Jack Scofield
Member
The music is fantastic. I'm glad we're finally hearing something different.
Halo 4 Theatrical Trailer to debut July 27th
- Thread starter Bornstellar
- Start date
I seriously disagree about this. Despite the low-poly characters and lack of AA, Halo 3 looked stunning at the time and still looks good. The lighting engine is beautiful. (Defined and consistent) Art direction has always helped a ton, too.
But yes, I don't think Halo has been "could argue is best looking on the 360 with a straight face" since 3.
GarthVaderUK
Banned
Indeed! 343 could school Hogwarts in witchcraft and wizardry.
A lot of my friends across the pond want to know this as well
And I plan to see Bats in IMAX...
The "pretentious" note was aimed at another poster, sorry - but the piece actually points out over and over again that both are equally collaborative - the difference is the agency in the end result, not the process itself.
Well, I do want to say that I absolutely love the video and the ideas/meaning behind it. As a huge advocate of seeing cinematic traits and characteristics implemented more and more in the future throughout the industry and the medium, I think you guys knocked it out of the park. More importantly I think you were able to correctly convey the fact in the video that film's strengths ends at it's passiveness and the true beautiful thing about this medium is that it allows interactivity. Kind of a way of reiterating "the strengths of both, the weaknesses of neither" ideology.
I have also wanted to see cross venue promotion and am thrilled at the idea that this will be playing on the "Big Screen," even if it is in ad form. Personally, I would like to see more things take this route. I loved that AMC theatres had Uncharted 3 standees and would really be blown away if I see a Halo 5 poster or standee while in line for popcorn in the future. It truely is an untapped potential venue.
Lastly, I might suggest that the word "pretentious"(which I don't really feel the video was) not be seen as an insult, but instead a complement. Hell, if anything else pretension is a level of passion in regards to something.
REMEMBER CITADEL
Banned
The world you're looking for is "ambitious". Pretentious means something lacking genuine merit, pretension is ambition that can't quite be realized, usually due to lack of talent.
Ghost_Protocol
Member
I don't necessarily think it is inappropriate to say pretension is a level of passion. Hypothetically, if I were to correct people or place a different label on something than most than I assume I would be dubbed pretentious by some. My actions aren't guided by a desire to troll but instead come from my passion concerning what we are talking about.
Foxy Fox 39
Banned
Who's doing the music again? It's not Marty is it? For some reason I leaning towards a Japanese composer...Don't know why...
edit: Neil Davidge?
dbl edit: Thanks Garth!
edit: Neil Davidge?
dbl edit: Thanks Garth!
GarthVaderUK
Banned
Foxy Fox 39
Banned
When do we get to buy the OST? Can I buy it now? I want to buy it now.
I don't know. I think what 343 brings most to the franchise is a fresh look. But, they also had a lot of time to develop this game. To say Bungie, having similar development time, couldn't deliver a Halo4 with this type of graphics in 2012 in not fair. Both studios are very talented, i think.
NullPointer
Member
Yet we still don't know what trade-offs have been made to get that prettiness on screen.
Irresistable Thing
Member
Seeing this may be the highlight of going to the theatre
Bungie had several attempts. Halo Reach was in dev since Halo 3 released (3 years). While they [Bungie's Halo games] aren't ugly, they aren't up to what's been shown so far in Halo 4. Especially the faces and lighting. And it's finally 1280x720.
What trade-off do you think? Framerate hiccups?
NullPointer
Member
I wonder if they can still maintain large sandbox areas populated with a good amount of AI, vehicles, physics, etc. I honestly have no idea, but this is six year old hardware and something has to give. Maybe they've made changes to classic Halo game design that allows them to push more of these effects. I don't know.
I'm cautiously optimistic though.
Regardless of GAF's opinion on Reach, Bungie actually pulled off a range of impressive effects with that game.
1280x720 is not that much above 1152x720, in fact most probably wouldn't be able to tell if it wasn't pointed out to them. Especially if both games used the same form of FXAA.
Also, motion blur and HBAO have so far been cut in Halo 4 as two examples of some trade-offs.
The biggest contributing factor to the jump in Halo 4 is from the new art team and likely higher asset budget.
OverHeat
« generous god »
Just ask Frankie.
Frank could you tell us what had to go from previous Halo to make H4 so pretty?............I dont think he will answer this one
Edit. Well there is a nice artice on digital foundry http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-tech-analysis-halo-4-at-e3
Corrinne Yu happened.
Halo 4 doesn't have motion blur? Thank god if it doesn't. I don't know what's been added or cut from Reach, the end result is a much better looking game. If Halo 4 doesn't have the framerate drops Reach's campaign did, then that's a huge plus.
Thanks for the link
Let's not get carried away here.
On Xbox, it's going to be between Halo 4 and Crysis 3
I can't think of any other game that is in that league
snoopeasystreet
Member
"Hey movie goers! Video games are basically movies where you're the star! That's pretty cool, huh?"
Halo 4 looks amazing but these kind of ads always put me off. It makes the industry seem desperate for mainstream approval.
