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Halo Infinite: The SlipSpace Engine is a ‘mystical beast’, for 343 Industries

kuncol02

Banned
This game:

ME13Q6V0_o.png



still contains engine code from this game:

ME13Q6VJ_o.png


Probably nothing functional, but that's what you end up with when implementing incremental upgrades over a long period of time.
Half-Life Alyx contains code from Doom.


edit:
At least that's what people on the internet told me. I never verified that. For sure that code exists in Quake.
 
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Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
343 had 3 or was it 4 teams sent to help "fix" Halo Infinite... not sure they deserve all the credit.

From the Wikipedia...

Halo Infinite is being developed by 343 Industries with assistance from SkyBox Labs, Sperasoft, The Coalition, Certain Affinity and Atomhawk.
Fix might be a bit of a stretch.
Nearly no AAA titles are developed fully in house today.
Even Ubisoft who have 1000s of in house devs outsource stuff and co-develop with third parties.

  • Atomhawk is an Arts Studio. Not really developers per say, they might literally just be doing UI or storyboard stuff.
  • SperaSoft have a co-developer credits list that would shock anyone who doesnt know this studio.
  • SkyBox Labs is basically a first party Microsoft studio at this point, im surprised MS havent offered to buy them yet.
  • The Coalition are magicians so obviously they would help out with every MS flagship title.
  • Certain Affinity help out with so many Multiplayer games and specifically have been on the Halo IP since Halo Anniversary.

Sperasoft are the only studio that announced their co credits after the gameplay reveal but we have now way of knowing when they actually joined the project, its quite possible they simple werent allowed to talk about the fact they were working on halo until after the gameplay reveal.
Consider they announced they were working on the project like 10days after the reveal, they were likely already on the project.
 

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
Fix might be a bit of a stretch.
Nearly no AAA titles are developed fully in house today.
Even Ubisoft who have 1000s of in house devs outsource stuff and co-develop with third parties.

  • Atomhawk is an Arts Studio. Not really developers per say, they might literally just be doing UI or storyboard stuff.
  • SperaSoft have a co-developer credits list that would shock anyone who doesnt know this studio.
  • SkyBox Labs is basically a first party Microsoft studio at this point, im surprised MS havent offered to buy them yet.
  • The Coalition are magicians so obviously they would help out with every MS flagship title.
  • Certain Affinity help out with so many Multiplayer games and specifically have been on the Halo IP since Halo Anniversary.

Sperasoft are the only studio that announced their co credits after the gameplay reveal but we have now way of knowing when they actually joined the project, its quite possible they simple werent allowed to talk about the fact they were working on halo until after the gameplay reveal.
Consider they announced they were working on the project like 10days after the reveal, they were likely already on the project.
Comparing what was shown last year to now and what I played of it...
I say greatly improved and possibly fixed.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not

Do you think the support studios are responsible for that?

Spera might have worked on new textures but getting the engines lighting up to snuff would have been in house work.
Someone would have had to have intimate knowledge of the engine to make such changes.

The other support studios were unlikely to have contributed much to the overall change in graphical fidelity.
 

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
Do you think the support studios are responsible for that?

Spera might have worked on new textures but getting the engines lighting up to snuff would have been in house work.
Someone would have had to have intimate knowledge of the engine to make such changes.

The other support studios were unlikely to have contributed much to the overall change in graphical fidelity.
Yes I do. MS delayed the game and sent FOUR teams for a reason.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Yes I do. MS delayed the game and sent FOUR teams for a reason.

Sent?
The studios were already working on the game.

And what would an Art studio do to help the engines lighting get better?
What would the studio working on the multiplayer portion of the game do to help an engines lighting get better?
Spera were likely working on the textures and other assets.
We have no idea what TC were working on with the team.
Skybox have been codevelopers for MS since forever, the chances they werent on this project from the get go are near nil.

Where does this "sent" narrative come from?
 

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
Sent?
The studios were already working on the game.

