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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Halo: Reach Graphics Engine - Is it all that it's cracked up to be?

Cross-X on 14 December 2009
priteshmodi said:
The_God_of_War said:
Don't listen to Aaron Greenburg. If the game is going to have split screen co-op and large, open environments it isn't going to have the best technical graphics, simple as that. I'm far more interested in the gameplay itself and promise of gigantic, epic battles than how shiny it looks.

Couldn't have said it better.

I actually think Halo 3 looks rather good considering all that's going on. I mean... when you play Firefight on a map like Last Resort and you have 2-3 Brute Choppers, a couple of Ghosts and Wraiths, 5-10 packs of Brutes with Grunts, Snipers, and guys on turrets while 4 guys are blowing stuff up left and right and there are no slow downs it really does show that although not being a graphical masterpiece it's still a technical showcase. (run on much?)

As for the trailer - It looks really good. The lighting and dust effects are there and the textures are decent on the characters but there's still a ton of time left for this to be improved. I guess we'll just wait and see. I'm looking forward to game modes and gameplay mechanics more than anything.

Oh and I forgot... The Elites are back as the main enemy. That alone has me fully excited.

Hence why Bungie is so talented and great.



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Aion on 14 December 2009

So your comparing games like U2 and KZ2, well thats fair. Halo always have a certain art style and mabye not groundbreaking graphics. It will still look better than previous titles.



 

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JaggedSac on 14 December 2009

For Bungie, graphics are second to gameplay. Since they have ratcheted up the graphics, we can expect some pretty amazing gameplay and new stuff.



Darc Requiem on 14 December 2009

Honestly we haven't been shown enough on Reach to make any judgments at this point. I'm sure it will look much better than Halo 3 but how it compares Gears, Uncharted 2, and Killzone 2 remains to be seen.



Reasonable on 14 December 2009
Kreshnik said:

a little comparison:

 

Halo Reach realtime ingame engine:

 

Halo 3 cut scene: (the halo 3 sceen is fake though, because Halo 3s resolution is way lower! it may be CGI)

 

anyway, Halo Reachs ingame engine looks like cgi in comparison to Halo 3. the good thing is, its confirmed to be realtime!

Do you have link for confirmation that was real time in-game?  I've just finished reading Digital Foundry who suspect (as do I) that that is a cut-scence rendered in the new engine and not likely to be real time.

OT - well, I think the hints in the trailer, as explored in the Digital Foundry analysis, indicate the new engine should be pretty nice.  However, assuming Bungie remain commited to supporting 4 player coop split screen, then the engine will I'm sure (like Halo 3 and ODST engine) sacrifice certain levels of resolution and detail for frame rate and coop, probably meaning that, in-game, Reach won't quite look as good as something like Killzone 2.

On the other hand, to get the graphics in Killzone 2 the developers had to sacrifice split screen coop and arguably accepted higher responsiveness lag.

I think Reach will look better than Halo 3, but will retain the same focus on gameplay and on-screen action over graphics.



Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...

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Kreshnik on 14 December 2009
Reasonable said:
Kreshnik said:

a little comparison:

 

Halo Reach realtime ingame engine:

 

Halo 3 cut scene: (the halo 3 sceen is fake though, because Halo 3s resolution is way lower! it may be CGI)

 

anyway, Halo Reachs ingame engine looks like cgi in comparison to Halo 3. the good thing is, its confirmed to be realtime!

Do you have link for confirmation that was real time in-game?  I've just finished reading Digital Foundry who suspect (as do I) that that is a cut-scence rendered in the new engine and not likely to be real time.

OT - well, I think the hints in the trailer, as explored in the Digital Foundry analysis, indicate the new engine should be pretty nice.  However, assuming Bungie remain commited to supporting 4 player coop split screen, then the engine will I'm sure (like Halo 3 and ODST engine) sacrifice certain levels of resolution and detail for frame rate and coop, probably meaning that, in-game, Reach won't quite look as good as something like Killzone 2.

On the other hand, to get the graphics in Killzone 2 the developers had to sacrifice split screen coop and arguably accepted higher responsiveness lag.

I think Reach will look better than Halo 3, but will retain the same focus on gameplay and on-screen action over graphics.

of course..

http://twitter.com/bungietweets/status/6616587410



ethomaz on 14 December 2009

Not impressive. But Halo is gameplay and not graphics.



Reasonable on 14 December 2009
Kreshnik said:
Reasonable said:
Kreshnik said:

a little comparison:

 

Halo Reach realtime ingame engine:

 

Halo 3 cut scene: (the halo 3 sceen is fake though, because Halo 3s resolution is way lower! it may be CGI)

 

anyway, Halo Reachs ingame engine looks like cgi in comparison to Halo 3. the good thing is, its confirmed to be realtime!

Do you have link for confirmation that was real time in-game?  I've just finished reading Digital Foundry who suspect (as do I) that that is a cut-scence rendered in the new engine and not likely to be real time.

OT - well, I think the hints in the trailer, as explored in the Digital Foundry analysis, indicate the new engine should be pretty nice.  However, assuming Bungie remain commited to supporting 4 player coop split screen, then the engine will I'm sure (like Halo 3 and ODST engine) sacrifice certain levels of resolution and detail for frame rate and coop, probably meaning that, in-game, Reach won't quite look as good as something like Killzone 2.

On the other hand, to get the graphics in Killzone 2 the developers had to sacrifice split screen coop and arguably accepted higher responsiveness lag.

I think Reach will look better than Halo 3, but will retain the same focus on gameplay and on-screen action over graphics.

of course..

http://twitter.com/bungietweets/status/6616587410

I hate to sound cynical.  But everyone is using careful wording here including that link - i.e. is this a cut-scence generated using the engine or in-game?  This is important as cut-scenes generated using the engine (whether pre-recorded or real-time) always look a fair way better than the game in-engine due to the control over the assets, choice of what's on screen, etc.

Look at Uncharted 2 cut-scenes vs gameplay and you can see the boost in visuals the cut-scenes have over the gameplay.

Basically, I agree with DF, until we see some completely bona fide gameplay it's too hard to guague how the game is really going to look vs cut-scenes.

 



Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...

Achilles on 14 December 2009

To me, the graphics in the trailer were amazing. It looked more like a CGI cinematic though. If the game renders like this in real-time, that's gonna be big. I didn't find KZ2 that exceptional neither graphic wise.



Dgc1808 on 14 December 2009

Could we atleast wait a month before release before shooting it down?



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