Water!

[Nafus]

Why was the water so dumbed down in Halo 4? Not only is it that you die when you're barely knee-high in water, but there are no effects, the textures are cruddy and there aren't even any sound effects! It looks horrible, wouldn't you agree? Along with the many Forge aspects that Halo 4 lacks and Reach does better in, the water is definitely a priority in my view. Due to the mass quantities of water-based maps in Reach, the glitches unlocked and secrets found that allowed people to forge underwater, One would think that 343 would have taken the hint when creating the new Forge. No, I don't hate 343 for handicapping forge, it is their first Halo game (Besides Anniversary) and they even admitted to it being more of a learning experience than anything. But if the Forge in the next Halo game isn't improved on, and the water is treated the same way...
Well it probably won't stop me from playing it, but I'll be super pissed!
Thoughts?

[Twinreaper]

Water itself has no collision acceleration or damage properties associated with it. The only thing water does have is at times, a defined collision property for projectiles, but those are usually invisible planes, or planes with collision defined as part of the bsp level. Water generally is a mesh plane with all collision and physics nulled in the shader assignment. But even then, water effects such as ripples or splashed, are generated by the mesh under the water.

[SPARTAN 117]

343 should be able to fit a superior physics engine into the next title than they did in Halo 4, but Halo 4 had to suffer in some minor areas in order to accomodate a pretty good texture palette, and water physics was among them cetainly. I don't think they just blew off water physics so much as they had to ignore it for storage and performance sake.

[Pbrabbit]

I mean it is water. Is 343 really supposed to put a lot of time into a part of the map that is there just to look some what nice?

[Maestro]

It's common knowledge that Spartans cannot swim. Halo 4 is carrying this tradition on.

I do think that in maps where water is prevalent, such as Forge Island, one should be able to stand in the water fairly deep before going down to Davy Jones's locker. It would make for realistic maps featuring beaches.

[Axilus Prime]

Halo 4's graphics are cheap in everything, look at anything slightly close and it becomes pixelated.

 

But as for water effects, no Halo game really did those in huge detail.

[Mothy]

I think we should be able to add effects like snow, rain, cloudy, sunny etc. Or the ability to spawn in Covenant/Promethean/Flood

[Twinreaper]

Unless they completely overhaul the way the engine handles weather, it won't happen.  I'm an expressed when it comes to the weather tag system, and in order to change or add weather, you would need direct access and the ability to edit the [sbsp] and [even] tags.  Having access to both would require 343i to give us an advanced set of tools and the ability to decompress a compiled map or a mock RTH tool.

 

giving us such direct access to said tools or tags would open up a huge can of worms for players.

[Is not JL]

Halo 4's graphics are cheap in everything, look at anything slightly close and it becomes pixelated.

 

But as for water effects, no Halo game really did those in huge detail.

Halo 3 and Halo: Reach's water looked beautiful. Halo 4's looked like it was not meant for people to see other than from a far distance.

 

It's common knowledge that Spartans cannot swim. Halo 4 is carrying this tradition on.

I do think that in maps where water is prevalent, such as Forge Island, one should be able to stand in the water fairly deep before going down to Davy Jones's locker. It would make for realistic maps featuring beaches.

 

Spartans can't swim but they certainly can walk under water. I mean, they're in an air-tight suit....

[Caboose The Ace]

Jl that was because Halo Reach pretty much pushed 360 to the limits so for Halo 4 they pumped more out but that meant that some textures don't look as good , we cannot have a map as big as forge world etc

 

Engine limitations.

[Axilus Prime]

Halo 3 and Halo: Reach's water looked beautiful. Halo 4's looked like it was not meant for people to see other than from a far distance.

I said water effects, not graphics. The water doesn't have super detailed splash effects or waves in any Halo game. You might get a few splashes out of it, but that's all.

 

I agree on the graphics thing.

[Zandril]

I mean it is water. Is 343 really supposed to put a lot of time into a part of the map that is there just to look some what nice?

Yes.

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

It's actually pretty stupid that Forge Island's water is basically a blue screen. Gone are the maps that incorporate blue water into their design like in Reach. Any Halo 4 map using the water feels tacky because the water doesn't feel like water.

 

It was just lazy on 343's part to screw that up.