MC's New Armor: Bump or Poly?

metkillerjoe · Post by **metkillerjoe** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 7:16 am

Since the Halo 3 forum opened up, I was eager to post this. I thought it would be a nice topic since it is not only about halo 3 but also deals with models.

Anyway, I asked bungie and they just deleted the post.

What do you think MC's armor is? Bump maps or polygons? I know that that kind of graphics would be somwhere near impossible on the xbox but that kind of high poly count on the 360?

Excal · Post by **Excal** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 7:18 am

A combination of both... the MC has a habit of not being so high poly... bump/normal maps usually did the trick for him. But this time around it looks like they added some nice detail... but I'm pretty sure the rubber parts and the flat parts of his chest plate are normal mapping. The HDR effects on his visor kinda distract me though...

xXxCocoFangxXx · Post by **xXxCocoFangxXx** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 9:01 am

Master Chief is gonna look really good in Halo 3.

MaestroMan · Post by **MaestroMan** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 9:21 am

xXxCocoFangxXx wrote:Master Chief is gonna look really good in Halo 3.

yes.

a mammoth · Post by **a mammoth** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 10:18 am

Yea They said somewhere that its higher poly and a large amount of bump mapping. Anyway he looks awesome.

metkillerjoe · Post by **metkillerjoe** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 10:36 am

a mammoth wrote:... he looks awesome.

I second that.

I like his helmet and chest plate. There is a lot of detail that they put in there. Makes sense, though. Those are the main focus points.

Phosphorous · Post by **Phosphorous** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 10:51 am

I think in Halo 3 he should get his ammo pouches back that were around his waist in Halo.

xXxCocoFangxXx · Post by **xXxCocoFangxXx** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 1:32 pm

Phosphorous wrote:I think in Halo 3 he should get his ammo pouches back that were around his waist in Halo.

I didn't really like those.

dos mes · Post by **dos mes** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 1:35 pm

Like Excal said, Bungie's been into the whole Normal map thing for MC lately, it adds so much detail and makes it look there are more polygons on him but there actually aren't and much more detailed.

a mammoth · Post by **a mammoth** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 1:36 pm

Be cool if they had the holstered weapon shown, it would just add some believability. By the way, I think marines and elite should be able to switch weapons too it would make it cooler.

Patrickssj6 · Post by **Patrickssj6** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 5:17 pm

Parralax Mapping mbmb.....

Reaper Man · Post by **Reaper Man** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 6:35 pm

Patrickssj6 wrote:Parralax Mapping mbmb.....

i was just about to say that.

parralax mapping ftw

a mammoth · Post by **a mammoth** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 6:13 pm

Whats Parralax mapping, is that so the bump map looks 3d, like in the caves of Oblivion or PDZ?

metkillerjoe · Post by **metkillerjoe** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 6:25 pm

I just read about parallax mapping on Google.

I almost said: "Cheap way to make it look like polygons."

Then I thought: "That is bloody clever!"

Then I said: "Smart way to reduce resource needs."

By the way, for those of you that don't know:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_mapping

Kirk · Post by **Kirk** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 8:34 pm

Based on what I saw in the E3 promo, I was really disappointed. If that's all they can improve with a system so much better, that's sad. I say take an extra year and work on graphics, because what they're at right now isn't going to cut it for me.

a mammoth · Post by **a mammoth** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 11:25 am

The MC looked great but the ground was kinda, not the greatest. In high def you can tell that the bitmaps for the for runner structure were kinda blurry. But like all consoles it takes some time for developers to fully use the hardware to its greatest capability, thats why halo 2 looks better than halo 1. But yea like Kirk said, they could be better, but I still think they are really good anyways it take a developer time to get used to a console.

metkillerjoe · Post by **metkillerjoe** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 3:49 pm

I don't have the technical expertise to compare, but I would say (as I started out) that I would have preferred polygons.

Still parallax mapping saves resources, and that will be useful since the trailer was only looking at a piece of what a real map size would be (that and of course it was a trailer and only shows off some of the capabilities of the engine).

Man, if Halo 3 comes out in Vista just like Halo 2 will in a CE version, I would love to fool around in that engine.

JK-47 · Post by **JK-47** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 5:35 pm

[quote="Kirk"]Based on what I saw in the E3 promo, I was really disappointed. If that's all they can improve with a system so much better, that's sad. I say take an extra year and work on graphics, because what they're at right now isn't going to cut it for me.