Halo 4 is a modified Halo Reach?

[Xtra Sauce]

Frank O'conner Reported to IGN that Halo 4's engine will just be a modified engine from Halo Reach.

Listen closely at 0:30 Seconds in to the video.

[Lᴜᴋᴇ]

I like Halo reach and wouldn't have a problem if the engine was based off it, However I would like to see something new.

[Caboose]

cant wait for halo 4

[Mr Biggles]

why does it matter? it doesn't mean the game won't be much different, and there will be no ranking system.

[M4sT3r Ch13f S117]

why does it matter? it doesn't mean the game won't be much different, and there will be no ranking system.

I agree it does not matter.

[RedStarRocket91]

The engine for Reach is just an incredibly heavily modified Halo: CE engine, anyway. Every Halo game engine has always just been an updated version of the previous one.

[highplainsdrifter]

The engine for Reach is just an incredibly heavily modified Halo: CE engine, anyway. Every Halo game engine has always just been an updated version of the previous one.

 

Yeah Halo 2 is basically the Blam engine with 'better graphics'. I remember when i was a kid being amazed at how real CE looked... and then.. being amazed at how real Halo 2 looked! It's funny how things change your perspective

[Twinreaper]

Everyone always has a skewed view on how the engines are thought out and made. Redstar has the right idea and was heading in the correct direction.

 

Halo 1: This was the engine that started it all and included the 1.0 version of Havok Physics. This version had cloth, collision, physics collision but no vehicluar physics. This is why the vehicles operate the strange way that they do. the handling for them was custom made to work.

 

Halo 2: This engine was a stripped down halo 1 engine. By stripped down, I mean that the basic kernel of the engine was all that remained. In order to use the updated havok version (5.1 IIRC) which then included vehicle handling, it was needed to be recoded int hat area. Also they recoded from scratch the shader system to employ a wider variety based on the current gen shader model schema. Other changes were also obvious like seperated collision models and tags for various objects etc... Calling Halo 2 a modified Halo 1 engine is not accurate. Fact is, Halo 2's engine was drastically different in every aspect and only kept the single I/O base core metrics, which is why we regard it as a Halo 1 "variant."

 

Halo 3: This engine was a sclose as you could get to the original CE one. For Halo 3 they stripped down the original CE engine and added extensions for it that incoporated the root shader system used in Halo 1 and extended it to use other variant, shader type specific tags. Such tags examples are [silly], [****] and [scsr]. Again, most of the code that ran Halo 1 was simply added onto to create a wider range of available options during development. In fact, during a dev VidOC they talk about how they stripped it down to extend the greatest aspects of Halo 1 and make them work flawlessly with Halo 3. Halo 3 was in no way at all, anything like Halo 2 nor did it use anything previously in Halo 2 at it's core. Simple things such as seperated collision models and things like that were not so much engine changed, but rather development evolution. The most notable change and addition to map structure as dictated by the egnine, was the open ended engine ability to change and alter in memory, a maps scneario file and save it as a standalone loadable file.....yes I am talking about Forge.

 

Halo 3:ODST: This engine was the exact Halo 3 engine, with the exception of it's scripting system. The scripting system was fully utilized and that is how we got Firefight.

 

Halo Reach: The culmination of all things ever created or destroyed. Reach's engine is to date, the most powerful and ahead of it's time engine that Bungie has ever created. Calling it an engine isn't accurate. Calling it a fighter jet on speed and crack would be a more viable choice. Anywho, Reach is a heavily modified Halo 3 engine variant. When I say modified, I mean it was stripped very little, and utilized open ended coding to incorporate a lot of extension use. MegaloScript is the side engine scripting type service that was added most notably. It itself is so powerful, the entire game could likely run just from lines of executing script on Megalo's side. Aside from thesechanges, reach also began using what we call "imitating". This was the process of making items in game, have a much lower poly count and a much less memory cost for rendering them. Such examples of this, is the various scenes maps where in the distance we see battles taking place. When you get up close, you see a blocky turd...but from far away you see epic win! Thats because the post processing of these items kind of distorts and morphs what we usually call :LOD" Line of Draw...to work a bit differently. This alone was a huge leap forward. In all other Halo titles, they had to use waht we call "Cinematic Anchors" in the form of "scenery" items. Basically they had to spawn actual models with animation at full LOD and play looping the entire time. Rendering hundreds of items at full LOD so you could see them anywhere on the map was a huge drain on memory and loading times.

