The visuals and flashiness of tags is not a basis to make a bold claim such as SPv3 > Halo CEA.
It is one aspect, I won't ever make such a claim until SPv3 is both more fun to play than CEA and surpasses Halo CEA in all aspects including the way their BSPs look (this doesn't only mean more flashy shaders for the default BSPs either).

It is simply arrogant of them to come forth with such statements on their own behalf.

Lol, so we are assuming that the AR in those videos is the final version, and we are also comparing screenshots of weapons from a full resolution, ingame for CMT, and a marginal, blurry screenshot from a video. And no, to be honest, the AR in CEA looks very nice, as does the CMT AR, though it is unfortunately low detail when it comes to the model, the weapon itself looks great from a side view, but in fp, even the normal maps don't stand out too much because of the lack of model detail.

It isnt an ugly unfinished AR, it is a polished and well done AR. If you didn't notice, the AR that was originally in the early builds of the game was the Reach AR, and most of the videos they have released are E3 builds in which the game was still far from finished, and even then the environments at the least looked superb, if not the weapons. To be honest, not many people assume that the game is going to turn out like complete crap, when absolutely no gameplay from the final build has been released. So basically, at this point, the only thing that you have to work off of when looking at CEA from a critical viewpoint, is a bunch of sounds, and some extremely detailed environments.

SPv3 > SPv2

Spv3=spv3. HCEA=HCEA. Comparrisons betwixt the two are based solely on opinion. That being said, I like the spv3 ar. While I see where lodex is comming from w the unsc logo drawing the eye, I actually think its a nice touch :] and honestly people will get used to it being there when they play so please keep it. One thing you CAN'T see in screenshots is how the ar sounds. Please, please, PLEASE don't use the halo 3 firing sounds. It makes the ar sound like a toy gun. In my opnion.

Seeing as they are both derived from the same engine, a comparison between the two is possible. Just a matter of who's modifying the engine to look better and who's modifying it to include nonsense like kinect.

I have to say those plasma pistol and needler effects look totally bad ass.

Yes, because 343i is not modifying the engine to look better. They are exclusively focused on kinect.

They might as well be the way it looked at e3. Not to mention all the visual problems they somehow created, probably caused by having it switch back to the way it originally looked.
Edited by Sprinkle on Oct 10, 2011 at 11:09 AM

Yeah I know. The levels looked terrible didn't they! Worst graphics in a Halo game by far! It's like they didn't even TOUCH the original game!

My lord you are an idiot.

Um... Just so you know, they are not modifying the original engine that much, they have overlayed the original engine with an entirely new and different graphics layer engine that has nothing to do with CE and does not perform the same way, and is not structured the same way, therefore a comparison is not really possible.

In my opinion, it has the worst environment design of a Halo game in the context of the game's generation. There are bits that look impressive, and there are bits that look like trash. That, and many of the visual motifs that have been in the other games have been broken, so there's definitely not as much cohesion with the rest of the series. 343 Guilty Spark exemplifies that.

I'm surprised you aren't mad that they disregarded most of the game's style and forced in the 'revised' styles of the post-h3 games and the newer.

Transitioning to the topic of CMT environments: if they could entirely re-do the environment they would. I imagine they don't want to redo the Halo 1 gameplay you are so eager to defend.

And no, I'm not insulting you at all. Don't hit the bunkers and start some argument, that's just what I think about the whole mess.

If you didn't notice to begin with, he was being sarcastic.

Second of all, They didn't disregard the style, they are a different company and therefore may have a different art style, but still, the design in the parts of the game shown so far are very cohesive, with very litte variation over all, and do justice quite well to the original game. The environments so far are CEA's serious strongpoint, even though we still have not seen any gameplay at all from the final build of the game.

huh? All the visual crap you see is just pixel shaders, it has nothing to do with the core engine, it's all directx. So yes it is comparable when both parties have access to the same materials/tools (pixel shaders in this case) and one turns out looking better than the other cause of a decision made by one party to do something that wasn't done by the other.
Edited by Sprinkle on Oct 10, 2011 at 01:35 PM

Oh dear I didn't mean to cause this much of a consternation

1. Reworking the BSPs themselves is far beoynd our capabilities because of engine limitations (we're pushing the envelope to a ludicrous extent as is), because changing stock BSPs almost always breaks everything, and simply because it'd be a far larger undertaking than improving smaller assets. We are adding extra bits of nice-looking scenery and replacing stock BSP textures with much nicer ones, but that's about as much as we can do under the limitations we have.

2. The whole SPv3 > HA10 business is just a little joke; the purpose is less to show "look how much better than 343 we are" and more "look how much better than H1 we are," something that's even easier to see when comparing our assets to current-gen assets. 343 is taking far fewer liberties than we are; they're not changing animations, they're not changing effects (they're just swapping out sprites), etc. They're also having to work within the limitations of increasingly outdated X360 hardware (particularly its lack of memory), which directly impacts things like texture resolution; we're not bound by such concerns.

We're not actively seeking to be "better" than HA10, as that's a very unhealthy mindset to develop in. If the things we make seem to look nicer, hey, cool; just don't fight so hard over it, okay?

What the hell are you talking about, the graphics and models that are visibly overlayed on top of the original engine are part of the sabre 3D engine which is being used to render all those models, textures, and particles that the original engine could not handle.

My point was that because all the visual upgrades are handled by a completely different engine than what we use, we can't compare the two.

I have no idea what you are talking about when you say pixel shaders. I don't think you understand me at all.
Edited by Bobblehob on Oct 10, 2011 at 01:45 PM

So the CMT inside jokes so far have been:
- showing off the yellow stripe on the AR
- saying that your project is better than Halo CEA

You guys should do stand-up comedy.

