Why does Halo 2 look worse than Halo 1?

[@TheRussianORIONTrooper]

Theres a mod on the workshop thats attempting to fix this issue!

[@SizzlyChorizo]

What’s it called?

[@yyyhhh8481]

name?

[@ReachTea]

@@SizzlyChorizo Halo 2 Restored Lighting

[@Insanabiliter_In_Linea]

Seconded, I would love to follow that. I've wanted Halo 2's classic graphics to have stencil shadows and better lighting for ages now lol.

[@TacBans]

commenting for bump. It's a WIP, and says it technically isn't 100% accurate, but it's still looking nice so far.

[@bowrey118]

Halo 2 is one of those weird cases of surviving multiple apocalyptic level development upsets and somehow coming out fairly stable and almost content complete.

[@bedroomstudios2614]

Imagine a world where an Incomplete and bad Halo 2 killed Halo's franchise and Microsoft didn't accept more sequels.

[@UnclePhil6705]

@@bedroomstudios2614very sad timeline.

[@doorbell8132]

It’s truly a miracle Halo 2 came out as good as it did

[@spaghettiupseti9990]

if you ignore the pc version sure, that thing was a mess

[@bowrey118]

@@spaghettiupseti9990 That was handled by a separate team within Microsoft.

[@JoCat]

its insane how much good some lighting can do, to the point some of this H2 footage with the dynamic lighting could pass for early halo 3 screenshots probably one of the reasons halo 3's graphics still hold up so well today, it's the lighting

[@dylantaylor603]

Halo 3's lighting proves the strength of Bungies designs & their creative vision. I can just imagine how their artists felt, finally being able to convey the ideas & vision they had for Halo 2's art direction & graphics.

[@princehussain1090]

The legend is here, bro please get back into youtube just really you did amazing work

[@Zebrahhh]

Yep. The lighting is what makes Halo 3 hold up to this day. Halo 3’s lighting was better than any Halo after, including reach imo. It’s so good.

[@Ares_gaming_117]

Yep and look at blurs amazing cinematics that show how good H2s designs are

[@xb2856]

Its the lighting and art-style. Bungie Halo didn't try to be the most realisticly detailed looking game, but they just nailed their own art-style. I don't think halo 3 will ever look dated because of this.

[@stevemc6010]

I always noticed how H2 has some crunchy texture compression too In CE you can read the text on UNSC ammo packs but in H2 its unintelligible

[@ネメシス-h1z]

Crunchy and obvious repetitive tile / stretching.

[@DsiPro1000]

@@ネメシス-h1zprobably to save VRAM, lots more textures in halo 2.

[@Zminator1986]

Is this why Halo 3 was so aggressive with the lighting system? Like an overcompensation to what they couldn't do in Halo 2?

[@MoonDawg2413]

Halo 3 STILL looks so good.

[@Chopstorm.]

​@@MoonDawg2413 Honestly disagree. A lot of the texture work makes it look like it was made from play dough. That's especially the case for the characters.

[@LoveSickWorld]

@@Chopstorm.Jesus Christ it was made in 2006 give it some slack

[@Chopstorm.]

@@LoveSickWorld CE did not have that issue. It was not an issue of age, but design. Neither did other games released even before Halo 3, such as Half-Life 2.

[@LoveSickWorld]

@@Chopstorm. I can pick apart reasons all those games don’t hold up graphically and don’t pull a pc title out there for comparison but their strong set direction keeps them looking great besides some wonky faces there is nothing that is hard to look at in all the halos

[@riloegaming]

It's fascinating how by simply adding dynamic lighting, Halo 2 is skyrocketed to borderline on-par with Halo 3's gorgeousness.

[@budwyzer77]

It was probably designed on computers with similar specs to an Xbox 360.

[@zenith8417]

A big part of making something look professional and more impressive is believable shading and lighting You can take the flattest(no shading at all) character and suddenly they look more dynamic and true to life with shadows on them, and the angle that the light source with a strong shadow hits a face can create different emotional responses from the viewer Low - Creepy, uncomfortable High - Menacing, intimidating Middle - Too professional, medical(as if a light was being shined on them by a doctor) Half - Calming, easy on the eyes Rembrandt(slightly shaded side of the face, giving it the recognizable spot of light below the eye in the shaded area) - Realistic, pleasant

[@alexreffand]

@@budwyzer77 The OG Xbox dev kits had twice as much RAM as the Xbox. The E3 tech demo was playable and ran on original hardware, and this lighting was on full display there. I wonder if that had something to do with it? Designing and testing on the dev kit it might've worked better and then testing on console hardware they ran into issues? If so it could be interesting to see it enabled on Xbox hardware now that we have consoles with double and even quadruple RAM. Personally I doubt that's the case, dev kits likely utilized the extra memory for other things, and shadows probably stressed the CPU or GPU more, but there's that possibility it could run on original console hardware today.

[@ByeBaybe]

light is everything

[@papifrancisco]

i’ll never forget poppin in halo 3, my sibling just moved out of the house and all of my stuff was in their room (my new room). all i had in my previous room was a quarter pounder-slim television on a milk crate, my 360 & a bean bag chair. the beauty in that campaign still takes me back 😌

[@LaperLarden]

So what I'm gathering from this is... The modding community has some work to do.

[@Player3.]

There’s already a mod out on steam workshop that doing just this. It’s pretty cool.

[@Player3.]

It’s called Halo 2 Restored Lighting by Mr.PirateFox

[@eticket48]

Man the halo modding community is full of amazing people

[@EVA-UNIT-13]

​@@Player3.I never scrambled over to my computer so fast

[@Deadshot-zr5ob]

I just Wish we could load different mods together like a lighting mod, sound mod, customization mod, dynamic weather mod, weapon mods, gameplay overhaul mods, custom campaign mods, weapon reanimation mods etc., would be awesome u.u

[@autofigure00]

the way those halo 2 models TRANSFORMED after the light was cast, they looked immediately more similar to halo 3. Halo 3s lighting surely was them finally getting it to LOOK how they wanted it to even if it wasn't quite the same / made with more advanced and powerful tech.

