Why does Halo 2 look worse than Halo 1?

have you ever felt Halo 2 looked a bit flat I don't mean because it's old I mean even when compared to the previous Halo game in the series parts of Delta Halo look just a bit unloved Urban environments almost look like those videos where people remove lighting from certain games well it was because Halo 2 does look flat it was robbed of something its art was specifically designed for stencil Shadows so usually in games the most taxing thing are real-time shadows and lighting because it takes so much computing power to get those things running in real time movies used to take ages to render their CGI lighting so imagine what developers were up against they had to do this stuff in real time as character models and effects got better tricks such as baked lighting let developers essentially bake the levels lighting and shadows into a level's textures so it doesn't have to be running in real time and sad in that yummy game performance big Shadows can also be animated to look Dynamic you see that shadow cast by Chief and the grunt in Halo 1 here think of these Halo 1 character shadows sort of like an evolution of those fake shadows in Mario 64 that are under characters these Halo 1 character shadows will follow characters around wherever they go and they're programmed to sort of grow long or Shrink As you move about they can even be programmed to turn invisible or shift Direction if you enter a specific Zone the developer made to really sell you the illusion that these are real but remember this Shadow is a big fat phony it ignores the world around it because it's not actually being cast by anything it's just a drawing designed to then move and look like a real Shadow and if you're in a situation the developers didn't account for well that shadow will keep on doing what it was designed to do be there even if it means accidentally not facing the correct way another major drawback of these character shadows is they won't cast Shadows on the characters they're attached to notice how this grunt's massive Juiced up arms don't provide any shade to his legs the shadow of the Needler is underneath his leg rather than being on top of his leg and that's sort of the issue with this kind of Shadow trick it looks convincing but only until you really look at it this brings us to stencil Shadows stencil Shadows are a super technique where the engine is able to identify objects blocking a light source and then make exact silhouettes of them to use as a shadow everything about these Shadows are flawless per pixel nothing out of place it's quite literally perfect only one thing about them they had no Nuance every stencil shadow cast is razor sharp and thick with no softness or blending like light and Shadow in our day-to-day lives this ended up being a bit of a blessing though since it was really cool looking in Games built around Moody lighting top that off with some new effects like bump mapping realtime Reflections and other new found techniques at the time for characters and environments and then turn everything up to 11 and you get dark regions looking really dark and the lit up regions looking super detailed and shiny it was a unique art style that games were going for at the time you get these dark gritty and scary atmospheres it looked really cool to have these characters shrouded in these thick black stencil Shadows with the details of their models just glistening in the light so how does this relate to Halo well around 2002 Jason Jones and some of the programmers at Bungie saw an early Doom 3 demo heavily featuring stencil shadows as a groundbreaking leap for Studios after this presentation Bungie knew their next game would be designed with this new technology in mind the game's characters early locations weapons Etc were all designed around looking as cool as possible with thick sharp Shadows from the helmet brims of Elites and Marines the weapons were more matte plastic to complement the thick shadows and the environments themselves had a lot more dips and grooves and sharp angles and geometry they would look awesome when shrouded in thick black stencil Shadows Joe Dayton said in the making of Halo 2 that the original goal of Halo 2 was clear to see in that reveal trailer for it a crisp High detailed Dynamic image with wide expansive levels twice the size of Halo 1 a 19 Mission sequel to top all sequels almost equivalent to a playable movie Halo 2 was going to be something special man but then it was all cut the original Xbox just couldn't run it what Bungie was shooting for was wildly out of the Xbox's capabilities Doom 3 was a game basically set in a series of cramped closets with no openness to speak of and it still had to make huge compromises to run on the original Xbox yet Bungie wanted their game with this super Pixel Perfect performance taxing Dynamic lighting system to have bigger Maps than Halo 1 everything they had been working on was put on