i agree with higuy on this one

why would you refuse what could make your product better?

Because "better" is a matter of opinion.

Let's take a close look at this train of conversation. Well, feel free to skip over it if you don't care to, but I want to say something and since so much of this seems to be based on ambiguity and generalization I want to be as explicit as possible.

Everything started with Higuy mistaking part of the SMG's texture for a detail map:





Since that's in fact not part of a detail map (as the SMG shader does not use one), Masterz pointed this out along with an assurance that while this has not been noticed before it will be fixed if it is noticeable in other situations.



Higuy then said that no - detail maps are necessary regardless of resolution. He also says that he knows CMT's tags better than Masterz himself! Clearly there is a detail map on it!!

Masterz then stated that the latter part of Higuy's assertion was objectively, unequivocally wrong: there is no detail map used on our SMG.



Not satisfied, Higuy continued to put on the pressure! Despite having lost on one point, he can still make Masterz look like a troglodyte fool!



At this point I'd like to interject:
There is no detail map, however Higuy repeatedly insisted that there is a detail map. But at the same time, he argued that we need to use detail maps and are wrong for not doing so!

One might imagine that if the texture was able to convince someone that it had a detail map on it then the need for a detail map was somewhat mitigated by virtue of the fact that the texture could fill that role adequately. I'm not sure from which line or reasoning Higuy is arguing here. Either there is a tiling bitmap applied on top of the diffuse map of the SMG shader or there is not. (There is not). If there is not, Higuy is incorrect in his assertion that there is one. However, by virtue of the fact that he asserted that there is one, one may also conclude that the shader's current appearance satisfies the general purpose of a detail map. Then, one might say that in situations such as this, a detail map is not necessary since the texture on its own is able to convince people that there must be something externally overlaid onto it to give it that appearance!

I would also like to mention that while one could argue that since the picture posted had the SMG not looking so fine the lack of detail maps and reliance on high-resolution textures was taking its toll on the mod's visual appearance - but again remember that the second thing Masterz ever said in this conversation was that this visual problem would be fixed if it continued to present itself.

Now, back to the story so far:

Hunter takes his turn interjecting with a condensed analog to the argument I just made. The SMG's texture-density requirements are obviously being met; the need for a detail map on a weapon with such a high-resolution texture is certainly questionable.



Allow me to interject once more: at this point in the conversation the only game objects which have been mentioned are weapons. Hunter even explicitly restricted his statement as applying to weapons. Masterz made his original statement - "we don't really use detail maps anymore" - in the context of a comment about a weapon. Though one could argue that he did not explicitly restrict the scope of his statement like Hunter did and thus it could technically be assumed to apply to any object, one could also argue that he actually said "we don't really use detail maps anymore" so his statement was not all-inclusive either. From there it would devolve into a mess of intended meanings and all sorts of similarly uninteresting stuff. Another important point here: Hunter isn't on CMT. He's just offering his perspective as a game-art creator. Remember this for later.

Anyhow, Higuy once again persists! He must tell the world about the gospel of the map of detail!



Two key generalizations and/or general leaps of logic were made here and I'd like to isolate them.
1) Here he is the first one to explicitly migrate the subject away from the context of weapons (excluding Masterz' first ambiguous statement). Soundly defeated on both his original argument and the extended argument regarding the necessity of a detail map in the context of weapons, he now pursues what little he can of his chance at winning the argument by broadening its scope. Of course, nobody could argue that you never need a detail map. They're there to create the illusion of variation when the available texture resolution does not allow it. Higuy has created a position that nobody can rationally argue against by taking Hunter's specific case (weapons) and applying it incredibly generally.

It's like if someone said "Blowtorches are good for fixing all kinds of things, like if you need to weld something" and then someone else came in saying "But blowtorches can destroy things that are too small, and what if you need to fix something made out of wood?!!??!"

2) He also made another general statement which subtly but crucially changed the nature of what we're arguing here: "You can't always use high res textures on everything, even weapons." Once again he's explicitly changing the context of the argument to make it easier to win. Of course you'd want a detail map if the resolution of the base texture is lower. However, this discussion was taking place in the context of the SMG which, as I made clear earlier, had a high enough resolution to convince him that it had one when it didn't.

...And then, we got this:



Nobody on CMT ever "refused" the use of detail maps. As has been shown the SMG clearly is not in need of them for resolution problems (whether its visual appearance needs tweaking is another matter). Masterz said "we don't really use them" but that neither constitutes an active refusal nor even a passive one - it just means that we don't use them much. Nothing was said about the larger objects or the inconsequential ones requiring smaller texture space which Higuy brought up. Everything was in the context of first-person weapons. But now, suddenly, as a result of Hunter and Higuy's exchange and Higuy's generalizations, we're accused of "refusing something that could make our product better". In other words, we're accused of being unreasonable, stuck-up, and (implicitly) bad developers.