[@forasago]

In terms of shadows Halo 3 was basically Halo 1 blown up in every dimension. Same old baked lightmaps and "fake dynamic shadows", primitive approaches compared to the dynamism they had intended for Halo 2. But the sheer resolution of the lightmaps did some heavy lifting (in the same way Mirror's Edge wowed everyone with even higher resolution lightmaps two years later) and the post-processing with surprisingly high quality bloom and auto-exposure in one strangely combined effect completed the aesthetic of Halo 3. It's a contender for "best aged graphics of all time" in my opinion. I absolutely love how Halo 3 looks.

[@BlackVelvetDaydream]

I just don't see it. The altered lighting just made the character models look...kinda worse. They're darker, more obscured, less detailed. It just looks like half the character is being hidden and it looks kind of lame.

[@f67739]

@@forasago agreed! said perfectly

[@MajorSilvaa]

Microsoft mismanaged H2 so badly. The fact they pushed Bungie for an original Xbox release date when they released the 360 a year later is just mind blowing. I can’t imagine how incredible H2 would’ve been had Bungie had an extra year and the power of the 360 to work with. Such a shame

[@fsdspdf2717]

From a business standpoint, it was probably the right move. At the time, Microsoft was still building its reputation in the gaming world and needed Halo 2 to maintain momentum and establish the Xbox as a serious competitor.

[@bart3736]

@@fsdspdf2717 I dunno h2 multiplayer on OG Xbox was revolutionary but I feel like as a 360 launch title with another year in the oven it would’ve been insanely big

[@requiemagent3014]

That is simply not true. This was confirmed by Marty on Twitter. It was Bungie and Bungie alone who messed up. They developed an entire game, that was running on a different engine, for a system that couldn't handle it. That is what actually happened. They had to scrap 100% of the work they had and started from nothing. They had a deadline and just because they messed up doesn't mean Microsoft has to give them more time. Imagine this happened in any other industry. Bungie still does this btw. No idea why the management is still like this but the original Destiny was scrapped just months before the release. So once again they had to make a new game from nothing with a deadline. This studio is an absolute joke when it comes to its management. It's not Microsoft, it's not Activision Blizzard, it's not Sony. The only people to blame here are Bungie.

[@Neros_light]

​@requiemagent3014 it's insane to act like Microsoft isn't JUST as responsible lol. Here's your corporate bootlicker award 🎉

[@requiemagent3014]

@@Neros_light How is Microsoft responsible for the mess up Bungie makes. Again this is still happening to this very day. At one point you cannot be like "oh obviously it's the publisher" when this is happening with the same management for a decade now. Literally a decade. This is a delusional take. That's like a mechanic ruining car engines for ten years and you blame the manufacturer. At some point you run out of excuses

[@stargazer162]

This reminds me a lot to how 8 bits and 16 bits games were designed around CRTs. Nowadays people view those games as pixel art, but the pixel art style is born from a misconception of how those graphics were supposed to look like from viewing them on a modern LCD screen. In those games you weren't supposed to view the pixels as in modern pixel art games, because the CRT acted as a sort of physical post-processing filter that would smoother out the pixels and blend them together, and game developers would account for that in their artstyle, for example sometimes they would arrange the pixels in a way so they blend together and form new colors or gradients, and one famous example are the waterfalls in Sonic which looked transparent when viewed on a CRT, but the effects falls apart on an LCD. The CRT is the missing puzzle to make the graphics in a lot of those old games finally come together, it's just like how the graphics of Halo 2 were designed around this dynamic shadows technique, and without it they just look bad. Another similar example is how modern games are designed around the limitations of temporal antialiasing (TAA), meaning that if you disable the anti-aliasing, a lot of objects and textures will look awful because they have been made compensating for the blurriness of TAA.

[@TheRealFrozenFire]

*"THICK, BLACK shadows."* *"THROBBING, THICK old man veins."* Very **ahem** informative video, LNG. Much appreciated👍

[@WaverAlpha]

I would like this comment, but it has 69 likes :v

[@markn866]

Phrases we never asked for but got anyway.

[@ThePilleroflightning]

@ET0228tism 😂😂

[@PetalsFourArmor]

@ET0228well of course someone who runs a halo KZbin channel that does deep dives into the lighting systems of Halo has the tism

[@manbear4222]

Mutt's law

[@PraetorianCarrion]

It's crazy to think how different the artistic direction of the franchise would've gone with just a simple change to lighting, I'd love to see a newer game play with starker moodier lighting

[@caramelldansen2204]

Halo 2 Anniversary didn't do anything with this, which baffles me...

[@CephalopodsRock]

I feel like ODST was essentially a revisit of this concept, but with gameplay and tone that matches the art style and lighting

[@bozhidardimitrov3573]

​@@caramelldansen2204man, really? i was hoping to see it when I start playing it soon

[@BoeBins]

The brutes look straight up scary with proper lighting.

[@shalomamigos]

The brutes in Halo 2 were so cool. I normally don't like bullet sponges, but a bullet sponge that's charging at you is pretty scary. I don't understand the role of the brutes in Halo 3, they're just kinda generic.

[@LifeWulf]

@@shalomamigos Sadly the Brutes in Halo 3 were mostly replacements for Elites, and thus had to evolve a bit from their more animalistic forms in Halo 2. I think they were effective enemies, but I do think Elites are a bit more fun to fight against.

