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Digital Foundry: Halo Infinite E3 2019: A Taste Of Next-Gen Xbox Graphics?
- Thread starter chandoog
- Start date
There are points where he is comparing to 5, there are points where he is calling out specific rendering techniques and model LOD and lightning techniques that are not achievable at an acceptable resolution on either the Xbox One S or the Xbox One X.
Its obvious to me they didnt show any of the gameplay cos they want people to be wowed by it closer to Scarlett release. They dont get much out of it by hyping this early, they're keeping their cards close to their chest.
Well damn, if that's the case then it's even more disappointing for me.
Maybe the first true next gen dedicated Halo game will look better.
I think it was more that we haven't seen it, not that it's not possible. We know 343i hasn't been happy with the engine they used for 5 and 5 was a game of compromises to get it running at 60fps on the base Xbox One. The SlipSpace engine is a brand new thing we haven't seen expect for the reveal trailer last year and this Discover Hope trailer.
Infinite will be 343i first game with PC/Xbox One X/Scarlett as lead platforms and on a new engine.
Until we have definitive proof and comparisons between confirmed Project Scarlett and Xbox One X/S footage, we can't really say what this was on.
It's kind of like the Mass Effect Andromeda situation where they wanted to do the Fallout 4 thing by only showing the game close to release, but they announced it too early so we get two years of small teases. At least with this game we'll likely be playing the beta in late December (optimisitc) or early 2020. I bet they keep the campaign under wraps until E3 2020.
I can firmly state the level of LOD that you see in that trailer is not achievable on the Xbox One X at 4k/60, or 4k/30 for that matter. No engine can do it. The GPU grunt just is not there. Not a single title shipping for the Xbox One X in the lifetime of the SKU has come remotely close to the Infinite trailer.
Yes, it's mostly speculation at this point, but with all the money, time and talent being pumped into creating a new engine, I'm extremely optimistic. All I personally care about is straight up direct feed gameplay.
The only thing I worry about is whether the Xbox One somehow hamstrings Halo: Infinite. Engines are pretty good about being hardware-flexible these days, but that doesn't mean a game's content can't be hindered by the limitations of lesser hardware.
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 haven't seen much Death Stranding so maybe this gif isn't a good representation. I see a relatively low polygon face with no texturing and shiny lighting. Probably why the facial animations look terrible. Look at the forehead and nose areas and tell me what you see.
Yeah they'll stay quiet on Infinite and keep Halo fans (whole new bunch of pc players helps) busy with more MCC till then.
I think this was a good tease but cant blame people for wanting more.
I see a better looking animated and graphically polished face than the one in Halo Infinite.
But whatever, you can all think what you want.
I know this is going to sound stupid and maybe I'm wrong but I wonder if the faces themselves are partially the reason the reason DS cutscene is more appealing. The features in DS are of Hollywood stars and this pilot is just a normal dude. Both DS and the Halo dude are very detailed and nice looking but the DS people are more attractive... Maybe Kojima is just better at facial animations. It definitely has not been a strong suit in halo games over the years. Probably why chief never takes off his helmet..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.
People who say that and no more are most certainly wrong.
Saying that it looks unimpressive for a game running on a 12-14tflop GPU with a 400% increase in CPU compute, probably 16-24GB's of RAM and an SSD is a fair comment imo. Does it look great? Of course it does but it's not the usual generational leap over something like God of War or RDR2 for me in terms of cut scenes vs cut scenes.
The animation at the start where the guy gets out of the seat is super jarring to me and kind of reminds me of the original Uncharted Trilogy over the top animation but they will most probably polish that stuff up before launch.
At the end of the day it's a cross gen games and severely constrained by everything having to run on the base XB1.
What's that dealer out hand wipe and flip gesture they do at card tables in casinos? That's me right now.
The following is pure speculation:
- I think this was meant to be a first sneak peek that introduced MC with the most impact possible (or as perceived to be so from the PoV of directors/devs).
- I believe they want to align a proper gameplay demonstration for their flagship title, portraying the benefits of next gen at next year's E3. This way, devs do not have to go out of their way to make an E3 build for a game for which the console has been fully revealed.
- Finally, I would wager that the specs for the machines are still somewhat fluid. The sneak peek was in all likelihood constructed to run on a devkit/PC emulating next gen HW. As such, they would not want to show anything that can change notably, especially for the worse.
I can't put my finger on it because it is no one thing rather the combination of the quality of material, clean IQ, volumetric lighting made to look even more luxurious courtesy of that high quality Bokeh depth of field, that elevates the visuals to truly new heights. That said, I will remain somewhat skeptical until I see uncut and long gameplay footage (it would add immensely to fidelity if this quality of DoF is featured during gameplay).
Yea no there's no current gen game that has detail like this ingame
In terms of inanimate objects, you are probably right. In terms of skin detail (veins and poly count), I would objectively disagree. That said, it looks top tier.
My personal favourite is still Detroit: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.
Especially all the black people look amazing, which is a rare thing.
