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Digital Foundry: Halo Infinite E3 2019: A Taste Of Next-Gen Xbox Graphics?
- Thread starter chandoog
- Start date
It's pretty obvious what it is
Maybe, I wouldn't say it's obvious though. Chief grabbing an AR and jumping into space towards a Guardian sounds silly Tbh.
Looks really nice, especially considering it's got more than a year to go. I'm eager to see actual gameplay and large environments though.
Death Stranding looks quite bad????????
Halo Infinite doesn't look special at all graphically OR from an art design perspective, maybe there will be crazy details when you ZOOM all the way in and yes, the fact it's 60fps is indeed great, but I haven't been impressed by it's visuals once compared to a lot of other games.
To be fair, while the death stranding facial animations look incredible, the skin shaders throw me off. They look like a perfect example of that "wax" skin look. I think the hair looks great too, but the skin isn't there for me.Death Stranding looks quite bad????????
Halo Infinite doesn't look special at all graphically OR from an art design perspective, maybe there will be crazy details when you ZOOM all the way in and yes, the fact it's 60fps is indeed great, but I haven't been impressed by it's visuals once compared to a lot of other games.
Death Stranding looks quite bad????????
Halo Infinite doesn't look special at all graphically OR from an art design perspective, maybe there will be crazy details when you ZOOM all the way in and yes, the fact it's 60fps is indeed great, but I haven't been impressed by it's visuals once compared to a lot of other games.
You're showing stills of cutscenes where all compute power is spent on character faces, and they still look bad- waxy. Nothing impressive.
I wouldn't say the skin shading here, at least on the face, is any better. I would say the facial modelling in DS is though. The characters look far more realistic, but that also is probably the art in that regard. Halo seems stylised. Regardless, saying DS looks bad is just as ridiculous as saying this does. I personally find DS more impressive graphically than this, the environmental rendering is the most realistic I have seen in a TPS, but this is running at 4k 60. Still, just a cutscene so that isn't particularly illustrative yet.
MXT: Come on, just becuase you like one game, articulating like that doesn't give your opinion much credos...exaggeration is the hallmark of a fanboy...
You said stills. Those are characters during cut-scenes, same as any.
Not. Even. Close. Sorry.
They look good, no doubt. But not like the Halo trailer here. This is next level. Its insane. I've never seen anything look so fluid in every single detail like what we have here.
"Don't forget its 4k/60fps!"
The fact that people need to call this out so much maybe should clue them in that with just a simple eyeball test this isn't that amazing. It looks on par with current good looking (mostly 1080/30) games.
And I hope next gen is more than "if you zoom in on ugly model's seat belt you'll see a really detailed uninteresting texture."
The fact that people need to call this out so much maybe should clue them in that with just a simple eyeball test this isn't that amazing. It looks on par with current good looking (mostly 1080/30) games.
And I hope next gen is more than "if you zoom in on ugly model's seat belt you'll see a really detailed uninteresting texture."
I think Halo 1 was at the time in some ways for things other than character models. It was a huge accomplishment in terms of physics and AI too.
Halo 4's campaign seemed like pure witchcraft on Xbox 360 hardware too.
They are some good looking games at times.
Visual upgrades really should be all about refinement next gen. And better developer pipelines+simulation tools for AAA hopefully so shit don't take 5-6 years to come out. IQ this gen has been great, and so has performance overall. I don't need games to really look that much better at this point, but we need even better performance/refinement/innovation.
Game looks fantastic so far. It looks clean and colorful. The only thing I wasn't thrilled about was the pilot's facial animation. Facial animation has never been a particularly strong point in Halo. I think one thing to keep in mind is that since this is seeming like a callback to Halo CE we should expect that engagements will be big with lots of AI activity and vast horizons on screen. This level of fidelity will be a joy if they can pull it off on the grand scale of Halo encounters. Also this very early footage being that the game is a year and a half away. 343 will get more familiar with the hardware they are targeting and they may be able to refine this and add new visual features. It's all very encouraging. I think Halo is on the right path again.
I feel like Halo has always pushed Physics, particles, and enemy AI over graphics. And im okay with that. What we saw in the trailer will be incredible mixed in with large environments filled to the brim with vehicles, friendly and enemy AI, and dynamic objects/meshes with great physics applied to them. Im more excited to see what next gen computation power can offer towards AI and increasing those beautiful particle FX.