[@shalomamigos]

@@LifeWulf Elites were difficult to take down, but with Halo 3 Brutes, you could just circle them and melee them to death. I think it would have been really cool to fight with Hunters and Grunts on your side in Halo 3.

[@BlackVelvetDaydream]

I disagree, I think the altered lighting makes the Brutes look kinda...dull. Half their features are obscured and you just kind of can't tell what you're looking at.

[@lukesterling2276]

No they don't lmao they look silly af. They already looked kind of funny in the original Halo 2 but the dynamic lighting made them look like a cheap plastic action figure toy lol

[@dipshidian]

6:02 Those “ordinary dynamic shadows” are called shadow maps. This is an implementation of real-time shadow mapping, an evolution of the baked shadows in late 90s games. Stencil shadows are also a form of dynamic shadows, just using polygon-based shadows instead of the rasterized (per-pixel) ones in shadow mapping.

[@sean8102]

Yeah. And there is a mod called "Halo 2 Restored Lighting" that adds a ton of dynamic lights to the entire campaign to give the game a much darker/moodier look like in the example in this video. It's def fun to mess around with. It's on the steam workshop so it's super easy to install (also a version on the nexus for gamepass users etc). It's not stencil shadows (still shadow mapping) but it gives a very noticeable difference.

[@dipshidian]

That’s a good one!

[@shurikenkat]

I always said that CE looked better to me. Halo 2 sacrificed cleanliness for higher poly models. CE had few, flat surfaces to texture. As a result, CE looked clean in its simplicity, while 2 felt stretched and muddy. And, CE’s environments were mostly detailed indoors or vast, empty outdoors, while 2 has a ton of cities and detailed outdoor areas, leading the same simplicity vs muddiness issue.

[@BlackVelvetDaydream]

I disagree. I always thought Halo 2 looked considerably better than Halo 1. Not that H1 looked bad, or H2 was some amazing champion of graphics, but the sequel always looked less blocky and smooth.

[@shurikenkat]

@@BlackVelvetDaydream see, totally agree on the less blocky, but that was my point-since it was on the same hardware with very little technical advances between their releases, Halo 2’s smoothness came at the cost of its textures’ cleanliness. Lots of muddy and warped art as a result of its models being more complex. I personally saw the cleanliness of CE’s textures at the cost of its polygon count to be a much more appealing look than smooth but muddy.

[@kirillnikolaev346]

@@shurikenkathalo 2 utilized cubemaps much more frequently and had a lot of shader effects on the levels. A lot of textures actually were much sharper in Halo 2, bump mapping was much more ubiquitous. Look at the Uprising chapter in Halo 2 and then at Halo in Combat Evolved, night and day difference

[@BlackVelvetDaydream]

@@shurikenkat Interesting, so you found that the less complex textures looked better to you because they weren't as grainy. I can understand that. I think I preferred H2's textures because even though they were kind of muddy and unclear, I always interpreted it as the surfaces looking dirty and weathered, as I imagined they would be. I think it's yet another example of image quality being surprisingly subjective.

[@bander960]

I always knew H2's story and gameplay was ahead of its time, but turns out even its lighting was also too far ahead of its time. Every day I think we all get reminded just how lucky we are that this game was even released at all

[@Masamune-JGb215]

Halo 2 definelty changed my life and how I looked at the world

[@bigdaddynero]

It wasn't luck. It was genuine talent

[@Foxtrox7616]

​@@bigdaddynero sheer determination, skill and persistence

[@richardvlasek2445]

nothing about halo 2's story or gameplay was ahead of its time

[@bigdaddynero]

@@richardvlasek2445 Happy 14th birthday!

[@ROBOHOLIC1]

That title's some fighting words. Edit: Nvm. I see what you mean now. What the hell, we were robbed of greatness 😭

[@Kt_Dreamz]

Bro I was skeptical too, but knowing late night I knew he had something well put together and meaningful

[@bluex217]

Halo CE always looked better to me lol come at me my bro

[@DoctorTaco]

I initially was flabbergasted by the title, now I'm upset lol

[@ROBOHOLIC1]

@@bluex217 that's cool, I'm glad you like it. 👍

[@Soliye.]

@@bluex217 You're not entirely wrong. CE was much more simplistic, less details and focused more on the big scales of things. The ambience played a huge part for me. Halo 2 had way more details, but they felt flat. Now we know why... It's also why the anniversary doesn't fit CE while 2's near perfection.

[@Comkill117]

Interestingly I believe the Spartan armor also originally had glowing lights in some places like they did in CE and 3. Had the stencil shadows been there, I can imagine seeing multiplayer maps bathed in darkness but then seeing a bunch of little lights moving around giving a really cool effect. In the final game there’s places where you can see what should be lights on them below the shoulder and knee pads, but instead of a light it’s just a black slot. In the E3 trailer with Chief you can see them active, which has a really cool effect.

[@StormXTS]

That makes a lot of sense actually. It would fit (what it seems to me) they were trying for with the grunts - any visibility issues from dark lighting are mitigated by the light pattern to identify different targets and what unit they are, serving the same purpose as a silhouette.

[@billb8385]

"Drop a massive stencil shadow over the like button" was a pretty solid interaction reminder

[@HaasSpitta]

Despite all of the tech limitations force on the art style and all the content that ended up being cut. This game was still received with critical acclaim. It’s a testament to the love and dedication the developers put in their games back in the day. Despite all the cutbacks, at its core, the game was filled with soul and ambition. This was back when developer still wanted to give their fans something great. Something special.

[@stevej71393]

Anyone who was around at the time knows it was controversial, with most agreeing that the campaign was a disappointment compared to the E3 demo. Also, I take issue with the statement that "back then, developers cared" which is frankly an insult to all the people who work in development today.