Yea no there's no current gen game that has detail like this ingame
If you are just taking about hands look at this. It is 3 year old game now
And I can't find metro Exodus gif of gloves which has even more details
i thought Elli's mom looks amazing in tlou part 2 as well. that entire cutscene has some of the best most realistic lighting ever.
and yes, those detroit models are insane.
i think halo infinite looks very impressive for a current gen game. which is exactly what it is. it doesnt look a gen ahead of the uncharted, detroit, tlou and death stranding character models because it's being made for the same gen. it has been since 2015 when scorpio was literally 2 years away. and scarlet a full 5 years away.
it's being designed with xb1 specs as the baseline. sure, they will turn up all the fancy visual effects and the framerate to 60 fps but at the end of the day, they might even add ray tracing, but at the end of the day, its a current gen game running at native 4k 60 fps on a machine thats nearly 12 tflops in power. or almost 9x more powerful than the base xbox one.
if you guys want to know what next gen games will look like, check out these tech demos below running on the latest pc gpus. as impressive as halo infinite is, it is not next gen.
this is next gen.
and yes, those detroit models are insane.
i think halo infinite looks very impressive for a current gen game. which is exactly what it is. it doesnt look a gen ahead of the uncharted, detroit, tlou and death stranding character models because it's being made for the same gen. it has been since 2015 when scorpio was literally 2 years away. and scarlet a full 5 years away.
it's being designed with xb1 specs as the baseline. sure, they will turn up all the fancy visual effects and the framerate to 60 fps but at the end of the day, they might even add ray tracing, but at the end of the day, its a current gen game running at native 4k 60 fps on a machine thats nearly 12 tflops in power. or almost 9x more powerful than the base xbox one.
if you guys want to know what next gen games will look like, check out these tech demos below running on the latest pc gpus. as impressive as halo infinite is, it is not next gen.
this is next gen.
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dragonbane Hey, thank you for posting those. I had completely forgotten about this technological showcase (I still have play the game despite buying it on day 1). And holy crap, I think that last person was in the tv series Almost Human and DC Titans. They did an absolutely phenomenal job.
It is amazing to see so many devs are at the cutting edge when it comes to translating face and mo-cap into in-game/in-engine animations. Another dev that comes to mind are Supermassive Games who made Until Dawn. Unlike their previous project, which was not always great in terms of shader work (but they were good and surprisingly enough Until Dawn used Decima... iirc it was not called Decima at the time) their latest project, Man of Medan, looks fantastic.
It is amazing to see so many devs are at the cutting edge when it comes to translating face and mo-cap into in-game/in-engine animations. Another dev that comes to mind are Supermassive Games who made Until Dawn. Unlike their previous project, which was not always great in terms of shader work (but they were good and surprisingly enough Until Dawn used Decima... iirc it was not called Decima at the time) their latest project, Man of Medan, looks fantastic.
Halo's look better. Mama looks very waxy and fake. Just watching the 4k footage of Halo the Pilot looks so much more detailed. Just look at Mama's right shoulder....Plasticy shiny fake
Just his hands have so much detail it's amazing skin rendering
No way tht hand Pic looks better than the mama gif. and the other poster that posted uncharted Drakes hands looks way more detailed than that blurry hand Pic. The last of us 2 I won't even bring in the convo because that just looks next level.
It's nice that we're at the point in the thread where people are posting images and gifs from incredibly linear third person action games to compare to a fully open world 4K/60fps title. The fact that these are the games people have to use to downplay what's being done in the halo trailer is telling
AegonSnake Few key things to remember from that Heretic footage.
1. It is running at 1440p (and definitely some form of AA as well)
2. Operating at 30fps
3. It is not a full game but the very definition of a vertical slice and a tech demo
4. The specs for the system that ran it are unknown besides AMD stating that it was running on a single consumer grade GPU (although I guess it was done to showcase what to expect from next gen).
5. That truly looks next gen unlike HI which is being designed to be cross gen (again, being a tech demo, it is akin to comparing apples and oranges to a small extent).
1. It is running at 1440p (and definitely some form of AA as well)
2. Operating at 30fps
3. It is not a full game but the very definition of a vertical slice and a tech demo
4. The specs for the system that ran it are unknown besides AMD stating that it was running on a single consumer grade GPU (although I guess it was done to showcase what to expect from next gen).
5. That truly looks next gen unlike HI which is being designed to be cross gen (again, being a tech demo, it is akin to comparing apples and oranges to a small extent).
Oh yeah, I guess it hasn't been confirmed to be. The first trailer and box art give heavy open world vibes. Then there's the leaks about rpg systems in the game.
umm, they are all cutscenes. a cutscene for an open world game vs a linear action game is no different because you only render whats on screen. when using close ups, the devs can use all the resources available to render extreme detail on the characters. besides, the halo trailer literally takes place in the smallest of ships. even in the widest of shots, they have fewer things to render.
besides, you conviniently ignoring comparisons of open world games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Death Stranding, and Days Gone in the thread is also very telling.
i think 5 is exactly the point im trying to make. Heretic is next gen, halo is cross gen. people here are claiming that it looks next gen and i couldnt disagree more.
