Halo 5 Guardians studio head Josh Holmes has committed to eliminating Spartan color advantage.
This is an issue in multiplayer, where different Spartan teams sport different colors. As this fan points out, it has been an issue since Halo Championship Edition, where Team Red could always easily blend into Blood Gulch’s canyon walls.
@nathantweet Yep, we will fix this w/ our character lighting. It’s an issue with the new PBR system.
— Josh Holmes (@JoshingtonState) January 4, 2015
Josh explained that they will be fixing this issue by adapting the character lighting, thanks to the game’s PBR system.
PBR, or physically based rendering, is a lighting system that focuses on what light does to an object, and how the object reacts to it, as opposed to how an artist would depict it. Therefore, instead of an artist’s rendering, computers make the calculations necessary to figure out what the lighting will look like.
The description above is a gross simplification of the process, really, but this should be enough to understand what Josh is trying to say. This technique is also being used in games like Star Citizen, because it can lead to more striking graphics.
Josh’s response indicates that they should not have that hard a time making the necessary changes so that Spartan team colors stand out from the background, removing any color based advantage. Spartans will appear to pop out of the maps and walls, and players should not be able to do anyting about it.
Halo 5 Guardians will be released exclusively on the Xbox One this year.