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Halo Reach Reveal Thread - Matchmaking/Multiplayer Details Revealed

Blueblur1

Member
HaloGAF'ers that plan on attending PAX East: I plan on organizing a meet-up via Google Wave. Message me for my info or for a Wave invite.
 

Safe Bet

Banned
Nutter said:
Besides dont you have to memorize some more Halo cutscenes.
n4tgmd1.gif
 

Frenck

Banned
dilatedmuscle said:
What exactly is a "dynamic light" is it a light that casts shadows or is it a light that lights up characters when they go near it?

Could be both but since plasma projectiles lighted up characters in past Halo games too I guess that they will also cast shadows this time around which in my opinion is a waste of resources since no one is going to notice it anyway.
 

Kapura

Banned
Frenck said:
Could be both but since plasma projectiles lighted up characters in past Halo games too I guess that they will also cast shadows this time around which in my opinion is a waste of resources since no one is going to notice it anyway.
Gonna need to disagree with you there. I noticed it in COD4. I remember playing on Crossfire looking across the map through a scope to another sniper spot, then seeing the shadow of a dude run across it. It was truly a "woah" moment, and it's super badass.
 
Kapura said:
Gonna need to disagree with you there. I noticed it in COD4. I remember playing on Crossfire looking across the map through a scope to another sniper spot, then seeing the shadow of a dude run across it. It was truly a "woah" moment, and it's super badass.

That is pretty awesome. I love seing good cast shadows. Mass Effect 2 often has two cast shadows on characters during dialogue but you can tell during gameplay when the shadows switch from lightsource to light source as oppose to transitioning realistically from multiple lights at once.
 

Frenck

Banned
Kapura said:
Gonna need to disagree with you there. I noticed it in COD4. I remember playing on Crossfire looking across the map through a scope to another sniper spot, then seeing the shadow of a dude run across it. It was truly a "woah" moment, and it's super badass.

That sounds pretty cool but before Bungie includes something like that they should get rid of burned in shadowmaps first. The two lighting solutions just don't work well together.
 
Frenck said:
That sounds pretty cool but before Bungie includes something like that they should get rid of burned in shadowmaps first. The two lighting solutions just don't work well together.

I think cast shadows help realism more then the fake shadows in maps. This may help the awkward looking forge compilations where objects are shaded based on materials instead of being illuminated by lightsources.... But then again Real-time lighting or whatever its called is the best way to go but it chews up a lot of resources.
 

Frenck

Banned
dilatedmuscle said:
I think cast shadows help realism more then the fake shadows in maps. This may help the awkward looking forge compilations where objects are shaded based on materials instead of being illuminated by lightsources.... But then again Real-time lighting or whatever its called is the best way to go but it chews up a lot of resources.

You're right. I prefer real time shadows too even if they look a bit blocky and low res compared to baked in shadow maps. The problem is that they don't go well together. If all the immovable objects have baked in shadows but your gun fires projectiles that cast real time shadows you're going to end up with an image that doesn't look right and both effects are destroyed in the process.

I'm not a fan of games that use multiple lighting solutions at the same time. I'm not sure how Reach handles this but so far it looks like it will have baked in shadows for buildings, trees and other solid objects that can't be interacted with or moved by the player while characters, crates, decorators and vehicles cast real time shadows and feature self shadowing.
 
Frenck said:
You're right. I prefer real time shadows too even if they look a bit blocky and low res compared to baked in shadow maps. The problem is that they don't go well together. If all the immovable objects have baked in shadows but your gun fires projectiles that cast real time shadows you're going to end up with an image that doesn't look right and both effects are destroyed in the process.

I'm not a fan of games that use multiple lighting solutions at the same time. I'm not sure how Reach handles this but so far it looks like it will have baked in shadows for buildings, trees and other solid objects that can't be interacted with or moved by the player while characters, crates, decorators and vehicles cast real time shadows and feature self shadowing.

Thats true... I cant wait until developers get their hands on technology to make their realtime games look like the uncharted 2 cutscenes

2lxgifm.jpg


I loved the quality of the cutscenes but i dont like the Uncharted art style, would be cool if Halo or Mass Effect had something like that with their own awesome art style.
 

Frenck

Banned
dilatedmuscle said:
Thats true... I cant wait until developers get their hands on technology to make their realtime games look like the uncharted 2 cutscenes

*awesome pic*

I loved the quality of the cutscenes but i dont like the Uncharted art style, would be cool if Halo or Mass Effect had something like that with their own awesome art style.

If we're only talking about lighting and not texture quality or polycount I'd say Alan Wake is up there.
 

