A modified reach engine is a good thing! All haters read!

Games Other Halo
1

Right I want to outright call everyone who thinks Halo 4 using Halo Reach’s engine is a bad thing a complete idiot.

Read this fully! The comment and keep this thread alive there are so many people making this judgement.

  1. Never has a Halo game had a entire new engine built for it

  2. Just because it uses the same or a modified version by no way means it will be like Reach.

  3. Games cost on average $50 Million to produce a new engine would swamp that budget so no studio ever build a new engine they just improve old ones.

  4. Game engines are just like a car think of the game as the body, the engine as the engine, You can modify the engine near infinite amounts of times

  5. New engines are bad engines, No studio will ever replicate the amount of strain and testing a used engine undergoes on game release. Think about it Halo: Reach’s engine has logged over like what a billion hours of playtime that the same as a billion hours of testing.

  6. Look at other games engines such as the Unreal Engine, A engine that has produced more than thirty major titles. Take borderlands does it look anything like GOW? or does Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 look anything like Mirrors Edge… No but its the same engine.

  7. The Reach engine is a technically amazing engine, The rendering component (graphics part) is not on par with the new DX11 style graphics in Crysis II but the rest is near flawless. The only problem is what Bungie did with the engine or the shell of the car if you will.

In short: Halo 4 is what 343 make it the engine does not limit 343 in any way whatsoever. The Reach engine is a amazing engine, Halo: Reach was just a poor game.

Now spread this news and enlighten people.

Oh and before someone questions my credibility I’m a developer myself. I work on writing game engines in a language called C++ and using Direct 3D API. I also work as a freelance environment artist.

…and another thing.
60FPS is another really stupid suggestion people keep making. The human eye can only process around 45FPS, Only 15 more than 30. however if you did upgrade to 60 not only would it be nearly pointless it will cause a hole other raft of problems …and people running in 50hz can’t see it anyway.

2

When I first seen someone on this forum say this I was scared because I thought this would mean Halo4 would look and feel similar to Reach. Thanks for the info, my great confidence has returned.

3

+1 HELPFUL POINT TO ME,

4

Thank you for informing the 98% of the community that didn’t know this.

5

Completely agreed though I don’t think it’s a huge community concern… I don’t really see a whole lot of people against this to begin with.

Reach’s engine works great, it’s just slightly dated graphics-wise but nothing a few tweaks can’t fix (not to mention the terrible forge Z-axis rubbish that they never got around to fixing). Don’t blame it for Reach’s gameplay mechanics.

6

+10834534 helpful points to you. I guess I, like many others, just read “Reach engine” and instantly thought Halo 4 would be extremely similar to Reach.

Great post.

7

Thank u for clearing that up for me. I kinda understood that engines could be modified but now i completly understand.

8

Well i never complained 'bout it LOL,and i knew eveything of this already,but
+1 internets ans +1 cookie to you sir,well if you ask,ake another cookie

9

Nice ,thanks for the info :slight_smile:

10

Thanks for the support so far guys.

11

> Read this fully! The comment and keep this thread alive there are so many people making this judgement.
>
> 3) Games cost on average $50 Million to produce a new engine would swamp that budget so no studio ever build a new engine they just improve old ones.
> .

That is so wrong, if a company makes their own; it’s free. If you want to build a game on a commercial Cryengine or Frostbite license, that’s a different story.

12

> 1) Never has a Halo game had a entire new engine built for it

AFAIK the Halo CE engine wasn’t used in any game prior so it would have been developed with Halo CE and Xbox in mind.

> 3) Games cost on average $50 Million to produce a new engine would swamp that budget so no studio ever build a new engine they just improve old ones.

Using this logic there’d be little if any improvement to games over time, a game engine is not set in stone and most modern engines are modular in nature so they can adapt to different genres and systems and be refreshed over time.

Look at the COD if you want to see this refining process at its best, bascially the last few COD games have been map packs with more features but they still sell like crazy because people like the gameplay.

> 7) The Reach engine is a technically amazing engine, The rendering component (graphics part) is not on par with the new DX11 style graphics in Crysis II but the rest is near flawless. The only problem is what Bungie did with the engine or the shell of the car if you will.

I really despise the LOD filters and many other technical aspects of Reach that were using to achieve the better graphics.

Solid consistent 30FPS > 20FPS or less at times.

13

> Right I want to outright call everyone who thinks Halo 4 using Halo Reach’s engine is a bad thing a complete idiot.
> **6) Look at other games engines such as the Unreal Engine, A engine that has produced more than thirty major titles. Take borderlands does it look anything like GOW? or does Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 look anything like Mirrors Edge… No but its the same engine.
[/quote]
**
> That’s because they are using different permutations of the same commercial engine. Not exactly the same '‘engine’'

14

> Right I want to outright call everyone who thinks Halo 4 using Halo Reach’s engine is a bad thing a complete idiot.
>
>
> 7) The Reach engine is a technically amazing engine, The rendering component (graphics part) is not on par with the new DX11 style graphics in Crysis II but the rest is near flawless. The only problem is what Bungie did with the engine or the shell of the car if you will.
>
> .