[@CameronSquirrel]

@@stevej71393 i think oc meant “developers” to mean the studios and executives, i don’t doubt most modern developers care extremely deeply, unfortunately the executives and the time frames they force create garbage a lot of the time

[@ItsButterBean1020]

All these years I thought it was just me; can’t wait to see what’s up

[@GallowayJesse]

same

[@cosmictreason2242]

H2 definitely looks soupy too, and i don't think it's just the shadows but let's see

[@zilentis1835]

@@cosmictreason2242 doesn't help it's got that mid 2000s brown colour-swatch which just makes everything look identical.

[@TheRafark]

It’s just you. Halo 2 looks way better than halo 1. I mean come on now

[@cosmictreason2242]

@@TheRafark not true

[@XxOGSnIPesxX]

CE has some really great particle effects compared to modern games. Those sparks when shooting at the floor, they fly so high up, spread pretty wide, bounce and collide beautifully with the environment.

Now I want a Halo 2 remaster with this lighting system activated.

[@genghisn7]

It's called Halo 2 anniversary edition and it came out a decade ago.

[@Man77772]

Bro's ten years late

[@Zillennialjayjay]

@@Man77772Damn, he missed out.

[@igorthelight]

If you just want original Halo with stencil shadows - check out Halo 2 Restored Lighting mod by Mr.PirateFox

[@peccamecha]

@@genghisn7 nah, there's a big difference

[@Bottlecap]

Not only does this video explain it well enough that I understand it, it explained it well enough that I feel that I could now explain it to someone else. That is rare.

[@fearlesswee5036]

I think like Halo 3 it was planning to rely a lot more on the lighting and shaders to look "impressive" (Halo 3 has shockingly low-poly models and low-res textures, but the great rendering and lighting makes it look impressive even to this day) but since last second they couldn't get it to run on OG Xbox, they were just left with the low-poly models and low-res textures with the same basic rendering. EDIT: Yep, basically predicted your exact point(s) in the video LOL

[@LateNightHalo]

Yep, halo 3 is a game that stuck with the general Halo 2 look but used the next gen system to actually get the game working with a good looking lighting engine.

[@mattd5240]

Despite that. The game still holds up shockingly well. Halo 3 on MCC looks and runs amazingly.​@@LateNightHalo

[@agentoranj5858]

@@mattd5240 I remember bungie mentioning in a vidoc that it was engine optimisations which let them double the polygon count for Reach, and that they were super excited about that.

[@jamespaguip5913]

@@LateNightHalo quick question are you planning on getting Warhammer 40k space marine 2, what are your thoughts on space marine 2 trailer.

[@mattd5240]

@@agentoranj5858 That would make sense. Reach was amazing looking for it's time.

[@fosstera]

holy shit, Arbiter's armor looks *AMAZING* with that dynamic light! I always knew something huge was missing with this game

[@ARavingLobster]

It looked bad the day it came out. I remember my brother and I seeing Johnson and Lord Hood at the start of the game after getting home from the midnight release and were dumbfounded at how bad they looked. Them (and many other things of course) just looked so much worse than Halo 1. Edit: Oh my god those characters under Dynamic Lights look straight out of Halo 3. That's absolutely phenomenal. We need a mod that impliments dynamic lighting across the game to finally give us the true version of Halo 2 that Bungie always intended.

[@wongdong3524]

You should check out RubyofBlue's Halo 2 Rebalanced that he's working on. I'm pretty sure his team is restoring the lighting!

[@Soliye.]

The TV we had made any PS2 & Xbox game look good not gonna lie lmao (It was atrocious, hard to believe we could even PvP on that box)

[@MicahIsBatman2]

I mean, that’s kind of what Anniversary is.

[@yawn1171]

No it didn't

[@rickygforce4217]

⁠@@yawn1171 no, it was always a weak looking game and even the devs felt so. OP is right

[@benjaminbertrand1259]

01:56 So happy for my boi John running along shooting the floor and living his best life ❤

[@BillyCobbOfficial]

Wow, the specular and normal maps really shine under that lighting. Game could have looked incredible. Still love it to bits!

[@relt745]

Most of Halo 2's campaign: 🤓 That one room after the elevator on Oracle for some reason: 🤫🧏‍♂️

[@jackmcmorrow9397]

Sometimes i wonder if Bungie would have been better off just waiting a year and launching Halo 2 as the killer app for the X360.

[@PosthumanHeresy]

It sucks so hard that MS needed a killer app for Xbox Live. Wish they'd held off and made it a main selling point of the 360. Imagine the timeline where XBL, H2, and 360 launched all on the same day.

[@kem0n0.kokomo]

I think about that sometimes lol. That and to a lesser extent Halo 4. Not that it underwent massive crunch development like Halo 2 or that 343 was ever that good, but it definitely feels like it could have benefitted from an extra year of refinement and upgrade to become a launch title for the Xbox One.

[@johnnyjohn-johnson7738]

There's no way that Bungie could've avoided a sequel to Halo before the end of the original Xbox's run because Halo is one of the reasons that people invested into the console and the brand would have to be kept in the spotlight in order for it to be relevant. One thing they could've done was to make their last original Xbox Halo a spin off set between Halo 2 and 3 (something akin to ODST, but featuring the Chief) and saved the proper sequel for the 360, this is what Capcom did when they were obligated to make a Resident Evil sequel for the PS1, they released RE3 (which despite being numbered, was really a side story explaining how Jill got out of the city) and saved Code Veronica (the true sequel to RE2) for the Dreamcast and PS2.