Kapura

Banned
dilatedmuscle said:
Thats true... I cant wait until developers get their hands on technology to make their realtime games look like the uncharted 2 cutscenes

image goes here

I loved the quality of the cutscenes but i dont like the Uncharted art style, would be cool if Halo or Mass Effect had something like that with their own awesome art style.
While that is very nice looking, it's important to remember that the PS3 has some serious hardware backing it up that the Xbox physically can't match. I don't know how far that is pushing the PS3 tech or how far Reach will be able to go on the 360, but in general PS3 games should look better than 360 games.
 

Frenck

Banned
Kapura said:
While that is very nice looking, it's important to remember that the PS3 has some serious hardware backing it up that the Xbox physically can't match. I don't know how far that is pushing the PS3 tech or how far Reach will be able to go on the 360, but in general PS3 games should look better than 360 games.

I think Alan Wake is the best looking game the 360 is capable of. There is still some room for other devs to improve on their current efforts but I think Alan Wake might be the technical ceiling. The PS3 obviously hasn't reached that ceiling yet and I bet we will see some games late in its life cycle that will blow Killzone 2 and Uncharted 2 out of the water.
 

JSRT

Banned
Frenck said:
I think Alan Wake is the best looking game the 360 is capable of. There is still some room for other devs to improve on their current efforts but I think Alan Wake might be the technical ceiling.

Based on what exactly? I remember at one point people were saying the 360 hit a ceiling after Gears of War, now its Alan Wake?
 

Frenck

Banned
JSRT said:
Based on what exactly? I remember at one point people were saying the 360 hit a ceiling after Gears of War, now its Alan Wake?

Just based on the general graphical quality of announced 360 exclusives. Reach will probably squeeze every last bit of power from the 360 and so will Alan Wake.

I never thought Gears or even Gears 2 were the graphical ceiling that the 360 was capable of. Of course I would love for some secret, unnannounced 360 game to prove me wrong but I don't see that happening.
 

enzo_gt

tagged by Blackace
dilatedmuscle said:
Thats true... I cant wait until developers get their hands on technology to make their realtime games look like the uncharted 2 cutscenes

2lxgifm.jpg


I loved the quality of the cutscenes but i dont like the Uncharted art style, would be cool if Halo or Mass Effect had something like that with their own awesome art style.
Excuse me for being quite uninformed but HOLY SHIT I did not know Uncharted 2 looked that good.
 

JSRT

Banned
Frenck said:
Just based on the general graphical quality of announced 360 exclusives. Reach will probably squeeze every last bit of power from the 360 and so will Alan Wake.

I never thought Gears or even Gears 2 were the graphical ceiling that the 360 was capable of. Of course I would love for some secret, unnannounced 360 game to prove me wrong but I don't see that happening.

Are you a developer? Because if not how exactly can you know for sure how much power Halo or any other game is "squeezing" out of the 360. From what i've played of UC2, it doesn't do half of what Bungie is promising Reach will be pulling off. ( 40 AI, 20 vehicles on screen at once saved films etc) If it were it surely wouldn't be sporting the graphical quality that it does. I'm no dev but i at least realize that much.
 

scently

Member
JSRT said:
Are you a developer? Because if not how exactly can you know for sure how much power Halo or any other game is "squeezing" out of the 360. From what i've played of UC2, it doesn't do half of what Bungie is promising Reach will be pulling off. ( 40 AI, 20 vehicles on screen at once saved films etc) If it were it surely wouldn't be sporting the graphical quality that it does. I'm no dev but i at least realize that much.
Exactly, I just don't know why someone would compare UC2 and Halo reach, its just beyond me.
 
Justinian said:
Isn't that a cinematic pre-rendered in the game engine? Correct me if I'm wrong?

Yeah. its either pre-rendered or they are in engine but not realtime (same thing?), the actual game looks phenominal but the Cutscenes look substantially better.... looks like they have sub surface light scattering,occlusion, real-time lighting, light bouncing and all that good stuff. MGS4's cutscenes are also substantially better, insanely high polycount during cutscenes even when you can control the camera and zoom in on their faces.

I didnt mean to bring UC2 into the thread. Im just saying i cant wait until these developers get their hands on some higher spec tech, most likely by the future generation console. I hope microsoft announces a new console within 2 years because these consoles can only go so far. New art styles and engine tricks will always improve but it will be a give and take of resource management. Im starting to see the 360's age in everygame now, im still impressed but i find myself having to turn a blind eye to technical downfalls. I been playing ME2 a lot and even though it looks A LOT better then the first and better then most 360 titles, the armor and some wall textures look early 360 or last gen even.