That’s because Cry Engine 3 offers a far superior polycount, as well as tons of different lighting and particle effect options.

The Direct X version has some to do with it, but not tons. I think the Xbox runs on DX9 but it might be DX10? IT really only has to do with the method the GPU renders frames, DX11 allows it to render better graphics, notice the difference in Crysis 2 pre and post DX11 patch.

15

> That is so wrong, if a company makes their own; it’s free. If you want to build a game on a commercial Cryengine or Frostbite license, that’s a different story.

Build your own car. Its free!

Build your own house. Its free!

Build your own XBOX. Its free!

16

Answering to comments:

Number 1:

> That’s because Cry Engine 3 offers a far superior polycount, as well as tons of different lighting and particle effect options.
>
> The Direct X version has some to do with it, but not tons. I think the Xbox runs on DX9 but it might be DX10? IT really only has to do with the method the GPU renders frames, DX11 allows it to render better graphics, notice the difference in Crysis 2 pre and post DX11 patch.

DirectX or more importantly Direct3D is a Application Programming Interface or API developed by Microsoft. Direct3D is a Library that is used to write a renderer, also commonly known as a graphics engine, My point was 343 could change out using the dated OpenGL that Halo currently uses for Direct3D.

That would in effect allow them to create “better graphics”

Number 2:

> That’s because they are using different permutations of the same commercial engine. Not exactly the same ‘‘engine’’

Actually I am a Unreal Developer myself and therefor have detailed knowledge on the subject, Yes it maybe true these games are produced on different versions of the Unreal Engine the core structure and system is near identical between versions.

The majoritory of the updates are bug fixes and behind the scenes enhancements there has been little to no toolkit changes over the last six months that dramatically change how games are produced.

Secondly it is irrelevant which version they are built on its the same engine core just like Halo 4 will be using the core system of Halo: Reach’s engine 343 are not limited on the way they use the engine or enhance it.

Number 3:

> AFAIK the Halo CE engine wasn’t used in any game prior so it would have been developed with Halo CE and Xbox in mind.

Actually the CE engine was designed originally for apple based systems, therefore was the renderer was written in Open GL, Some of the code dates back to Bungies older games. But I can see the point you were trying to make, What I really meant was Halo 2 used parts of Halo 1 as did Halo 3 with Halo 2… and so on.

Number 4:

> That is so wrong, if a company makes their own; it’s free. If you want to build a game on a commercial Cryengine or Frostbite license, that’s a different story.

Actually if you think about it there is lots of money spent on game development from employing the staff to advertising,

As for the engine I can see why that would seem as if it can be done in studio.
Not anyone can program a game engine you need to employ very advanced programmers and they don’t grow on trees. for Xbox development alone you need a team of advanced C++ developers with knowledge of API’s and Library’s.

Engines often use library’s and these do cost money, along with the research and planning to design and testing, This all costs money too. It also takes time to develop a entire new engine, and during that time what do the rest of the studio do?

Trust me 100% that producing a game today costs big money, and producing a game engine costs money to. Don’t try and correct me as I said I am a C++ programmer myself. I develop realtime three dimensional environment rendering systems whilst developing hardware software performance. Pretty much game engines for more complex uses on super high powered systems.

17

I knew this at the start. Also, that bit about engines costing 50 million? Bullshirt. I made my own engine with zero funds put towards it.

18

i’ll be happy as long as the game’s got some lighting, everything in reach’s engine felt dull and shaded

19

Again,

I never said game engines cost $50 Million games do,

Secondly commercial game engines cost money, I do this for a living, you need expert C++ programmers with knowledge in API’s such as DirectX or Open GL.

Then you need to hire system designers to design it to be efficient and secure.

They then need to research bits, Then they build it that takes time and money into creating something that works and its efficient.

Then you need software to hardware engineers who literally make it work on XBox’s low performance hardware, and make it run efficiently with that hardware.

Then its got to be tested, so you hire in testing companys. There was like 5 on Halo 3 alone.

Then its got to be certified.

Its completely different from building your own at home.

TRUST ME DAMN IT! IT COSTS MONEY.

20

> Again,
>
> I never said game engines cost 50M

You pretty clearly did, I’m not here to debate the legitimacy of your facts (okay except for a few things on about every point), we can go back and forth all day.

I don’t really see how a new engine would be good or bad; a modified engine will do nicely. They just need to make a good game.

That is all.

You might also want to read up on framerates. They’re kind of important in games.

Why is hyperlinking so horrible on this site?