Halo 4 looks amazing but these kind of ads always put me off. It makes the industry seem desperate for mainstream approval.
Just ask Frankie.
Frank could you tell us what had to go from previous Halo to make H4 so pretty?............I dont think he will answer this one
Edit. Well there is a nice artice on digital foundry http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-tech-analysis-halo-4-at-e3
Nothing's really gone, at least from my somewhat ignorant technical perspective, if anything we've added a bunch of stuff. Scale, perf, etc, all "Halo" with improvements across the board.
The main difference, apart from the folks working on it, is time - in that Bungie had to ship game after game after game, and never had the luxury of prototyping and overhauling tools etc etc, or at least as much as they probably wanted to. So the Halo games got better and better looking anyway, under Bungie's watch and Halo 4 is simply an extension of that process, not really a deviation from it. I expect Bungie's next game to be a technical beast.
And what Kage said.
NullPointer
Member
You're a scholar and a gentleman Stinkles. Much appreciated
From the early trailers, I thought it was either cut or severely scaled back. Based on the DF link overheat posted, it's entirely cut out, at least at this point.
I don't think motion blur was the issue in Reach, instead it was their choice of AA.
Honest question, why is it when someone says a game is graphically one of the best on the 360, people object to the notion, but when it's said for a certain other system, there's hardly an argument?
Considering what we've seen so far, I don't see much issue with Halo 4 being one of the best looking games out there. I'm not saying the best (I don't believe in such a thing) but it easily stands up there with the best of them, all things considered.
OverHeat
« generous god »
Thx u Stinkles. Hope you have time to "cook" your next game too.
Pretty much this. No knock against 343, I'm really impressed by both the team and their output so far, but I think it should be kept in mind that they are building off of years of work done by bungie with the Halo engine.
Even bungie admitted they learned new things and optimizations after releasing Reach.
I think the TAA ghosting negated any of the goodwill Bungie's implemented motion blur brought to Reach.
That was my point. =p
Though to be fair to Bungie, they didn't really have the option of MLAA or FXAA back then.
This is an awesome post.
3 years in between games is a time constraint? How long has Halo 4 been in development? 5 years?
Im_So_Pringles
Member
These are big games man. Especially with the addition of a whole second campaign this time around. They take a while to develop. The aren't just new map packs with new weapons.
Nobody ever seems to mention how absolutely fucking amazing the textures in Halo 3 and Reach are. So much effort into the tiniest of details that aren't even noticable without zooming in. I will be sad if Halo 4 doesn't deliver similarly impressive textures.
Think about how many features, weapons, vehicles, etc. have changed between each Halo game. Bungie has always packed a lot of content with their main games in the series and that takes time.
Reach rectified it to an extent, but Halo 3's textures were absolutely destroyed by the lack of any decent filtering. Sure they looked great, and still do, when you're facing right at it, but step back a few feet and it turns into a blurry mess.
Judging by the videos we've seen so far, it doesn't look like Halo 4's textures are horrible by any extent.
Demoncarnotaur
Member
Really cool feel to this, I assume it will run in the pre-trailer ad area, and will honestly get a lot of attention and hype. The game looks fantastic in the short bits they showed, too bad there wasn't more. I really hope we can get a direct feed of this, or at least the gameplay footage.
That said, I was hoping for more of a traditional trailer that showcased the story/graphics/features etc., which is something Halo 4 currently needs. Here's hoping they have something like that planned for future release, both for online and theatrical distribution.
That said, I was hoping for more of a traditional trailer that showcased the story/graphics/features etc., which is something Halo 4 currently needs. Here's hoping they have something like that planned for future release, both for online and theatrical distribution.
TUROK
Member
I noticed one possible trade-off during the E3 trailer.
Look at the sky pillars and the far away hillsides. They look 2D. The 3D skyboxes seem like they have been massively downscaled in comparison to Halo Reach.
Same thing here for the far away mountains and foliage. Looks 2D as well.
What was awesome about Halo Reach is that far away elements like these would be 3D, giving the game a MASSIVE feeling of scale.
Yep, the texture work was phenomenal. Halo 3 would have looked much better with some AF.
Not a Jellyfish
but I am a sheep
It is all about resources and how to best use the power of the aging tech, not 3D skyboxes but still awesome looking and gives me an epic feeling...
But they look like crap. Go play Oni Swordbase and look at the military buildings in the distance. They literaly look like ps1 level of graphics.
That completely ruined any sense of scale to me
TUROK
Member
Well yeah, they're far away elements the player will never interact with. They only look bad when you're zooming into them. Same as 2D skyboxes. They start to look pixelated when you zoom into them.
These buildings don't look bad at all.
That's the one thing I don't like. These soft kill barriers that won't allow you to explore.
I still remember Delta Halo in Halo 2. Driving on the mountains, around the back of the entire level with a ghost.
Guess it's a sacrifice you have to make if you want this kind of graphic quality.
NullPointer
Member
Doesn't Just Cause 2 do something like this with landscapes in the distance? Looks phenomenal.