Forgive me for going on and on about this but it is very irritating to me. From one comment explaining that there is in fact no detail map we're being railroaded into the position of being objectively bad people.
Edited by teh lag on Nov 2, 2011 at 10:01 PM

Thank you teh lag. Now that makes sense.


E: Removed.
Edited by Skidrow925 on Nov 2, 2011 at 10:00 PM

Please edit your post. It serves no purpose for the sake of argument. Teh_lag's argument is easily efficient enough to accomplish this. You're just flaming a bit here dude, so I'd suggest removing that last section of the post.

@Teh_lag: In coordinance with the Hunter's new animation, will other characters be seeing some new animations to further enhance their capabilities? What about Brutes flying Banshees (I apologize if I've asked this one before)?

I can make no guarantees but I don't plan on this being the only such addition to enemy behavior.

(also now now, let's just all leave this to rest)

have I ever mentioned how much I disapproved of cmt's secretism?

ANYWAY *cough* sprinting jackals *cough*

Is there any reason why you'd want Brutes to fly Banshees?

I don't know if you have this implanted at the moment, and it's not really to do with the actual mod it's self. But do you have some AA function in the post-processing?

I watched a video earlier about Battlefield 3, and they mentioned they use post processing for AA. Although they did mention it used alot of GPU memory.

Most people (like myself) will probably have the ability to apply AA filters through their graphics cards anyway, but just for people who can't force it, was just wondering :P

They do in Halo 3. But other than that, I got nothin'.

Well, now that you mention it...

(you'll have to open these up full-size in another tab/window to see the benefit, as the scaled-down images will mask the jaggies in the no-AA pic)

Without OS-enabled FXAA:
http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/4528/haloce2011110222504319.jpg

With OS-enabled FXAA:
http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/7425/haloce2011110222481951.jpg

Because it's just a post-processing shader and not "true" anti-aliasing, it doesn't fix everything and it causes the overall image to be a bit blurry, but after a couple of minutes of playtime I hardly notice and, personally, think it's a net improvement.

Why not?

Animations, clipping and performance for one. Grunts actually may be piloting some banshees in some cases where we will have the driver be set to invisible in future maps, but it's really irrelevant as to whats inside the Banshee.
Edited by Masters1337 on Nov 3, 2011 at 12:11 AM

I can't see the difference...

Definitely an improvement. Don't know if Korn or anyone has time or knows how to do this, but Battlefield used that FXAA with edge detection to just apply the FXAA to the hard edges which the edge detection post processing function.

Also, bloom? :P

Bloom is in.

Don't know if this has been asked but:

Are the new Marines that we're being deigned by nugget for spv2 going into spv3?
Is hijacking still being implemented?
And for the uneducated (me) what is bloom?

1) We haven't decided what we're going to do with Nugget's marines.
2) Barring some terrible discovery regarding how it'll be implemented, yes
3) Bloom in this context refers to a blurring-effect applied to bright surfaces, like this (though usually it is not quite that strong).

I haven't even seen the new marines!

that was basically my intention, but my point still stands. I never once did once say to take the detail map off, I said to fix it. Even if there wasn't one on there, that would give you all some indication to maybe fix your actual texture to better your own product, rather then arguing with the general public.

lol.

mentally destroyed by higuy ;)

Please learn to understand the words which are spoken or shown to you. Your knowledge of the words is only a small part of the overall understanding.

It's already been stated that they will improve upon the textures. It's also been stated that the high res textures are so good that you thought there were detail maps, even if they are poor detail maps.

... and 2....

also @teh lag ... pursue law school.

@deli regarding their "secretiveness" (secretism isn't a word :P) what they have shown so far is generally a lot more then they do and they have their reasons for it. ei the the leaks w spv2 and in any case i LIKE that they do that. it makes playing it more exciting when you get around to it :)

back to the banshee pilot topic i was actually going to ask why you wouldn't just pull a "reach" and have no pilot at all in some cases ... it seems like it would be more efficient in cases. that being said this question next is specifically geared towards truth and reconciliation; if you recall playing nightfall from halo: reach there were banshees and a "a lot of air traffic" around the area will you have banshees flying over head as you get closer to the ship? i know this isnt a big priority but it would be a neat and logical touch. if you had a ship crash you would want your local air support to patrol the crash to make sure it isn't compromised. thats the aesthetic advantage of doing this. but it still hinders it space wise which brings me to my next spiel. are you planning on doing lo res models for distant air battles like reach does? they have tiny low res models for the falcons and banshees you see dog fighting through out the game.. (if you want a closer look zoom in on them with your sniper rifle) do you plan on doing anything like that in later levels? or would you look into doing that for truth and recon? not for dogfights but for a banshee patrol flying around? maybe make it an objective to not be detected by such patrols?

it should be a word

and also "secretiveness" isn't really the best approach. Yes it does yield exciting shock and awe effects but at the same time it is also good on projects of relatively large magnitudes (campaign mods, for example) to keep everything in the open, mainly for the reason that EVERYONE, professional or not, will make and overlook mistakes on projects like this, which would then be spotted by the viewing community and brought to the attention of those who would need to know about it. It is also good to have criticism on everything, not just what you choose to show. no one, no matter what has a perfect self criticizing system. a person or team's own personal bias can keep them from correcting a mistake they would regret not correcting later on. I could go on but I'm thirsty and need a soda so I'll stop giving reasons.