We been talking about reach's possible resource "give and take" this whole time. Some wishing they implement one technical attribute over another and vice versa. If it were a new generation they may not be having these issues and they could implement all the sweet sweet goodness that is the future of realtime graphics, features and scope.
 
scently said:
The next generation of consoles will still leave you wanting more. As for me, I don't mind another 3 years of this gen.
Yeah, but if they bring us remastered Halo 1-3 + ODST at full HD 60fps I'll weep tears of ultimate fucking joy.

CrazedArabMan said:
All we need is a remade Halo 1 with 4 player co-op and maybe a few extra levels and I'll be happy
OK, I'd be willing to settle for this. Make it happen Bungie/343/Gearbox/Epic/Whoever. Do it because you love us.
 

Justinian

Member
NullPointer said:
Yeah, but if they bring us remastered Halo 1-3 + ODST at full HD 60fps I'll weep tears of ultimate fucking joy.

Halo 1 remastered would be a fucking joy for sure. If they preserve or refine the gameplay slightly, while remaking the levels as they initially intended it would be awesome.

Think of the Library being excised or redone as it was meant to be, or having the later levels look the way they were meant to.
 
scently said:
The next generation of consoles will still leave you wanting more. As for me, I don't mind another 3 years of this gen.

Not necessarily. i dont see much of a problem with games like uncharted or Crysis. I feel like the next leap in generation will be a sweet spot where there will be games that look really close to CG and the crappier graphics games will look like uncharted or so. Its just really hard to look at such poor textures sometimes. These consoles are close. The new post processing effects have been kick ass in games like GOW2 and Alan Wake (they show them off well IMO even though GOW2 is unpolished). Polygons are higher with smoother framerates, things are getting awesome but they are putting prettier make up on limited hardware. The developers' creativity is still held back a lot.

Crysis came out in 2007.. it still looks phenominal, i dont have a problem with games looking like that for another 3 years. They say that the new cryengine on consoles (360) will look even better... im sure there are going to be new engine techniques but im sure it will still be noticeably low spec compared to the previous games we have seen on PC.

CrazedArabMan said:
All we need is a remade Halo 1 with 4 player co-op and maybe a few extra levels and I'll be happy

it would have to be an XBL title. We need to admit that even though that game holds up to/exceeds todays standard, implementing curreng generation featureas (AI, number of on screen characters, physics, assets like trees and other stuff) will end up changing the game a lot more then one would expect. And leaving it as is wouldnt fly at retail but would flourish through digital distribution.
 
dilatedmuscle said:
Thats true... I cant wait until developers get their hands on technology to make their realtime games look like the uncharted 2 cutscenes

http://i33.tinypic.com/2lxgifm.jpg[/IM

I loved the quality of the cutscenes but i dont like the Uncharted art style, would be cool if Halo or Mass Effect had something like that with their own awesome art style.[/QUOTE]
Speaking only in terms of cinematic quality, Mass Effect 2 is better than Uncharted 2.
 
Dax01 said:
Speaking only in terms of cinematic quality, Mass Effect 2 is better than Uncharted 2.
Really? Why do you say that?
I'd certainly say Mass Effect 2 is a better "game", but I don't see how it it's cinematic-ly better.
 

Frenck

Banned
JSRT said:
Are you a developer? Because if not how exactly can you know for sure how much power Halo or any other game is "squeezing" out of the 360. From what i've played of UC2, it doesn't do half of what Bungie is promising Reach will be pulling off. ( 40 AI, 20 vehicles on screen at once saved films etc) If it were it surely wouldn't be sporting the graphical quality that it does. I'm no dev but i at least realize that much.

I'm not comparing UC2 and Halo Reach. Naughty Dog clearly used the power that the PS3 affords for different things and I think Reach looks astonishing if you consider how much Bungie increased the scale while maintaining full feature parity with Halo 3. While I'm not a dev I have good eyesight and a quick look at the exclusives about to be released in 2010 tells me that the PS3 has seen/will see significant graphical improvements in several games while the only 360 exclusive that could, purely from a graphics standpoint, compete toe to toe with the best the PS3 has to offer is Alan Wake.

I don't mean to be hostile and I don't want to start system wars bullshit in here but I think that the PS3 has significantly more headroom left than the 360 and we are already starting to see more multiplatform games that lead on the PS3 because the devs know by now how to get good results out of the hardware.

As I said before I'd love to be wrong but I'm just not seeing it. It doesn't matter all that much anyway since Reach is still my most wanted game of 2010, at least until we get some details about the AC 2 sequel that will hit this year :D
 

kylej

Banned
Good lord the Mass Effect 2 skyboxes and environments are unbelievable. Makes me sad to see more spools of wire in Reach screenshots. Bungie artists please utilize the potential of your universe!
 
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