SSR basically wasn't a thing when Halo 3 was made. Thankfully.
The plague continues to spread...
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Halo |OT 23| Thruster is Love, Thruster is Life
- Thread starter VisceralBowl
- Start date
The plague continues to spread...
VisceralBowl
Member
It's a way of accomplishing real-time reflections.
When a game renders a frame, it doesn't just generate the 2D image, it also generates a "depth buffer" that tells you how far from the camera the object/surface/whatever at each pixel is. The rendered image and the depth buffer together comprise a rough (and extremely limited) 3D description of the scene as seen by the camera.
You can determine reflections for surfaces fairly efficiently by "ray tracing" (or some rough approximation to it) this 3D description of the scene. But it's horribly unstable due to the fact that it can only make use of on-screen information. Look down? Reflection of skybox content wipes off a reflective surface. Object moves in front of reflected object? Reflection vanishes with quite a lot of jank.
For instance, here's some SSR in Destiny when you look up and down:
It's a very popular technique, and some people love it. Personally I think it often looks a lot sloppier than simply not having real-time reflections, at least outside of stuff like racing games where the camera behavior usually keeps it working well and without lots of visual instabilities.
I wouldn't go that far. It's extremely limited, but like anything else, there's good implementations and bad implementations. Used on the right objects in the right scenarios, and it can be pretty darn cool.
We're not going to be seeing accurate global ray tracing in real time in mainstream games anytime soon, so personally I think it's cool that SSR provides an approximation that manages to look good at times. The Banshee reflecting off the inside of the walls on Valhalla there looks fantastic, as does some of the light bouncing off the walls and onto the floor in the other shot.
Technology isn't objectively evil, it's a matter of how you use it. Well, except for chromatic aberration. That crap sucks.
JumPeRJumPzZ
Banned
Is there a place to get Halo:Online now?
This has probably been brought up before (I just haven't been studiously lurking like I used to), but why is Halo's core gameplay getting changed? You've got games like Call of Duty and Counter Strike:GO, the latter of which has not changed its core game-play in a longer time than the Halo series has been out, getting way bigger player populations and competitive audiences.
Clean, modern, good lighting, but with color, contrast, and no awful filters.
Can we get these guys to do H5 instead?
NobleGundam
Banned
Thats the map shown in the trailer. It's massive in scale.
Looks like SSR has been added to Halo Online. I don't recall OG Halo 3 shipping with them.
They also added some form of dynamic AO.
I've never seen an implementation that looks particularly clean for instances where there's a fairly free camera. Driveclub's is phenomenal in gameplay, but it's one of the ugliest implementations out there when you're moving the camera around in photomode.
Stuff like Second Son and Halo 2 Anniversary don't look very artifacty, but they're also extremely conservative to the point that some people think that the former doesn't even have screen-space reflections.
In a lot of cases, "good implementation" is a mythical creature that would realistically require throwing so much extra information at the algorithm that it couldn't really be called "screen space" any more.
There are alternatives, though. For fairly rough surfaces, world-space cone tracing according to a directional lightmap can give excellent results (see: everything other than mirrors in The Order 1886). In certain specific cases involving flat surfaces when you've got decent graphical headroom, planar reflections can give mind-bogglingly cool results (see: Halo 1's control room). Then there's stuff like Tomorrow Children's crazy real-time light and occlusion volume stuff, although I don't know how popular that will be as it's a pretty heavy approach that a game would have to holistically commit to; it's very general-purpose, although it doesn't capture high-frequency behaviors.
But my real issue is that just not worrying about it can often look better to my eyes than SSR.
Yes, when the scene isn't in motion so you can't see the bizarre behavior from one frame to the next, and when the camera is nicely aligned to capture most of what should be getting reflected.
NobleGundam
Banned
That sky box though
JumPeRJumPzZ
Banned
Thats a thing i always dont get. People hate on CoD because it plays the same. but why? It looks more likely because of that, that the game is still very successful.
Cant say the same for Halo since Halo Reach. I always read this statement from people that Halo needs to change. But why?
Poodlestrike
Banned
You'll get a lot of different answers. Personally, I don't think they've ever really *nailed* Halo's gameplay in a way that makes it sacrosanct; every game's had its own host of issues. If 343 wants to try and improve on things, I don't see any problem with that, in and of itself.
