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[Captain Blood]

I didn't get the message, but there's a guy across the street in a Halo t-shirt looking through my window with a pair of binoculars. Hmm . . .

Is he wearing a home made flight helmet?!?

 

[vhfive]

i also got that message. plus another one

Hey bro I was just wondering if you could plz give me a chance to be your friend......I'm a really cool and nice guy

he's called me bro twice now...


must. resist. urge. to accept.

 

[Stormtrooper30]

How much is a subscription to Edge in US dollars? I don't want to throw pounds of cash at it.

This thread moves too fast for me. Since there is the health system from HCE, I hope both the shield and health regenerate. The shield would regenerate at the normal rate and the health could regenerate at a slower, more constant rate. This would settle all the bitching about health packs. I've always wanted this because if I am winning a firefight at mid range then the enemy can just bug out and be fully healed in 5 seconds. It's like I wasted my bullets. If the health responded at a slow rate then I could go chase his ass down and have the advantage because I earned it.

 

[Blueblur1]

It's pricey, but very much worth it, IMO. Pick up the new Reach issue and see what you think; Borders and B&N usually carry them.

That's what I plan on doing.

 

[Why For?]

This is the sort of stuff that worries me.

From the Eurogamer article:

There's a new weather system, and Bungie has made the sky into a real object that ships can descend out of and onto the planet from.

This sort of stuff is cool and all, but isn't the sort of thing that will take up processing power rather unnecassarily? It's not like people will notice that kind of stuff.

Same way no one noticed how all the backgrounds in Halo 3 were using real geometry. No one noticed or cared, and yet it potentially took away from processing power that could have been utilised better elsewhere.

Or am I misunderstanding something here?

 

[EazyB]

Got an interesting message on xbox live.

I asked who he was just in case he was a lurking gaffer then his true identity was revealed.

Spoiler

Looks like we found EazyB's alt.

:lol

Low and behold I got the same message:

Hey bro I was just wonderin if you wanted to be friends....I'm really Cool and Nice.....I'm also friends with some pretty famous and Well Know people in the Bungie Community including BNG Employee's....Your free to Check my Friends List out...

But I checked his friends list and the only famous person I saw on there was TJ SkuII and I assume that's you.

I'll send him a message to see what he says

 

[Domino Theory]

Yeah I got the same from him, but like a few months ago. :lol

Don't know why he started this new sharade now.

 

[Kibbles]

Been trying to replicate the HUD from the available pic... (so need a direct feed screen) this is what I got so far.

Nevermind the Health bar, screwed up and I'm too lazy to try and fix it. I also forgot to change my photoshop thing to Monitor RGB which for some reason I have to do now with CS3, so colors turned out a bit more orange than I expected.

 

[Slightly Live]

Been trying to replicate the HUD from the available pic... (so need a direct feed screen) this is what I got so far.

Nevermind the Health bar, screwed up and I'm too lazy to try and fix it. I also forgot to change my photoshop thing to Monitor RGB which for some reason I have to do now with CS3, so colors turned out a bit more orange than I expected.

You forgot to add that second widget above the radar with the next gen blurring effect. =P

 

[Sai-kun]

I reeeeallly like the new radar

 

[Kibbles]

You forgot to add that second widget above the radar with the next gen blurring effect. =P

You're right. Updated.

 

[Merguson]

The layout is superb, they take the subject they cover seriously, the writing is almost uniformly excellent, the materials are top notch (/packaging snob). It's the only mag of any sort I subscribe to, in part because they manage to make stuff I'm not interested in enjoyable to read about. I end up reading most issues cover to cover, and since they're aways pretty hefty, I space that out over a week or more.

It's pricey, but very much worth it, IMO. Pick up the new Reach issue and see what you think; Borders and B&N usually carry them.

Sounds like a plan, I'll pick it up when it eventually hits Chapters (Canadian equivalent of Borders and B&N basically). Thanks to everyone for the timely responses.

 

[Blueblur1]

You're right. Updated.

http://i49.tinypic.com/10dgjgw.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]
:lol :lol

 

[Littleberu]

This sort of stuff is cool and all, but isn't the sort of thing that will take up processing power rather unnecassarily? It's not like people will notice that kind of stuff.

