A size discrepancy that scares me

Games Other Halo
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I was watching the footage of the level 343 Guilty Spark on YouTube, and I just happened to kind of notice something… At first I wasn’t so sure that I was seeing what I thought I saw, and I wanted to be absolutely certain before calling this out, so I took two screen captures and directly compared them. Sure enough, what I saw was indeed present…

Here are the two screen captures I took, placed directly next to each other for a direct comparison. You’ll notice Dennis is standing in front of a holographic Forerunner panel which is encased by two “projectors” (at least, this seems to be their function) on either side. You’ll notice, curiously enough, that the projectors don’t match up in size. The Anniversary projectors are considerably taller than the Combat Evolved projectors. For an “exact” remake, this seems odd, no?

This size difference isn’t like the new islands added to The Silent Cartographer, either. Those are new and present and different, but definitely not accessible. By comparison, it would be considerably easy to hop on top of these projectors in Combat Evolved and push the back button. What would happen? Would you be morphed out of the map because you’re suddenly inside the considerably larger projector? Would you be standing even higher off the ground on top of these taller projectors? What would happen?

What really got me, however, was that I didn’t notice this for the longest time. Every time I watched the video, something seemed off to me, but I couldn’t place it; not exactly. Like I said earlier, I decided to place two shots side-by-side to have a direct comparison, and that’s when I really saw it. Ironically, the fact that the game is playing on multiple screens creates a nice “grid” of sorts for the game - a really accurate reference point for direct comparison. However, it still would have been possible to spot this without the grid.

What really threw me off the trail of this mistake for a while was the new Classic mode functionality. See, now when you push the back button, the screen blacks out of, for example, Combat Evolved, and then re-enters playing Anniversary. What was shown at E3 and Comic-Con was a much more “down and dirty” iteration in that there was a slight lag followed by an instant image switch. I understand the new functionality in principle - they want to make this feature look cleaner and be less jarring, but it’s to a fault, I think.

This error (specifically how I had difficulty spotting it) is evidence of the folly. See, when the game enters the black screen, your brain will automatically space out. Unless you’re focusing on one specific item, your brain spaces. It’s inevitable. What this does in effect is slightly skew your brain’s processing of the previous version of the game before the new one pops in. This makes the comparisons a lot less direct and fresh, and, unless I’m mistaken, wasn’t Classic mode added primarily for the sake of direct comparison? The direct image popping, however sloppy it may have looked, was much more effective for direct comparisons. Again, this size discrepancy is evidence of that.

Perhaps I’m overanalyzing the black out added to the Classic mode feature. Regardless of that, however, the point of this thread stands strong - those two projectors are quite obviously not the same size. The ones in Anniversary are considerably larger, and that doesn’t bode well. If little size errors like this are distributed even further throughout the game, it’s a fact that this otherwise awesome project will come under fire from the incredibly attentive. I hope for the sake of this game that this is just some freak mistake.

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This post is why i wish that 343i wouldn’t listen to the community… Or should i say complainers…

They addressed this issue a while ago, This is a Graphical Mod, to make the game look better. It doesn’t have to be the same size to be a good game.

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> This post is why i wish that 343i wouldn’t listen to the community… Or should i say complainers…
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> They addressed this issue a while ago, This is a Graphical Mod, to make the game look better. It doesn’t have to be the same size to be a good game.

Feedback and complaining are not identical. In this case, I’m doing the former. This is something I noticed that, to me, really clashes with the “this is the EXACT game - all your gaps are intact, everything is the same size, and it’s literally just a reskinned version of the IDENTICAL game” message they’ve been preaching.

In fact, I’d like to see where they specifically address size issues, because everything I’ve seen suggests they want to keep the game as close as possibly possible with this project, and that includes size, animation, etc. If you could link me to something that says contrary, that would be great. And if you’re talking about the fact that this game runs on two simultaneous engines - the original and then the updated visual one - then don’t bother linking me, because that’s already been massively publicized. Even with that “visual mod”, however, everything in the game is staying identical-but-better; textures are being updated, polygons are being added, sound is being remastered, etc, but it’s still the same game, bottom line.

