Halo Infinite Discussion

[SkaSide]

3 hours ago, MultiLockOn said:

I'm not gonna say that I told everyone so buuuttt...

I told you guys lol the problem isn't even the engine, H2A looks amazing.  Their artists just don't get it. All the horsepower, time, money, and references to Bungie art won't make the artists at 343 understand what to do.  It's pretty clear that they're doing their best to replicate Bungie's art through the shape language, but that's just one piece of the puzzle.  Bungie are gods at texture painting as you guys saw by the Assault Rifle comparison to Reach (I believe the specific position is called Material Artist, and I believe Bungie hand paints all their textures).  Everything in the Infinite trailer, even if it had the right styling and silhouette looked like dough, it's just bad material work.  The weapons, the enemies, the weird hexagons all over the environment. 

Also the physical structures like the crates, watchtowers, and the AA gun they enter at the end of the trailer are all still hideous weird shapes.  You can see 343's art comes through in all of those when they stop referencing Bungie's precedent. 

At some point, you just need people who know what they're doing. They don't get it. Meanwhile in Destiny

OOF Look at those textures. So good.  Guarentee all these shots are lower poly than everything in that Infinite reveal, probably much lower fidelity on everything across the board.  But they just know what to do with the colors and lighting and textures to make it right.

This. I was kind of alluding to this in one of my previous posts about 343 not holding a candle to CDProjektRED, Rockstar and Naughty Dog. But you hit the nail right on the head. Even with 5 years and a supposedly $500 million dollar budget, you NEED the right people who know how to make your engine sing. If you gave 343 the same amount of time and money as Naughty Dog had to try and replicate The Last of Us Part II, I guarantee you they couldn't do it. They just don't have the right people to even come close to replicating that.

Do this on MCC whenever y'all get the chance: Transition from H4 to Halo: Reach and you can see Bungie runs LAPS around 343 when it comes to texture details. Halo 4 almost looks flat in comparison. Go ahead. Try it for yourself. 

[Knighty Knight]

1 hour ago, SkaSide said:

Do this on MCC whenever y'all get the chance: Transition from H4 to Halo: Reach and you can see Bungie runs LAPS around 343 when it comes to texture details. Halo 4 almost looks flat in comparison. Go ahead. Try it for yourself. 

Bungies leadership had worked together for a decade before the first Halo released... 

But anyways - I agree. Bungie is Bungie. Halo 1 is the greatest piece of immersive art ever.

20 years ago, y'all. 
20. Years. 
2 decade old technology and I still love to play this game all the time.

It STILL feels better and looks better than the rest of the series. 
Call me biased but it's like Peter Jackson making The Hobbit better than LOTR. There is no way in hell anyone is making a trilogy as good as LOTR.

[aa_Pregnant_Nun]

5 hours ago, MultiLockOn said:

I'm not gonna say that I told everyone so buuuttt...

 

I told you guys lol the problem isn't even the engine, H2A looks amazing.  Their artists just don't get it. All the horsepower, time, money, and references to Bungie art won't make the artists at 343 understand what to do.  It's pretty clear that they're doing their best to replicate Bungie's art through the shape language, but that's just one piece of the puzzle.  Bungie are gods at texture painting as you guys saw by the Assault Rifle comparison to Reach (I believe the specific position is called Material Artist, and I believe Bungie hand paints all their textures).  Everything in the Infinite trailer, even if it had the right styling and silhouette looked like dough, it's just bad material work.  The weapons, the enemies, the weird hexagons all over the environment. 

 

Also the physical structures like the crates, watchtowers, and the AA gun they enter at the end of the trailer are all still hideous weird shapes.  You can see 343's art comes through in all of those when they stop referencing Bungie's precedent. 

At some point, you just need people who know what they're doing. They don't get it. Meanwhile in Destiny

 

 

 

 

 

OOF Look at those textures. So good.  Guarentee all these shots are lower poly than everything in that Infinite reveal, probably much lower fidelity on everything across the board.  But they just know what to do with the colors and lighting and textures to make it right.