 

Halo CEA: This engine or rather engines, is as close to date, as you can get to the original engine in every aspect. CEA used the Halo 1 engine in it's whole, running along side a modified Reach engine, designed to mimic and run parallel to the original. The tweaks to CEA engine allowed it to communicate and sync with the original flawlessly. The best example of the two running at the same time, is illistarted by the changing of the mode, from classic to new. While you change and the screen goes black, you still hear the current game's ambient sounds or battles playing out. Also you will notice that at no time at all, does your position change unless you switch and your still holding the button forward or whatever way you do. This is because the two engines communicate back and forth and relay everything that is going on in the game.

 

Now, going forward into Halo 4, it would make a lot of sense and great use of the code architecture, to keep the Reach engine and strip it down only to add onto or change certain aspects of it, to allow greater customization of existing features or add new ones. Development wise, it would not make sense time wise or resource wise, to completely strip it down to basics and build everything from the ground up. Now at first thought, I know what you all are thinking. In the TU they couldn't use the reach engine to mimic perfectly the classic feel of the weapons or movemtn. While this is true, it should also be noted that the reason they could not achieve this, is because the physics handling can only be adjusted or tweaked to a small degree, without needing to extend the code to allow changes of the magnitude required to match perfectly the classic feel. Doing so also would have required them to compile a new engine and maps. This of coarse is not 343's fault but Bungies. They did not plan the egnine on being used for CEA, nor did they likely have the time to write in exceptions to allow the handling code to remain open and fully editable by the toolset. Halo 4 using the Reach modified engine makes great sense and if used and extended properly, should provide us a great game that will truly re-invent and reanimate the Halo franchise.

[RedStarRocket91]

Twin, you need to start taking copies of these things and putting them down in an FAQ thread!

 

Also, the fact that Halo 3's engine is entirely unrelated to Halo 2 really surprised me. Is there any particular problem with the second that explains why they didn't just modify that engine instead of going back to the first?

[eliteultra]

as long as gameplay is fun, im ok...i dont really care how good or bad the graphics are

[highplainsdrifter]

Halo 2: This engine was a stripped down halo 1 engine. By stripped down, I mean that the basic kernel of the engine was all that remained. In order to use the updated havok version (5.1 IIRC) which then included vehicle handling, it was needed to be recoded int hat area. Also they recoded from scratch the shader system to employ a wider variety based on the current gen shader model schema. Other changes were also obvious like seperated collision models and tags for various objects etc... Calling Halo 2 a modified Halo 1 engine is not accurate. Fact is, Halo 2's engine was drastically different in every aspect and only kept the single I/O base core metrics, which is why we regard it as a Halo 1 "variant."

Jeeze, Twinreaper, everybody knows that 'graphics' includes everything except reload time... Now i'll say something that makes sense.

 

Do you think Halo 5 on the 3g xbox will include any components from CE (and any other title) or just emulate it?

[Fang]

Even if the engine is a modified version of Reach, it doesnt mean it will play anything like it. Im not sure what to expect but i think ill be pleasantly surprised come release day.

[Timbit]

i hope not because halo reach was not a sucseess

[Son Of Anarchy]

Yes why does it matter. People obviously loved Reach and it's graphics.

[Twinreaper]

Graphics does not include everything except reload time. Graphics, in terms of the engine is how the rendering process is achieved. In halo 1 they used the C,B,A counterclockwise (inverted) face drawing. In halo 2, they switched to a counterclockwise. I think i got that right...I always get the two confused. Anyway point being, there are many catagories under graphics that not everyone understands. There is no reload time in terms of rendering. Rendered geometry is loaded into memory then unloaded by way of particular bsp (portals), cinematic anchor calls, scripts etc...

 

To touch on the Halo 5 question, the H5 engine will of coarse as always, be limited to whatever particular hardware support in terms of software is available to the devs at the time the engine is coded. Seeing as how the newer Xbox system will be out in the early or late '13 year, it is not typically wide believed that any code from the previous engines will be usable. At the time of the new Xbox unveil, the DirectX system in which is used, will be at version 13 or possibly 15 at that point. IIRC, 15 will be the first from complete scratch coded DirectX release since I think 9. This posses many problems for the existing software employed, as much of it may be rendered completely usless. DirectX 9 was used for Halo 1, and the following iteritions were built upon the exisiting code structure. This is why shifting to DirectX 10 posed no issue graphically. Shifting to DirectX 13 or even 15 would likely require brand new coded tools and engines from scratch. This of coarse is still theory and there is no evidence to support the DX13,14 and 15 architectures as of yet, but it still remains the most likely outcome in terms of dev time and dictation for Halo 5.