Enhancing the graphics of Halo Reach on PC | Modding Reach with Reshade 

Best part? You don’t need to play the game this way :) we can make Reach look like whatever we want I enjoy the filmic look that per object motion blur and other affects add to a game and for me personally it enhances my experience with a game (Doom 2016 still being my personal favorite use of the effect) but others certainly don’t. It’s how I enjoy my games :) I like beefing up the visual presentation and making them feel very “exaggerated” which looks awesome on my 1440p, HDR, 144hz monitor (A fun idea would be black and white with film scratches to make it look like WW2 footage)

343: removes motion blur and film grain LNG: I added motion blur and film grain

Beautiful, ain’t it. Someone oughta take a picture.

Should have stopped at 3:17. In my opinion, it looked fine there...

"a game I used to think not so highly of in the Halo series." Careful Arbiter, what you say is *heresy*

Just finishing Halo 3: ODST for the first time as I got this notification.

Nice cracks on Noble 6. Really adds a nice...oh, that’s just the cracks on my phone screen :/

I have used reshade with like, 90% of my steam games. Seeing world at war bright and vibrant, and Hitman 2 in black and white really changes the tone.

Honestly think you took it too far, looks too blurry and too colorful. 3:17 looked great; 6:20 looks like an over-edited Instagram photo lol

Always adored Halo reach despite the flaws, glad someone can find a new appreciation in the game even with mods

Would you consider doing the same with the other Halo games? Particularly Halo 4, since I imagine with the already amazing appearance it has you can make it even better!

Mods are nearly upon us, whether 343 intended for it or not. It's going to be a wide ride ahide of us...

“Enhance”: * saturation *Up* * contrast *Down* Brightness *Down*

Consoles players: *"Time to play Halo."* 🤤 PC players: *"Time to mess with Halo."* 🤓

I really get what you were going for and for the most part agree - but gee did the actual gameplay hurt my eyes. It did kinda feel like I was wearing some fuzzy glasses that weren't meant for me and I actually took a small break so my eyes wouldn't hurt. edit: granted the youtube compression probably exasperated it

2:06 hell yeah black and white reach I was wrong

Taking notes on rouge one to make a video on reach is on a level of irony I can't get to.

Yeah... Reach was suppose to be gritty, gloom, and hopeless. That being said... don’t really care for your reshade. However, I did enjoy the video.

Spartans don't have motion blur. They don't have a depth of field effect. And Noble 6's helmet didn't suffer any damage on impact. AND THEY DON'T HAVE FIPM GRAIN WTF

Definitly feels like too much Maybe some dirt effects for a bit with the crash but looks way too blindingly bright with the vibrancy for the ground Game looks really nice as is anyway

The grittiness and war like atmosphere of reach is exactly why I loved it so much.

I can't wait for all the mods and custom campaigns Halo reach will get when it comes out!!!

Halo reach is basically the rogue one of halo. Actually, the other way around

Looks to blurry for my taste personally I would make the colours more vivid and leave it like that

I can't stop smiling when watching this, I'm getting some heavy nostalgia vibes

I love the gritty Reach atmosphere.

3:20 hey, look. It's the Hollywood blockbuster "orange foreground, blue background" look.

people are upset about you messing around with the kinks? y'know what.... they are just gonna sit there and watch anyway because we're gonna break the living hell out of this game

Ah yes, the most excellent game ever. Borderlands 5: Reach

It's been an honor

You forgot to add the "cinematic 24 fps"

Imagine ODST's rainy night city with Reshade giving it a more blue stormy feel just like how the original Halo 3: Recon trailer was.

I loved Reach when it came out. It explored the more gritty tone of Halo. The things we don't normally see running around as The Chief. In Reach we witness a battle that can't be won by Spartans all destined to die in the name of Humanity and it's preservation. We see true sacrifice and loss. Though we know the outcome we still see those few that risked everything to make a difference.

Professional designer here (just a fact, not a flex): I gotta say, while I agree Reach's art style, while beautiful in it's own way and fitting for the game's theme & story, I am not really a fan of the modifications you made. The VISR effects are way too pronounced and don't really fit the game very well. I get what you were going for, but it is just not a great route in my opinion. The colours are not terrible, although the added contrast dealt through them (or whatever other effect[s] you applied) causes Halo 4 level issues with the lighting, and obscures a lot of texture details. I honestly think (and this is nothing on you personally, just a general statement) that the game would benefit more from someone releasing an updated texture pack for certain textures, more than anything else really. I noticed that despite the vastly improved visuals, thanks to both the increased resolution as well as the frame rate, a lot of the textures on larger objects & terrain look exceedingly blurry & flat at even medium range. It's not a massive problem, being that it's only certain textures in specific areas & since it's hardly at a level that is too distracting, but it would still be a incredible difference if they were redesigned at a much, much higher resolution (say, >8K or so) and then downsampled if need be, hardware / engine dictating. Also, the DoF effect is cool and all, but would be better served if it were gradually faded into the arm/weapon & foregrounded objects the closer it got to the player (aka edges of the screen). I don't know if that is even possible using the mod you used, but if so, I think that would definitely make it easier on the eyes. Despite all of that, though, it's a really cool video. I may have to go about trying it out myself.