[@imtoxicAF]

Naw Halo 2 was perfect on the xbox 1 with those POS big a55 controllers and 100 times better needing $49.99 and not 399.99$ to play. Was still around the time co-op was onlined play before it was drowned by all the online games of 360 so IDK if halo 2 would have succeeded as well being halo 2 and not halo 3 established in the 360 erra. Might have been not trusting and ironic microsofts biggest staple was only getting releases for new consoles that would piss me off...Halo 3 was fine for what it is straight multiplayer and halo 2 was perfect for what it is straight Local Area Network even with flat graphics the story was better less confusing introducing dual weilding and long puzzle buildings for people of the time to explore graphics aint everything as you can see with lots of flops in todays age

[@sean8102]

I doubt that was their decision to make.

[@Player3.]

Funnily enough, there’s already a mod that brings back the stencil shadow effects. It’s called Halo 2 Restored Lighting by Mr.PirateFox

[@extremea7974]

Welp time for my 70th playthrough of halo 2 throughout my life

[@zeeochance]

Halo 2's graphics never bothered me, it was the weird ass ending that was the issue, that and beating the game on legendary is nearly impossible.

[@christocrippin]

for me beating it on normal was nearly impossible lol

[@EarthstarAndy]

People don't remember how huge of a deal the cliffhanger ending + being forced to play half the game as Arbiter was when the game was released. Everyone hated it, and it was a total bait and switch after being marketed for the entire previous year that the campaign was all about MC saving Earth. Instead you had 2 levels on earth, and only returned at the finishing cutscene. It was seen as a big screwup at the time, but this is largely memory-holed because after H3 everyone finally understood why the Arbiter belonged in the story

[@smithovision9113]

@@EarthstarAndy I actually really liked the Arbiter but thats because the German Dub of him was amazing in Halo 2 but sadly very downgraded in Halo 3

[@GlockDanielGxllzghzr]

​@@EarthstarAndy sounds like it was just you bro

[@redslate]

I've stated it before: I'd be perfectly fine if game design returned to that of ~2004/2005 simply with modern computational power (namely framerate and resolution). Everything you needed for good game design was right there, and developers weren't afraid to take risks on new/innovative ideas. Modern games just focus too heavily on appealing to the masses.

[@peccamecha]

this is what we're seeing in indie game developers. Most notably imo in the 3D platformer and survival horror genre

[@proggz39]

To be fair, it’s a miracle Halo 2 even released, let alone as a masterpiece. I’m not bothered by some bad textures, especially after the anniversary edition fixed most of it

[@griz312]

It’s a little irritating the video had a long presentation what was missing but not what caused the headache. Namely, Bungie spending the first half of development on the 2003 E3 Demo and not the commercial game itself.

[@EthanRom]

@@griz312It was a weird move. Usually a demo is supposed to be a snippet from the actual game, but I guess they really wanted to create that buzz

[@griz312]

@@EthanRom understandably it was, but it makes sense why they did it. Bungie was under a lot of pressure after the success of C.E. and wanted to please fans and Microsoft. But in retrospect 2 does not set a lower bar like the video suggest. It’s just that our expectation back then were different and people were more blown away by the physics than the lighting.

[@EthanRom]

@@griz312 Oh yea I don’t think this video was every suggesting Halo 2 was bad, but it was just highlighting why it looked so different from demo to release. But honestly it makes so much sense. I remember some Arbiter levels being so same-y and it’s probably cause of the lack of shadows.

[@UberPanzerhund]

How about watch the video first before flapping your gums. "Bad textures?" Lol

[@ChannelMiner]

While it is a shame, Halo 2 being released on the original Xbox did mean that was it was accessible to a wider audience meaning more people could play it. Still wouldve been nice to have like a separate version for PC and 360 with the better lighting but Halo 2 was pretty rushed as u may know, lots of cut content and whatnot. It's both nice and tragic to think about what could have been.

[@HarleyHerbert]

And the version that did come to pc (Halo 2 Vista), despite having stuff added like higher res textures and higher fps, still didn't have dynamic lighting added. If anything being able to see all these bland textures at much higher resolutions made things worse because it further increased the negative impact not having the intended lighting techniques had. The visual impact was just even clearer to see.

[@Gamer_Man_Bathwater]

The Xbox 360 was a much more popular system and sold more than 3 times as many units than the Xbox. If they had made Halo 2 a 360 game it probably would have been a much more popular game and sold way more copies.

[@ChannelMiner]

@@Gamer_Man_Bathwater Then it would've released later, they were already crunched for time so I don't think we could've gotten a better result sadly.

[@Kodaiva]

@@ChannelMiner if they released it on the 360 they wouldve had more time to make it

[@ChannelMiner]

@@Kodaiva Yeah but Microsoft just pushed it out sadly, would've been great to have Halo 2 on 360 as like a flagship then get Halo 3 after as well. Also would've let u play every halo on 360 after CE anniversary dropped

[@ronin8188]

0:45 "imagine what developers were up against" Homie doing the worm on the floor

[@Redman8086]

I'd heard about the stencil lighting engine in early Halo 2 development, but had no idea it had such an effect on the art style, but you make a really compelling argument for it. Imagine a Halo 2 mod with the stencil lighting brought back - that would make for a totally new experience!

[@nighthowell]

This just nails why I was disappointed with Halo 2 compared to seeing the trailers/short demo. I could never articulate why until now. Great work.

[@DGCpicturesEntertainment]

The Return of Early Morning Gaming. In all seriousness, glad to see you're back at it again.

[@jayceneal5273]

man, the E3 trailers are still so beautiful. If retail Halo 2 looked like that it honestly would have probably ended up being the best looking halo game of the series. Stencil shadows may not be realistic but games that relied heavily on them ended up being some of the best aging games ever made. Doom 3 still looks flawless to this day and the per pixel perfect nature of the shadows means it scales perfectly to higher resolutions. As excited as I am for the digsite team to port the E3 new mombasa level into the mcc version of halo 2, It just won't look quite the same without the next level rendering techniques that the stencil engine showcased all those years ago.

