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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.
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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
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Or maybe because of politics you can't let your inner old crank out as much as you would like to. =P
Either way I'm sure enough time will pass and Bungie will manage to make Halo fans happy. If not then there is always Halo wars to look forward to, but I'm not sure how the halo crowd will receive that kind of game? Honestly thats more of a game suited to my tastes. I always felt Counter Strike was more fun multi-player on a LAN than Halo was.
I never really thought the character design or implementation was the down side to Halo. The environments or rather the recylements seemed to let it down. Not so much the elements themselves but the fact that you could run down the same hallway 4 times and had to count, "ok 6 more hallways that look just like this, then a left" They did a fair job fixing the repeating elements in Halo2.
As for the whole GoW > Halo thing, I'm guessing the end result comes out nicer if you take a pretty game made for high end PC's and break it down for the x360, even tho that takes a ass ton of skill. Than it is to build up a game that was built and designed to run on low end hardware. Thats right I called your XBoxes low end, and your little 360's too! =P
It comes down to;
Halo: How do we turn this up so it looks next gen?
VS
GoW: How do we turn this down so it runs on a 360?
EDIT:
In the end I think it is in every companies best interest to release not retouched hype shots that will never be seen in game. Rather slightly worse than what the game will look like. Good enough to get people excited but not the full glory of what they will see in game. This way the wheels don't come flying off the hype machine, when the game hits the streets.
They *really* need to understand what specular falloff is, 'cos theirs is too big on almost everything. Other than that they're not bad shots, but clearly somewhat short of the 'in engine' movie they released. Oh well, give 'em time I spose.
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here's a whole mess of new halo 3 screenshots... though not jaw-dropping, they look much better than the previous stinker
Damn...what the hell, Bungie.
Those screens don't look any better than Halo 2. That's pretty sad.
What strikes me right off the bat in that first screenshot posted, is how insanely bad the texture densities are. The chief has some high res detail map tiled all over him (which looks like crap). And the main room wall also has a detail map tiled all over it. But the girders and pipes don't seem of have one, or it's one of lower resolution. It completely throws everything off.
Gears of War has this problem as well, actually. The same exact detail texture is used on almost everything. It looks very repetitive, and quite awful when the tiling is different on adjacent objects.
pretty sure that that extra-wide spec falloff is to get specular highlights across the whole model and hide the fact that the diffuse layer is a solid color =(
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Or maybe it's just sad that you can ignore the obvious to bash a good company...
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I don't understand.
What's "obvious" is that the artwork isn't that good. How am I ignoring that? I said it's not good. I'm not bashing Bungie - I think the studio is great. I only stated that Halo 3 doesn't look good so far.
I just recently played thru Halo 2 again, one thing that struck me about the art; the human faces specifically are badly done, one could almost defend how they did the aliens' noisey textures but the human faces look downright muddy.
For the production values of the game they really need to tighten that up. I agree that this tiled noisey texture also makes master chief look like he's made out of concrete, hopefully our crits won't go unnoticed!!
To me Halo 3's player models remind me of cheap plastic action figures- maybe the whole game is really based around a mythical playset in some kid's attic? I'm gonna look for cheap fishing wires when I see ships flying in or in outer space scenes
Hopefully the chararacter art team will have enough polish time to fix up the issues with MC.
man i dont think they look that baaad, yay if you were thinking the "in-game video" was accurate then your just being silly. since when has that come true.
it looks very next-gen to me
- high res showing off art smudges- check
- over use of effects - check
- not as good looking as hype - check
They have the gameplay down so well and its such a well know franchise that i dont even think they need to improve the graphics at all to sell it like crazy. So why would they go out and spend top dollar on fantastic artists when what they have now works just fine and will make them more money? I think thats what it really all comes down to. Its really pretty sad, they arent doing ANYTHING there that can't be done on an xbox1, and god do those inview weapons look horribly noobtastic. They dont even bother to do proper normals, just throw on some smoothing groups and a crappy bump map and call it done. weak
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It's evident even in that trailer some people say is "prerendered" (although I don't see why it should be).
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I don't think that many people are calling it pre-rendered. However I think people see a difference as the trailer was shot using their "engine" on a high end PC and not using hardware near or even close to the 360. What we are seeing now are their efforts to make it run on the 360.
Engine to engine GoW wins. In game to in game, we'll have to see but so far GoW is leading in the polls.
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they need to hire some artists that understand next gen technology. I don't know anything about the hiring process at bungie, maybe someone here does? A few companies are weird that way. A number of them don't hire anyone unless they have an art degree or something, which may sound clever to management, but tends to be a horrible move. They need hardcore computer artists, not someone who can render the Mona Lisa accurately in charcoal. From a CG technical standpoint, their models and textures have always been mediocre at best, and it's quite confusing since surely they have the name and budget to hire the best of the best? Except I don't know of any top artists working there, not one.
