gorgeous shot
Best graphics of any game?
- Thread starter Kleegamefan
- Start date
gorgeous shot
If you're using something like the HMZ-T1, yes, otherwise use 2D.
How on earth would you bake SSAO (Screen space ambient occlusion)? Or did you mean the AO (ambient occlusion) is baked into the world? Thats just static light/shadow maps.
To contribute:
artistically: Wind Waker, hands down.
technically: Crysis, Witcher 2, or maybe BF3.
Barry Burton
Member
As far as consoles go, Uncharted 2/3 and God of War 3 are the best-looking games that I have played. I played Max Payne 3 on 360 recently and that looked really nice as well.
BigTnaples
Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
I played the entire game in 3D, some of the best 3D on consoles.
Played it on a 55" Samsung D8000 for reference.
I think Red Dead might be the prettiest game I've ever played.
Had this one insane moment from free roam Multiplayer when everyone was murdering each other... And then the sun started to set... And everyone just watched. No killing.
I used to dong on people in free mode and when it was time for the sun to set I'd go to some scenic view and watch.
Had this one insane moment from free roam Multiplayer when everyone was murdering each other... And then the sun started to set... And everyone just watched. No killing.
I used to dong on people in free mode and when it was time for the sun to set I'd go to some scenic view and watch.
Just a few words to enter the Halo feud: I love Halo. The way it simplified the gameplay mechanics and was able to let anyone enter the FPS world it's amazing.
That said, I think that NEVER a Halo game could enter any chart under the tags: #artingaming or #technicalachievement. Wind Waker, Okami, Viewtiful Joe, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Ico, SOTC and many others (mainly japanese) for their mix of music and style and focus on their visual concept are some of the most striking games I have ever seen. If you understand what I love, you can understand why Halo is no art for me.
Still, this is my homage to the best moments Halo 3 has to give and if you think how old it is, you might think it deserves some kudos in the end (source: my blog)
That said, I think that NEVER a Halo game could enter any chart under the tags: #artingaming or #technicalachievement. Wind Waker, Okami, Viewtiful Joe, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Ico, SOTC and many others (mainly japanese) for their mix of music and style and focus on their visual concept are some of the most striking games I have ever seen. If you understand what I love, you can understand why Halo is no art for me.
Still, this is my homage to the best moments Halo 3 has to give and if you think how old it is, you might think it deserves some kudos in the end (source: my blog)
Fair enough, we'll likely just have to wait and see.
That said it's impressive what devs are still managing to squeeze out of consoles like UC3's water(not my gif, stolen from the water/explosions thread):
The water in U3 is not that impressive from a tech perspective, The hardest part of it is the tessellation of the mesh that cell has to do for it.
Metalmurphy
Member
They fully simulated the ocean only to have the proper physic motions. They could have faked it but decided not to. That's quite impressive imo.
A must watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1I4mUFGZ60&feature=player_detailpage#t=299s
I didn't know 3 had a photo mode. My memory might be failing me, but the game didn't look nearly as clean as it does in these screens. 4 is looking mighty fine though.
dragonbane
Member
Combined with the overall presentation yes. Just the faces itself not so much. I think games with a focus on face rendering like L.A.Noire, Heavy Rain and Beyond look better imho.
Some of the early 360 games have some impressive, but wasteful, effects. Halo 3 has some great HDR and some of the best water of games, if only because the water doesn't move like jello. I can't think of a game that used parallax mapping as much or as aggressive as Kameo. And it still isn't common place to use it a lot, not even in pc only games.
BigTnaples
Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
Indeed, aside from Halo 3's terrible human faces, the game it self was very technically impressive.
The textures were some of the best on the system.
The HDR lighting was the best out there in 2007, only bested by Crysis on PC.
The physics were and still are some of the best and most consistent available.
The water is still among the best out there as well, (even reach had worse water).
The battles and the scale are insane.
Not to mention the AI is great.
For a 2007 game on 2005 hardware I would say Halo 3 looked pretty damned good.
Best Graphics Ever? No. But technically very competent.
The textures were some of the best on the system.
The HDR lighting was the best out there in 2007, only bested by Crysis on PC.
The physics were and still are some of the best and most consistent available.
The water is still among the best out there as well, (even reach had worse water).
The battles and the scale are insane.
Not to mention the AI is great.
For a 2007 game on 2005 hardware I would say Halo 3 looked pretty damned good.
Best Graphics Ever? No. But technically very competent.
I take it as a compliment
Yes, the photo-mode started in Halo 3 with the cinema-mode. Recording both action and sounds and being also a photo-mode di per se. And it went on with Reach and ODST.
My screenshots come from the game itself. Bungie server upscaled screenshots from 720p to 1080p with really a few quality loss (Reach was more problematic in the process)
Probably they look so clean because they are screenshots from Flickr at 500x281
I hope Halo 4 will be the best Halo photo-mode to date. With added effects like blur and DOF and a better HDR lighting. Thumbs up if 343i can do the magic again.