[@dylr7883]

thanks for vindicating me 20 years later. i remember arguing with folks on halo mods about these exact points.

[@Oh-Ben]

Xbox fans would get easily insulted if the worlds more powerful console didn't have good graphics. I got alot of hate for saying Metroid Prime was a much more graphically impressive game than both Halo 1 and 2. Even with Halo 1s graphics I always preferred its art direction.

[@BraydenBeckham-t2c]

7:50 is how I remember the flood looking like in my nightmares when I was 6

[@LucienCallidus]

It would be realy cool to see an "director's cut" version of halo 2, with the scale and direction they intially wanted being capable on modern devices

[@dasstig5274]

Interesting! i too thought Halo2 looked flat in places, but assumed that was a general result of the rushed and messy development, rather than the omission of specific technical features.

[@Oh-Ben]

Its likely a result of both.

[@cozyapustaja8249]

now i want a mod that returns the lighting to the whole game

[@Hidden4Halo]

there's a mod that returns it to just the first level. I forget the name just look up halo 2 stencil shadow mod. Just the first level since i think the creator for it stopped working on it sadly.

[@jayceneal5273]

It's impossible to reimplement stencil shadows into the game without actually having the source code. But you can replace lights with dynamic ones with the modtools. Theres one that dropped just the other day that added in lots of dynamic lighting into the first two levels and even though the shadows are extremely pixelated it overall makes the game look alot better

[@wkody7]

​@@jayceneal5273 as a halo 2 dev Please stop talking You don't know what you are talking about

[@jayceneal5273]

@@wkody7 you are neither a halo 2 dev or someone who knows what you're talking about

[@wkody7]

@@jayceneal5273 I'm master chief

[@kel_ski]

Actually a super well made and informative video. Thanks for putting it together dude

[@LateNightHalo]

Thats an honor coming from you, dude!

[@JacobGoodman-uo1cf]

half life is garbage

[@kel_ski]

@@LateNightHalo🤝🤝

[@AravisUndercroft]

I had no idea that this disconnect between intention and execution existed in Halo 2! It really does explain a lot. Ty for the video. I came here from the series that @Veraxiana has been doing on Halo and this added a lot of needed technical context.

[@vanceg4901]

Noticed this flat look as soon as I got home from waiting in line forever to get the game on release day. Thanks for clearing this up so perfectly.

[@srmanly4073]

Stop saying thick and black in the same phrase

[@mr.mustard8803]

Shut up..... anything thick and black is gorgeous.

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

It is reminding me of the dark carnotaurus. The big sausage dinosaur.

[@I-like-Hugs-and-Fluffy-boys]

Your comment has too much of thick and black meaning ~

[@SMK-bp1zr]

The fact this is the pinned comment 😂

[@adenjones1802]

Thick.... black .....hot er I mean *ahem* shadows.

[@minemoods]

Chief having a panic attack at the end is so funny, omg! 😂

[@BioGoji-zm5ph]

I don't think he's freaking out; I think he's having a seizure. Someone should call a medic.

[@BoisegangGaming]

Chief shooting himself in the foot at 1:17 and then looking at the camera like "oh crap was this on?" is great

[@lo_valledor]

117 🙀

[@IsraeliDino]

Wawaweewa! ​@@lo_valledor

[@neloth434]

Wow, thanks for explaining Stencil shadows, because I LOVED the look of them in Doom 3, FEAR and Prey 2006.

[@Aegis_Mind]

A video I didn’t know I needed. Thanks for putting this together. I knew of the lighting stuff they had to cut but not to this extent.

[@ElChumies915]

Idk about yall but I remember looking at Halo 2 and thinking the graphics just couldn’t get better, then Halo 3 came out and I was shocked. Halo was a stepping stone for graphics and now yall are saying it looks shitty? Come on now…yall got spoiled

[@ReachTea]

There's currently a Workshop mod that shows off dynamic lighting for 2 Campaign levels, definitely should take a look 👍

[@LegosMyEggos]

I’m kind of glad you made this video, I thought it was just my goofy little brain who thought the graphics in Halo 2 looked worse than Combat Evolved.

[@thisdudegotreal]

When I was a kid playing these games I always set the contrast higher and the brightness slightly below halfway for the best look

[@kerplunk10788]

So the dynamic lighting changed the look! That's crazy. Looks beautiful

[@FrancisF564]

I gotta say, great job on this man. When you showed what the characters were supposed to look like with the correct shadows, it looked like what I thought halo 2 looked like when I was a kid. Definitely on the right track with the shadows being the missing link and adding to our imagination. Great video!

[@Medved725]

If modders can bring back the OG dynamic lighting to Halo 2 I don't think I'd ever find myself switching to remastered graphics. The dynamic lighting really gives Halo 2 the same kind of aesthetic endurance CE has.

[@RorikH]

Hell, even the remastered graphics don't have perfect lighting, mostly just because the developers wanted you to see everything, so the levels are all clearly lit, even when they're supposed to be dark and scary, like when the Flood are on board High Charity.

[@bijorno]

The Rubys rebalanced mod needs to see this

[@StrobaCat]

A mod implements Stencil shadows rn but is quite performance heavy (due to running into those dynamic lighting and dynamic lighting in halo 2 not being properly optimized since is rarely used in the final game)

[@MEXUS.]

He already reposted it on his Twitter page 👍

[@Spartanhero613]

what does it have to do with rebalancing?

[@MEXUS.]

@@Spartanhero613 Ruby and his team does more than just rebalance the sandbox, they also add in cut content and lots of other additions. I just found out that they're also attempting re-implementing this lighting system back into the game.

[@snark567]

You can just increase the baked shadow resolution and it will look much better (closer to halo 3).