U rite tbh. Most of the materials in the Halo Infinite trailers looked flat, bland, and lacking in detail other than some grunge and edge wear here and their. Bungies environment artists and material artists are some of the best around, I'm pretty sure Daniel Thiger was the lead material artist for Destiny and you can tell he knows what hes doing just by his portfolio alone. https://www.artstation.com/dete  Mass Effect: Andromeda has hexagons of a similar design scattered around the environment below but clearly they are stylized to fit the futuristic and alien environment, they aren't just flat and everywhere, they are blended into the the surfaces of the other materials like cave walls.



Idk whats going on internally but clearly they are having trouble as the tech demo for the slipspace engine 2 years ago showcased graphics of much higher quality than what they just showed. The quality of everything from materials to lighting looked so much lower than what was shown during the slipspace engine tech demo 2 years ago. or maybe the person playing had all the graphics set to low for some reason...

Like what happened to this???

 

[_Synapse]

2 hours ago, Knighty Knight said:

Bungies leadership had worked together for a decade before the first Halo released... 

But anyways - I agree. Bungie is Bungie. Halo 1 is the greatest piece of immersive art ever.

20 years ago, y'all. 
20. Years. 
2 decade old technology and I still love to play this game all the time.

It STILL feels better and looks better than the rest of the series. 
Call me biased but it's like Peter Jackson making The Hobbit better than LOTR. There is no way in hell anyone is making a trilogy as good as LOTR.

The Library (aesthetically speaking) is probably in the top 5 of Halo missions. 

[ChieftaiNZ]

5 hours ago, MultiLockOn said:

I used the grapple emoji because I think you're reaching just a bit. 

 

The root fundamentals of Halo being, my guns shoot straight and there's enough skill that better players win. Halo 5 does better. 

 

But in every other regard H4 has it beat. The campaign in comparison was a masterpiece. Launched with way more than 3 game modes. Forge. Spartan Ops (not that anyone cares). Theatre was a little less shitty? And while the game had a pretty significant lack of skill, I think the core mechanics still resembled Halo more. All the dumb shit like reqs and perks and classes are just, dumb shit sprinkles on top. Halo 5 at its core is just really not a Halo game. Doesn't feel anything like one.

 

As a package Halo 4 was probably a stronger product. As a game Halo 5 is still probably better designed even if it doesn't resemble Halo because there's still some skill to be had in playing it, even if that skill comes from using obnoxious abilities. 

Okay no Halo 5 is definitely far, far more like Halo than 4 was. The most important pillar of a Halo game IMHO, before you start moving onto other stuff, is that everyone spawns with the same equipment.

 

Annndd Halo 4 has failed at the first hurdle. Then you've got shit like flinch, randomized power weapons, personal ordnance. 

[_Synapse]

To everyone saying that sprint doesn't look fast- that doesn't fix the problem with sprint, just changes it slightly in magnitude. 

Sprint does have a speed boost, else it wouldn't exist. Map presence and quick movement is extremely important in Halo, so sprint will still be metagame-defining, as long as it offers any speed boost. 

You still have the same clunky movement-combat transition, the over abundance of empty space, spawn chaos, and escape cheese. 

Also,

The stop wall is a terrible idea. The bubble shield sucked balls in Halo 3, but at least the developers had the decency to not let you shoot through it. 

[Apoll0]

6 hours ago, MultiLockOn said:

I'm not gonna say that I told everyone so buuuttt...

 

I told you guys lol the problem isn't even the engine, H2A looks amazing.  Their artists just don't get it. All the horsepower, time, money, and references to Bungie art won't make the artists at 343 understand what to do.  It's pretty clear that they're doing their best to replicate Bungie's art through the shape language, but that's just one piece of the puzzle.  Bungie are gods at texture painting as you guys saw by the Assault Rifle comparison to Reach (I believe the specific position is called Material Artist, and I believe Bungie hand paints all their textures).  Everything in the Infinite trailer, even if it had the right styling and silhouette looked like dough, it's just bad material work.  The weapons, the enemies, the weird hexagons all over the environment. 

 

Also the physical structures like the crates, watchtowers, and the AA gun they enter at the end of the trailer are all still hideous weird shapes.  You can see 343's art comes through in all of those when they stop referencing Bungie's precedent. 

At some point, you just need people who know what they're doing. They don't get it. Meanwhile in Destiny

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

OOF Look at those textures. So good.  Guarentee all these shots are lower poly than everything in that Infinite reveal, probably much lower fidelity on everything across the board.  But they just know what to do with the colors and lighting and textures to make it right.

