: I don't care for the continued use of that indeterminate shiny white material
: in building human structures, or the way it's all curvy for no apparent
: reason. The luster of it feels like a default setting from Maya, and it
: doesn't seem like it looks like any material I know of except maybe some
: type of plastic, and using it instead of some readily identifiable
: material feels lazy because it lets you omit almost all details.
: Presumably it's supposed to look futuristic but it just reminds me it's a
: game. Maybe it's changed, but that's how it struck me in Halo 4 quite
: often and the small images in the article make it look like it's the same,
: possibly even worse.
: I like that we're getting a look at a glassed planet though.

I understand what you mean. I don't really like the look of many of the buildings.

But it isn't laziness.

Halo 3 looked painted. The textures looked like sampled acrylic paintings and it looked Very nice.

I think that 343 is deliberately going for a painterlylook.

Google Sparth and look at the image results. See the whites and the light surfaces, the white blues. Some of that stuff is gorgeous but somehow the Halo engine isn't capturing the effect. It isn't doing it justice.

A lot of Sparth's stuff plays with transparency and the kind of effects that you can get in 2 and a half D. Maybe that doesn't translate well in an "actual" (you know what I mean) 3D engine.

Maybe 343 needs more views seen through transparent walls and more holographic stuff, shields as part of Forerunner architecture - I dunno. Maybe they need to go for less realism and go balls out for the artistic look that they are going for.

Look at this. Pause it at the 49 second mark. That is pure Sparth and it is very nice. They have captured his paintings in engine. he has done much better paintings and, if they could recapture them, then they would have a very nice looking game.