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Well, politics is the answer to that question. The fact that an artist isn't particularly exceptional, carries no legal weight as a reason for letting them go. They probably have well established artists on the team, that have been on the franchise for years. Why would they hire new folks? If bungie think the Art is good enough for the franchise, and the general public tend to too, then technically speaking there's no real hiring issue for management to deal with.
I agree that the Art for the franchise has not kept up with the times and that artistically Halo3 looks no better than Halo2. I know my above paragraph might seem to conflict with my views about Gothic3, but that's clearly a different case. That's a case whereby the work is so utterly unprofessional that it'll actually hurt reviews and thus sales in my opinion. Bungie simply dont have the absolute best character artists in the industry, that's all. But the work is good enough for joe schmo I suppose. I'm still looking forward to the game.
I'll buy the game to finish the trilogy, and the online play should be fun. Any elitest PC gamer will be quick to point out the game offers nothing new besides a decent (for an fps at least) storyline.
I'm really more excited about where Peter Jackson's company and the Halo Wars games will take the franchise.
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I'm really more excited about where Peter Jackson's company and the Halo Wars games will take the franchise.
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Oh man if/when Peter Jacksons game company starts up he better hire my ass, It'll be the only company in my country which would work on anything that even resembles next-gen. Youre probalby just referring to the halo movie but I couldnt resist commenting
wait i thought your country was making a wonderful next gen sheep shagging game?? hahahaha seriously though i would love to goto NZ and work for pee pee jackson.. does anyone have any info on the company he is making? is there a place to apply, or even send your stuff??
Nope there isnt a company set up yet but I will PM you when they get their stuff together I know someone at their film production company who reckons could be a while yet but who knows.
Nah the sheep shagging game got canned, far more sheep in nz than xbox's, why play the game when you can have the real deal baby
I don't typically make comments about how bad a games graphics are, as I don't fancy myself a particularly good artist, but I do have to say, GOD DAMN this gun looks bad!
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i believe that is a placeholder man , you may notice the level is very wip too ,almost no detail , so hm..relax ( i really hope it is it )
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i do too.... at first glance i thought it was a screenshot from halo 2... untill i saw the file name
if their levels are going to look like that they shopuld hire me... i am not the best environmental artist out there by any stretch but i can do better than that.
Indeed it looks like a placeholder, although personally as a big Halo 1/2 fan I look at it and think 'yay more halo content' rather than 'poo doesnt look any better than Halo 2'.
IMO its an indication of the mindset bungie has, trying to continue the halo story rather than trying to compete with epic etc. whether this is the best/right approach is clearly subjective. my 2 cents
I'm confused by the 'placeholder' theory. Why would anyone even both creating a shot of the game using temporary assets, much less make it available to the public? If it was done in-house for technical purposes, okay, but the shots being debated here look deliberately staged for PR purposes.
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I'm confused by the 'placeholder' theory. Why would anyone even both creating a shot of the game using temporary assets, much less make it available to the public? If it was done in-house for technical purposes, okay, but the shots being debated here look deliberately staged for PR purposes.
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Because the person taking shots from the devkit willy nilly for interweb purposes was more than likely a *producer*. If I had a $ for every time I'd seen awful, awful half baked half finished blatantly broken shots from a game Im working on go out the door without anyone from the Art team being consulted I'd have, well, quite a few dollars.
Replies
http://www.1up.com/do/media?cId=3144308
WE STILL LOVE YOU BUNGIE
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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.
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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
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Or maybe because of politics you can't let your inner old crank out as much as you would like to. =P
Either way I'm sure enough time will pass and Bungie will manage to make Halo fans happy. If not then there is always Halo wars to look forward to, but I'm not sure how the halo crowd will receive that kind of game? Honestly thats more of a game suited to my tastes. I always felt Counter Strike was more fun multi-player on a LAN than Halo was.
I never really thought the character design or implementation was the down side to Halo. The environments or rather the recylements seemed to let it down. Not so much the elements themselves but the fact that you could run down the same hallway 4 times and had to count, "ok 6 more hallways that look just like this, then a left" They did a fair job fixing the repeating elements in Halo2.
As for the whole GoW > Halo thing, I'm guessing the end result comes out nicer if you take a pretty game made for high end PC's and break it down for the x360, even tho that takes a ass ton of skill. Than it is to build up a game that was built and designed to run on low end hardware. Thats right I called your XBoxes low end, and your little 360's too! =P
It comes down to;
Halo: How do we turn this up so it looks next gen?
VS
GoW: How do we turn this down so it runs on a 360?
EDIT:
In the end I think it is in every companies best interest to release not retouched hype shots that will never be seen in game. Rather slightly worse than what the game will look like. Good enough to get people excited but not the full glory of what they will see in game. This way the wheels don't come flying off the hype machine, when the game hits the streets.
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here's a whole mess of new halo 3 screenshots... though not jaw-dropping, they look much better than the previous stinker
http://www.1up.com/do/media?cId=3144308
WE STILL LOVE YOU BUNGIE
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Marcus Dublin
Artist - Koas Studios
But otherwise - I am so in love with this shot! It's gorgeous-O-rific! http://www.1up.com/do/slideshow?pager.offset=21&p=&g=&tr=&mt=0&cId=3144308
Those screens don't look any better than Halo 2. That's pretty sad.