There were definitely a lot of impressive elements in the game. Unfortunately, the performance and image quality really knocked it down a notch. The game has this very odd micro-stuttering effect present that occurs almost through the entire game. When you rotate the camera many scenes appear less consistent than they should. It's very subtle and I'm sure most people never noticed it, but it drove me crazy. ODST suffered from the same problem but they finally corrected it in Halo Reach. I always had a theory that this was somewhat due to the "recording" process that ran behind the scenes, but I could never confirm it one way or another.
Also, the super low resolution and lack of AA combined with high contrast colors made for some rough looking scenes. The foliage was pretty ugly too as a result.
It's one of those games that I would love to see rendered at a higher resolution at 60 fps. Would be glorious.
The human modeling was so last gen with Halo 3.
Look at Halo 4... It's like another gen.
This is the beauty of console gaming.
Same hardware yet an ongoing sense of perpetual growth.
Jeez, the same console rendering KAMEO will be rendering Halo 4 and name-any-2013-game with no added cash. This is kind of magic. And 2013 will be a great year for console gamers.
The next-gen will be the same. Probably on pair with the best PC's for 6-months-to-1-year, but will be able to amaze its public for another long term.
Can't wait to see next-gen effects of lighting and rendering applied to my most beloved franchises (or to amazing new IP's, hopefully)
Well the thing is... I have read the tech paper they put out and they FLAT OUT SAY "Simulation would be too expensive to compute (even in SPUs) and hard to control by designers That is word for word.
http://www.slideshare.net/agebreak/water-technologyofunchartedgdc2012
Metalmurphy
Member
Page?
So far I read stuff like "Animation loops were considered but not used", and "procedural waves", and that was clearly what they said in the making off. I'm not making this up.
*edit* Nm, found it.
BigTnaples
Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
Yup, software goes a long way on closed hardware.
That said, there are still compromises here and there....Like the aforementioned Halo 3 water getting downgraded in Halo Reach to make room for other improvements. Or Mass Effect 3 not having enough ram for weapon holstering from ME1-2.
I fully expect Halo 4 to make some compromises. Probably texture resolution(see Halo CE to Halo 2) if I had to guess, although it was so good in Reach, a downgrade wont bring it below other games of 2012, while a lighting upgrade will push it above.
It will really be fantastic to see these games running on next gen hardware.
Imagine a game like Bioshock utilizing all of the features showcased in the UE4 walk-through? With that art style it would be the most gorgeous game in existence.
Halo 5 is sure to be a looker if Halo 4 is any indication.
Crysis 3 on PC is looking closer to next gen than last. Imagine a Cryengine game made exclusively for PC and Next gen consoles....
Or a Deus Ex sequel that looks like Samaritan...
I salivate at all the possibilities.
That said, there are still compromises here and there....Like the aforementioned Halo 3 water getting downgraded in Halo Reach to make room for other improvements. Or Mass Effect 3 not having enough ram for weapon holstering from ME1-2.
I fully expect Halo 4 to make some compromises. Probably texture resolution(see Halo CE to Halo 2) if I had to guess, although it was so good in Reach, a downgrade wont bring it below other games of 2012, while a lighting upgrade will push it above.
It will really be fantastic to see these games running on next gen hardware.
Imagine a game like Bioshock utilizing all of the features showcased in the UE4 walk-through? With that art style it would be the most gorgeous game in existence.
Halo 5 is sure to be a looker if Halo 4 is any indication.
Crysis 3 on PC is looking closer to next gen than last. Imagine a Cryengine game made exclusively for PC and Next gen consoles....
Or a Deus Ex sequel that looks like Samaritan...
I salivate at all the possibilities.
I dont know about this all that much but damn Uncharted series has the prettiest water in console games this gen.
No, they did it for the first e3 trailer of Halo 3, the one with the concrete armour, and the first trailer for Reach, only much of that scene is still in the game. Also the debut trailer for 4. There are no downsampled Halo gameplay videos.
Not in Campaign. Halo Anniversary has a constant micro-stutter, Halo 3 ran pretty smooth. It was the MP that had the micro-stutter.
And Reach has some nasty framerate drops in the Campaign. No micro-stuttering, just chugging in several spots.
Also the second underground level of Halo 3 had a bit of stuttering.
Incorrect. The Campaign is precisely what I'm talking about here (in regards to micro-stutter). It definitely suffers from it. It's not 100% of the time, but it is quite regular.
Reach has drops, but there are no issues with micro-stutter so I find it feels much smoother overall.
Halo Anniversary is just a mess, though. Runs like dogshit compared to any other contemporary Halo title and looks worse too. I appreciate what they attempted but the results don't impress.