As for point 1, yes, i am aware and it is another great example of how native 4k doesnt make a game look magically better. you can play that video in 1080p and the halo video in native 4k and heretic will always look better because as you and i know it's never about the resolution. i was talking to the folks in this thread who think watching this in native 4k will make it look next gen.
as for the rest, i expect cutscenes next gen to come very close if not surpass the heretic demo. and i expect devs to use common sense and run games at 4kcb instead of native 4k to cram as much detail in a single pixel as they can.
Yeah its like context matters here. If the engine keeps that level of detail, lighting, framerate and resolution(4K) that is impressive. Halo has a ton of shit going on like vehicles fighting and such.
It might be semi open world. last years trailer gave the idea that the game will have large open environments similar to Halo CE. Halo is known for having big vehicle sections.
User Warned: Trolling; history of low effort replies and trolling over several topics
Lmao are you even reading what you are saying
Sure, it looks detailed. We're still talking about an Xbox One cross-gen game, though. That's inherently going to limit what kind of a showpiece Halo is going to be beyond the superficial. A new generation is about more than running last-gen games at higher resolutions with better textures, and I think that's where people's main gripe is. We're looking at a really pretty Xbox One game and that's not much of a leap.
yes. i proof read what i write. what is your problem with my post? which part do you want me to clarify?
The lead SKU for Infinite is the next gen one. Not all cross gen games are equal. Some are like Dragon Age inquisition/Black Ops 3, some are real cross gen titles ala CoD: Ghosts.
This seems like a big leap.
Halo games have historically been very linear.
There are some large areas and plenty of huge action set pieces, but Uncharted 4 also had some huge areas too. Red Dead is also a contender.
Just to reiterate my position. I think the cutscene they showed looked great, but not so much that I'd consider it next gen. If the game looks like that, in action, with the scale we've come to expect from Halo - it's going to look brilliant.
It's not my fault you've ignored my posts or haven't kept up. I've talked about those games. I'll have to wait until Death Stranding is released, but so far, this still looks a step above what I've seen in those games:
Specifically, the sheer amount of polygonal detail on the fingers of the character model is incredible.
Wether it's the lead or not, it's going to have to run on a 1.3 TFLOP system with Jaguar cores.
Yep, there's a huge difference between a full FPS game running the Infinite trailer and that of a curated all performance dedicated to a couple of characters in "story mode" basically. Art style has a lot to do with the subjective nature as well.
No problem! Yup that's Minka Kelly from Almost Human. She looks absolutely stunning in the game throughout (she goes through a few different looks too!). I also like her acting and role a lot in the game. They nailed her.
Play it when you get some time. Great game and with Quantic Dream you always know everything is in real time. There is only a single pre-rendered scene at the start and that's it. Game does some impressive instant back and forth locale switches as well.
Indeed. We are in good times when it comes to realistic looking characters in games
Isn't the Halo trailer literally two people in a confined space setting up the story mode? Or is that what you were getting at.
huh, the post i quoted was the latest post of yours in this thread and you were upset about people comparing it to incredibly linear third person action games.
i have no problems with you finding halo better looking. im fine with you saying its a step above. i was just pointing out the fallacy in your post.
Yes, I was wondering why people were posting gifs of TLOU2 and Detroit to compare to what we see in the Halo Infinite trailer despite the obvious differences between the games
I personally think 343i are underselling it. If/when they show those visuals in a Halo-esque action scene, we'll know if we've seen next gen.
That "Unimpressive" real time 4K 60FPS graphics.
Ugly light, shadows, textures, low poly, etc.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ugly light, shadows, textures, low poly, etc.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
because when it comes to comparing cutscenes, everything is fair game. devs this gen no longer rely on prerendered cutscenes because you can take a realtime cutscene and really up the polygon count on the characters, add all kinds of fancy depth of field effects, add better lighting effects, shadows, AA regardless of whether or not its an open world game or not.
this is what aloy looks like ingame.
this is what they can do with her in a realtime cutscene.
and that is just what she looks like during dialogue tree scenes.
this is what she looks like in perfect lighting conditions during some cutscene close ups.
the point is that comparing a cutscene in halo infinite to a custscene in death stranding or days gone or red dead or even uncharted isnt really an apples to orange comparison because during cutscenes, even realtime ones, devs can use all the horsepower to render all the detail they can cram in to those faces.
I think people will see what they want to see.
But to act like the facial model/animations of the pilot are even close to the level we're seeing in Death Stranding is straight up trolling. The gif of 'mama' is not even fully representative and there's lots of footage out there. Technically the Halo scene might be pushing more complex techniques, but the end result doesn't look markedly better, stricly talking about the facial animations/rendering.
But to act like the facial model/animations of the pilot are even close to the level we're seeing in Death Stranding is straight up trolling. The gif of 'mama' is not even fully representative and there's lots of footage out there. Technically the Halo scene might be pushing more complex techniques, but the end result doesn't look markedly better, stricly talking about the facial animations/rendering.