And what would an Art studio do to help the engines lighting get better?
What would the studio working on the multiplayer portion of the game do to help an engines lighting get better?
Spera were likely working on the textures and other assets.
We have no idea what TC were working on with the team.
Skybox have been codevelopers for MS since forever, the chances they werent on this project from the get go are near nil.

Where does this "sent" narrative come from?
This isn't true. It was announced around the time of the delay announcement that they were being sent.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
This isn't true. It was announced around the time of the delay announcement that they were being sent.

The delay was announced around the 10th of August.
SperaSoft announced they were a codeveloper like on the 4th or something.
We have no idea how long they were actually working on the game and they were likely under NDA till the gameplay reveal to actually say they are a codeveloper.
From their announcement:
Sperasoft specializes in co-development and has been supporting the biggest names in AAA game development with their projects for over 16 years – providing world-class expertise and resources in everything from engineering solutions to games design. For Halo Infinite, the Sperasoft team is contributing to the game’s content across multiple development mandates, developing components of the game and experience – working closely with our new partners at 343.
Certain Affinity have worked on Halo MP since Halo Anniversary, they are effectively a multiplayer support studio.

Atomhawk is an artwork studio are you saying the content complete game only started getting its artwork done after the game was delayed?

We have no idea when The Coalition joined development, id imagine very early on.

SkyBox Labs are a known Microsoft Studios codeveloper, MS are constantly working with them I doubt they were called in late in development.

And now of these studios that you claim were sent in, which one do you suppose worked on the lighting of an engine that 343i had created if not 343i themselves?
 
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Razvedka

Banned
Reread the OP. His remarks on C++ are very strange, I agree. I can see how others here were discussing it. Dunno how I misinterpreted it earlier, maybe I was tired.

Is C++ constantly getting "modernized upgrades"? Because the only time I see it discussed is often in regards to its shortcomings, e.g. it's complicated and very hard to write truly safe code. As a language, it's mention anymore is typically as a contrast to how awesome Rust is (few people touched on this earlier).

It's why Mozilla created Rust for Firefox, and why the Chrome engineers at Google said a bit ago they're at their wits end with C++ with respect to making the code actually safe. They're considering a migration to Rust. So it's a bit of a theme here.

So to hear him gushing over devs "using modern features of the language", in particular in an article talking about old code popping up from the original Halo, does raise a bit of a red flag for me too. C++ has been around forever, so what "modern features" were people not using, for how long, and why? Due to legacy code?

As an aside, I dev on mostly higher level langs and Rust has been kicking my ass. If anyone has pointers (ha, memory management!) Or good resources I'm all ears. I've been using the office Rust lang learning materials and Udemy.

...

I wonder when we'll see Rust in game engines.
 
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BlvckFox

Gold Member
Halo as a series alone is mystical, probably will never be another series like it. Lets hope this engine talk translates well into the final product.
 
There's nothing really meaningful being said in the OP's quote unless you're an actual software dev working on the game.

I guess headlines (that don't really have much to do with the context of the originally quoted discussion) that make insecure fans feel more warm and fuzzy inside is a sufficient reason to create a thread these days.

From a non-343i-Halo-fan's perspective, I gotta say threads like this are pretty embarassing.
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
It’s sad really, I have years of c++ work experience but no one ever contacts me for that. It’s all c# / JavaScript that’s in demand these days.
 

elliot5

Member
It’s sad really, I have years of c++ work experience but no one ever contacts me for that. It’s all c# / JavaScript that’s in demand these days.
Yeah if I were smart I'd suck it up and learn web dev more but I fucking hate it and would rather stick to traditional single language stuff. But everything is going to be web based... That's just how it is :'(
 

VAVA Mk2

Member
Fix might be a bit of a stretch.
Nearly no AAA titles are developed fully in house today.
Even Ubisoft who have 1000s of in house devs outsource stuff and co-develop with third parties.

