course of level design to add the beauty pass at the last stage because any major design change would pretty much invalidate any cosmetic work and waste the effort.
What I'm trying to say is that it's the natural course of level design to add the beauty pass at the last stage because any major design change would pretty much invalidate any cosmetic work and waste the effort.
http://www.gamereactor.se/artiklar/20868/Gamereactor+spelar+Halo:+Reach/
New REACH article. Unfortunately its Swedish but there are a lot of pictures in good quality. Apparently the embargo ends today so more to come.
Use google translation, it does a very good job.
New REACH article. Unfortunately its Swedish but there are a lot of pictures in good quality. Apparently the embargo ends today so more to come.
Use google translation, it does a very good job.
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Silent_Buddha
Legend
I hope they do another Jungle/Swamp level like they had in Halo 1. Should be impressive in the new engine. And with the reduced visual range would allow to maximize poly and texture budget. Although it may be more important to maintain consistent visuals than to jack up the visuals for one area.
Regards,
SB
Regards,
SB
The description of the battle sequence in the article with the banshee crashing unto the warthog with multiple vehicles and characters on screen sounds awesome.
They seem to be going over the top with the scale and scope of the game
Uhh, that wasn't much of an upgrade Bungie...
I have to wonder if insisting on things very few will ever use like 4 player split screen co-op is really limiting what Bungie can do graphically. I dont agree with Bungie on that one at all.
They also seem to be hell bent on upping the onscreen enemy count. Again, why not trade a bit of that off for better graphics when you already trounce most other FPS in those areas?
It's only 2 player splitscreen, although you can have 2 other with you on 2 seperate Xboxes.
Also, there are too many pretty looking shooters with corridor levels and 5 enemies onscreen at a time. I'm glad Reach is differentiating itself, even if it means that those who are technologically impaired will berate the internet with posts of "Halo 3.5."
So Bungie is really sacrificing environment detail for more unit counts then, some of the night shots and interiors are quite disappointing but the lighting in daytime looks quite nice. The polygonal silhouette on the rocks and cliffs are way too prominent, if they used tessellation in any ways those are the areas which are missing badly. Post-processing like per object motion blur and SSAO would do great justice to this game in trade off for some enemies.
Maybe you don't play Halo 3 much, but my experience is that in online play that it is surprising when in a 12-16 player match NOT to see groups with more than one person on a console. Halo is the game to play with other people in the same room. Pretty much the rest of the industry vacated this spot. This is but one reason why Halo is so popular. Removing split screen would be pretty tragic in terms of the established audience and the subsequent PR nightmare.
As for split screen SP coop, I see more people on my play list doing Halo games in SP w/ coop than I do any other game not called MW2. Halo, all aspects, are still wildly popular.
They are bent on making the gameplay experience getter, not just pretty leaves on foliage and sand whisping around the screen more realistically.
The new Halo Reach media looks really, really weak IMO. They would be best off not to talk about graphics and just to let the final product do the talking.
BUT, in terms of gameplay, they should be talking about the stuff people use. While you may not want to see epic battles with 40 competent AI and 20 vehicles in large sandbox like arenas where you and 3 real humans can be spread all over a huge battlefield--more power to you. But games are not doing this in terms of gameplay so I am glad Bungie is. Especially since the Haloverse pretty much is demanding huge, large battles. Halo 3 was weak in this regards: battle for the universe but far to few epic battles, and the big ones they had were too far an in between.
Pretty pixels come and go. What looks good in 2009 will look average in 2011. But few games offer good AI with large numbers in large battlefields. Toss in 4 player coop and who else is doing that?
So while I won't defend some of Bungie's decisions (I think the animation in Halo 3 was poor, humans looked very bad, the IQ choices for the art were a miss in my book) on the other hand focusing on gameplay elements that set them apart and make for a unique, creative, and long-lifed product I am all for. e.g. I wish MW2 had coop for the campaign and 4 player spec ops. Would I have taken a cut back on graphcis (e.g. 30fps, less post processing, or other) for those features? YES.