That engine is also hella optimized for PC.  Can't know if Slipspace will be as well, but i doubt it.

Is it possible that this build is a couple months old and the textures are still beta and draw distance turned way down, pre-optimization?

12 minutes ago, _Synapse said:

To everyone saying that sprint doesn't look fast- that doesn't fix the problem with sprint, just changes it slightly in magnitude. 

Sprint does have a speed boost, else it wouldn't exist. Map presence and quick movement is extremely important in Halo, so sprint will still be metagame-defining, as long as it offers any speed boost. 

You still have the same clunky movement-combat transition, the over abundance of empty space, spawn chaos, and escape cheese. 

Also,

The stop wall is a terrible idea. The bubble shield sucked balls in Halo 3, but at least the developers had the decency to not let you shoot through it. 

I like the stop wall wayyyy better than the bubble shield.  The bubble shield was just a stalemate machine.  "hey you know this game that was flowing well a minute ago, lets just put a stop to that for a bit". Bubble was basically 1) wait for it to drop or 2) charge in blind with a sticky and hope for the best. The shield wall Is actually worth going out of your way for on the map.  It also looks like you can take it down with shots and nades, or toss grenades behind it.  I just wish it was a little smaller.

[aa_Pregnant_Nun]

17 hours ago, ShmaltzyLatkes said:

E3 2018 vs. Campaign Reveal 2020...

This physically hurts to look at, look how they massacred my boy...

I've never seen a dev over use something so poorly until now "we're returning to the classic artstyle to praise the sacred hexagon"

The sheer power of the 12 tflop xbox series x = washed out colors, materials, and lighting

[ChieftaiNZ]

3 minutes ago, aa_Pregnant_Nun said:

This physically hurts to look at, look how they massacred my boy...

I've never seen a dev over use something so poorly until now "we're returning to the classic artstyle to praise the sacred hexagon"

The sheer power of the 12 tflop xbox series x = washed out colors, materials, and lighting

They had a hexagon surplus after removing them from Chiefs undersuit and visor, they had to put them somewhere. 

[Apoll0]

3 minutes ago, aa_Pregnant_Nun said:

This physically hurts to look at, look how they massacred my boy...

I've never seen a dev over use something so poorly until now "we're returning to the classic artstyle to praise the sacred hexagon"

The sheer power of the 12 tflop xbox series x = washed out colors, materials, and lighting

Saying the original engine demo was in "real time" like they said doesn't mean a heck of a lot.  Most of the shots are in real close and everything was on rails, and they could have been running it on any hardware they wanted. But its the same question we had between the Halo 5 beta and launch regarding aiming.  WTF happened? Other than a few elements have the wrong sheen to them, the slipspace demo looked good.

 

Im hoping that the demo was ran on a really old build and everything looks better now.  By the same token, we need to stop focusing on the graphics lol.  Its the last thing on my list. The thing giving me hope at this point is they said that the equipment will all be map pickups in multiplayer.

[Botheredhat360]

7 hours ago, L0l0 said:

Now Imagine if the graphics looked as close as this game. Actual good detail. Would have been dope. This is Killzone Shadowfall 2014 game. We deserve better 

That game looked beautiful, too bad it sucked ass

[JordanB]

14 hours ago, Reamis25 said:

Never mind I just noticed clamber I take it back, still it doesn’t look like it’s necessary because the jump height is high 

It doesn't really matter how high jump is, they can just make the jumps even higher so you still have to use clamber

[Toastomgi]

Sprint being slower doesnt make a difference.

Sprint being in 100% means maps are shit.

Wtf is sprint good for.

 

Tbh, I think the way 343 is going after children is a little pedofil-ish. 

Too much eh?

[Kr0ni]

I don't think the whole notion that this was an "old build" really holds any water. This was the first major look at Halo Infinite with less than 5 months to release. With less than 5 months to release of Microsoft's next big hardware release. Halo is/was the flagship title of the entire Xbox platform. If this was a months old unfinished product, they could have shown it last month but they didn't; because they didn't have it. 

This build isn't from back in December like people hope. It just isn't. 

