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The 2nd Halo 3 Screenshot Thread of Awesome

Deepblue

Banned
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POSTING GUIDELINES - PLEASE READ
1. Please RESIZE your image to preferably 800p wide, though 1024p is acceptable. Alternatively, create a thumbnail linking a larger version of that size or smaller.
2. Any discussion that takes place must concern screenshots in the thread or the taking thereof. This is NOT a thread for discussing the graphical fidelity or lack thereof found within the game itself, nor is it a thread for discussing how much you like other games more.
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Since the original thread was getting difficult to navigate due to thread size and full-size pictures, we decided it was a good idea to start anew. This action has been mod sanctioned.

The 1st Halo 3 screenshot thread can be found here.

PLEASE do not be frightened by what may seem like a chasm in difference between your own photos and the ones in this post. Remember, these were culled from hundreds of shots. The best way to get better is to take more! So post your screenshots!

Now, let's kick things off with some of the best shots from the first thread:

Campaign:
(I really wish I could find this shot in digital form, perhaps someone could recreate it?)
dsc03905lf6.jpg

1037uc4.jpg

30js4fb.jpg

2uz5y5f.jpg

2314629729_3f09f26827_o.jpg

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2hcn6ec.jpg

fne4r5.jpg

1e2e55.jpg

2nhi4k0.jpg

b3l5x5.jpg

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651zls.jpg

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15corvk.jpg

1470656956_57b79c31f4_o.jpg

dh2yhh.jpg

2nibdid.jpg

390697-Full.jpg

35alpjd.jpg

33ykuoz.jpg

29ghh0n.jpg


Multiplayer:
2qm2595.jpg

30lnfyr.jpg

pewpewpewyp3.jpg

if1zko.gif

2955795-Full1.jpg

n2l740.jpg

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wheels.jpg

2cp3l3p.jpg

2euodmo.jpg

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2181810336_02db820e45_o.jpg

23741540-Full2.jpg

1462263653_e02ae10c2a_o.jpg

1467141568_9e9685f56d_o.jpg

2zi1suf.jpg

xbk12o.jpg

vzevz8.jpg


Panoramas:
2319870723_b374c6a1b6_b.jpg

panohalo.jpg

halo_panorama01small.jpg


(more to come!)

Some of you may be asking yourselves? How is this possible?! Halo 3 doesn't look that good!

Some explanatory material:
The More You Know: Screenshots

Everyone knows our hi-res screenshots get a boost in size and quality when they are uploaded to the website. But if you’ve ever wondered how and what, then read on.

Bungie graphics engineer Chris Tchou talked me through some of that technique.

Halo 3 screenshots are just hi-resolution renderings, directly from the normal game engine.

The initially rendered resolution is 3840 x 2160, but as you’ll see, that’s not what you end up with.

The 360 doesn’t have the memory to render at this resolution (especially while the game is running), so we render the image in 16 tiles and then crop and stitch them together. The final image is converted to the standard PC color space (from our ‘special’ 360 color space), downsampled to 1920 x 1080 (with a simple box filter), compressed to a jpeg on your xbox, and transmitted to bungie.net. That downsampling is where much of the “anti-aliasing” comes from.

The only tricks that are played during the rendering are to do with that jumbo magnification. The bloom filtering switches to a smooth bspline instead of bilinear – this gets rid of a subtle blocky appearance of the bloom on super bright lights which becomes more apparent in a high resolution shot.

Some textures are bumped to use 8x or 16x anisotropic sampling – this makes some ground and wall textures more detailed at farther distances, though it also has the side-effect of making tiling patterns more obvious. All of the post-processing is simply designed to make the big uploaded images function, and not be janky messes of obvious tiling.

Almost all of our LOD (Level of Detail) is based on the size of the pixels in an object. So when you are rendering at higher resolution, everything renders with more pixels, and will therefore use a higher LOD.

All of this will be old news to PC owners, who’ve been seeing roughly the same thing for about 12 years.

Also, I know a portion of the screens I posted above underwent contrast/saturation adjustments in Photoshop to match the 360's color output better and give a more "true to life" picture.

More effective than any image-enhancements however is the ability to frame images with the camera rather than being stuck with a first-person view (though I have seen some brilliant first-person shots) More often than not, it DOES look like that in THEATER MODE.

Though all post-processing (depth of field? motion blur?) is removed much to my dismay.
 
Those shots really capture the range of imagery I love in Halo.

Beautiful:

2nibdid.jpg


Hilarious:

wheels.jpg


Badass:

35alpjd.jpg


And OMFG at the panoramas.
 
Much to my dismay, the Halouvre is down. It had some really awesome panorama's in the hudless Halo 3 gallery before they were popular.
 
i have the game but haven't played it in a while...since i got RROD.

how do you take in-game screenshot? and how can you get it to the computer?
 
so_awes said:
i have the game but haven't played it in a while...since i got RROD.

how do you take in-game screenshot? and how can you get it to the computer?
You can take screenshots when viewing a replay and after you take the shot it's uploaded to bungie.net.
 
I believe it adds the awesome filter as well as a 50% reduction negarays.
 
I think this one should be dedicated to the panoramic shots. IMO I don't see a reason for another screenshot thread...but if it was strictly panoramic shots, I'm all for it. Just IMO.
 
FightyF said:
I think this one should be dedicated to the panoramic shots. IMO I don't see a reason for another screenshot thread...but if it was strictly panoramic shots, I'm all for it. Just IMO.
They're not nearly as abundant as regular screenshots, so I think it's best that they are mixed in with the rest.
 
BTW, I just want to throw out props to Tieno for his Guardian Sketch shot. One of the earlier shots in the first thread, and still one of the best.
 
So I've been trying to recreate the first shot.
I got the angle and location perfect, but my first try I didn't give MC a pistol for his secondary weapon so he had a BR on his back, and I got him standing too far away.
 
Jtwo said:
So I've been trying to recreate the first shot.
I got the angle and location perfect, but my first try I didn't give MC a pistol for his secondary weapon so he had a BR on his back, and I got him standing too far away.
Hey, it doesn't have to be exact! :lol

I just love the composition in that shot. You have the grass and leaves close to the camera contrasting with the giant vortex above the ark. What really makes the shot though are the tiny specs of banshees off in the distance as a solitary Spartan stands and watches. It's just epic.

As far as the colors are concerned, any Bnet screenshot with the same composition will need to have the contrast and saturation adjusted to match the source. It's less of an issue in shots with high-levels of HDR funkiness, but a "plain" shot like that needs to have the correct balance to achieve that impact.
 
FightyF said:
I think this one should be dedicated to the panoramic shots. IMO I don't see a reason for another screenshot thread...but if it was strictly panoramic shots, I'm all for it. Just IMO.

yeah, who the fuck is "we"? not needed IMO
 
Super_Chicken said:
As much as I hate halo these screens are awesome! :D

Why doesn't the real game look this good :(

Go get a better TV because with an adequate HD tv, the game indeed looks like the screenshots.:D
 
Super_Chicken said:
As much as I hate halo these screens are awesome! :D

Why doesn't the real game look this good :(

They do look as good as these screens. The problem is that these are 1 frame from the other 60 frames.
 
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