OldNick is at it again, this time wondering if sometimes less is more, if somehow the Halo series became something a bit less by trying to become something a lot more.
Perhaps this is what Jason Jones meant about Halo 1's "beautiful simplicity" compared to Halo 2 (and, one would assume, Halo 3).
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OldNick
Re: Sometimes Less Is More
May I ask where that Jason Jones quote comes from? I don't remember seeing (or hearing) it, but it certainly sounds as if it might be relevant to my argument.
not.now.murray
Re: Sometimes Less Is More
In reply to: Re: Sometimes Less Is MoreI believe that comes from the cut scene commentary in the Halo 3 Legendary edition.
narcogen
Re: Sometimes Less Is More
In reply to: Re: Sometimes Less Is More[quote=OldNick]May I ask where that Jason Jones quote comes from? I don't remember seeing (or hearing) it, but it certainly sounds as if it might be relevant to my argument.[/quote]
At the end of the Halo 1 cinematic commentary track on the 2nd extras disc of the Halo 3 legendary edition. He says that Halo 1 seemed "awkward" compared to Marathon's simplicity, and that the same applies to the comparison of Halo 3 back to Halo 1, where things seemed more "crisp".
I think he may have been referring to the proliferation of detail. When you look at Halo 1, there are a lot of relatively featureless areas and a lot of very subtle textures. Anything that has a lot of detail on it is usually important. Whereas in Halo 2 and then Halo 3, everything has an insane amount of detail, whether it is interactive or important or not. Same applies to Gears of War, for instance-- lots of detail textures everywhere, even on unimportant objects you cannot interact with in any other way, and the details on important objects are sometimes lost in the visual cacophony.
Rampant for over se7en years.
OldNick
Re: Sometimes Less Is More
In reply to: Re: Sometimes Less Is MoreThanks for the reference, and the interpretation, which certainly makes sense.
Ironically enough, I vividly remember being deeply impressed by the detail textures (on flat, nominally featureless surfaces) in Halo CE - wandering about with zoomed weapon sights trying to analyse them. The balance of visual interest and subtlety really appealed to me, since it looked like the perfect vindication of my side of a long-running argument. I'd been wrestling with various artists for years, trying to persuade them to tone down texture detailing (there was an F-16 fighter which looked as if it had been riveted together from half-inch steel plate by early 20th-century shipbuilders, for example...). Being charitable, this is just the artists' typical manifestation of the "if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing" mindset which affects pretty much everyone in the games industry who has any shred of enthusiasm for the job (myself included).
If the subtlety of the detail textures in Halo CE wasn't the result of a deliberate policy of restraint, then I could make a case for it as another example of enforced restraint. The thing about microtextures (high-detail partly-transparent or bump-mapping textures layered over a surface which would otherwise lack visual interest) is that they have to tile (repeat) quite often. It's by far the quickest, cheapest way to add visual depth and detail to really large areas when you can't afford individual textures or lots of extra geometry, but you have to use them very subtly, or you can end up with visibly repeating patterns.