- Anonymous101
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Okay, here comes my wall of text:
Halo 3's engine, with results that might not have looked state of the art, is actually one of the most well managed engines in existance. It's number one heavy hitters were the absolutely superb lighting and materials, impressive artificial intelligence, massive scale, and excellent alpha blended effects. Also, being able to playback game data and rewind in saved films (an astronomical feat in the technical world), as well as render the film now is pretty freakin' sweet.
It's downfall however was in it's last gen roots; the game was even developed on prototype 360 dev kits. The sub-HD resolution becomes more and more noticeable due to the lack of edge enhancement, and the jaggies are especially prevalent in ODST. Also, the draw distance for the shadows is pretty darn short, and the lack of texture filtering makes some of the more detailed textures seem like a waste.
Still though, for an engine mostly complete in the 2005-2007 range, the research and development for Halo 3 and ODST's engine is more than a perfect foundation for Reach's development. The newest SIGGRAPH '09 publication gives some insight into Bungie's research directions: pre-computed and realtime lighting. Bungie's lighting model for Halo 3 was already superb, but improvements are 99% foreseeable. If Reach has a fully realized realtime lighting system however, I will probably soil myself. The research they've done on atmospheric composition is excellent.
Expectations are definitely high. I know that after lessons learned from Halo 3, Reach can run in native 720p while still maintaining the excellent performance the Halo series is known for. The much desired 2x multisampling anti-aliasing being added I can't see unless the game's resolution is lowered from 720p. I honestly expect more detailed character models, especially from the enemies, with more richly detailed features and materials. Metals and skin (and otherwise) look great for Halo 3, but I can see serious improvements happening for Reach. I'm talking about making the reflection and specular pass on metals more visible, and perhaps enabling real-time reflections for close ups on armor. Dynamic physics objects (such as ragdolls) should be able to interact with at least a few other physics objects such as crates and vehicles. I honestly hope the game will have improved texture filtering and shadow draw distance. The water should also behave more realistically, with better looking wakes generated by walking or driving through the water. If theatre is back, any screenshot you take should be rendered with all of the game's "settings" set to their maximum, for the best looking results. Also, no more JPEG format please. Oh, and please, make the effects look as fantastic as ever.