Honestly, if you folks are objectively looking for the most realistic looking human character in real time (not "in-engine cutscenes") from this gen then only game has it (and I think it also comes down to the kind of style other devs aim to deliver). That game is Days Gone. For all the technical issues (including notable object pop ins) this game is the benchmark when it comes this singular aspect.
The following real time screenshots come courtesy of Dumbmugi and is NOT meant to derail the thread, rather provide a baseline as to what to expect from next gen IF the developers target photo-realism instead of a more stylized approach.
From what I saw of Halo Infinite, it looks like they are, despite very realistic lighting, are going for a slightly more vivified style (reminds me of Uncharted 4) with distinctly clean lines.
The following real time screenshots come courtesy of Dumbmugi and is NOT meant to derail the thread, rather provide a baseline as to what to expect from next gen IF the developers target photo-realism instead of a more stylized approach.
From what I saw of Halo Infinite, it looks like they are, despite very realistic lighting, are going for a slightly more vivified style (reminds me of Uncharted 4) with distinctly clean lines.
Halo CE was mind-blowing at the time on the OG Xbox. Especially the tree textures.
The difference between a still of a cutscene and a video of a cutscene is non-existent. I am not claiming that the images are from a photo mode, I am claiming they are from a cut scene, a Kojima cutscene. Cutscenes can spend the compute budget in a much different way than other scenes can.
Not exactly. The video begins with a cutscene and briefly enters the game world and ends with a cutscene. There is no meaningful difference in graphic fidelity between the three scenes. Compare to that to every Kojima game since MGS 2 - cutscenes that look dramatically better than the game itself. MGS 4 is a particularly serious offender, as is TPP. But this argument risks being off-topic, so I am not going to go any further into comparisons between gameplay of MGS/DS/etc and cutscenes of said games.
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I'm surprised to see people pooh-Pooh the visuals. It looks very detailed and beautiful and even more than that it looks like Halo. The art style looks to be where it should be.
Came here to post this - sans Cyberpunk (I'm straining to be impressed by that one). Deathstranding, as a current gen showcase, is leagues beyond this next-gen Halo tease. Clearly art direction is a critical element. But just on a technical level, I'm far more impressed with what Deathstranding is accomplishing with density of detail.
Can't help but wonder the obvious - what might Deathstranding look like if it were developed natively for PS5? How might Decima/Horizons 2 benefit from the learnings of Deathstranding's development and optimize for the capabilities of PS5?
Wax? WHAT!? I can literally see the pores of their skin. What do mean "wax"? I feel gaslit LOL
If you think that, fine.
But are you going to look at this
and tell me it looks as good as this?
Honestly, critique that Halo footage and tell me you think the skin/animation/facial detail is phenomenal let alone close to Death Stranding.
Both sets of footage are from cutscenes and the difference is still staggering, and you can say "it's just cutscenes!" all you want but both are supposedly in-engine so it's not unfair to compare them.
I'm even willing to say Halo doesn't look as good but since it's 60fps it's acceptable that it took a hit graphically, fair enough.
But I defy anyone, based on the footage we have so far, to say DS looks worse, let alone that Halo looks better.
Also the talk of 'waxy' looking skin is bullshit, Mass Effect has waxy skin, Death Stranding doesn't.
I don't know how to be more clear. Death Stranding looks quite bad, to me. In game footage looks okay, but is often too dark to make out much detail. The character faces in cutscenes look bad. Waxy, current-gen lightning, etc.
I encourage you to watch the video from the OP so as to understand the technological superiority of the Infinite footage. You seem to want to argue about art direction/how you believe a compute budget should be spent/etc, while I want to talk about what is objective.
And, yes, the Infinite gif is the better of those two. The DS one is firmly in uncanny valley. The infinite gif is too dark to make out much detail, but it doesn't make me feel unwell the way the DS gif does. Everything looks wrong with that DS gif- the lightning on the face is off, the eyes have a dead gaze to them, the lipstick has too much sheen. Even the tear is wrong - it looks more like a scar, the way it sits above the skin as opposed to being partially absorbed by the skin.
The scene is a mess. There is a reason why most studios do not blow the entire compute budget (during cutscenes) to bring up the quality of character faces - unless you can push all the way past uncanny valley, the end result looks worse than staying inside the bounds of what is possible on the hardware you are shipping on.
