: I agree that some of the H2A maps are too filtered - but punching up the
: colors isn't always the answer.

One of my biggest issues with Reach (and 4) is that the Blue Team seems to melt into the shadows while the Reds' bright color sticks out like a elephant on a biplane. So I kinda want the maps to be brighter to even out those wrinkles. But in the end, it's just best to brighten up the Blue's armor hue to match that of the Red's.

One thing many folks seem to be forgetting is that Halos 1-3 was not focused on realism. At least not anywhere as much as Reach and 4 were. As the years passed, the developers have been able to add a realism to the look of the game to help draw players in. Well as much as they could in a Sci-Fi game involving aliens and monsters. Because of this added realism, environments, characters, etc tend to look darker. And until computers can handle real-time light bouncing and subsurface scattering on a grand scale, the more we make a 3D world realistic, the more washed out and "bland" it's going to look. It's a price we currently have to pay for.

[b]"Then just brighten up the textures!"[/b]
That's not always possible. One of the biggest issues with games is the lighting of the worlds. With each level, that world/environment light changes. If you were to simply brighten up a texture, it could have a negative effect when it's used on another level. In Halo4's Composer level (among others) there's what's been referred to as the "Gold Grenade". This grenade everyone seems to be so fascinated by is NOT GOLD AT ALL. It's actually a glitch in the lighting for that area of the map. In fact, there's a light source just under the grate that passes through the slits of the floor. We see it almost everywhere in the level. Pick up the grenade (if you want to) and drop a weapon in the same spot (or near it) and that weapon will also seem to glow gold. It may take a few tries to get it in the right spot, but it's possible. This light glitch only effects weapons and nothing else in that level.

That's just one lighting issue example. Now imagine having to deal with that across the entire game. Look at Bungie's Making Of Halo Reach video They spend ALL DAY AND NIGHT trying to fix ONE single light issue only to finally realize it's a World Lamp/Light that's causing it and ended up being a simple fix.

[b]"But we're talking about multiplayer maps here. Not campaign. They can change the texture for that map and not effect the others."[/b]
Wrong again. Most textures are used across all maps and levels. There's often textures on top of textures (this can easily been seen in Halo4's Forge Island map). To bright up or change that one texture will most certainly change it for other maps. And then we're back at the issue light glitches or nu-uniformity among the textures of those levels.

[b]"Then just make different copies of that texture for each map. And you'll not have to worry about those issues.[/b]
That is very true. But then you run into another major issue. File Size. Most (if not all) of these textures are HD images and often TIFF files. These files can become very large file sizes. The more you add to the disc/program, the less space you have for other, more important, resources. In the end, it's just not really worth it.

There's really a much easier way to address the "Bland and Dullness" in video game maps. And the gamer is the one with the answer. Simply adjust the video settings on your TV. Doing so would take less then a minute. And when you enter into a new map/level, you might see what I'm talking about.