  • Atomhawk is an Arts Studio. Not really developers per say, they might literally just be doing UI or storyboard stuff.
  • SperaSoft have a co-developer credits list that would shock anyone who doesnt know this studio.
  • SkyBox Labs is basically a first party Microsoft studio at this point, im surprised MS havent offered to buy them yet.
  • The Coalition are magicians so obviously they would help out with every MS flagship title.
  • Certain Affinity help out with so many Multiplayer games and specifically have been on the Halo IP since Halo Anniversary.

Sperasoft are the only studio that announced their co credits after the gameplay reveal but we have now way of knowing when they actually joined the project, its quite possible they simple werent allowed to talk about the fact they were working on halo until after the gameplay reveal.
Consider they announced they were working on the project like 10days after the reveal, they were likely already on the project.
Certain Affinity has worked on expansions/map packs since Halo 2. The studio was founded by Max Hoberman who was the MP head on Halo and Halo 2 so this is a no-brainer.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Certain Affinity has worked on expansions/map packs since Halo 2. The studio was founded by Max Hoberman who was the MP head on Halo and Halo 2 so this is a no-brainer.
Please no logical arguments.
Certain Affinity was called in purely to fix Halo Infinite.
All AAA games are made only by one studio any sort of out sourcing is a sign that the game was fully broken and the outsourcing studios were brought in to fix what the clearly incompetent devs had been working on.
 

VAVA Mk2

Member
Please no logical arguments.
Certain Affinity was called in purely to fix Halo Infinite.
All AAA games are made only by one studio any sort of out sourcing is a sign that the game was fully broken and the outsourcing studios were brought in to fix what the clearly incompetent devs had been working on.
This is sarcasm, correct?
 

ZehDon

Member
Halo 3 was called last gen looking on reveal. So let's try to pretend they're only one upping Halo 5. They're massively one upping Halo 3, ODST, Reach, Halo 4 & Halo 5. All Halo games after Halo 2 arrived in the HD gaming on console era, so let's not try to pretend otherwise by only claiming Halo 5 fits the criteria.

None with respect to its planned launch looked as impressive next to whatever else was out there as Halo Infinite now does. Only game that can even remotely claim such praise for its time would be Halo 4, and that was made by 343. I've appreciated all Halo games visually for what I knew they were aiming to achieve, but that vision has never looked or come together as impressively as it is coming for Halo Infinite.

And while the inspiration is there, I wouldn't exactly call it a return to the Halo 3 era because Halo 3 was nothing like what this game's campaign is setup to be. Let's get that part straight. Halo Infinite in just its most recent campaign flyover shows more freedom and explorable possibilities than all of what was possible in Halo 3. 343 are carving their own path with Halo Infinite. It's never been done like this before.
Thanks for replying and sorry I didn't get the chance earlier.

Claiming Infinite is one upping Halo 3, ODST, Reach, and Halo 4 is a pretty low bar and not really something to proud of, considering they're two entire generations removed. Of course, Infinite was originally torn to shreds because it didn't compare to any of those games, so I'm not sue you've understood your own point. In terms of individual elements, Infinite doesn't really stack up as some kind of milestone. Visually, it's not as impressive for its time as 4... but 4 traded away the scale of campaign to achieve those visuals. In terms of scale or narrative thrust, it's nowhere near Halo 3. In terms of reinvention, it's not close to the big shifts that ODST or Reach tried. Using what we've seen of Infinite thanks to the tech preview, I can only repeat what I said in my previous post: Infinite looks fine, but it's about on par with what everyone else is currently doing. It could be the most fun Halo, but that'll have to wait until after it launches and 343i have proven they've actually made a decent title.

As for Infinite somehow being the most impressive title given your strange criteria - its "planned launch", compared to other games, within a console launch window... that apparently extends nearly an entire year after launch, and a Halo title? - Infinite's gameplay reveal was so poorly received Microsoft delayed the game an entire year just months prior to its launch. Infinite was decidedly unimpressive to everyone. That kind of reactionary delay has not only never happened to Halo, I can't think of a single AAA game to ever be delayed after its reveal was straight up rejected by its fans. Infinite's tech preview looks fun, and it certainly looks improved, but what about the game is supposed to make it the most impressive Halo title ever made? A few seconds of a "fly over" from a Campaign that appears to have one biome? That's... not "the most impressive Halo ever", friend.
 

