The First Halo 3 Single Player Screens + Video! Rules=#369

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

Just say no to scans, Cyan.

It's far from Halo 2.5, but the shadows are very much like that. Or perhaps more like Halo shadows 2.14. It'd be nice to know they planned far enough ahead to remember at least a couple megabytes for a large shadowmap for at least all their low-poly dynamic objects (that is, just about every dynamic object), if not everything that didn't already have a precalculated shadow... When your battlefield is going to have 130+ enemies and allies on it, I can understand choosing to go with no shadows on muzzle flashes. But a couple shadow casting lights besides the sun would be nice. Mostly next gen visuals, except shadows from what I've seen. I'd consider shadowing a fairly major component of good lighting, so to see such... meh.

 

[22psi]

I don't think scans are allowed but OMG those look INCREDIBLE!!!

 

[Cyan]

Just say no to scans, Cyan.

It's far from Halo 2.5, but the shadows are very much like that. Or perhaps more like Halo shadows 2.14. It'd be nice to know they planned far enough ahead to remember at least a couple megabytes for a large shadowmap for at least all their low-poly dynamic objects (that is, just about every dynamic object), if not everything that didn't already have a precalculated shadow... When your battlefield is going to have 130+ enemies and allies on it, I can understand choosing to go with no shadows on muzzle flashes. But a couple shadow casting lights besides the sun would be nice. Mostly next gen visuals, except shadows from what I've seen. I'd consider shadowing a fairly major component of good lighting, so to see such... meh.

I didn't notice that (regarding the shadows). I'll take a closer look at the models and the environment.

NG visuals are out of this world, imho. Thanks to Next Gen hardware, graphics seem to come naturally to games.

Not everything about it is obvious. I think it's all in the little details, small as they may seem they play a very big role in helping things to look "natural" (not necessarily photorealistic, I'm not a big fan of absolute or partial photorealism in games); tire's brand model visible on tire's rubber, the draw distance, the streetlamps, shop's signs, small lamps and objects attached to the buildings, etc (RE5 is a great example of this), HDR + FSAA.

As for the scans, I will see what can I do about the issue (just showing the link and not the pics should do, I guess).

Cheers

 

[Tap In]

under promise, over deliver

love,
Bungie

 

[AlNom]

The elite looks pretty ace, imho. The detail in the head looks awesome, especially those teeth.

 

[Cyan]

Mark Rein (Epic's boss) on Halo 3: "Halo 3 showing at E3 *hurt* Bungie's sequel".

It does and, at the same time, it doesn't. Very whimsical, witty statements by Rein.

Microsoft selected this year's E3 to give Halo fans their first real glimpse of Halo 3's single-player campaign, but Epic boss Mark Rein reckons that worked against the company and the sequel at the show.

"I think that [showing the single-player campaign] hurt Halo 3 at E3", Rein told us when we caught up with him for a chat this week. "Halo 3 didn't win any game of the show awards that I could see. Well, because they didn't have to show Halo. There was no need".

"I'm sure if they'd actually had a big Halo 3 presence, if Microsoft had set up eight machines or 12 or 16 machines so you could sit and play it, it would have won all kinds of awards. But they don't need to because, like me, everyone's already placed their order... So I think that worked against them at E3," the Epic boss added.

However, causing us to scratch heads a bit, he also described Halo 3's limited presence at the show as a "smart move" from Microsoft.

"What they wanted to do was highlight all the other great games... that are on Xbox 360 too so people don't just think it's a Halo box. They don't care, they're going to sell eight million of them anyway", Rein said.

And how much is Mark Rein looking forward to Halo 3? "I ordered the Legendary edition... I'm buying it - you don't have to sell me any more on Halo"

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=169039

 

[czekon]

scans looks fantastic !!! to bad that they didnt show like 5 min pure action from single player instead of this trailer ... well

 

[Deepblue]

For those whom are looking forward to some online co-op, Bungie did recently confirm that it isn't going to be featured. If they put it in and it hinders the rest of the game I am glad they took it out.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2007/07/27/no_online_coop_for_halo_3.html

The more options the merrier, though. I don't understand why they should do this, there may be good reasons behind this decision but I am not a technical guy. Here I just try to keep up with the techniques to be able to understand the developers and I suspect it's due to memory management issues. Too many baddies on screen, gigantic scenarios, etc.

Dropping the number of enemies on screen and exponentially increasing the baddies' life by a factor of 10 times or so would be nice. The battles would be as epic as any we'd experienced, thus keeping the spirit of the series intact, yet expanding on the game's features.

Sadly you have been misinformed. When EGM visited Bungie, they were not going to confirm Halo 3 WILL indeed feature online-coop, but have stated that they are working toward that end. I'm thinking the scale of the encounters (150+ enemies/allies) is making coop difficult to implement with an acceptable framerate/lag. Hopefully, they can do it.

Also, anyone that calls Halo 3s graphics Halo 2.5 is delusional. The game looks great, but the only real flaw is the lack of dynamic shadows considering the bright color pallete. Games like Gears of War get away with it because of their dark color pallete, but wandering through a thick forest without little blots of shadow being cast on characters by overhead leaves is... odd.