Same way no one noticed how all the backgrounds in Halo 3 were using real geometry. No one noticed or cared, and yet it potentially took away from processing power that could have been utilised better elsewhere.

Or am I misunderstanding something here?

They never said it always will be rendered or processed. Games are optimized in a way we might not understand, so leave it at that.

 

[Slightly Live]

The health bar is a pain in the ass. Maybe I just suck at PS. =(

Was trying to add some for your image.

Updated. A hate the amount of effort it takes. So much respect for folks that do this for a living.

 

[Ramirez]

Holy fuck, live and let live. It's just videogame, so why does it matter if they are bad at it or not? If you don't enjoy aspect(s) of a videogame someone else does, fine, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it. You are not, however, entitled to put anyone down for enjoying something you don't enjoy. Especially when you type it up in such a way that it's an insult that will have measurable consequences in real-life.

Don't be so butt-hurt about it.


Agree with this post. It's why I enjoyed ODST's gameplay so much with the removal of the BR.

As long as you know that you're terrible, it's all good.

Ghaleon, the fact that the 45-50 population is so low is exactly what I was getting at, the majority of players suck, and when people suck at Halo, the AR is effective.

 

[Butane123]

TW0 NASTY guy...

Heh, got one from the same guy tonight. Said I was friends with him before. Never heard of him

I usually get quite a few from B.net, but this is the first I have seen from here.

 

[Son of Godzilla]

Heh, got one from the same guy tonight. Said I was friends with him before. Never heard of him

I usually get quite a few from B.net, but this is the first I have seen from here.

Ya'll can expect to very soon wake up in a bath tub full of ice tub chained to the faucet and your kidney missing. Social Engineering has come a long way.

 

[Thermite]

You're right. Updated.

[/QUOTE]

Oonsk Twins final boss confirmed?

 

[Slightly Live]

Ya'll can expect to very soon wake up in a bath tub full of ice tub chained to the faucet and your kidney missing. Social Engineering has come a long way.

It's probably some kid stalking Bnet and Live profiles to see if he can score some Bungie folks on his FL for bragging rights.

They seem to pop up every month.

 

[big ander]

Oonsk Twins final boss confirmed?

They'd be harder than 343GS.

 

[duk]

Oonsk Twins final boss confirmed?

pre-orders

Oosnk LE action figure packed in?

 

[Stormtrooper30]

They'd be harder than 343GS.

Ice cream in July is harder than 343.

 

[Slightly Live]

I h8 U kibbles. A few hours of my life gone.

 

[Domino Theory]

I just got my GI issue in the mail today and I have to say: you guys really need to check out a hard copy for yourselves. The scans leaked online don't do the pictures ANY justice. All the excessive glare is causing those pictures to lose detail.

When you look at the scans straight from the magazine (what I'm doing right now), they look SUPERB and damn near close to the VGA trailer, especially the picture of the AR being fired in FP view.

Oh and if this amounts to anything: If what I'm seeing from that AR-in-first-person-view picture is correct, then the AR's clip has been reduced from 32 to 28.

 

[Slightly Live]

Oh and if this amounts to anything: If what I'm seeing from that AR-in-first-person-view picture is correct, then the AR's clip has been reduced from 32 to 28.

Correct. The image shows a full clipped AR with 28 rounds in the upper right hand corner in addition to big neon number painted on the back of the weapon itself.

AR slightly beefed up as a result?

As a note, it seems the leak build and the GI build are seperate. The leak build's radar is flat (like Halo 3'S) while the GI build is on forwarded plane with additional height lines to show if enemy are on a higher or lower plane than the player.

I think this showcases Reach's development just a tiny bit and how they are are slowly removing the placeholder material.

Also, I wonder if Bungie will let the public hear the Halo 3/Reach weapon sound comparisons. Really happy to know that they have been re-recorded and beefed up.

 

[scently]

I just got my GI issue in the mail today and I have to say: you guys really need to check out a hard copy for yourselves. The scans leaked online don't do the pictures ANY justice. All the excessive glare is causing those pictures to lose detail.

When you look at the scans straight from the magazine (what I'm doing right now), they look SUPERB and damn near close to the VGA trailer, especially the picture of the AR being fired in FP view.

