Forums | MacLife

It's the backside of the plastic of a PlaySkool slide.

Leonard Nimoy wrote:

I mean seriously, what's with this gunk?

http://kirk.halomodshelp.org/armor.jpg

Well if I had to guess and I'm no expert. I'd have to say that is plasma scoring from the Covie Class 8 Vulcan Plasma Cannon.
Then again maybe it's just some Flood spoo, Grunty Guts, Elite Entrails...

Anyway I've heard masturbation and/or sitting that close to the TV will lead to blindness. Once that happens who really gives a... on what anything looks like.

Leonard Nimoy wrote:

I suppose you're right in a way, bat. But you know what I mean when I say it looks flat

Well, kinda. The segmentation into discrete areas or 'plates' was increased (I read that's also the case with Spartan 458 in DOA4- more flexible rubberized joint areas, to better fit fighting animations), and if flatter/ flattish plates was the price of reducing or eliminating model popping (I hate that- one step closer to something and suddenly it's noticeably bigger and rounder), I'm fine with that. Keeping geometric complexity, curvature, within limits keeps the poly budget down and allows spending it on, say, the environment. No more boxy boulders and hills, and a huge draw distance.

But I'm not going from speculation... Halo 2's graphics were better than Halo 1's, but they were also completely different. The bump mapping on the characters in the game made the game look like they were modeled out of clay.

Or plastic. That's one reason I'm really looking forward to H2 on Vista; they're recoding the shaders under Bungie's supervision, so it can look like what they probably always wanted it to look like. I preferred the sorta cloth-y look on the Grunties' armor in 1 to the uniformly reflective H2 look- at really high res, it looks fantastically detailed. Even with hardware-specific extensions, there's only so much you can do under DirectX 8.0 (both Xbox Halo games have a lot of 'direct-to-the-hardware code). Xbox is still first-gen programmable shaders; under DX9 & DX10 you can do much more simultaneously, and it shows, even on Halo PC. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was a 'Halo 2- Special 360 Edition' that came out of the Vista work.

Bungie reworked the lighting model too, and I'm amazed at some of the shader improvements in H2 to things like plasma effects (vehicles 'outgassing' after destruction, etc.), but... yeah, limits are limits and hindsight beats foresight. Uprezzed textures, better shaders and m/kb control alone, let alone more save points, should let H2 Vista beat snot out of the original on good hardware- and Vista won't even run on lousy hardware. H2 Vista will let them revisit that plastic-y aesthetic and eliminate it with more simultaneous effects, and 3 won't have it.

I just hope they make some changes before Halo 3 is closer to release, because I'm not going to be impressed if they don't. I definitely don't call this a next-gen game at the moment.

It already looks good to me- clouds, detail textures like leaves on distant trees, the heat shimmer over the road- but still plenty of time to improve. Remember the early H2 Chief, with SPP (Special Package Protection)? I forget offhand, but if Xenos has DX10 geometry shaders, you might be in for a pleasant surprise. That's new stuff, and Frankie says his favorite graphic effects are still under wraps. Geometry shaders can generate geometry on the fly.

About the armor... well, you only see most of it in cutscenes. Most of the time you see your weapon and a bit of arm. I'm sure that'll have enough detail to make you t3h happy, and if you look at the full-armor shots, the overall detail is already way above anything so far.

One thing 3 already has. One of 2's biggest limitations was being too much on rails- huge environments you mostly couldn't reach, tho some were real, not skyboxes or the like. (I once got knocked off the power core platform in Buyer's Remorse, and landed on one of the side struts. It checkpointed, so I spent awhile trying different jumps down and found one that worked. That gap between the outer Sentinel Wall and the inner (Flood-Infested) Wall? It's real. I ran from one end to the other, hundreds of feet below where I started, and it's all real. Textures get really blocky far away, and you can't reach the very lowest 'floor' area in the middle; but you can run for 2 minutes or more end to end). H3 looks really open in that the enviros are not only 'real,' but should bring back some of the open-ended gameplay of 1... please, just don't put voices in our ears saying 'hurry up, there's no time!' I hated that. We knew better, artificial urgency doesn't do anything but annoy. Nothing's really on a timer, or will blow up if I take a look around. About all that happens is AIs sometimes run forward and die without me around.

I am finding, just lately, more areas can be reached than I originally thought, but still... open up the gameplay, please, Bungie. I'm sure the graphics will satisfy this graphics hound.

So... anything besides MC's armor lacking, jeap?

(Hmm... looks like this'll have to go in Games, but I'll edit in a link. How did I miss this?)

http://www.macaddict.com/forums/topic/82900

Last edited by Bat (2006-05-23 11:12 pm)

Everyone needs a hobby. Yours is..?

I'm sure that closer in, we'll see more. At a distance, LOD savings are keeping things more straight-lined than a closeup would be, it is the African desert many miles inland (therefore very dry), and if you did a freeze-frame on the avalanche that starts when the artifact opens, I'm guessing even now, pre-optimizing, there's much more geometric detail than the distance shots. Remember how the original Halo screens, MC armor, vehicles and such changed over time? You don't even need more polys these days to make things look rounded- shaders will do.

