Graphical Evolution of the Halo games.

[RiseAgain]

One of the best things about the MCC is that we can observe how the Halo games evolved graphically throughout the years.

I still get amazed at the sheer amount of detail Bungie was able to put in the Noble Team 3D models on Halo: Reach, especially when you consider that the Xbox 360 had a total of 512 MB of system memory.

What Halo game has the most interesting art direction in your opinion ?

[Carnageloser7]

nowadays i think of halo 2 as kind of the ghetto one. but halo 3 is interesting because of the sheer amount of money and time pumped into it. You can tell it was microsoft's flagship game because of how polished it is.

[Charu]

Unfortunately the true visuals for Halo CE are missing in MCC due to the collection using Gearbox's port as a base.

So you can't really compare Halo CE fairly with Halo 2, even if Halo 2 did present itself a lot better.

At the very least we can appreciate the anniversary graphic engine though from Halo CE and Halo 2

[RiseAgain]

I would love to see 343i fix the graphical issues on Halo CE Anniversary, although I do think the Anniversary remastered graphics on both Halo 1 and 2 look pretty good.

Out of the Bungie Halo games, the one I think aged the best in terms of visuals is Halo: Reach, with Halo 3 coming in second place.

[Magicktech]

They all have good art direction except for 4 and 5.

[kronos]

Halo 3 was a masterpiece. Got it around launch. Thought it was groundbreaking, and objectively it was.

[Wolf DragoX]

Halo Reach has without any doubt my favorite art style of all halo (for now) great detail but still classic

[KZ_Understanding_the_Rain_000]

Originally posted by RiseAgain:

What Halo game has the most interesting art direction in your opinion ?

Halo 3 baby. The lighting is just fantastic. High quality HDR and Cook-Torrance BRDF normals? The lighting was pretty much half a generation ahead in terms of tech from anything we would see on the 360 afterwards. Which makes sense, because the on-screen polycount and resolution were like a half-gen behind.

https://www.gdcvault.com/play/253/Lighting-and-Material-of-HALO

It's kind of a strange looking game with its intense lighting and blocky geometry, but I remember it blew me away when I first saw it. And this was even after playing Crysis, on medium settings granted. So yeah, definitely kept pace with its contemporaries.

Reach looks good too, I remember being impressed with it as well. It's just so grey looking compared to the vibrant visuals of Halo 3. Still, the textures look way nicer and the polycount is generally higher/better distributed.

Halo 4 I was just thinking the whole time, "How the hell is this even running on an Xbox 360?" but I honestly dislike the art style. It's very noisy and overdesigned. Too much greebling on everything. I really should look into the tech behind it though, because it did look nice (although it did at the same time have a very overexposed blown out kind of look to the shading). My feelings are very mixed regarding H4.

[♥]

evolution in a nutshell, halo1 look fine, look worse on PC port, halo 2 looks better, PC version have missing textures depanding on nvida or AMD cards, halo 3, looks alot better, halo 3 ODST is upgraded halo 3 engine and have very good visuals for its theme, halo reach, graphicly look good, but the colors are more gritty and grounded as opposed to halo3 vibrant colors wich fit halo reach gritty nature.

i love the halo 3 visuals the most, though i do have a soft spot for the original xbox version of halo CE.

in terms of atmosphere, halo 3 ODST win.

[Roy]

Honestly Halo 1 was the most appealing to me ambience wise, it just had a very vast and mysterious vibe.
I think it was a combination of the shadows, usage of large environments and the iconic sounds/voices/music.

That might be my nostalgia vision though, second fave is definitely halo 2.
Halo 2 felt like the one that opened up a lot more in the lore and usable items(vehicles etc.)

[RiseAgain]

Originally posted by JohnChronic420:

Originally posted by RiseAgain:

What Halo game has the most interesting art direction in your opinion ?

Halo 3 baby. The lighting is just fantastic. High quality HDR and Cook-Torrance BRDF normals? The lighting was pretty much half a generation ahead in terms of tech from anything we would see on the 360 afterwards. Which makes sense, because the on-screen polycount and resolution were like a half-gen behind.

https://www.gdcvault.com/play/253/Lighting-and-Material-of-HALO

It's kind of a strange looking game with its intense lighting and blocky geometry, but I remember it blew me away when I first saw it. And this was even after playing Crysis, on medium settings granted. So yeah, definitely kept pace with its contemporaries.

Reach looks good too, I remember being impressed with it as well. It's just so grey looking compared to the vibrant visuals of Halo 3. Still, the textures look way nicer and the polycount is generally higher/better distributed.

Halo 4 I was just thinking the whole time, "How the hell is this even running on an Xbox 360?" but I honestly dislike the art style. It's very noisy and overdesigned. Too much greebling on everything. I really should look into the tech behind it though, because it did look nice (although it did at the same time have a very overexposed blown out kind of look to the shading). My feelings are very mixed regarding H4.

I kinda get why Bungie decided to not go overboard with the polycount, and instead focused on using bump maps and detailed textures as the primary way of inserting extra detail in the game's world. They were still learning how to deal with the Xbox 360 hardware with Halo 3. Once Bungie mastered the hardware, the visuals got increasingly more sophisticated, and characters and enviroments started getting more polygons. The lighting also got more advanced (support for SSAO was added, for example).

Reach does look more desaturated when compared to Halo 3, but my god, I love its art style. I also love the sheer amount of detail the Spartans from noble team have on their models. Elements that were bump maps in Chief's armor in Halo 3 turned into fully fledged polygonal objects. It's beautiful to watch the visual evolution here.

On a side note: I also enjoy Halo 4's art direction (even though some of the changes they made were unnecessary in my opinion), and I personally think Requiem and the Infinity look great. Why do so many people dislike the Halo 4 art direction ?

That GDC presentation is pretty good by the way. Thanks.