Other possible options include:
LOL chasing COD
343 hates Halo
343 hates you, personally.
etc.
Welfare
Member
Justification to play CoD with a Halo skin.
Halo CE's engine nailed Halo gameplay imo, issues with jumping were cleaned up in Halo 2, but that could have been applied to Halo CE's engine, instead of building a new and worse one for Halo 2.
I think there is a good amount that could have been added onto and changed based off the CE engine, but Bungie just kept making new engines for Halo, instead of iterating on the first one that worked best. I think that is the main problem with the series, and why now, it is so open to change and reacting to the market like it is.
Poodlestrike
Banned
How much of that is engine-dependent, though? You can get identical (or nigh-identical) gameplay out of different engines.
I'd agree with CE coming closest, but generally when people are bitching about "OMG they changed Halo, now it sucks," they're not talking about CE
Can we please post where we are finding this information? Like a link to the 4Chan thread or wherever this is being posted on?
Looks like SSR has been added to Halo Online. I don't recall OG Halo 3 shipping with them.
It only really came about after Crysis 2 DX11 patch. Before that it was some graphics coders pet algorithm on some forum.
The new menus and whatnot We're forced to display in Russian, but the English strings were all in there. Someone found the bits responsible for the Russian language force, changed them, and the UI is in English using the English strings.
Here's the GitHub page for the loader.
thats not really a source for what your talking about.
i'm coming around to it since BFHardline's implementation isn't terrible (Contact hardening!!!)
It's a way of accomplishing real-time reflections.
When a game renders a frame, it doesn't just generate the 2D image, it also generates a "depth buffer" that tells you how far from the camera the object/surface/whatever at each pixel is. The rendered image and the depth buffer together comprise a rough (and extremely limited) 3D description of the scene as seen by the camera.
You can determine reflections for surfaces fairly efficiently by "ray tracing" (or some rough approximation to it) this 3D description of the scene. But it's horribly unstable due to the fact that it can only make use of on-screen information. Look down? Reflection of skybox content wipes off a reflective surface. Object moves in front of reflected object? Reflection vanishes with quite a lot of jank.
For instance, here's some SSR in Destiny when you look up and down:
It's a very popular technique, and some people love it. Personally I think it often looks a lot sloppier than simply not having real-time reflections, at least outside of stuff like racing games where the camera behavior usually keeps it working well and without lots of visual instabilities.
They need to come up with a way to cache the reflections for later referenceing when there is occlusion. (I saw some research in this recently, ill have to find a link to the video)
that, or a good reflection inpainting algorithm. lots of wierd halos around foreground objects in Bf Hardline, but they dont cause to much of a problem since the reflections are so diffuse/blurry. inpainting would work pretty well for this I think. Crysis 3 already did it to inpaint occlusion for its post process 3D support.
lolwut at that last part.
ssr in Halo 3 probably isn't going to be backed up with anything like parralax corrected cube maps to make up for its shortcomings. though it will likely always look good on that needler!
DAT FOV
again though, source please. where are they posting about this?
I've never seen an implementation that looks particularly clean for instances where there's a fairly free camera. Driveclub's is phenomenal in gameplay, but it's one of the ugliest implementations out there when you're moving the camera around in photomode.
Stuff like Second Son and Halo 2 Anniversary don't look very artifacty, but they're also extremely conservative to the point that some people think that the former doesn't even have screen-space reflections.
In a lot of cases, "good implementation" is a mythical creature that would realistically require throwing so much extra information at the algorithm that it couldn't really be called "screen space" any more.
There are alternatives, though. For fairly rough surfaces, world-space cone tracing according to a directional lightmap can give excellent results (see: everything other than mirrors in The Order 1886). In certain specific cases involving flat surfaces when you've got decent graphical headroom, planar reflections can give mind-bogglingly cool results (see: Halo 1's control room). Then there's stuff like Tomorrow Children's crazy real-time light and occlusion volume stuff, although I don't know how popular that will be as it's a pretty heavy approach that a game would have to holistically commit to; it's very general-purpose, although it doesn't capture high-frequency behaviors.