The vistas look like they were designed with an etch-a-sketch. The gameplay more or less looks fine until you see janky ability use. The sprinting, grappling feels immersion breaking as it does not look fluid at all to me. The grapple almost looks like the sword glitch from H2 in terms of its fluidity. If they just bumped the basement movement speed they wouldn't have a sprint problem. Hitmarkers suck. The explosion/particle effects seem to be static; I would have expected more variance and dynamic looking effects at this point with such a big franchise.

Master Chief looks awesome but.. it's a first person shooter so that doesn't really matter. The guns/character models looked damn near placement holder.  You could probably buy better fan-made models for $5 a piece. 

[aa_Pregnant_Nun]

29 minutes ago, Apoll0 said:

Saying the original engine demo was in "real time" like they said doesn't mean a heck of a lot.  Most of the shots are in real close and everything was on rails, and they could have been running it on any hardware they wanted. But its the same question we had between the Halo 5 beta and launch regarding aiming.  WTF happened? Other than a few elements have the wrong sheen to them, the slipspace demo looked good.

 

Im hoping that the demo was ran on a really old build and everything looks better now.  By the same token, we need to stop focusing on the graphics lol.  Its the last thing on my list. The thing giving me hope at this point is they said that the equipment will all be map pickups in multiplayer.

Sorry your gonna have to speak up I can't hear you over all the hexagons and the shield bokeh effects

[ShmaltzyLatkes]

343 is pretty shameless about where its inspiration comes from.

[Botheredhat360]

Also I would try and give a physics lesson to 343...

A grapple hook, when hooked has to supply equal tension between each end, meaning there'd have to be an equal force pulling each other, the distance each object would travel towards one another is dependent on the mass... Meaning if I grapple a grunt and start moving towards it.... I'm afraid it doesn't make any sense, I'm meant to be quite a lot heavier compared to the grunt, there's no way a grunt would be able to create enough resistance from the friction of the ground to pull me in...

[Mow]

This dude singlehandedly fixed the problems with the graphics in Infinite, really puts into perspective how underbaked the original looks.

[Botheredhat360]

[Gaard]

Yearly check in to see if anything has changed, not sure what I was expecting..... I don't know how MS looked at that reveal and thought "Damn yeah we've done a great job here".

Any live odds on how many days after launch we're down below 100k concurrent players?

 

[Botheredhat360]

Just now, Gaard said:

Yearly check in to see if anything has changed, not sure what I was expecting..... I don't know how MS looked at that reveal and thought "Damn yeah we've done a great job here".

Any live odds on how many days after launch we're down below 100k concurrent players?

 

I'd put money after 1 month we'd be sitting on 50K

[Gaard]

3 minutes ago, Botheredhat360 said:

This is actually MINDBLOWING.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. You can't help but laugh. 343 murdered my dreams, set them on fire and scattered the ashes back in 2012. MCC is all we have now. 

[LI Mr X IL]

11 minutes ago, Botheredhat360 said:

Also I would try and give a physics lesson to 343...

A grapple hook, when hooked has to supply equal tension between each end, meaning there'd have to be an equal force pulling each other, the distance each object would travel towards one another is dependent on the mass... Meaning if I grapple a grunt and start moving towards it.... I'm afraid it doesn't make any sense, I'm meant to be quite a lot heavier compared to the grunt, there's no way a grunt would be able to create enough resistance from the friction of the ground to pull me in...

100% this. I mean I’m all for fun gameplay over realistic physics but it would actually be cool if the effect changed on who you hooked. Hook a hulking brute in full armor? You go flying at it. Hook a tiny little grunt? You pull it at you like fucking Scorpion shouting “get over here!”

[Snipe Three]

That shield effect just needs to go. That isn't even about it looking bad or the graphics. They need to get that trash off the screen so it doesn't interfere with gameplay and clutter the view. Perfect example of art team overstepping and impacting actual gameplay in a negative way

[calberto]

19 minutes ago, ShmaltzyLatkes said:

343 is pretty shameless about where its inspiration comes from.

Between the obnoxious shield effect and the weapon model that looks really similar to the new rifle (minus the red dot), I was trying to remember at which part during the beta this scene was...

 

14 minutes ago, Botheredhat360 said:

Well, it looks bad but it's mostly the new Banished design tbh. When HW2 came out, everyone was hyping that games art, I allways thought it didn't really look that good, now we have HI with the HW2 art style and people lose their shit, kinda ironic.