 

[pipo]

I'm thinking the scale of the encounters (150+ enemies/allies) is making coop difficult to implement with an acceptable framerate/lag.

That and the fact you could be miles apart from each other.

I hope they will pull it off...

Edit - preview with new SP and MP info: http://entertainment.sympatico.msn.ca/Movies/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5192000

Hmmmm.

The game becomes more complicated via hidden skulls. Scattered through the game, these change the rules - for example, one skull calls for both players to die and be sent back to their last checkpoint if just one player is killed.

Also:

Audio lead Jay Weinland proudly notes that as of the morning of the journalists' visit, it included almost 54,000 pieces of audio: 1,000 pieces of music, 13,000 sound effects and 39,368 pieces of dialogue.

 

[Cyan]

Sadly you have been misinformed. When EGM visited Bungie, they were not going to confirm Halo 3 WILL indeed feature online-coop, but have stated that they are working toward that end. I'm thinking the scale of the encounters (150+ enemies/allies) is making coop difficult to implement with an acceptable framerate/lag. Hopefully, they can do it.

Also, anyone that calls Halo 3s graphics Halo 2.5 is delusional. The game looks great, but the only real flaw is the lack of dynamic shadows considering the bright color pallete. Games like Gears of War get away with it because of their dark color pallete, but wandering through a thick forest without little blots of shadow being cast on characters by overhead leaves is... odd.

Good, thanks for the clarification m8, and I completely agree with pipo, I hope they can pull it off. If they do then they might actually have something that'll attract even a bigger fanbase for them. It's extraordinary anyways but the more the merrier.

Since you did mention EGM, here is a very interesting quote from this magazine:

Apparently one of the Halo battles is supposed to have 100+ characters fighting at the same time (the actual quote referred to it having more characters than the first level of Halo, which had 130 enemies and a platoon or so of marines)

The link pipo provided confirms this and it's one of my favourite quotes of the article:

The battle, just one portion of the mission, has more enemies and allies than the entire first mission of "Halo 1."

"That just gives you an idea of the scale that we're going for. And these are not even the largest encounters in the game," explained Jaime Griesemer, whose title is Bungie's sandbox design lead. "The size really ramps up as you go through."

Pretty fascinating stuff in this game.

There's also a video that shows how exceptionally colorful Halo 3 is:

http://www.product-reviews.net/2007...halo-3-for-xbox-360-new-weapons-and-vehicles/

 

[Deepblue]

That purple elite with the two maulers = immeasurably badass.

 

[MasterDisaster]

I've high quality scans
trust me, the IQ is very near to GEARS but with better lightining
this can't be touched by the E3 media

I can't understand why microsoft shows an old build of the engine
this is a mystery


so I can't write the link (I don't want to be banned, sorry)
but in pm can I?
or even send to email of who ask me in pm?



trust me, that scan is AWESOME *.*
mod tell me what I can do..

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

I don't think there's anything you can do. I'm sure the mods will tell you to not offer scans in any way, regardless of which magazine, unless it's off the shelves (and I take it whichever ones you have are not).

But even if people see such scans, they should go buy the issues (if they're available, i.e. the EGM issue for those in the states/wherever else it is available.) Nobody likes having their stuff stolen, right?

 

[MasterDisaster]

I don't think there's anything you can do. I'm sure the mods will tell you to not offer scans in any way, regardless of which magazine, unless it's off the shelves (and I take it whichever ones you have are not).

But even if people see such scans, they should go buy the issues (if they're available, i.e. the EGM issue for those in the states/wherever else it is available.) Nobody likes having their stuff stolen, right?

right.

but I don't think that the people can afford this french magazine
so sorry for all, i want share how the actual halo3 build is, but i simply can't

 

[Deepblue]

I've high quality scans
trust me, the IQ is very near to GEARS but with better lightining
this can't be touched by the E3 media

I can't understand why microsoft shows an old build of the engine
this is a mystery


so I can't write the link (I don't want to be banned, sorry)
but in pm can I?
or even send to email of who ask me in pm?



trust me, that scan is AWESOME *.*
mod tell me what I can do..

Remember kids, GAF is lax on foreign mag scans...

 

[MasterDisaster]

Remember kids, GAF is lax on foreign mag scans...

I've posted this in gaf, indeed

 

[Deepblue]

I've posted this in gaf, indeed

So you wanna post all of them? Instead of just whetting the appetite with their gorgeous quality?

 

[GreekDNA]

Ahh god damn i wana see them im stuck on 56k!!

i had to use all my 12 gigs on por..ahh downloading demos on PSN didn't i

shame

 

[Deepblue]

Alright, now the multiplayer shots!

I'm greedy for moar!

(also, some pics could use some color-correction)

But, HIGH-QUALITY, huzzah!

 

[MasterDisaster]

So you wanna post all of them? Instead of just whetting the appetite with their gorgeous quality?

done, all posted