Oh and if this amounts to anything: If what I'm seeing from that AR-in-first-person-view picture is correct, then the AR's clip has been reduced from 32 to 28.

Pls can you give us a transcript of the tech article? pleease

 

[Domino Theory]

Pls can you give us a transcript of the tech article? pleease

• "We basically hit every single piece of the engine, making things better across the board"
  
• New tech engine starts with a refined approach to distance and detail that allows for a dramatically expanded number of enemies, light sources and other details.
  
• The engine is an "imposter" engine using a smart, yet common programming technique for the engine and the new LOD system.
  
• There can be a large amount of "imposter" objects both far and close to the player. Far objects still look greatly detailed despite having low polygon counts and cheap shaders (at a distance). They look much more detailed the closer the object is to you. "Imposter" objects that are really close to you are SUPER detailed with much clarity.
  
• Adding all these objects (vehicles, enemies, buildings, scenery, etc.) don't take a profound hit to the system because of the technique they're using.
  
• The imposter system frees up memory that Bungie can use for other in-game enhancements, the first of which is lighting.
  
• Halo: Reach can have 20-40 dynamic light sources at one time, the most notable of which are on weapon effects.
  
• "As plasma bolts come searing past, they move across the screen with each plasma bolt having its own independent light source, casting color and shadow about the space to remarkable effect."

 

[Slightly Live]

I was just going to add some stuff to the OP, here's some extra bits, which will be added to OP.

• Refined approach to distance and detail
• Allows dramatically expanded number of enemies, light sources and other details
• Described as "imposter tech"
• Level of Detail (LOD) system allows building of bigger and more populated spaces for exploration
• Distant objects are rendered at low poly with cheaper shaders, ie "imposters"
• Imposter look great at distance and detail increases the closer you get to them
• Less chance of pop-up and stippling as environmental geometry, plants, buildings, enemies or anything else can be placed into the visual field at the same extreme distances without profound hit to system performance
• At extreme close range items can be rendered with incredible detail, ie, a wall was shown from inches away with tiny rivet features in the metal popped on the screen with perfect clarity
• Imposter system indirectly frees up memory which can be devoted to other technical aspects
• Lighting being one of those aspects
• From Halo 3's 3 or 4 light sources, Reach's engine presents 20 to 40 dynamic lights at the same time
• Weapon effects benefit greatly from the improved lighting, ie Plasma bolts moving across the screen with their own independent light source, casting colour and shadow across the environment
• More improved lighting examples, a Warthog gun firing at a wall with hundred of real sparks flying from the stone, the particles interact not just with the wall geometry, but with it's normal map additionally, the particles scatter down onto a nearby vehicle and react with its curves and lines, the sparks bounce and flow along the tiny textured surface
• New weather system bringing rain to many missions, adding to the atmosphere
• The sky is no longer a sky-box like past Halo games, it's a true space in the overall environment, ie a ship descends from orbit and towards you, you can watch it make the full descent as a real object would fall
• Motion capture heavily implemented, a majority of the cut-scenes based on captured actions
• On-screen characters exhibit an animation technique known as variable gait blending, when a character changes speed, ie walking to running and vice versa, the animation of walking blends seamlessly into running and then sprinting, also, when turning on a pivot, players no longer stay still and magically turn in a circle, they realistically move around the pivot with their bodies and lifting their feet in reaction
• Bungie hired company Image Metrics to aid with human faces, which now appear dramatically more lifelike than Halo's traditional potato faces

 

[Magni]

Online I can buy EDGE issues up to the January issue, or subscribe starting with the March issue. Reach will be the February one, right? Could anyone from the UK hook a brother up? =)

fake edit:

1 Year (13 issues) to Europe
£69.36
€77.31

1 Year (13 issues) to USA
£65.62
€73.14

What??? Costs twice as much as in the UK, and more to ship to Europe than to ship to the US?

 

[Truant]

So it's still the Halo 3 engine with new stuff added to it?

Kinda disappointed.

 

[∀ Narayan]

A lot of that stuff seems too good to be true.

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Slightly Live]

So it's still the Halo 3 engine with new stuff added to it?

