Interesting that you choose those games as I feel that both feature sub-par animation that ultimately hurts the overall visual appeal. Crysis 2 DX11 already looks much better, I feel.
Best graphics of any game?
- Thread starter Kleegamefan
- Start date
la flama blanca
Banned
lol @ halo pics in this thread
Yes it's a CG announcment trailer that isn't representative of the game at all. It's still totally downsampled though.
My point was that only Halo debut trailers and photomode (and CGI movies..) have had bogus image quality. The movie mode stuff and gameplay videos are all rendered at game IQ. There's some aliasing in these Halo 4 videos. It looks like FXAA.
Reach has a worse framerate, worse water, worse textures, worse lighting, and a terrible AA implementation causing blur/ghosting. In many ways, Halo 3 looks better in motion. Both will look like shit if you're like TheExodu5 and sit 2.5' from your HDTV.
Almost as funny as Wind Waker pics, right?
seriously
Halo 4 looks good for console but 3 and reach are nothing to write home about at all.
Demoncarnotaur
Member
Really? I mean I agree that Halo 3 looked like shit, despite its engine doing some complex things, but can you really say as much about Halo 4? The game looks stunning in the media released so far, and those who have played the game relay the fact that it is a great looking game. Halo 4 certainly belongs in this thread as much as other stellar looking games like Uncharted 2 or God of War 3 do.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
Yeah. I just replayed the game, and while the desert is useless from a gameplay standpoint after you've played through it once, it does look ridiculously good!
Dat sand!
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
I think my sarcasm joke didn't really hit you as well. Not that I was mainly joking but it was definitely tongue and cheek.
Halo 4 is definitely a step up. Just not sure until I see it for myself. Not on screens which may be touched up or youtube video.
I'm interested in actually seeing how good it looks.
Worse framerate yes but only relative to Halo 3, doesn't means much cause it was still solid for the most part. The temporal AA implementation causing ghosting was mostly much sorted out in the final game, it was far better than having no AA at all in Halo 3. The textures weren't worse I think they were superior, they can't possibly be worse considering they had a lot more memory at disposal compared to what they had during Halo 3. The water is the exact same tech, the shaders in reach are a lot more advanced though (proof below). They did pare back the interactivity a bit but that doesn't automatically means it was worse. Also the water in either of the two games lack reflections of any kind.
Water shaders in Reach:
http://images.eurogamer.net/articles//a/1/2/6/5/6/6/8/Water_Reach_000.jpg.jpg
Halo 3:
http://images.eurogamer.net/articles//a/1/2/6/5/6/6/8/Water_Halo3_000.jpg.jpg
Uno Venova
Banned
Even if you sit a normal distance, H3 looks bad.
You can't have a 'best graphics' thread based around art direction, all that stuff is subjective. The only objective way we can have a discussion like this (to get the 'best') is on the technical side.
Represent.
Represent(ative) of bad opinions
And as others have said, God of War 3 in its prime levels is beast status.
I don't think you mean refraction, because at least the Reach screen has refraction effects...
Metalmurphy
Member
Yeah. I just replayed the game, and while the desert is useless from a gameplay standpoint after you've played through it once, it does look ridiculously good!
Dat sand!
Such a wasted opportunity imo. That was the worst part of U3 for me.
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
The forests in W2 are the only parts of that game that wow me.
Well, it's only a story sequence. Deserts are big and empty, I'm not sure what else you think they could have done.
News to me.
He's right guys
He must've used unhuman levels of intelligence to write this post. It's just perfect.
He mentions every point of the discussion and explains his opinion extensively.
Even the words he used are so exquisite, they bring tears to my eyes.
You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.
Lol indeed my good man.
Lol indeed
Crysis 2 can look amazing, but the questionable lighting direction just sours me on the whole thing:
Halo has GI. Bungie has papers on it and other people have written papers on it.
Fair enough. I loved all the environments in TW2, but what can I say? I'm a sucker for sharp textures and dramatic lighting. What would be your pick for best overall visuals in a game?
Alcoholikaust
Member
I feel Metro 2033 is more deserving of this title
Uno Venova
Banned
Ookaaaay.
Prove me otherwise.