hold missions half were scrapped gameplay features scrapped Graphics engine completely scrapped what they ended up shipping Halo 2 with is more or less the same tricks and techniques that Halo 1 used for its lighting with just a few tweaks but while Halo 1 was a game artistically built with the limitations of baked shadows and Lighting in mind Halo 2 wasn't it was designed for this stencil system that didn't end up making the cut and as a result character models in Halo 2 look just a bit off the weird lips on the elites that sort of flat look that Chief's armor has Lord Hood's Lord Hood and the environments especially got hit hard so many locations and Halo 2 look as if they're unlit with no lighting to speak of well this is where I'm going to show you a little secret Halo 2 did include some Dynamic lighting these aren't stencil Shadows mind you but hidden in the corners of the game are tiny spots it could be a hanging lamp perhaps a flickering light but if you stand in this spot boom what you're seeing here are just ordinary Dynamic Shadows unlike stencil Shadows they're not Pixel Perfect the further away an object is from the dynamic light source the crappier and more pixelated the shadow becomes which is why this shadow looks so atrocious here but use your imagination just for a bit what would happen if we put another character under this light it's like a missing piece of the puzzle fell into place the Elite's helmet casts a deep Shadow over its face with the only details being its lips curled into an angry sneer suddenly those weird lips the elites have look kind of cool hell look at the grunts all the lights on the grunt armor make so much sense now that we're seeing a grunt under a dynamic light source or the brutes shikai Wang one of Bungie's lead artists mentioned a while ago feeling embarrassed about the final products brutes because of their sort of goofy look and after seeing a brute in these lighting conditions I can see why Sheik felt that way the brutes weren't meant to be so flatly presented all of these were supposed to be seen with thick Shadows drawing attention to the more aggressive parts of their designs it's almost like that comic book style of inking where everything has a solid silouette because of how deep the shading is but what if Lord Hood I hear you ask believe it or not he looks pretty awesome with some Dynamic lighting you can see here that he looks a bit more like an early 2000s Ron Pearlman rather than the bowl of mashed potatoes he ended up being in the final game the bump Maps now that are shining in the dynamic light also help show that he's actually an insanely detailed model look at those throbbing thick old man veins on his hands now I know you're also asking about the flood so here they are in their tally Glory much spookier right here's some hunters and of course here's some jack and there's so much more they're hidden but Halo 2 does have moments in it where sneaky Dynamic light source can pop up when you least expect it and radically transform the look of the game if only Halo 2 was an Xbox 360 game or perhaps a PC exclusive then we could have had an insane looking sequel to Halo 1 there's a lot more I'd like to show you but my Halo mod skills right now are limited to putting a guy in a map imagine what I'll be able to do when I learn how to put a guy and a dynamic light source in a map so yeah if you're like me and you always found Halo 2 to somehow be the weakest looking Halo in the original trilogy despite having the coolest designs in the Halo Trilogy this is that missing piece a layer of thick black Shadows to tie a nice black bow around the great designs share the video around if you found this pretty interesting I think Halo 2 stensil Shadow engine is a thing people know about but don't truly understand just how much of the game's art and presentation was designed around I feel like I have a new level of empathy for the developers at Bungie who felt like Halo 2 was not a game they were proud of that doesn't make Halo 2 a bad game or even an ugly game by any means strong art Direction Still shines through in the game charismatic Designs Great characters cool location but I get it I do get it the final game does kind of look a bit flat and it was supposed to look a lot more dramatic anyways drop a massive stencil Shadow over the like button share the video with your friends neighbors goldfish or local Governors and happy 4th of July or if you don't live in the United States [Music] [Music]

Channel: Late Night Gaming

Views: 70,952

Keywords: Halo, Gaming, LateNightGaming, Examining Games, Commentary, LNG, Late Night Gaming, MCC, Master Chief Collection, Halo Infinite Banished, Halo Banished, Halo evolution, Halo 2 stencil shadows, Halo 2 lighting engine, Halo 2 graphics, Halo graphics, Halo 2, Stencil shadows, Halo graphics engine

Id: rSu0QkDIjMI

Length: 10min 40sec (640 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 04 2024