Nope, it's technically impressive behaves realistically and the water shaders they use are top quality. Even more impressive is how they render the water in the first place especially the reflection and transparency, usually developers simply use a low resolution buffer for the transparency effect and reflection in water, Naughty Dog simply went in an entirely different direction for that, the water in Uncharted games are actually solid surface and in order to give them a transparent look they render the reflection, transparency and refraction ONTO that solid surface. The end result means that they can get the look that one would normally achieve only through rendering full resolution alpha for water and for the reflections.
BigTnaples
Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
It does not help your point to cherry pick the least impressive screen possible.
Especially in a thread that we are considering Wind Waker in. Halo may only be 640p, but it sure as hell is not 480i..
Metalmurphy
Member
That video isn't downsampled. It's full on CG.
Either ways I feel Halo 3 should not be in the discussion IMO. Neither is it a technical marvel nor is it an artistic one for consoles this gen.
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
I didn't know we got so many engine experts with this latest batch of JR's
BigTnaples
Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
See posts above... There is obviously an argument to be had there.
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
Behaving realistically > looking realistic, any day.
Metalmurphy
Member
Which was rendered at a much higher resolution and downsampled.
Was it? That isn't even using the game engine. What's the point of down sampling a CG movie that already takes it's sweet time to render each frame perfectly?
Either way it's besides the point. When we mention a screenshot or video is downsampled is when it's using the game engine to render it, but in a way that will increase IQ and won't represent how the actual game looks. A cg movie will never represent how the game looks either way.
Uno Venova
Banned
Yeah when talking about the best graphic's it really has no place here, but I guess the best was already talked about earlier on in the thread
There is some great tech in Halo. Large draw distances, extensive use of physics. Dynamic AI interactions, GI, particles, recording game play and 4 player coop built into the campaign. The game takes a hit in character models and resolution, the two things that people most notice.
I've always believed that character models is the thing devs should focus on the most graphically because its the only thing that some people can notice.
Represent.
Represent(ative) of bad opinions
Uncharted 3.
Everything from the ship wreck levels to the end of the game is fucking beautiful.
Especially the desert.
Everything from the ship wreck levels to the end of the game is fucking beautiful.
Especially the desert.
I took a screen that looks like the game looked on my TV. Posting screens that were made in the photo mode (regardless of which game) doesn't make any sense IMHO
It's kind of surprising me as well, I bought the collectors edition on launch day and I remember being disappointed with the visuals back then.
Regardless, next gen I hope developers focus a bit on IQ as opposed to adding more effects on the screen. A lot of the console games in this thread do look great, but it's amazing how much of that is tarnished by blur or a lack of texture filtering and anti aliasing when actually playing it. It can make a world of difference (as shown with Durantes Dark Souls fix).
BigTnaples
Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
Again, if you read through some of the posts here, Halo 3 is objectively a technically impressive game.
Now, whether or not that came together into a package that pleased you senses is up for debate.
The Textures, Lighting, Physics, AI, Scale, Theater Mode, Water Effects, Particle Effects, split screen, were all fantastic for 2007. And many of those elements are still fantastic by 2012 standards.
Sure, human faces, especially hood looked like dog shit. And the resolution took a hit thanks to the HDR implementation. But other than that, the game did a lot of things right technically.
insane0hflex
Member
Skyrim with ENB 0.113 or higher and HD textures looks really good. However, I don't think anything will top the Witcher 2 for a maybe a year or more
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
Halo 4 viral marketing. What else?!?!
I don't see Halo being part of this conversation in a serious way. No more than I give much credence to Dark Souls being on the same level as The Witcher 2™.
It's been topped with Dark Souls (according to some).
Don't be mad at me for saying that now (not referring to you). I'm not the one who went out on a limb and went to bat for Dark Souls.
Star Wars 1313 and Watch Dogs easily...
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
Highly likely. That's why I need a 680 or better next year. I want to enjoy these with no compromise. Even if it means locking the fps to 30 on PC.
There was no GI.
Halo 3 had poor shadowing (it was non existent), poor animation, average shaders and average particle effects. These things are the things people notice the most along side lighting. Halo 3's lighting was great but at the same time it was mostly applicable to outdoors as indoors looked extremely flat.
I've always believed that the main reason Halo looked like that was because the developers were more focused on practical things regarding gameplay like co-op, recording and community aspect, which was the better decision in the long run ultimately as they didn't have to do that in Reach and were able to focus on the graphical aspect more. Which is no wonder considering Reach was a massive improvement over all these aspect.
BigTnaples
Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
Crysis 3 blows away the Witcher 2 in every conceivable way, and is less than a year out.
After all of the hype The Witcher 2 got here, I was honestly disappointed upon playing it, even maxed out and ubersampled. The game looks good to be sure. But in motion, the lip syncing is terrible, and the game feels very static.