new halo 3 shot

Thegodzero

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/746/746214p1.html
I despise the overlay noise on him, and the power button on his gun. Other than that it looks ok, not but as i will enjoy playing lans of it as well.

KeyserSoze

Why is his armor made of cast iron? Does Master Chief travel back in time to the 19th century in this one?

HonkyPunch

No, see, that cast iron with noise overlay?
It's next gen.
NEXT GEN.

Mark Dygert

Where is the bloom over kill? It's not next gen without it...

Thegodzero

halo 3 is steam punk baby!

IronHawk

needs some Lens Flair!
Lens flair is sooooo neXt gen.

eld

How to show off your art-assets in the worst possible way.


I can see the whole art-team scream out in a unified agonizing darthlike "Noooooooo!" as the producer went "hay guys! I just took this awesomelicious screenshot of masterchef and sent it out to the world wide interweb!"

eld

Mark Dygert

Eld, I think the difference is the first is an actual in-game screen shot and the second is pre-rendered from their "in-engine" trailer. The trailer that claimed to be 100% pure real time but not 100% pure x360. Perhaps after seeing some art backlash that happened against Gears they decided to start releasing more actual x360 screenshots rather than beauty renders from what their engine is "capable" of.

Also since when is it acceptable to select your entire mesh and assign it to one smoothing group for models like Master Chief? I like how the "rubber and plastic" is even pitted. The texture stretching is also a nice touch... That screams quality!

IronHawk

Note the mirroring of the rust where the beams meet in the background.

Is this commonplace? It looks pretty bad. I can understand mirroring to reduce the amount of textures but I cant recall seeing this in any other games and I usually look.

edit

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makes me think of the rorschach test!

- Jesse

Asmuel

Looks like poop

eld

but it seems like the same textures, same model, same normalmap, except they totally greened it up and did some horrible overbright on it.


look at the cinematic model and look at those black areas of the texture, they're completely raped in the first picture.

arshlevon

looks like all the normals were hand painted with the photoshop plugin.. it really looks terrible..

eld

Here's a bigger one, enjoy!.
http://www.bungie.net/images/news/inlineimages/AnniversaryMCNewsweekLrg.jpg

Joao Sapiro

what the hell ? agreed about the photoshop plugin, despite the oilyness and the texture having weird seams it look so so ...

Ferg

[ QUOTE ]
How to show off your art-assets in the worst possible way.


I can see the whole art-team scream out in a unified agonizing darthlike "Noooooooo!" as the producer went "hay guys! I just took this awesomelicious screenshot of masterchef and sent it out to the world wide interweb!"

[/ QUOTE ]

exactly what I thought when I saw the pic

Joshua Stubbles

Ugh.
That looks like crap.

arshlevon

the normal is so inconsistent.. i guess they are using some type of tiling micro bump.. look at the actual lines that separate the armor bits in the texture, looks like the normal map is super low rez on everything but the super sharp infinite detail level of that bumpy mess. the 2 look so different. i hope they have some super gameplay lined up.. i have a feeling gears has become the new killer app for xbox..

Steve Schulze

Theres a joke to be made here about armour made from those plastic stackable primary-school chairs, but I lack the wit to phrase it in an amusing fashion.

MoP

[ QUOTE ]
Also since when is it acceptable to select your entire mesh and assign it to one smoothing group for models like Master Chief?

[/ QUOTE ]

Heh, well actually for most normal-mapped character models you'll want to apply a single smoothing group...

That screenshot looks incredibly bad though. The diffuse texture is probably the worst, it's pretty much all one colour, and there's no variation in specular either... and that noise bump overlay is just so badly conceived... ow!

Mark Dygert

Detective1: Any idea what killed Halo?
Detective2: Some say it was Microsoft., others say it was crushed by the shear weight of Bungie's ego. This guy down in the 43rd precinct has this crazy theory it was the lack-luster story and that crazy pelvis twitch Master Chief does when he dies.
Detective1: What do you think killed Halo?
Detective2: Personally I think it was that new guy, I think his name is Marcus Felix, Felrick... Phonics?.
Detective1: Fenix? Marcus [/b]Fenix[/b]?
Detective2: Yeah thats the guy. He's a real badass and has a problem with authority. We both know how pushy Master Chief can get once he has a few beers in him.
Detective1: Good call, write it up and wake up a judge I want this guy behind bars before the sun comes up.

conte

"remember child, don't use technologies, if u can't do anything beauty with it" ahhahaha

KeyserSoze

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and that noise bump overlay is just so badly conceived... ow!

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm guessing it was a last-minute adjustment to show off the high resolution. It probably wasn't originally part of the model, but then some genius came along and insisted on using the shitty overlay to help sell the idea of HD gaming.

I can't get over how bad it looks, it reminds me of that Quake1 based engine that's modified to make use of normals maps... not exactly my vision of "next gen."

Joseph Silverman

I think this is a multiplayer shot. I guess we'll be able to see in spring either way.

doc rob

This is pretty sad. It's not good if you have Craig Mullins and Phil Hale among others do awesome paintings of a character and you can't texture a half decent version of him with today's technology. This makes me want to do one myself.

Kevin Johnstone

A near unanimous 10 out of 10 for graphics in Gears reviews is the kind of backlash i could get used to.

r.

arshlevon

go show them how its done ror..

