Screenshot or Render

[kyleb]

These might come off as silly questions to many of you, but I need some educated input and plenty of people here meet that requirement. So here are three simple questions:

****pole questiion****Is this pic a ofline render or an in game screenshot?****pole questiion****

What about any of these, renders, screenshot, or a mix?

lastly, do you see any evidence of either utilization of a radiosity engine in real time or dynamic soft shadows calculated on a per pixel basis in any of the screenshots?

 

[flick556]

I think it's definatly in game, I guess you could turn a offline renderers settings that low but I never seen it.


This will show you some renders a typical 3d modeling package can achive, and if you look at some cg renders you would not even know thier fake.
http://www.renderosity.com/tut.ez?Form.SortOrder=UserName&Start=11&Sectionid=12368

 

[Polarbear53]

Halo didn't have dynamic shadows, but they did do lightmaps, which i think is pre-computed radiosity.

 

[kyleb]

Right, I probably shouldn't have bothered with the third question; However, I have someone on another forum insisting that is the case and he won't listen to me on the issue so I am hopping I can get some other opinions from people in the know.

 

[Martin Eddy]

Definately in-game shots. Too much aliasing for a start, then look at this shot for example. Look at the doorway in the rock face, it looks like it's been pasted on to the wall instead of giving the appearance that it is actually a hole in the wall.

Of course there are a whole lot of other errors/glitches/hacks that show without a doubt that this is in-game.

EDIT: Spelling

 

[kyleb]

Yes, that shot is clearly an in game shot, but do you see any shot from those links that are obviously renders?

I'm going to add a poll for the first shot.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Screenshot, I don't see why it can't be.

 

[Ylandro]

Obviously a screenshot. You just need to look at the low number of polygons used for the character, or the rock in front of him. There's absolutly nothing in the picture which would suggest an offline render. It actually seems rather easy for modern videocards...

Maybe the people claiming a offline render get fooled by the the reflective character. However, that's nothing special with pixel shaders...

 

[London Geezer]

Is this thread for real?

 

[kyleb]

Maybe the people claiming a offline render get fooled by the the reflective character. However, that's nothing special with pixel shaders...

Acutually, the argument that I am geting is that the refractive character is done with framebuffer effects that make the game engine incompatable with MSAA; Hence the person I am in dispute with refuses to belive the shot is from the game engine.

 

[kyleb]

Is this thread for real?

I wish it wasn't, but unfortunate circumstances have driven me to it.

 

[London Geezer]

Maybe the people claiming a offline render get fooled by the the reflective character. However, that's nothing special with pixel shaders...

Acutually, the argument that I am geting is that the refractive character is done with framebuffer effects that make the game engine incompatable with MSAA; Hence the person I am in dispute with refuses to belive the shot is from the game engine.

Couldn't you say that before??

 

[Xmas]

Acutually, the argument that I am geting is that the refractive character is done with framebuffer effects that make the game engine incompatable with MSAA; Hence the person I am in dispute with refuses to belive the shot is from the game engine.

How about, it's a downsampled screenshot

No, really, I think this effect isn't done using the framebuffer, but an environment map.

 

[kyleb]

Acually the "active cammofauge" effect in Halo does real refraction. As for it being a downsampled screenshot, I think so as well; I don't see any reason to assume it is MSAA, but I am by no means an expert on the issue.

 

[darkblu]

Acually the "active cammofauge" effect in Halo does real refraction.

hardly. looks like inversed-direction environmental (most likely cube) mapping to me.

 

[Goragoth]

Excuse my ignorance but why is it that framebuffer distortion effects mean no MSAA can be applied? Is it because the scene is rendered to a texture and then has the effect applied and you can't have MSAA on render to texture? Then what about the heat haze effect in Doom3? That's a similar refraction effect and Doom3 still supports MSAA.

Anyway, the shot is clearly in game, no render would be seen with such low polygons although it could be an offline render of a game scene but that would be stupid and not very bloody likely.

 

[kyleb]

Well no public build of Halo has never supported MSAA; but again I'm am not claiming it is MSAA in the first place but just mentioning some else's arugments.

The poll is 30 to 1 now, I'm curious as to who the 1 is and the reasoning behind the vote.

 

[hoom]

The answer is most likely this

it's a downsampled screenshot

Bungie did screenshots for Xbox by carefully setting it up, then a dev tool took a 3*3 grid of shots at 640*480 (or whatever) & stuck them all together into a single big image that was then downsized to make screenshots.

That makes it kind of both live & offline.

Certainly the camo effect is highly reminiscent of the PS2.0 camo effect.

I'm a bit suspiscious they might have added a light near his feet as his hips seem overbright

[edit] I'm calling it a render [/edit]

 

[kyleb]

That map isn't in the xbox version and the image is in the pc/mac screenshots section, so I am fairly sure it came off a computer.

 

[hoom]

Yah its one of the PC version maps.
Timberland
Could be just a downsized screenshot from like 1600*1200, I guess?
Edit: as close as I could get quickly, downsized from 1600, probably only the ps1.1 camo though (multiplayer only map & MP doesn't let you run 2.0)
Official screenie definitely has a light offscreen bottom left (ground in that corner, brightened camo effect, brightened tree right side)