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DF is an incredibly valuable arm of Eurogamer in terms of ad revenue, mainly due to their average watch time and long term viewer retention rate for their Retro series.
I hope the guys are paid decently because the content they produce is incredible... If not they should do a Kinda Funny and take the lions share!
On topic, great video as always Alex.
I just watched the trailer in 4K. IGN has it up, holy shit I didn't think it would make such a difference but it sure did.
One thing I notice though, but maybe I'm seeing things. The marine character model, especially the face too looks very good and realistic, but as a soon as we get to the part where we see from Chief's POV it seems it doesn't look as good. Not bad in any way, but could this possible be where it goes ingame? We even see text saying "continue?" and that seems similar to the start of Halo 4 to me.
If the marine (and other characters) look like that ingame I'm more than fine with that.
One thing I notice though, but maybe I'm seeing things. The marine character model, especially the face too looks very good and realistic, but as a soon as we get to the part where we see from Chief's POV it seems it doesn't look as good. Not bad in any way, but could this possible be where it goes ingame? We even see text saying "continue?" and that seems similar to the start of Halo 4 to me.
If the marine (and other characters) look like that ingame I'm more than fine with that.
OFF TOPIC:
Betty I think we need an uncompressed footage of Death Stranding's latest trailer because one thing that stood out to me is female character skin (save the President of Jack shit :P) look like they are bereft of any imperfection. I think that is what is being alluded to as waxy. Troy Baker's character, Higgs, also looked like the face lacked the same texture detail as Sam, Cliff and Heartman.
Betty I think we need an uncompressed footage of Death Stranding's latest trailer because one thing that stood out to me is female character skin (save the President of Jack shit :P) look like they are bereft of any imperfection. I think that is what is being alluded to as waxy. Troy Baker's character, Higgs, also looked like the face lacked the same texture detail as Sam, Cliff and Heartman.
The Halo footage is a cut-scene entirely. Also, we already have enough Death Stranding footage and it looks pretty good.
Obviously, cut-scenes will usually look improved compared to gameplay in most games. Halo will not be an exception considering it's going to be pretty open and it's aiming 60 FPS / 4K.
No, it's not. Again: cutscene, brief 'in game world' segment, cutscene. There is no actual player controlled gameplay in the Infinite footage, but that is not the same thing as being a cutscene. The segment where The Pilot is attempting to calibrate Chief's system is an in-game world segment.
Reminds me of late gen PC exclusives in the last years of the PS2/GCN/XBOX era, like FEAR and Far Cry. Just character models alone were not a noticeable step above, or arguably not as good as Resident evil 4 in some areas, but they were implementing effects across the board that would not be commonplace until the 360 launched.
The Halo character doesn't even look real, I get that's the artistic reason but he looks like a video game character, the Death Stranding character looks real, there is ZERO hint of uncanny valley whatsoever.
I have watched the Digital Foundry footage, have YOU watched the digital foundry footage of Death Stranding, from a graphical and technical standpoint I still think it trounces Halo Infinite, the only thing Halo has over it is framerate.
If you think the Halo footage looks better, fine, I don't, I was very unimpressed with it and I think you're way off.
Okay, we disagree. The DS character is firmly in uncanny valley, to me. Further discussion with you appears pointless, so I think we are done here.
30fps on One, with possibly stuff in the distance being updated at half the refresh rate.
60fps on Scarlett.
?
I think it looks phenomenal. From the art direction, lighting, and detail, everything just hits the right notes. It isn't flashy or in your face like some other impressive looking games we've seen, just a meticulously rendered realization of a timeless character and art style.
It's why Halo 3 still holds up (in 4K) with it's natural-looking lighting and effects... and it seems that this will be the next evolution of the look Bungie achieved in that game.
I seriously cannot wait for this game. If you take the dev time, new engine, new art style, "soft reboot"/re-imagining angle and combine it with launching a new Xbox generation alongside Game Pass and xCloud... I think it's going to be huge.
It's why Halo 3 still holds up (in 4K) with it's natural-looking lighting and effects... and it seems that this will be the next evolution of the look Bungie achieved in that game.
I seriously cannot wait for this game. If you take the dev time, new engine, new art style, "soft reboot"/re-imagining angle and combine it with launching a new Xbox generation alongside Game Pass and xCloud... I think it's going to be huge.