Halo: Reach

[dragonelite]

Clans!!!

Dont say it we will jinx it.

Still hope now that the old live version is discontinued we can have some integrated clan/sub communities support on live. I have used the friends of friends list to make little game communities on GT forums for ODST and some other games.

 

[RobertR1]

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=BWU_031210

Oh look it's beyond3d's favorite new word!

Goldsworthy tells me that my mind may be playing tricks on me. Though the water is in a near final state, the effects I’m imagining are really a technical mixture of bump mapping,tessellation, and other technical tricks that are apparently well outside the realm of my understanding. Explains the confused look on my face as he sloshed the details my way.

 

[Rangers]

They also said that a lot of the MP trailer graphics were placeholder, and are/already have been spiffied up a lot.

I think it looked pretty good in the MP trailer anyway, so any improvements is just icing on the cake. But I'm thinking maybe more of that spartan Halo 3 look to some of the environments could be erased.

It turns out just about everything in the multiplayer trailer was a little thing the team likes to call “placeholder.”

Marcus’ post trailer anxieties (“Thanks for understanding where we are at with the project - it’s scary for us to put the game out there before it’s done.”) makes all the more sense to me now. Lighting, special effects, shaders…just about anything and everything that comes together to make the game look pretty has been given more love in recent weeks. It’s remarkable how much work this team can shove into such a short span of time. Almost absurd. And Reach is looking great as a result.

Am I saying it’ll look like a completely different game than what you saw in the trailer when you load it up in May? Nah. The same flesh and bones are still present and accounted for, but there’s definitely been a significant upgrade in visuals in the shift from Alpha/Beta to Delta.

 

[scently]

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUH, tessellation, tessellation.
Definitely B3D's favourite word.
They've also got some gifs and videos of the water in REACH.

 

[Ruskie]

Tessellation...hmm...I dont see how it is useful if its only gonna add to geometry complexity thus more hardware demanding,considering they are using it for terrain,is there any way it could actually be a benefit while using less resources?

Im more interested in memxport,but it seems like its not really likely that titles will use that...

 

[nightshade]

I reckon that they'll use tessellation for water at the very least, water in Halo 3 did looked as if its Tessellated [though no confirmation for it till date]

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Tessellation...hmm...I dont see how it is useful if its only gonna add to geometry complexity thus more hardware demanding,considering they are using it for terrain,is there any way it could actually be a benefit while using less resources?

You have it back to front - tesselation saves resources. If you want a 100k detail poly character without tesselation, you need 100k vertices in RAM. However with tesselation, you can have a 25k model in RAM and add the extra vertices. You can also choose when to add vertices, allowing simpler geometry at a distance for LOD savings, or even if there's a lot on screen, reducing the per-object complexity as demans increase.

These platforms have enough vertex power to render a polygon for every pixel, meaning 'perfect' geometry detail, but we haven't an efficient means of managing the workload. Tesselation is a step towards more optimal polygons, where the ultimate goal would be one triangle per pixel and no undrawn triangles.

 

[warb]

The water's lovely. Waves appear a bit more detailed than in 3. It would be nice to see something splashing about in there.

 

[Ruskie]

You have it back to front - tesselation saves resources. If you want a 100k detail poly character without tesselation, you need 100k vertices in RAM. However with tesselation, you can have a 25k model in RAM and add the extra vertices. You can also choose when to add vertices, allowing simpler geometry at a distance for LOD savings, or even if there's a lot on screen, reducing the per-object complexity as demans increase.

These platforms have enough vertex power to render a polygon for every pixel, meaning 'perfect' geometry detail, but we haven't an efficient means of managing the workload. Tesselation is a step towards more optimal polygons, where the ultimate goal would be one triangle per pixel and no undrawn triangles.

Thank You for answer,much clearer,wondering why are only RARE that are using it
I mean Reach would be perfect for tessellation because of its environments and its still 1st party game,but why only for water uses tessellation?Just one more question if you dont mind,is there any title that is using memexport,if not do you think there is future for memexport in some new titles?

I was so hyped for those two(tessellation and memexport) at the beginning of the gen...

 

[scently]

Viva pinata also uses memexport, and bungie have not said that tessellation is only used in water rendering so I would advise you not to jump to conclusions yet.

 

[Ruskie]

Viva pinata also uses memexport, and bungie have not said that tessellation is only used in water rendering so I would advise you not to jump to conclusions yet.

Well they confirmed that they are using it for the water,and i read this whole thread and nothing gave me impression that its being used for something else.I would love for it to be used,but water is what they confirmed to be used for.
Viva Pinata used memexport...didnt read anything about it,but maybe you are right.

 

[scently]

Well they confirmed that they are using it for the water,and i read this whole thread and nothing gave me impression that its being used for something else.I would love for it to be used,but water is what they confirmed to be used for.
Viva Pinata used memexport...didnt read anything about it,but maybe you are right.

You know about the tessellation for water because they are talking about water in that article.
My point is you can never know what they use and what they don't until they say so. Personally I would not have guessed that Gears of War 2 used tessellation but it did.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

And where did you read about that? Gears2 I mean.

 

[nightshade]

Even I read that Gears 2 uses tessellated water. [I read it here somewhere]

 

[Silent_Buddha]

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=BWU_031210

Oh look it's beyond3d's favorite new word!

Oh the animated water looks lovely. The Dam one more so than the other.

Regards,
SB

 

[scently]

And where did you read about that? Gears2 I mean.

It uses it for fluid simulation something something, I cannot remember the thread title but I read it here in B3D in a pdf or ppt presentation.
Ah yes GDC09 Smedberg RenderingTechniques, that's the name of the presentation.

 

[Malibu]

New matchmaking and social features revealed.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/62865

 

[AlNom]

I don't quite get Queue-Joining. Does this mean they boot you out of the game you started while waiting Or... friend can only join you if you're still waiting for said new game to start i.e. searching for players...

 

[NRP]

I took it to mean that if get on and find Friends already playing, you can somehow tell the game you want to automatically join them when they become available, rather than having to periodically check their availability status manually. Doesn't seem like a big deal, but who knows, maybe it was in H3?

 

[AlNom]

That's what I thought, but then they mention you starting your own game while you wait for the other person to finish. So what happens when the other finishes and you're still in the game. Maybe journalistic confusion?