- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Posted by: SynikaL
My only argument was only a few types of precipitation (fog, rain, maybe blizzard) would be effective enough to evoke any type of change in gameplay and even then, the Xbox doesn't have the horsepower to do it with a steady framerate.
Ok, well here you may be right. Having little knowlege of programming and whatnot, I don't know how taxing rain and fog can be on a gamesystem. If you're right, then I agree that weather should be out, but if its possible then I'd like that extra variety.
In that long paragraph you talk about how different gameplay would be in contrast to night and day. I came up with the idea, so why in the Backstreet Boys are you trying to convince me of this?
Oops, sorry. Heh heh, I guess I just feel like arguing right now. I wondered the same thing myself for a moment, but that was after I posted
Ok, we need a reality check here. NO console (or really many PC games i.e. Doom 3) game has a lighting engine that advanced. While Halo 2 has a very advanced lighting engine, the sun won't be casting a dynamic shadow off every object in the game (some WILL be static like in Halo).
I don't think many games at all use real time lighting for cast shadows and such, but I seem to remember that in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time there was real time change of day and cast shadows from trees, link and such all lengthened and shortened accordingly. That was on the Nintendo64. I don't see how an Xbox would be incapable of using real castshadows in a level
It really seems like you reached out on a limb to find that example. Even if Halo 2 did have such dynamic lighting, the differences in a dawn/dusk setting would be so subtle it's barely worth mentioning .
Ok, I'll give on this one. While it could change hiding spots and such it wouldn't be nearly as significant as a noon-midnight difference. So I suppose Halo2 could do without it (although it would be nice to have anyway)
As for the fog and rain examples: Again, who's disagreeing with you?
umm. . . I guess nobody. I'll shut up about that I guess.
Yeah there was fog in the single player mode of Halo, so what? Show me fog in a multiplayer stage in Halo then you'll have a point.
Play the level damnation. Around the overshield by the waterfalls and bottomless pit, there is fog near the bottom so you can't actually see the floor underneath it all. Also, there is slight fog on the floors of chillout (or I'm pretty sure anyway). Fog doesn't have to be like clouds, but there has been fog in almost every 3d game I can remember. Fog is used to keep the console from having to render too much in the distance to keep framerate smooth. Now, for MP fog that I'm talking about, all that would have to be done is reduce the distance a player can see to +/- 10m or something. If nothing else, the game would run faster because there would be so much less to render.