But my real issue is that just not worrying about it can often look better to my eyes than SSR.
Yes, when the scene isn't in motion so you can't see the bizarre behavior from one frame to the next, and when the camera is nicely aligned to capture most of what should be getting reflected.
huh, I wasn't aware the Order was doing anything like that, ill have to see if I can find more about it. I did like their material/asset-texturing pipeline. Its like substance designer before substance designer. Drive club does do it really well.
These new maps are gorgeous. Thanks Visceral.
Hadn't even thought of this as an opportunity for that kind of thing.
Though the interview would probably just consist of Del Rio bitching about Chief eating the last bag of chips on the ship.
I'd rather not pay $60 for the same game with just prettier graphics every 1-3 years (remakes usually cost $40 so it's coo'). A good sequel (IMHO) uses the success of the original as a jumping point to explore new ideas whilst still holding true to the core.
Halo may have stumbled here and there, but I've loved something from every one of them. Even Halo 4 had some good ideas like the Rail Gun and Thruster Pack.
Variety is the spice of life
It'd be nice to see what's become of Del Rio.
Hadn't even thought of this as an opportunity for that kind of thing.
Though the interview would probably just consist of Del Rio bitching about Chief eating the last bag of chips on the ship.
lol
Close games are the best games
Camo disappoints me
HaloGAF is better than school
Because it stifles innovation and leads to stagnation.
I'd rather not pay $60 for the same game with just prettier graphics every 1-3 years (remakes usually cost $40 so it's coo'). A good sequel (IMHO) uses the success of the original as a jumping point to explore new ideas whilst still holding true to the core.
Halo may have stumbled here and there, but I've loved something from every one of them. Even Halo 4 had some good ideas like the Rail Gun and Thruster Pack.
Variety is the spice of life
Doubt it
Game is probably already done, but they're waiting for the September/November Q4 period to release it. Just look how polished the beta was. No way they'd need to delay it. 3+ years is enough time.
Poodlestrike
Banned
I wouldn't go that far. I suspect they're still building content and polishing that, doing technical work (doubt they're shipping at 720p). Still, it's likely to be super polished by launch.
Welfare
Member
MS winning the holidays now.
Gnome Scat
Member
3 year rotation, it'll be fine.
Twin Tails
Member
fresh
I'm not sure if the method is exactly cone tracing, but they actually take capsule occlusion into account when calculating the specular response.
Source
Still need to wait for that inevitable PS4 price drop.
Paul "4 bucks an hour" Hydranockz.
Slightly Live
Dirty tag dodger
The beta is Russian only and starts sometime in Spring.
Where are all these screens/videos coming from?
holy shit, this is some halo 4 ass halo 3 mod. valhalla with sprint destroys the map, I can vault myself onto the bases with a single jump. the banshee flys fast as hell. I want to try this hitscan BR, its wierd. Its got visual bloom too, I cant tell if it affects anything acuracy wise.
valhalla still fades the grass about 30 feet in front of me even though my last odd PC would be more than capable or rendering it all at once. the water tesselates into infinity though, so its really aliasy. lighting looks weird, like more washed out than the xbone version.
valhalla still fades the grass about 30 feet in front of me even though my last odd PC would be more than capable or rendering it all at once. the water tesselates into infinity though, so its really aliasy. lighting looks weird, like more washed out than the xbone version.
VisceralBowl
Member
Yesterday there was a small window where the official installer worked.
And now some people who managed to grab it are reuploading the files.
Kinda of like the hornet patrolling Skyline? Are both maps set in Mombasa?
I like the look of the new maps but people saying these look better than the H2A or H5 maps are insane.
i would absolutely vote crappy smg starts h2 over anything halo 3
H2A had a color problem and there is that 53% stat for blue team on a map for H5. Maps are not just about making good designs, its the most important part but looks are another big thing.
H2A color problem? Can you give me some more details, I would like to know.
H5 is an incomplete product though (52.55% btw lol). Not 100% fair but I get your point. It's a statistically significant deviation from 50-50 over the 20 million matches played and should be examined as they move forward.
I could easily see the new Turf remake gives blue team a distinct advantage.
Woooooooooowwwww bad opinion train in town I see
that being said i'm likely to vote CE above EVERYTHING