YukiOnna

Member
There's nothing really meaningful being said in the OP's quote unless you're an actual software dev working on the game.
It is just basic PR speak and part of their interview series that they do on Waypoint to introduce staff members working on the game to casual readers or those interested in applying/working on Halo. There's no conspiracy or anything to really be concerned about either; it's just neutral.
 
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Claiming Infinite is one upping Halo 3, ODST, Reach, and Halo 4 is a pretty low bar and not really something to proud of, considering they're two entire generations removed.

Reading Halo 3 being a low bar has in fact set a new low bar for GAF posts about Halo. WTF did I just read.

A game that gave us console theatre, forge, ARG, file sharing, sold 14.5 million copies and to this day still holds as one of the greatest video games in history across many fans and reviews. Low bar my ass. Christ you can drop into MCC and still have a damned active Halo 3 community. Infinite would do well to raise the bar on such a game and be part of the current gen/social zeitgeist.
 

ZehDon

Member
Reading Halo 3 being a low bar has in fact set a new low bar for GAF posts about Halo. WTF did I just read.

A game that gave us console theatre, forge, ARG, file sharing, sold 14.5 million copies and to this day still holds as one of the greatest video games in history across many fans and reviews. Low bar my ass. Christ you can drop into MCC and still have a damned active Halo 3 community. Infinite would do well to raise the bar on such a game and be part of the current gen/social zeitgeist.
My post must not have been clear.

The poster was trying to position Halo Infinite as some kind of industry leading wonderkid... because its got some extra bells and whistles compared to Halo 3. I was highlighting that any game in its own series should be more advanced than previous entries. It would be like claiming that the mere fact that Grand Theft Auto 5 is more advanced than Grand Theft Auto 2 should be blowing people's minds. Yet, with that kind of time gap, that kind of technological progression, and that many entries in between... it should be more advanced and there's no excuse for it not to be. I then went on to highlight that Infinite isn't really all that impressive compared to other Halo titles... because of how good they are. That Halo Infinite is still trying to "one up" a game in its own series some fourteen years after that game came out isn't impressive by any metric.

I was not trying to pull Halo 3 down - quite the contrary. I was holding it up to highlight what Infinite is still trying, and potentially still failing, to meet - let alone exceed.
 
My post must not have been clear.

The poster was trying to position Halo Infinite as some kind of industry leading wonderkid... because its got some extra bells and whistles compared to Halo 3. I was highlighting that any game in its own series should be more advanced than previous entries. It would be like claiming that the mere fact that Grand Theft Auto 5 is more advanced than Grand Theft Auto 2 should be blowing people's minds. Yet, with that kind of time gap, that kind of technological progression, and that many entries in between... it should be more advanced and there's no excuse for it not to be. I then went on to highlight that Infinite isn't really all that impressive compared to other Halo titles... because of how good they are. That Halo Infinite is still trying to "one up" a game in its own series some fourteen years after that game came out isn't impressive by any metric.

I was not trying to pull Halo 3 down - quite the contrary. I was holding it up to highlight what Infinite is still trying, and potentially still failing, to meet - let alone exceed.
Ah, right mate. That makes a lot more sense and I totally agree. One caveat is pusing too much one-upmanship where it leads to complexity taking over like Halo 5. Halo 3 and Halo in general only ever needs great maps, modes and freshness with new weapons, vehicles etc. Battle Royale games like Apex Legends do this so freaking well e.g. map changes, new characters, new weapons etc. The core game and mechanics are basically untouched, all the surrounding sandbox just plays within that to keep things fresh. Infinite looks like it might finally have this mantra from 343 and the engine to sustain it rapidly as BR devs do.
 
Thanks for replying and sorry I didn't get the chance earlier.