On the most basic level of any game there is something found there, and since this is the xbox we are talking about we can call it, Directx. In that xbox we have something called a video card. There is no direct way to access the video card other than using this magic called Directx. Directx has a built-in language called HLSL which can be used to create pixel shaders and vertex shaders. In the most basic form of shaders you have stuff like textures being put on a model, this is the default model shaders that any thing that uses directx has. However you can override it by creating you own to look better.

The engine can handle a lot, as you can see what CMT is doing. It was the hardware at the time that couldn't handle the engine. They needed to put limiters in place so that the frame rate could remain a steady 30 fps (if there's more than x light effects in the game, the game renders none of them). Simple fast checks like this makes sure the game runs steady, although it may make it visual unappealing.

If you don't know what pixel shaders are than you are just saying they are two different things that have nothing in common, when indeed at the most fundamental level of the game they use the exact same thing.

Okay then, so by your logic here, then we can compare any game that uses directx to any other game that uses directx, (you might also want to drop the, hollierthanthou attitude when it comes to explaining this, you dont have to add in words like "magic", Im not a child and Im not an idiot.) So by your logic we can take say... Halo and compare it to Crysis, because both use the same underlying rendering ability that directx uses.

Still doesn't work bro.
Edited by Bobblehob on Oct 10, 2011 at 04:09 PM

Exactly, you can compare halo and crysis, that's rather simple. Halo 1 uses the most basic of directx which is why it still works with shader model 1.0. If you were to try and run crysis on a 7800 Radeon it wouldn't work. It wouldn't be possible to user shader model 1.0 without it looking like halo 1. You can say crysis looks nicer because it uses newer technology and faster hardware, so there are newer and more techniques at it's disposal. You could compare Halo Reach and Crysis they both use very similar techniques. If you had access to reach's tool set and tags you would see that in ways it's similar to halo 1. The biggest visible change from halo 1 to halo 2 are more pixel shaders.

The biggest different between engines is the storage of information and the implementation of it. For example you can't have a million polygon bsp in halo 1 because it's collision algorithm is 10 years. Halo Reach uses compressed vertex data which is why it takes so long to load a map, it needs to first uncompress the map and than go and uncompress all the vertices which takes time but saves space. A game like crysis probably doesn't use a lot of compression which is why it can load a more complex map in less time than Halo reach can. There you go, comparing a xbox game with a pc game.

Well seeing you didn't even know what pixel shaders were, it is magic for you :). Which is why you can say you can't compare two games, when you so easily can when you know how they are made. You look at one you can see how they did one thing, look at the other and see how it's been improved on or how differently they did it.
Edited by Sprinkle on Oct 10, 2011 at 04:56 PM

They still are not comparable. You can't compare the games based solely on this criteria.

What are you talking about Scio. The only thing I am criticizing was the entire SPv3 > Ha10 arrogance, nothing more. But that was rapidly deemed a "joke". Talk for yourself, not others.

I was also not aware you were an experienced level/encounter designer, good for you.

The standup comedy comment was a sarcastic hint that I find the "joke" excuse a tad ridiculous.
I also don't consider these arguments to be childish, nor do I care if you or other people perceive them that way. What matters is that I have taken the things on which I comment seriously and have been mature in my responses.

Also do not categorise me as you know absolutely nothing about me. I will now leave this issue and you can PM me if you have more stupid things to say.

Oh for the love of Dennis.

1. There was and is no "fight".
2. Where did I "snap", just because I don't use happyfaces everywhere doesn't mean I am mad.
But if that's what you need in order for it to be clear I am not being "mean", then here, have a happyface:

Now stop acting like a child and stop judging other people their behaviour, you don't know anything about my personality and stop acting like you do.

uve lost ur touch

I'll say this one more time, you know nothing about me and stop assuming you do.
You keep trying to continue this while in my previous post I steered this argument to it's end.

So take your own advice to heart, I'm not replying to you anymore.

You know what is sad? You started this argument, by backing up the claim that CMT > CEA. You made your little post about how lodex wasnt a troll, just a butthurt child who didn't like that the Spv3 content was better than the CEA. You really should stop trying to sound mature, because it isn't working out too well.

Seriously, drop the whole, "Im more mature than anyone else here" crap, you incited a reaction from him. Do I really have to quote the post that you did it in? Or will you freely admit it.

Oh, and you even edited your post too, good job!
Edited by Bobblehob on Oct 10, 2011 at 06:49 PM

Wow lol, bullied at school?
A clear sign you cannot hold an argument in a mature and calm way.

Here, I'll help you at becoming what you claim to be but are not:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsD6uEZsIsU&list=FLYvJ6f76npgOlKNGhHbxK3A&index=1

That song will hopefully get you back on track, but wow just calm down. No need to project your own life story on other people over a mature online argument about video games.

Oh, and now you ignore it, fine then I'll dig up the post that you used to start this stupid argument


Edited by Bobblehob on Oct 10, 2011 at 06:54 PM

Oh Halomaps. Never change.

Guys. Shut UP.

listen to some awesome jazz to sooth your idiotic minds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CodmlmxpZeQ

Stop dodging the issue you arrogant idiot, you posted in a way that was specifically insulting to lodex, then when he is insulted by said post, you tell him he is being immature, and now you are trying to ignore it as if it didnt happen. You are pathetic.

its k

Or rap.

/topic

Have you guys made updates on the other guns yet?

Well in this special case both games are essentially the same gameplay, it isn't like saying gears of war is a better game than halo reach. If that's your train of thought of how you compare games based on their gameplay, everyone has different tastes. But in regards to how the game works and looks, this is comparable.
Edited by Sprinkle on Oct 10, 2011 at 07:28 PM