Blur studio made all the cut scenes for both halo wars and halo 2 anniversary. I personally I’m a big fan of the pre renders cutscenes and these cut scenes are done so well. They have movie like panning shots and angles and the art style is crisp and perfect ally represents halo.
When I think what should a brute, or a grunt, or a Spartan should look like I always imagine one of Blurs representations.
So sad halo infinite isn’t taking advantage of this tool… especially when rendering the ugly brute.
The Blur cutscenes were extremely well done. That being said, they were also incredibly expensive. There’s a balance to be struck between the ridiculously well made cutscenes courtesy of Blur and probably more easily rendered cutscenes made in-engine.
I was never a fan of the blur cutscenes honestly. They were fine in Halo Wars and fun to watch as a movie, but as soon as the game transitioned back into real time gameplay in Halo 2, any immersion those cutscenes built up was thrown out the window. I’d rather just have fine polished in-engine cutscenes.
I am very torn on the Blur cutscenes. I think they work really well for the RTS’s, but for Halo 2 Anniversary I think the in-engine graphics were good enough to the point where just redoing the in-engine cutscenes from Halo 2 with the new graphics would have been breathtaking still. It’s definitely a matter of game design philosophy and I err to the side of using in-engine cutscenes.
An interesting insight Marty O’Donnell had about them is that it is a bit rougher of a transition going from a non-in game cutscene to in game graphics. While the Blur cutscenes are absolutely beautiful, it would be better to save Blur Studios for Halo media that are not first person games.
While they are nice looking in their own way, the concept of using expensive offline rendered cinematics that bear little resemblance to the game’s artistic direction has always rubbed me the wrong way. Obviously, there’s the issue of artistic incongruence that make the cutscenes and the game two different things. But apart from that, there’s the nagging question: where’s the value in this? More graphical fidelity is a good thing, but only if it serves the original artistic intent. When you separate the rendering of the cut scenes (let alone the team that made them) from the gameplay, it kind of just becomes “Look how much more impressive this thing that took 10 hours per frame to render on 50 Quadros looks than that thing running 60 frames per second in real time on a shoe box”, and I’m just “Well… duh, but why?”
I have nothing against 343i working with Blur, or nothing against Blur, per se, but for games I’d prefer if they used the same team, the same software, and the same hardware that made the rest of the game.
They definitely have a place and are awesome, but need to be used in the right way. Perfect for halo wars 1 and 2 just because of the nature of rts games. I enjoyed them in halo 2 anniversary as well, but that was a special occasion and you can switch back to the original in engine cutscenes as well. For a new original game like infinite, I’d definitely prefer them to have in-engine cutscenes. Save that money for a separate awesome blur made project.
Fear not, as that ending speech scene was likely custom-scripted for promotion only and will not be in the final game. While Infinite’s cutscenes likely won’t be pre-rendered by Blur, we should at least expect them to be on par with Halo 5 cutscenes, most of which are rendered in real-time and look pretty awesome (if you ignore the bad acting and just focus on visual quality, of course).
Personally I still prefer real-time cutscenes not just for Halo but for all games in general. As good as they look, they are just video files and cannot scale well to different resolutions and display ratios. Real-time cutscenes “ages” better, I think.
The blur cutscenes work great in Halo Wars 2 because the gameplay view in an rts isn’t as close as it is in an fps. Don’t get me wrong, they’re beautiful cutscenes, but it kinda ruined the immersion in H2A when a cutscene would end and then the entire world would look completely different. Play the mission Regret, and tell me it isn’t painful going from the cutscene of chief landing at the forerunner temple to seeing it in gameplay. It’s such a jarring contrast. I’m glad they aren’t doing it for infinite, but I would love for blur cutscenes to be in Halo Wars 3 if it’s going to be a thing.
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> They definitely have a place and are awesome, but need to be used in the right way. Perfect for halo wars 1 and 2 just because of the nature of Arts games. I enjoyed them in halo 2 anniversary as well, but that was a special occasion and you can switch back to the original in engine cutscenes as well. For a new original game like infinite, I’d definitely prefer them to have in-engine cutscenes. Save that money for a separate awesome blur made project.
Are you saying blue should make a game or a mini series through their engine?
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> > 2533274828688113;9:
> > They definitely have a place and are awesome, but need to be used in the right way. Perfect for halo wars 1 and 2 just because of the nature of Arts games. I enjoyed them in halo 2 anniversary as well, but that was a special occasion and you can switch back to the original in engine cutscenes as well. For a new original game like infinite, I’d definitely prefer them to have in-engine cutscenes. Save that money for a separate awesome blur made project.
>
> Are you saying blue should make a game or a mini series through their engine?
One can dream hahaha. It would be very expensive but I think honestly if they ever do get around to making a big budget, non game promotion halo movie, it’d be infinitely more awesome to have it be an animated movie in the style of the blur cinematics than doing a traditional live-action movie with some special effects.
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> > 2535406023142023;12:
> > > 2533274828688113;9:
> > > They definitely have a place and are awesome, but need to be used in the right way. Perfect for halo wars 1 and 2 just because of the nature of Arts games. I enjoyed them in halo 2 anniversary as well, but that was a special occasion and you can switch back to the original in engine cutscenes as well. For a new original game like infinite, I’d definitely prefer them to have in-engine cutscenes. Save that money for a separate awesome blur made project.
> >
> > Are you saying blue should make a game or a mini series through their engine?
>
> One can dream hahaha. It would be very expensive but I think honestly if they ever do get around to making a big budget, non game promotion halo movie, it’d be infinitely more awesome to have it be an animated movie in the style of the blur cinematics than doing a traditional live-action movie with some special effects.
I totally agree, they are able to do so much more to keep the art style as true tk the games if they do it animated. That would be so amazing
I agree, played Halo 2 since I was around 8, and it was the only shooter game I had growing up until I was 14-15 ish, and the most important game to me of all time. When I first saw the Blur adaptation it did not look alien to me at all (great pun…) It looked exactly how I always imagined it but more realistic, there are few things that could make it more perfect.
Though I don’t know if Blur are responsible of the actual art-style itself, as they have the same style in-game but either way the cutchenes are so alive and gorgeous. Still today when I only play to complete achievments I have trouble skipping them.
I have understood that many people want in-game cuscenes which I understand but I am not personally bothered. I never felt like it was un-natural to switch between gameplay and cutscenes in H2A because the visuals in the game-play are so beautiful too. Good enough to pull it off to me.
I would be all for Blur cutscenes in the future but what I would want way more, is for the H2A artstyle to held on to, not forgotten
I would much rather Blur did a series of advertisements for HI than the cutscenes. I prefer to keep the cutscenes in the game using the games assets, but Blur could make some freaking awesome commercials to advertise the game.
Could even be a fun new tradition, kind of like the live-action trailers that I believe have been traditional since H3.
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> I would much rather Blur did a series of advertisements for HI than the cutscenes. I prefer to keep the cutscenes in the game using the games assets, but Blur could make some freaking awesome commercials to advertise the game.
>
> Could even be a fun new tradition, kind of like the live-action trailers that I believe have been traditional since H3.
The only problem I see with them making the advertisements is then people might expect to see it in game… and then when the in game cutscenes aren’t pre rendered with top of the line graphics that come with pre renders stuff it could lead to disappointment. Better keep all advertisements what you’d expect to see in game.