When it comes to art assets, SPv3 has been very, very open; if you take all the videos, pictures, words, etc. that have been posted over on the Halomods forum and elsewhere, there is a ton of content that's been exposed and open to public for observation and critique; many of the things we're not showing are withheld simply because they're not finished, and many of the things we do are posted almost immediately after or even before they're fully implemented (75% of my particles, Lag's Hunter stuff, HUD stuff, etc.). It's not just about surprises; it's about making sure the things we publicly release are in a fashion that's representative of the mod's high quality bar.

Regarding gameplay, there is no way to accurately gather critique and feedback from the public without actually distributing builds; this is why we do regular and frequent internal testing to ensure everything is up to snuff. Inevitably, gameplay problems that are not discovered during internal testing will be found after public release, which is one of the reasons why we're adopting a one-map-at-a-time release policy.

@ifafudafi
finished and fully implemented is not when content should be shown for the first time, it should be shown in the WIP stages so criticism can be given BEFORE it is finished. And like I've said, no one, not even CMT is above criticism and it'd be foolish to not take advice from others, especially people outside the team who could give a fresh perspective.

and calling cmt's bar high quality is not helping your team reach its full potential, if you aren't at least somewhat modest about your work, you'll never strive to rise above it as much as you could.
Edited by Delicon20 on Nov 3, 2011 at 06:47 PM

We show lots of things that are a WIP and ask for input. However it is not anyones place to tell us how or what to do with our art. It's our job to show you what we have done, not for you to tell us how you want it start to finish. The two are separate things, and we will continue to ask for input and criticism when it applies.

I find my approach somewhat better as to how I present my work with TM (showing very little to make the end experience more enjoyable so the public does not know exactly what is coming), however CMT is pretty good at how they are doing it since they are not making a new campaign with new environments/storyline, and gameplay etc. They are making art assets which should be critiqued, however the community should be loosely listened too as an influence and input.

you seem to have a misunderstanding of how criticism works if that's your attitude. no one tells YOU how to do anything, they tell you what they'd like to see done and what they'd do if they were in your shoes. you can choose whether to take it or not, but either way it'll make you think more about the subject at hand which could open up more possibilities that would never had been brought to mind. TM didn't show nearly any of their content and they ended up releasing an update map when if they had shown more many of those fixes would've already been implemented, and an update wouldn't have been needed. All I'm asking is that you be more lenient with what you do or don't show. Now you have the choice to take my criticism into consideration, or brush it aside without mind. Makes no difference to me, this isn't my mapping team, and that's the end of what I have to say.

They can simply show the content when it is finished and you could still give crit. If they find that the crit is acceptable and will benefit everyone else as well as the person giving the crit, then they might make the change and accept it.

There is no defined point when content SHOULD be shown... when the person feels they want crit for it as they can't see many problems, then they will ask for it, or simply show it which usually gets crit anyway.

so uh.... banshees? gettin their patrol on?

You are horribly wrong in that, to fix gameplay issues you would have to release a beta map, which we were and are not willing to do.
Edited by Higuy on Nov 4, 2011 at 06:09 AM

We wanted them in, but tagspace can be a bitch. Now that we can do recorded animations you can expect to see them doing flybys and airstrikes in other maps.

Recorded animations? Your kidding right? How?

Actually, you seem to have a misunderstanding of how criticism works. People can tell you how to do things. But good advice should overview the idea of how to do things rather than allowing people to be parrots. However, you should ALWAYS tell people vaguely how to do things if they need help, unless it's a contest. They're not going to read your mind or suddenly know how to do exactly what you want to be done. If you want something done, don't expect people to instantly know how to get it done.
Also, you should never only give negative criticism or demand things. You should tell people what they may have done right and what they've done wrong. For example, in graphics editing, if somebody made a terrible picture on Microsoft Paint but if it looked a little bit like what it should be, e.g. a signature, then I'd tell them they're on the right track with their style and their idea, but they should find tutorials for applying additional detail and use more advanced software. And if I wanted them to do something extra with it, I'd give them a few tips on how to do that or where to find tutorials on how to do that.