But yeah, you’re misunderstanding me. I’m not complaining that the game will now suck and this ruins all possible hope it had to be awesome. I’m not trying to blow the game out of the water with this relatively small issue. Fact is, I would have loved this project if they had just recreated this game in the Reach engine and released it as DLC. I’m as hyped as I can be, but I’m trying to give feedback.

So please, if you don’t have anything constructive to say in response to this thread, then don’t say anything.

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I understand that accuracy of graphics is the only thing we can complain about when it comes to CEA, but you are complaining over a single column that no one really cares about. The column is something you won’t even notice while playing through, does it really matter it’s bigger?

It could cause you to glich through the map, but I don’t believe this. The physics engine is the same old engine that has went through zero alteration. To my knowledge, the physics engine handles the collision models. If there is no collision model on that column, you’re just going to stand inside it. It’s not like the whole game is ruined. In fact, it’s not like anything in the game is ruined. Most of the time you’re just going to run straight by it in remastered or classic mode without noticing the difference.

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I’m surprised you only now noticed some stuff is different. Look at some of the pictures of the Silent Cartographer from when CEA was announced. It’s very obvious that some things will have some major geometry changes.

Each engine uses a different set of geometry with different collision models. It won’t be a problem at all.

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I can’t believe anyone could possibly complain about something so insignificant. It really isn’t a big deal.

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> I’m surprised you only now noticed some stuff is different. Look at some of the pictures of the Silent Cartographer from when CEA was announced. It’s very obvious that some things will have some major geometry changes.
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> Each engine uses a different set of geometry with different collision models. It won’t be a problem at all.

I agree. It won’t really be a problem. I only point it out because they say the game is exactly the same with cosmetic-only changes. In my mind, this meant everything would interact the same way - i.e. all the jump heights and proportions would be exactly identical. And really, that held true until this appeared to me. I took a second look at the E3 pictures like you said to, and while things don’t match up exactly (I never expected them to), they’re nowhere near as proportionally off as these projectors. That’s what I was trying to say with this thread.

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> I understand that accuracy of graphics is the only thing we can complain about when it comes to CEA, but you are complaining over a single column that no one really cares about. The column is something you won’t even notice while playing through, does it really matter it’s bigger?
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> It could cause you to glich through the map, but I don’t believe this. The physics engine is the same old engine that has went through zero alteration. To my knowledge, the physics engine handles the collision models. If there is no collision model on that column, you’re just going to stand inside it. It’s not like the whole game is ruined. In fact, it’s not like anything in the game is ruined. Most of the time you’re just going to run straight by it in remastered or classic mode without noticing the difference.

Not trying to complain. In fact, I’m wondering when “complaining” became synonymous with “feedback”. Almost every post I’ve made on here trying to give my thoughts on what I’ve seen is met with either “Wow, this guy is REALLY right” or “Wow, this guy complains so much”. It’s not my intention to complain. Know that before your next post, please.

> I can’t believe anyone could possibly complain about something so insignificant. It really isn’t a big deal.

OK, this is getting ridiculous. I’m not trying to complain; I’m trying to give valid feedback. I’m not saying it’s a gamebreaking issue, because it’s not. In fact, here’s a quote from my OP: “If little size errors like this are distributed even further throughout the game, it’s a fact that this otherwise awesome project will come under fire from the incredibly attentive.” Notice how I call the project awesome, and I say that the project will come under fire from the incredibly attentive (read: not me). All I’m trying to do is get this out there before something like that happens. It’s an observation of mine that I’m trying to point out, not something I’m trying to complain about. It is something they could correct, but I’m by no means saying the project will be negatively impacted (in my eyes) if they don’t.