[@musictorin]

1: It's great seeing doom 3 get some love 2: I always thought it was weird that the halo's on the original xbox didn't age as well visually compared to, say, Metroid Prime 3: I think it would be really neat if we could use modern technology to implement raytracing into some of the older halo's.

[@jayceneal5273]

With RTX Remix it's theoretically possible at least with halo ce but I think it is currently largely incompatible

[@MrIndiemusic101]

Metroid prime is interesting due its world map being built like a dungeon the devs are able to load and render and unload room by room as the player traverses toward doors which act as well hidden loading screens essentially. This gave retro a lot of head room. The game also doesn't have any bump mapping since the gamecube doesn't support normal maps. So things like the cracks on the walls of the chozo ruins are actually modelled into the meshes.

[@subrbs]

Thank you for getting right to the point and not making this an hour long like others

[@appalachism40]

At the very end of the Cairo Station mission, you could stand on the moving loading mechanism of the MAC cannon. It would crush you and kill you, but oftentimes it would drop your corpse through the floor into an open room that I believe was the staging area for the cutscene at the end of the level. It’s in this room that the lighting/shadows are hugely improved much like what you’re reproducing here. I can distinctly remember as a kid stumbling across this and thinking “wow, everything just looks…better in this room. Why doesn’t the whole game look like this??”. The examples you show in this video and that memory really drive home the point for me that the shadowing/lighting was what was really missing the whole time. PS: played a firefight match with you today! GG

[@kleadron]

I'd like to point out that the character shadows in Halo 1 *are* technically dynamic shadows even if they don't follow the rules of the environment. They're called "Render To Texture" (RTT) shadows in the Source engine, and they draw the character model (most likely a lower quality version of it to save performance) at a certain angle in a render texture. These then get projected onto the ground like a decal. -The reason why they don't change direction against lights in the scene is because they don't account for light sources or surface lights in parts of the game world. Source has the same limitation but there's a community patch on the VDC wiki that makes the shadow choose the closest dynamic light to cast from.- @HaloTupolev explained this better in their reply. The light direction used for the angle that shadows render from is based on data stored in the world vertices the character is standing on, in Halo 1 and 2. This can be inaccurate for smaller light sources that don't span the whole triangle, or if the map geometry isn't split up for it, which causes the shadows to render the wrong direction. They're a bit limited in appearance and only cast onto the terrain, but that was most likely done for performance, and/or was a limitation of the engine. Great video though. I wish we could've gotten a version of Halo 2 with stencil shadows.

[@HaloTupolev]

The shadows from dynamic objects in Halo CE *do* react to light direction, it's just that the information about dominant light direction is stored pretty coarsely. While the lightmap itself is a texture, light *direction* data is stored per-vertex in the level geometry. This is also true for Halo 2; Halo 3 is different in that the light direction data is stored in the same structure as light color and intensity, so the shadow direction can be inferred from every texel in the lightmap. CE's shadows are indeed rendered to a texture, but that's not particularly unique. In video games, if a shadow has a silhouette that resembles the object casting it, and it's neither raytraced nor stencil, the object geometry is likely being drawn into a shadow texture in some manner or another.

[@kleadron]

@@HaloTupolev Thank you for the insight. I could have been more accurate with my light direction statement that they do change direction, but I didn't know how exactly it was handled. I based it more on how Source Engine handles RTT shadows.

[@StormXTS]

@@HaloTupolev Hey aren't you the one who did that really exceptional breakdown of Halo 3's renderer? Love you for that. Appreciate the technical insight

[@HaloTupolev]

@@StormXTS Oh man, it's been over eight years since I published that. I had been contemplating doing a similar piece for Reach, but never got around to it. Glad you liked it!

[@UnshotSpy]

Halo 2 looks almost comparable to 3 with the intended lighting. Halo 2 is already my fav in the franchise but imagine how much of a visual and gameplay masterpiece the game would be if bungie had more time and less hardware / software limitations to make it with!

[@Wutertheodds]

I see what you mean. However, 9 year old me, when I got Halo 2 for Christmas, over the years I played it every single day with my dad, the graphics were beautiful to me. They had its own charm, it’s Halo 2. Of course, now 20 years later I’m nearing 30 years old and looking back i can agree with your points. But again, 9 year old me remembers Halo 2 fondly and picturing gameplay from memory includes those flat textures and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

[@TheRafark]

I don’t agree with him. Halo 1 looks objectively worse than 2. I hate that they over exaggerate the “bad” graphics to make a point

[@Techghoul23]

i knew something was off, i always said that halo 1 looked polished and halo 2 looked weirdly dirty in an unpolished way rather than a deliberate choice

[@CactousMan639]

Great analysis, script and narration! 😄 Don't forget about, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay 😉

[@Macbravolive]

Back in 2007, when Halo 3 was released. I saw that Halo 3 have some dynamic lighting that cast shadows which made me envious for halo 2. I try to find them in halo 2 but i found only some parts has it. Either a small lamp, side lamps, or street lamps. Most of the lighting in Halo 2 are baked sadly. Yeah, when the light cast onto the models, it really shines!

[@BonecrusherApologist]

This is actually super cool to learn about I wish we could be in the alternate universe where halo 2 came out the way the developers wanted it to be because Halo 2 with Doom 3 shading would’ve been so good and also all the other cut stuff ig lol

[@ChefandTheArbistor]

4 months. Worth the wait! But still can’t wait for the evolution of the jackals 😊

[@CarlosGarcía-b9u]

Wow seriously I had never noticed the lack of dynamic lighting in Halo 2, more than 12 years playing it and I hadn't even noticed.

[@theearlofgrantham9816]

I miss this guy's regular uploads

[@jxgr5160]

This video made me get a whole new appreciation for lighting and now I hope we can get a mod that can give us the cut stencil shadows

[@deivanarley7411]

After 20 years Bungie keeps amazing us, they were so ahead of their time. H2 was a big, what if?, my favorite Halo campaign until this day.