Kinda disappointed.

smh

I am a total pleb when it comes down to video game engines and design but you sir...

Halo 3 was just the Halo 2 engine with "new stuff added", as was the jump from Unreal Engine 2 to 3.

Lazy developers, eh!

 

[danwarb]

So it's still the Halo 3 engine with new stuff added to it?

Kinda disappointed.

Not really, but you'd prefer them to throw everything away and start from nothing?

 

[Captain Blood]

It does say new engine in the OP right? smh

 

[Truant]

Not really, but you'd prefer them to throw everything away and start from nothing?

It just seemed to me like a lot of the problems I had with the Halo 3 and ODST graphics were more fundamental things, limitations due to the things they were trying to do feature wise with the games. It seems more logical to me to create something new for a game that seems to be quite different.

 

[Pudding Tame]

Bungie hired company Image Metrics to aid with human faces, which now appear dramatically more lifelike than Halo's traditional potato faces

Reach to flop in Ireland, confirmed?

 

[Magni]

It just seemed to me like a lot of the problems I had with the Halo 3 and ODST graphics were more fundamental things, limitations due to the things they were trying to do feature wise with the games. It seems more logical to me to create something new for a game that seems to be quite different.

Yeah, for the next iteration of Windows Microsoft are gonna throw away all their work from the past decade and code it entirely in brainfuck, since it's more logical to create something new for an OS that seems to be quite different.

 

[danwarb]

It just seemed to me like a lot of the problems I had with the Halo 3 and ODST graphics were more fundamental things, limitations due to the things they were trying to do feature wise with the games. It seems more logical to me to create something new for a game that seems to be quite different.

Like what? you're already promised better image quality, lighting, more stuff on screen, better effects and detail and whatever.

"We basically hit every single piece of the engine, making things better across the board."

 

[feel]

So it's still the Halo 3 engine with new stuff added to it?

Kinda disappointed.

Anyways, in other news Frankie, Flipyap and I are in talks about the Oonsk episode for Halo Legends 2.

Here's a very early sneak peak at the has-almost-nothing-of-the-looks-or-charm-of-the-original-for-the-sake-of-being-japanese-anime design of Halo Legends Oonsk:

Let me know what you guys think.
















































Just kidding, I don't care what you guys think, this thing is a go:

.

 

[DD-11]

So it's still the Halo 3 engine with new stuff added to it?

Kinda disappointed.

Maybe you shouldn't talk about things you don't understand.

 

[godhandiscen]

• "We basically hit every single piece of the engine, making things better across the board"
  
• New tech engine starts with a refined approach to distance and detail that allows for a dramatically expanded number of enemies, light sources and other details.
  
• The engine is an "imposter" engine using a smart, yet common programming technique for the engine and the new LOD system.
  
• There can be a large amount of "imposter" objects both far and close to the player. Far objects still look greatly detailed despite having low polygon counts and cheap shaders (at a distance). They look much more detailed the closer the object is to you. "Imposter" objects that are really close to you are SUPER detailed with much clarity.
  
• Adding all these objects (vehicles, enemies, buildings, scenery, etc.) don't take a profound hit to the system because of the technique they're using.
  
• The imposter system frees up memory that Bungie can use for other in-game enhancements, the first of which is lighting.
  
• Halo: Reach can have 20-40 dynamic light sources at one time, the most notable of which are on weapon effects.
  
• "As plasma bolts come searing past, they move across the screen with each plasma bolt having its own independent light source, casting color and shadow about the space to remarkable effect."

WTF? They already have the best damn lighting in the business. I would go for more geometry or AA.

 

[GhaleonEB]

WTF? They already have the best damn lighting in the business. I would go for more geometry or AA.

Oh, they did those too.

 

[danwarb]

WTF? They already have the best damn lighting in the business. I would go for more geometry or AA.

I hear there's also more geometry and AA of some sort.

 

[EazyB]

Oh, they did those too.

Yeah, but if the final product doesn't isn't 720p with clean AA then they'll have no excuse. And I better be able to create my forge maps with correct lighting for geometry I place in there are well and cool light sources. I mean having individual plasma bullets create a lighting source seems cool on paper and the tech wizards at Bungie should be really proud of themselves but there's a million other things I'd like to see in the game first so hopefully they hit those million before creating bright plasma bullets.