Fuse

Ror, you're a lord of modesty

But really, i wouldnt jump the gun just yet, Halo 2 looked quite good on xbox hardware, maybe this is some hacked alpha shot with older assets?

But yes it does look like Master Chief took a bath in some fecal matter mixed with acid.

Daz

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But really, i wouldnt jump the gun just yet, Halo 2 looked quite good on xbox hardware

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hhhmm kinda. tech wise perhaps. But were the Halo models ever that good? I dont really think so:

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/image_viewer/frame_lead.php?pid=562116&img=156&sid=undefined

Slash

I fixed it!

Not its fucking NEXT GEN!



And then there was that time MC went out drinking and woke up inside ue3.

Kevin Johnstone

I'd say let them be until we see the final game, Bungie are stil a high quality shop and in production shots aren't a reliable yardstick.

Also, my impression of the lads there has always been very high, nice bunch, professional and talented, I'm sure there is better to come.

r.

Fuse

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[ QUOTE ]

But really, i wouldnt jump the gun just yet, Halo 2 looked quite good on xbox hardware

[/ QUOTE ]

hhhmm kinda. tech wise perhaps. But were the Halo models ever that good? I dont really think so:

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/image_viewer/frame_lead.php?pid=562116&img=156&sid=undefined

[/ QUOTE ]

Daz you're just a bitter bitter man arent you ?

Yes i gotta agree that bungie's human characters were always lousy looking, especially in Halo 1

McIlroy

Yeah it's weird how people go nuts over Halo. Don't get me wrong ive had fun playing the game but the art/graphics are nothing special. In particular the character art is very weak . I just don't get how a title that is supposed to be the Flag Ship title supposedly ,ends up with weak/poor art direction and character art especially . How can everybody here universally scoff the Character art and them not see it ? Amazing ....

Fuse

now now now, i think you are confusing art direction with the execution of human characters in Halo.

I think Halo's art direction is quite strong, very distinct and recognizable, combined with the musical score i think it's a pretty accomplished franchise. I Covenant characters are especially creative and colorful, and put fresh meaning into alien enemy.

Quality of human characters compared to the rest of art is another story

McIlroy

It again comes down to what was discussed in the Neverwinter Nights thread . If an Art Director allows low quality art assets to enter the final product then He/She is not doing there job. The only exception I can see to that rule is if the Art Direction is broken up by Character, Animation, Environment and Level Design by leads with a bunch of managers who give the lead no real control over the content but drop the axe on his neck when something goes wrong.

Fuse

ahh i see what you mean by art direction. I always think of it less as quaity control and more artstyle and atmosphere direction appropriate to the game concept.

It's a little like how Half-life has pretty strong art direction and as a package it's an exciting visual experience. At the same time though we can definitely point out some weak assets, texture/seam problems and wonky mesh deformation in certain animations.

So while whole is a fantastic looking game, the parts within sometimes couldnt hold up to our nazi scrutiny

Daz

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Daz you're just a bitter bitter man arent you ?


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I'm actually not really, hard as that may be to believe. just very, very picky and fussy about character Art I'm afraid.

Fuse

it's all good daz, blatanly lousy character art annoying me as well..

i dont think you're really bitter at all

arshlevon

ha! well i do

TomDunne

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Daz you're just a bitter bitter man arent you ?


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I'm actually not really, hard as that may be to believe. just very, very picky and fussy about character Art I'm afraid.

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Wasn't there a thread about your alleged bitterness here earlier this year? You should probably update your .sig to clarify you've merely asked for a PINT of bitter (and could someone please pass the beernuts...)

TomDunne

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I'd say let them be until we see the final game, Bungie are stil a high quality shop and in production shots aren't a reliable yardstick.

Also, my impression of the lads there has always been very high, nice bunch, professional and talented, I'm sure there is better to come.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's more fun being magnanimous when your team is on top of the mountain, isn't it? Production art or no, I'd bet money that GOW > Halo 3

Kovac

I agree with vermilion but it also seems kind of a given to myself. Halo's roots and design are a bit older on the design aspect, and were in turn done so with those restrictions back then. To totally revamp the Chief himself (as opposed to next-genafying) would be a rather bold move on Bungie's part.

Gears of War on the other hand was designed with next gen solely on its brain. I don't think it's about the talent of the artists, since both teams have more than proven themselves, but more importantly an era of design conflict(pre/post next gen).

Lee3dee

compared to GoW, Halo 3 pic looks years gen

Make sure to check out the commercial on Dec 4th
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/11/15/2am-halo-news-announcement-its-real-new-maps-commercial-scr/

Psychon

Is that a game?

Kevin Johnstone

Verm: Is that a fact?

r.

Thegodzero

Being on top of a mountain hurts, nothing like waking up to the sharp peak of the mountain in the morning.

Same goes for being on the bleeding edge.

eld

"Shit!"

JO420

is his left index finger even uv mapped?

Super

Since when could 360 output 2560x1440?

Slash

On a sidenote, i think marcus phoenix has the best catchphrase in videogame history.


"shit!"

Zwebbie

RIP
hand-painted occlusion
?-2006

And now imagine a guy with "next-gen" on his T-shirt pissing on such a grave.