Claiming Infinite is one upping Halo 3, ODST, Reach, and Halo 4 is a pretty low bar and not really something to proud of, considering they're two entire generations removed. Of course, Infinite was originally torn to shreds because it didn't compare to any of those games, so I'm not sue you've understood your own point. In terms of individual elements, Infinite doesn't really stack up as some kind of milestone. Visually, it's not as impressive for its time as 4... but 4 traded away the scale of campaign to achieve those visuals. In terms of scale or narrative thrust, it's nowhere near Halo 3. In terms of reinvention, it's not close to the big shifts that ODST or Reach tried. Using what we've seen of Infinite thanks to the tech preview, I can only repeat what I said in my previous post: Infinite looks fine, but it's about on par with what everyone else is currently doing. It could be the most fun Halo, but that'll have to wait until after it launches and 343i have proven they've actually made a decent title.

As for Infinite somehow being the most impressive title given your strange criteria - its "planned launch", compared to other games, within a console launch window... that apparently extends nearly an entire year after launch, and a Halo title? - Infinite's gameplay reveal was so poorly received Microsoft delayed the game an entire year just months prior to its launch. Infinite was decidedly unimpressive to everyone. That kind of reactionary delay has not only never happened to Halo, I can't think of a single AAA game to ever be delayed after its reveal was straight up rejected by its fans. Infinite's tech preview looks fun, and it certainly looks improved, but what about the game is supposed to make it the most impressive Halo title ever made? A few seconds of a "fly over" from a Campaign that appears to have one biome? That's... not "the most impressive Halo ever", friend.

You don't seem to understand what I'm saying. I'm not just saying Halo Infinite looks better than past HD era Halo games such as Halo 3, Reach, ODST, Halo 4 and Halo 5 simply because it's a next gen title.

I'm saying it's

1 - more ambitious
2 - a more visually impressive looking game with respect to its generational counterparts than was ever the case for all other Halo titles after Halo 2.

Halo 4 for its time is the only game that does better for itself among the pack, but again we know what sacrifices were made. Even so, it was still one of my all-time favorite Halo games.

You just said with a straight face in terms of scale and narrative thrust it's nowhere near Halo 3. We've seen more scale in that campaign flyover at E3 than anything shown in all of Halo 3. It barely seems fair to compare them on scale. Narrative thrust? I don't know where you come to that conclusion before we've even seen the story. Reinvention? I don't even need to relist the games you just mentioned because none go as far to reinvent the structure or ambition of a Halo campaign as Infinite has already demonstrated with just teases. It is the Halo game that seems to be doing the most to make you actually believe the role of you being a Spartan Super Soldier of any that have come before it. The combat simulation is being made to seem more real, where you get to do more of the things Spartans are suppose to be doing.

And you said it has one biome as if there aren't literally many separated floating islands and whole sections of the map that we'll visit with various different or new things to see. A single general biome visual style isn't as bad as you think. I'm sure there will be artistic things in various points to break it up some. Every Halo game has had them, so that's not a big concern. There are also lots of interior environments to consider with this game. It's a far more explorable than ever Halo as compared to any previous Halo game. Just the first campaign footage was but a single piece of a much larger Zeta Halo, and it was already so readily explorable with much to see. Rejected by fans is a stretch, the game was simply not done from an overall visual stand
 
It is just basic PR speak and part of their interview series that they do on Waypoint to introduce staff members working on the game to casual readers or those interested in applying/working on Halo. There's no conspiracy or anything to really be concerned about either; it's just neutral.

No complaints with the interview. I just don't understand why there needs to be a thread about it here when there's nothing of value to discuss.
 

II_JumPeR_I

Member
Thanks for replying and sorry I didn't get the chance earlier.

Claiming Infinite is one upping Halo 3, ODST, Reach, and Halo 4 is a pretty low bar and not really something to proud of, considering they're two entire generations removed. Of course, Infinite was originally torn to shreds because it didn't compare to any of those games, so I'm not sue you've understood your own point. In terms of individual elements, Infinite doesn't really stack up as some kind of milestone. Visually, it's not as impressive for its time as 4... but 4 traded away the scale of campaign to achieve those visuals. In terms of scale or narrative thrust, it's nowhere near Halo 3. In terms of reinvention, it's not close to the big shifts that ODST or Reach tried. Using what we've seen of Infinite thanks to the tech preview, I can only repeat what I said in my previous post: Infinite looks fine, but it's about on par with what everyone else is currently doing. It could be the most fun Halo, but that'll have to wait until after it launches and 343i have proven they've actually made a decent title.