Here's a very early sneak peak at a has-nothing-of-what-made-the-original-good-yet-still-badass anime design of Halo Legends Oonsk:

:lol


All this Reach stuff has made playing more Halo but the more Halo 3 I play the harder the wait for Reach becomes.

 

[Ramirez]

I rag on Halo 3 a lot now a days, but when you're playing with a group it's still hands down the best game on Live.

Still gets frustrating when bullets don't register, but whateva.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Yeah, but if the final product doesn't isn't 720p with clean AA then they'll have no excuse.

Agree, though I don't care about the resolution. I care about how it looks, regardless of what they did to get there - visual fidelity needs to be a massive leap over the Halo 3 engine. But I suspect that's what you're getting at.

And I better be able to create my forge maps with correct lighting for geometry I place in there are well and cool light sources. I mean having individual plasma bullets create a lighting source seems cool on paper and the tech wizards at Bungie should be really proud of themselves but there's a million other things I'd like to see in the game first so hopefully they hit those million before creating bright plasma bullets.

We'll see. Personally, I'm setting the bar at hoping Forge is much more manageable from a UI point of view, and that we can rewind and take clips of campaign films. If they pull that off, I'm happy, as far as boosting features from Halo 3 goes.

Though I have a feeling MP in Reach is going to be a very different beast than Halo 3.

 

[DiabolicalBagel]

:lol :lol :lol

 

[EazyB]

I rag on Halo 3 a lot now a days, but when you're playing with a group it's still hands down the best game on Live.

Still gets frustrating when bullets don't register, but whateva.

Yup yup. That's the thing about Halo, it sucks ass when you're playing with randoms because there's not much in the way of solo rewards and you can hardly lone wolf it and be successful, but at the same time when you do have a decently coordinated group of people playing together the experience is phenomenal. It'll have been 3 years since Bungie released Halo 3 and it still holds up pretty damn well today, there are a few pitfalls and poor trends that could trip Reach up but no matter who it appeals to I have no doubt it'll set a new bar for online console shooters.


On a totally unrelated note. It would have been nice if GI would've reported on the grenade tosses in Reach. I doubt the grenade toss mechanic is under embargo, maybe a Bungie guy would be kind enough to just tell us. I thought ODST's forehead grenade launches were stupid as shit and really hope they don't carry it over to Reach.

]We'll see. Personally, I'm setting the bar at hoping Forge is much more manageable from a UI point of view, and that we can rewind and take clips of campaign films. If they pull that off, I'm happy, as far as boosting features from Halo 3 goes.

I don't know. I could just be getting my hopes up but I'm expecting a lot. I mean Bungie eventually tweaked forge from a weapon placer to how it exists in Sandbox. If they set out from the get-go to make forge a map creator then I don't see why it wouldn't be exponentially better.

 

[Ajemsuhgao]

I was just going to add some stuff to the OP, here's some extra bits, which will be added to OP.

• Level of Detail (LOD) system allows building of bigger and more populated spaces for exploration
• Distant objects are rendered at low poly with cheaper shaders, ie "imposters"
• Imposter look great at distance and detail increases the closer you get to them
• At extreme close range items can be rendered with incredible detail, ie, a wall was shown from inches away with tiny rivet features in the metal popped on the screen with perfect clarity

I don't get why they're stressing this so much. LOD models have been used in games for a longgggggg time. Every Halo game has used LOD models. Unless the GI people didn't really know what to say about it, and Bungie has smoothed out the LOD transitions(I remember in Halo 2, you could see one of the LOD models of Elites on New Mombasa, and I'm sure plenty of other places too).

The only bit of weirdness I remember in Halo 3 was...objects fading into view I believe? And that happened with things that weren't even that far away. Enemies didn't do this, but scenery objects like barrels and stuff did.

[*]The sky is no longer a sky-box like past Halo games, it's a true space in the overall environment, ie a ship descends from orbit and towards you, you can watch it make the full descent as a real object would fall

This was also in Halo 3. But from the VGA trailer, it seems they've done a way better job of it this time around.