What strikes me right off the bat in that first screenshot posted, is how insanely bad the texture densities are. The chief has some high res detail map tiled all over him (which looks like crap). And the main room wall also has a detail map tiled all over it. But the girders and pipes don't seem of have one, or it's one of lower resolution. It completely throws everything off.
Gears of War has this problem as well, actually. The same exact detail texture is used on almost everything. It looks very repetitive, and quite awful when the tiling is different on adjacent objects.
Whadda ya say now hotshot?
It's a mixed bag.
Those screens don't look any better than Halo 2. That's pretty sad.
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Or maybe it's just sad that you can ignore the obvious to bash a good company...
Halo2:
bonus fact: the master chief model in halo 2 was lower poly than the first master chief
Or maybe it's just sad that you can ignore the obvious to bash a good company...
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I don't understand.
What's "obvious" is that the artwork isn't that good. How am I ignoring that? I said it's not good. I'm not bashing Bungie - I think the studio is great. I only stated that Halo 3 doesn't look good so far.
was just trying to point out you silliness... ya big silly. There's nobody here to defend bungie so somebody's gotta keep the crits in check.
For the production values of the game they really need to tighten that up. I agree that this tiled noisey texture also makes master chief look like he's made out of concrete, hopefully our crits won't go unnoticed!!
Hopefully the chararacter art team will have enough polish time to fix up the issues with MC.
it looks very next-gen to me
- high res showing off art smudges- check
- over use of effects - check
- not as good looking as hype - check
all looks right to me.
It's evident even in that trailer some people say is "prerendered" (although I don't see why it should be).
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I don't think that many people are calling it pre-rendered. However I think people see a difference as the trailer was shot using their "engine" on a high end PC and not using hardware near or even close to the 360. What we are seeing now are their efforts to make it run on the 360.
Engine to engine GoW wins. In game to in game, we'll have to see but so far GoW is leading in the polls.
they need to hire some artists that understand next gen technology. I don't know anything about the hiring process at bungie, maybe someone here does? A few companies are weird that way. A number of them don't hire anyone unless they have an art degree or something, which may sound clever to management, but tends to be a horrible move. They need hardcore computer artists, not someone who can render the Mona Lisa accurately in charcoal. From a CG technical standpoint, their models and textures have always been mediocre at best, and it's quite confusing since surely they have the name and budget to hire the best of the best? Except I don't know of any top artists working there, not one.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, politics is the answer to that question. The fact that an artist isn't particularly exceptional, carries no legal weight as a reason for letting them go. They probably have well established artists on the team, that have been on the franchise for years. Why would they hire new folks? If bungie think the Art is good enough for the franchise, and the general public tend to too, then technically speaking there's no real hiring issue for management to deal with.
I agree that the Art for the franchise has not kept up with the times and that artistically Halo3 looks no better than Halo2. I know my above paragraph might seem to conflict with my views about Gothic3, but that's clearly a different case. That's a case whereby the work is so utterly unprofessional that it'll actually hurt reviews and thus sales in my opinion. Bungie simply dont have the absolute best character artists in the industry, that's all. But the work is good enough for joe schmo I suppose. I'm still looking forward to the game.
And then there was that time MC went out drinking and woke up inside ue3.
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Maybe it's just me, but
Do you realize how much better you've made it look?
I'm really more excited about where Peter Jackson's company and the Halo Wars games will take the franchise.
I'm really more excited about where Peter Jackson's company and the Halo Wars games will take the franchise.
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Oh man if/when Peter Jacksons game company starts up he better hire my ass, It'll be the only company in my country which would work on anything that even resembles next-gen. Youre probalby just referring to the halo movie but I couldnt resist commenting
Nah the sheep shagging game got canned, far more sheep in nz than xbox's, why play the game when you can have the real deal baby
http://www.dko5.com/images/halo3/halo3_200611_10.jpg
i believe that is a placeholder man , you may notice the level is very wip too ,almost no detail , so hm..relax ( i really hope it is it )
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i do too.... at first glance i thought it was a screenshot from halo 2... untill i saw the file name
if their levels are going to look like that they shopuld hire me... i am not the best environmental artist out there by any stretch but i can do better than that.
IMO its an indication of the mindset bungie has, trying to continue the halo story rather than trying to compete with epic etc. whether this is the best/right approach is clearly subjective. my 2 cents
I'm confused by the 'placeholder' theory. Why would anyone even both creating a shot of the game using temporary assets, much less make it available to the public? If it was done in-house for technical purposes, okay, but the shots being debated here look deliberately staged for PR purposes.
[/ QUOTE ]
Because the person taking shots from the devkit willy nilly for interweb purposes was more than likely a *producer*. If I had a $ for every time I'd seen awful, awful half baked half finished blatantly broken shots from a game Im working on go out the door without anyone from the Art team being consulted I'd have, well, quite a few dollars.