As for Infinite somehow being the most impressive title given your strange criteria - its "planned launch", compared to other games, within a console launch window... that apparently extends nearly an entire year after launch, and a Halo title? - Infinite's gameplay reveal was so poorly received Microsoft delayed the game an entire year just months prior to its launch. Infinite was decidedly unimpressive to everyone. That kind of reactionary delay has not only never happened to Halo, I can't think of a single AAA game to ever be delayed after its reveal was straight up rejected by its fans. Infinite's tech preview looks fun, and it certainly looks improved, but what about the game is supposed to make it the most impressive Halo title ever made? A few seconds of a "fly over" from a Campaign that appears to have one biome? That's... not "the most impressive Halo ever", friend.
Dont bother with him, he hypes up anything 343i and hates on the old Halos. Basicly was never a big jalo player/fan to begin with.
 

Corndog

Banned
Reread the OP. His remarks on C++ are very strange, I agree. I can see how others here were discussing it. Dunno how I misinterpreted it earlier, maybe I was tired.

Is C++ constantly getting "modernized upgrades"? Because the only time I see it discussed is often in regards to its shortcomings, e.g. it's complicated and very hard to write truly safe code. As a language, it's mention anymore is typically as a contrast to how awesome Rust is (few people touched on this earlier).

It's why Mozilla created Rust for Firefox, and why the Chrome engineers at Google said a bit ago they're at their wits end with C++ with respect to making the code actually safe. They're considering a migration to Rust. So it's a bit of a theme here.

So to hear him gushing over devs "using modern features of the language", in particular in an article talking about old code popping up from the original Halo, does raise a bit of a red flag for me too. C++ has been around forever, so what "modern features" were people not using, for how long, and why? Due to legacy code?

As an aside, I dev on mostly higher level langs and Rust has been kicking my ass. If anyone has pointers (ha, memory management!) Or good resources I'm all ears. I've been using the office Rust lang learning materials and Udemy.

...

I wonder when we'll see Rust in game engines.
C++ has been updated many times. You can write safe code in c++. Just use a library if you don’t like the built in memory management.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Reread the OP. His remarks on C++ are very strange, I agree. I can see how others here were discussing it. Dunno how I misinterpreted it earlier, maybe I was tired.

Is C++ constantly getting "modernized upgrades"? Because the only time I see it discussed is often in regards to its shortcomings, e.g. it's complicated and very hard to write truly safe code. As a language, it's mention anymore is typically as a contrast to how awesome Rust is (few people touched on this earlier).

It's why Mozilla created Rust for Firefox, and why the Chrome engineers at Google said a bit ago they're at their wits end with C++ with respect to making the code actually safe. They're considering a migration to Rust. So it's a bit of a theme here.

So to hear him gushing over devs "using modern features of the language", in particular in an article talking about old code popping up from the original Halo, does raise a bit of a red flag for me too. C++ has been around forever, so what "modern features" were people not using, for how long, and why? Due to legacy code?

As an aside, I dev on mostly higher level langs and Rust has been kicking my ass. If anyone has pointers (ha, memory management!) Or good resources I'm all ears. I've been using the office Rust lang learning materials and Udemy.

...

I wonder when we'll see Rust in game engines.
Rust is already getting in some game engines, Ready at Dawn was purportedly migrating the entire core engine to it for example.
 

Andodalf

Banned
Similar I said, you know what similar means? They're real-time cutscenes so they should look reasonably close to in game, it's not as if this is rendered offline.
No game looks close to its real-time cutscenes, unless those cutscenes are very disappointing. Look at ND games, where as soon as the cutscene ends everyone is dead behind the eyes
 
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