If this was a appreciation thread, why the fuck is he always commenting and then posting pictures? I barely even write shit until he gets a stick up my ass.

EDIT:

"Take GOW3. Normal gameplay looks great. But the textures and effects are upped considerably on the fly for the QTE bits ( Not all, its fairly easy to see when this happens ). 

For example the battle with Hercules is all realtime. The texture work on Hercules is fairly average compared to say fighting Poseidon. "

I mean fucking really? He's bound to get flamed.

I'm not sure what selnor is referring to by "in-engine", but basically, you have in-game cutscenes which look exactly the same as gameplay, cutscenes which are commonly referred to as "in-engine" which use assets or similar assets from the game because it's cheaper and more consistent but it's actually pre-rendered, and you have CGI cutscenes.

I don't want to push my points too much, as I could be wrong, but that's what I have gathered over the past few years looking at games like Final Fantasy XIII and Uncharted 3.

Anyway, with the "in-engine" cutscenes, developers can improve post-processing effects, detail and draw distance as it's not actually taxing the system's hardware. Many of the cutscenes in Final Fantasy XIII and Uncharted 3 are actually pre-rendered, but it's quite subtle. I find it hard to believe that Halo 4 shot is in-game. The anti-aliasing is far better than it is in-game and I doubt the 360 is rendering those clouds and that airship. It's a very simplistic shot, so it's hard to tell.

EDIT: Just opened the screenshot in another window, it's 2560 x 1440 resolution.