DoctorB wrote:

The thing that impressed me the most was the story told in just the brief time of the teaser. The single opening note. The fade black to white to picture of a ravaged landscape. The ghostly appearance of the lone figure in the distance. The spooky voice/image over of Cortana. The reveal of something amazing beneath the Earth of Africa. The final white to black fade. The note again.

Drama! Chills down the spine!

Have you watched the full, 132MB 720p press release .WMV? Higher bitrate, 5.1 audio...

http://assets.xbox.com/en-us/E32006/pre … railer.zip

Orion wrote:

Bat wrote:

Some have thought so, but if so it's different. Without spoiling too much for those who haven't played H2, remember Corty's circumstances at the end of 2... and yes, there are strong Marathon parallels I can't go into. But remember Corty's not with MC but half a galaxy away, these are somehow transmissions, they are meant to reflect her 'state of mind,' and the first line sounds eerily like "I have defied gods..." go look up some Marathon history and start pondering the Flood & certain pronouncements in H2.

Arrrggghhhh!  Don't make me think.  My head hurts too much right now.  Damned weather changes always give me a terrible headache.  I'll need to do some "research" and fire up the Marathon series then.

SlimJim0045 asks,

Please have Cortana's lines pronounced so that I don't see 36 threads about it.


"I know you, your past, your future."

Didn't Durandal/Toth? say something like that at the end of Infinity?  Along with something about having died a million times over and something like "I know you.  You are Destiny."?

Its been a few years since I really played the series through, so my memory is a bit foggy.

I'll shortcut it for you- what remains of The Cortana Letters. #1:

From: "Cortana" <cortana@bungie.com>
To: <hamish.sinclair@tcd.ie>
Subject: Closure
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 10:50:20 -0600
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Priority: 3

I have walked the edge of the Abyss.
I have governed the unwilling.
I have witnessed countless empires break before me.
I have seen the most courageous soldiers fall away in fear.
[I was there with the Angel at the tomb]

I have seen your future.
And I have learned.

There will be no more Sadness. No more Anger. No more Envy.

I HAVE WON.

Oh, and your poet Eliot had it all wrong:
THIS is the way the world ends.


a friend of a friend

Cortana was the name of another sword, "of the same steel and temper as Joyeuse and Durindana [Durandal]."

Halo isn't Marathon 4 in name or linear descent, but it looks like Jason & crew have increasingly bent the storyline back towards those themes. Amazing- they don't forget anything.

UPDATE on the above.

I had the opportunity to speak to Matt Soell on IRC concerning the above email. I asked him the following questions:

Was the email a hoax? Matt replied:

The email was not a hoax. It definitely originated from within our offices. And I suspect it will not be the last message of that type you receive.

Was the email intended as a joke? Matt replied:

Our jokes are fairly obvious. The Cortana message, you will find, is dead serious.

Would you (Matt) say that the email had Durandal overtones? Matt replied:

It certainly has some qualities reminiscent of Durandal, doesn't it? But that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Nice answer! So I cut to the chase. ;-)

So when's the shipping date? Matt replied:

The End of the World.

Matt's capitals not mine! Note the end of the Cortana email.

Matt also revealed that while we were having this conversation Craig Mullins was visiting the Bungie offices.

Looks like things are afoot.

Much, much more: http://marathon.bungie.org/story/cortana.html#1

NP. Btw, did you play the original, or the modernized Aleph One with the Megatexture (?) upgrade for mouselook, teh pr3tty etc.? {No? More hours shot... tangent: I bought an original M2: Durandal for Win 95 5-6 years ago at a comp show. Actually ran on early XP).

Now for the deep backstory on the John Deere- American Famer Deluxe version I just saw, the other new Deluxe version John Deere game, the Construction Tycoon game... you can Google those yourself.





With luck, out to Levi's soon to see/hear H2 on his 360. Holiday won't be a total waste for once [famous last words].

Update: should have upgrade done, be back on not long now even if few others are. Halo halo halo!

Bat wrote:

...
Have you watched the full, 132MB 720p press release .WMV? Higher bitrate, 5.1 audio...

Yup. Got it on XBox Live and wathed it in real HD with real 5.1. Wow!

I remember trying it when it first came out and it kept crashing like crazy for me, so I never persued it.  Maybe I will have to take another look at it.  I had M2 and Infinity separately and then I got the Trilogy release, so that is all I played so far.

Bat wrote:

I think the XBL trailer is a little over 100 (103 or thereabouts?), lower bitrate/smaller than the press kit release. Saw it last night at Levis' on his HDTV. Still awesome. GoW looks, um, promising too.

The press kit also has those ginormous, 10-16MB TIFF screenshots too.

If you still have the PC, you might try the PR release, about 20% higher bitrate, same res.

Yup got all that stuff. The trailer is nice on my PC but I'm going to work out a transfer to the 360 and try it. The artifact is my current desktop.

GoW is the main reason I bought the 360. Have a few GoW desktops as well.

sosumi wrote:

goandeatsomestuff wrote:

And if they were trying to impress us with visual appeal, they should have at least thrown in a respectable amount of capital ships instead of a futuristic polish navy.

Perhaps you were focused on the foreground while watching.  If you let your eyes wander you'll spot 15+ capital ships sputtered across the background.

I demand a recount!

There's definitely 30-40+ capital ships in there.  Still falls under 15+, though.  Also, the horizon is pretty foreshadowing if you ask me.

Well that is the bridge, right?