[@blehmeh9889]

I'll be honest, while I was always a sucker for Halo 1's artstyle and themes of deep space exploration, wonder, and horror, I also appreciated the artstyle of Halo 2. I always thought Halo 2 was looking flat because it was supposed to feel gritty and worn down because the war had been going on too long. I can see what you're talking about from an objective perspective, and I think the artstyle would really shine through even better if stencil shadows had made it in. Here's to hoping that the modders can throw 20 years of computer hardware evolution at the problem to brute-force stencil shadow rendering in some horribly inefficient yet sufficient effort to make the game look great again.

[@StormXTS]

Even if it was intended for a sharper more dynamic lighting system, I still think Halo 2 is beautiful. Yes lots of things are jagged and low poly, with low res textures. But this team was filled with really fantastic artists that have a great sense of visual composition and the use of color -- color especially being very intentionally chosen, which I think was lost a little in the Anniversary version (though it's not nearly as bad as CEA, and still gorgeous in its own way). The exterior of the Control Room, like at the start of Uprising, is a masterclass in 3D art imo. And even the dull concrete of the futuristic Mombasa is so evocative and believable, I really love it. Every stretched-out pixel.

[@PotProductionStudios]

Great video! Looking forward to tackling this feature for Bot Boot Camp 2!

[@ThisBirdHasFlown]

Halo 2 looks considerably better from a technical standpoint than CE in my opinion. Far more environmental detail, much better lighting and higher resolution textures and poly counts.

[@therealthirst8099]

While we may have gotten an incomplete Halo 2, at least most of the cut features they intended would eventually come back and make for a perfect Halo 3.

[@bigmack70]

Would be an interesting RTX remix project

[@jayceneal5273]

Sadly it's not compatible at all

[@dragonborn7955]

Take care LNG! What you say is heresy!

[@LateNightHalo]

Is it…? Oracle, what is Halo 2’s cut stencil engine?

[@nikobellic42]

I think halo 2 is alot less bright and colorful than CE but i always liked the art style of 2 because its gritty, the flat, overly textured models work best in flood levels and dark areas.

[@svenrawandreloaded]

I definitely see what you are talking about, but I also can’t help but feel like it gave halo 2 its own unique dream like misty grey atmosphere that I still love to this day and is extremely nostalgic, and would like to see replicated in future “oldschool” games.

[@Commander_Appo]

10:10 I'm gonna send this to Tony Evers (I only learned about this guy's name today, man I should pay attention during my next local elections).

[@alanlee67]

Halo 2 still looks great and levels still feel more expansive than most games today. Games either funnel you down corridors nowadays or have endless copy paste grass textures for "open worlds."

[@samuelgeaney7556]

All Halo 2 does is funnel you down a corridor. It's the most linear halo game

[@chriswriter9087]

Oh good. I’m not the only one who thought this back in 2004.

[@chozochiefxiii3298]

I do think it makes sense for delta halo to look neglected. Since it was neglected by it's caretaker. It's the reason the flood outbreak grew so large to form a gravemind. Looking back I dont think the game fully sells the actual nightmare scenario that went down on Delta Halo. Coming from someone who has halo 2 as their favorite halo.

[@gamethingstuff]

The making of Halo 2 is such an interesting story. There's so much they tried and failed on, form this to wanting to include so many more levels. So much crunch was involved, they were disappointed with what they made, and yet it was (and still is) such a good game. I defo recomend anyone to watch the "Behind the Scenes Making of Halo 2" video. Also your description made me laugh,

[@AlamoBlend]

OG Bungie was filled with steely-eyed missile men and women. What they were able to accomplish was amazing, but what they WANTED to accomplish is the stuff of legends. Love it or hate it, the Bungie Halo franchise fought against all odds and still managed to revolutionize the FPS genre multiple times over - imagine what they could have done with the shackles off!

[@griz312]

Short answer and to save time, Halo 2’s final build was actually developed after the 2003 E3 demo. Bungie spent more time working on the E3 Demo than the Commercial game at that point. So they really spent less than two years producing the game and didn’t have the luxury of experimenting the Havoc engine.

[@ninjaassassin9393]

I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO SAW THAT H1 WAS BETTER LOOKING THAN H2! This'll be a great watch

[@daniel.holbrook]

I still think stencil shadows look awesome, I'd take them in a game over something like ambient occlusion any day

[@inha1ed]

I remember there was a scene from RvB set in the dynamic lights room and it was cool that the visors of the spartans were completely dark

[@huntclanhunt9697]

I wonder... Now that Halo has mods with MCC... Could stencil shadows be added?

[@Titanos-vc6zh]

Compared to Bungie's original plans, the Halo 2 we got was a completely bare bones failure and it STILL blew the world away

[@johnnyjohn-johnson7738]

You know a game is a gem when even it's botched version become a pop culture phenomenon with sales rivaling hollywood movies and a dedicated multiplayer base that stayed loyal years after the game's console became obsolete.

[@denifnaf5874]

Same with half life 2

[@kongzillatoho4558]

Doesn't matter because the Remaster looks better than the entire franchise combined. Halo 2 is the best and remains the best.

[@ugoboom]

ye im surpised how good the h2 remaster looks when the h1 remaster was so bad

[@Pan_Z]

Understandable why many Bungie devs who worked on Halo 2 don't remember it fondly. While we see an Xbox classic, they see a game with so much potential that the released version didn't live up to.

Your channel is chicken noodle soup for the soul. Interesting topic. In a few years, maybe we'll get the scrapped Halo 2 we were meant to have. After playing a lot of mods for CE and 2, I think it's entirely possible.