Baked radiosity through lightmaps is nothing extraordinary, a lot of games do it and have been doing it from early 2000s, even Half Life 2 did it.
http://www.bungie.net/Inside/publications.aspx
There are several papers here dealing with Bungie lighting tech before, during and post H3.
As I said it's baked where the lightmaps are represented as spherical harmonics, and that's nothing extraordinary as a lot of games have been doing baked GI since Half Life 2 era. It would only be impressive if it was done in real time, which it obviously doesn't.
All games fake GI. All of them.
Real time GI is ray tracing. No game has that.
higherARC05
Banned
There are no games doing real time GI.
Crysis 2 PC version does real time GI for sunlight (only first bounce) where the GI changes on the fly.
No, no it doesn't. No way does crysis do ray tracing.
there isn't a cpu available now that can do ray tracing much less one that could do it when crysis was released. The game uses SSAO so it isn't ray tracing. Its a shader effect, raster based and not ray tracing based.
higherARC05
Banned
Not only that but it doesn't even look as good as baked in GI.
You have to remember being baked is not a easy thing to do for great results. It requires days of nonstop computation to calculate the ray tracing to create the finish work. Look at UE3.5 lightmass tech.
It's not ray tracing, yes...but it is real time radiosity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPQ3BbuYVh8
Ofcourse real time solution won't look as good as offline solutions but then its exactly as you said it requires time and it's a headache for developers.
Why do you think they are developing real time solutions in the first place? You spend hours baking a lightmap onto texture only for the artist to be unhappy and wanting to change the look again, waste of time and money.
Also having a real time solution means you cannot have a dynamic approach to your levels, because your baked GI doesn't reacts to moving lightsources and any change to the objects in the scene will make it obvious because that object will not get affected at all and will start looking out of place. It's also not a feasible idea if your game has a day night cycle. Real time solution IS the way to go regardless of what anyone says. developers used to bake contact/indirect shadows but later they started to opt out for hacks like SSAO, just because it can be used for moving objects/characters and also saves time.
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
These are actually terrible representations of these areas in the game but people that have played it will remember. The detail in that cruise ship. Lordy it was crazy.
Halo 3 was a mixed bag graphically. Certain aspects look incredible like the lighting and certain levels like cortana showcase how good the lighting is. While certain parts of Halo 3 look so bad it's hard to understand how it got passed on the 360.
Still it's hard to forgive bungie for how they downgraded the graphics from that e3 06 trailer. That trailer showcased graphics that look on par or better than Halo 4.
http://www.amazing-planet.net/slike/vijesti/halo-3.jpg
Still it's hard to forgive bungie for how they downgraded the graphics from that e3 06 trailer. That trailer showcased graphics that look on par or better than Halo 4.
http://www.amazing-planet.net/slike/vijesti/halo-3.jpg
higherARC05
Banned
News to me too. I guess it's opposite day for him.
dr. apocalipsis
Banned
Yeah. I just replayed the game, and while the desert is useless from a gameplay standpoint after you've played through it once, it does look ridiculously good!
Dat sand!
How can you praise the sand when the shadow over it is absolutely plain?
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
Yeah, you have never played that section.
Winner.
Well, that alpha buffer's resolution isn't even that bad for a PS3 game. XD
I hope that they fix this issue with the PS4. :/
You are joking right. The sand is awesome looking. The way it interacts with Drake is stunning. This is in motion - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jLv6pR6ZSk
There is nothing out there that does Sand better on consoles. This section almost makes the animation and visuals pixar like.
And I do not know what other video of Halo 4 people have access to. I have just seen the E3 demo and while it looks nice it does not come anywhere close to the visuals of stuff like UC,GOW,KZ,Gears etc.. At least not in its current state.
higherARC05
Banned
Only if we were to see a new one since the last 4 years 
We should probably ban downsampled gifs from crapping up these threads
That and unreleased games as well. Until people actually have played Halo 4 and Crysis 3 and seen it on their own systems, I would reserve judgment. This thread is half filled with marketing material released for upcoming games.
That and unreleased games as well. Until people actually have played Halo 4 and Crysis 3 and seen it on their own systems, I would reserve judgment. This thread is half filled with marketing material released for upcoming games.
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
Project Gotham Rain Races had my jaw on the floor when I first played that game.