When you used the Borderlands style it honestly made me think of more of a Halo wars 1 vibe

I can't believe you took my favorite game and edited it. . . . It looks f*cking awesome

I hate these effects video , they never look better

Loved your Reach streams!

Reach will always be the best Halo game imo

Inb4 we get skyrim level ENB shaders and texture packs for the game

Gotta be honest it ruined the aesthetic of reach, and it looks just like he threw the effects together without knowing how they affected each other...

None of that was necessary if you ask me

so blurry, I cant play blurry games have to disable all anti-aliasing, motion blur

This video reminds me of earlier days during my game development studies. A lot of people dragging sliders and just trying to make things until it "looks cool". It's a cool and fun thing to do! It seems like you already have deeper insight than many of my peers had. Colour grading and post FX are so complex, where it takes years to master. I was fortunate enough to work with a few film directors who wanted to branch into video games and learnt do much. It's pretty cool to see people making videos and having a good time with experimentation! I do have some feedback. You quickly identified that the grading and FX wouldn't work in differing levels - very well done! These things need to be done dynamically - in modern games you might be able to spot developers changing them if you look closely (Destiny 2 is quite obvious and a good example). Even walking into areas with different lighting will require changes to colour grading and AO. Also - remember that colour grading isn't just about the environment! We are playing from the point of view of the protagonist and the story is also significant. Our world can change from vibrant colours to mute and blueish even though the only thing that has changed is our protagonists mentality (think the last level in Reach). Also, as a rule of thumb you would never add static grittiness/etc. to your camera (visor view). Especially in games that transition camera views (it's so hard when the tool you are using isn't verbose enough). I can't remember the name of the game but one of the coolest instances of this effect is dynamic and based on the environment (possibly Kill Zone?). Keep up the great work, I hope you are enjoying working on these videos as much as I am with watching them!

Yes, because when I think of a war on reach where plant/human life is getting exterminated by aliens. I think of colors and motion blur.

I feel like a lot of the changes were too much for me personally, but that's the great thing about reshade, it's customizable. I think the best way to go is to add a slight amount of saturation, fxaa and msaa x4, ambient occlusion, and anisotropic filtering.

The blue's from the vehicle boosts is gorgeous with the tweaks

Halo reach is the first game I ever played/owned and I absolutely adore it. It's like my first game couldn't have been a better one. I prefer it over so many current games even now. And I'm so overwhelmingly happy reach is getting so much new content now. I f***ing LOVE Reach so much

I love how energetic and funny you are, great videos!

It was a blast to be a part of the stream, please do more streams like this

Idk chief this looks ugly I was hoping for improved graphics or something not something smudgy

Jesus Christ, what an over saturated mess The last thing Halo needs is more cheap “cinematic” lens effects and motion blur

Let me guess, your home? It was... it was beautiful...

A good showcase of the reshade menu, but personally not my taste on anything after the colour correction. Good job though man.

I wouldn’t mind PS4 controller support for Halo, cause playing Halo with mouse and keyboards just feels weird as hell

I would never really consider the games made by bungie as having an art style of goofy for Halo

So glad to have Reach in MCC AND on PC. One of my favorite games to ever play, I feel like I can really STEP INTO Noble Six’s character the badass dude without a real background, like you can make of him (and even “her” too!) what you want. The armor customization is also the best in the whole series of Halos imo.

Great work but youtube compression makes it all look too fuzzy

the intro music really makin me go "huh?... huh?... huh?..."

I respect the work you put in to create a cool immersion on a game that I see a lot of potential in. Can't wait for you to do the rest of the missions and even possibly campaigns.

Is that a "Borderlines" look or a "Halo Mega Bloks" game look? It perfectly fits the ascetic that that game would have

5:17 I felt something when I saw that blur at the top of the screen. That looks so beautiful

It's cool to see all how little things can make a big difference amd that simingly anodine choices can change a lot of the experience.

I really like your new video style, you also feel a lot more confident! Always waiting for your next upload - A fan from Finland

Someone here mentioned Halo 4 and I would love to request you make that one a more traditional halo style of color tones. The big flaw with 4 was that aesthetic for the game. So seeing it with bright colors instead of bland and silver metal might really get it om that Halo feel from the original trilogy

Halo 2 pc with a ps4 controller it was actually plays great

I was so early, the vid only loaded at 144p with a terribile fps rate! Perfect to watch a video about graphics, ain't it?! 😂

Be careful dude. You wouldn't want to "disrespect" the game.

For gameplay purposes, I wouldn't have made the screen and weapons blurry. Because damn did those colors pop in just the right ways.

I gotta admit, this is really kickass. Remember those mods people did on the console version of reach, where they modified weapon characteristics, and combined vehicles with forge elements? We gonna soon be able to do that, but with greater precision and know-how than ever before. With this video, we have taken our first step into a much larger, and more vast universe than what most of us thought possible. The dark times are no more.

The three enemies of the eye. 1. Film grain 2. Motion Blur 3. High saturation

Holy crap. You should make like, a full playthrough of reach with both your customised gritty look and the borderlands one.

I LOVE what you did with it, LOVE it. I wish they added a setting that looked like that to the game itself.

Your tinkering (minus the level of blur you used; personal preference, there) looked excellent - _much_ better than just... _drown _*_everything_*_ in color upscaling._ But, you were right: you made the colors _pop_ without leading to ocular bleeding, while retaining a somewhat drab/gritty look in the environment. Good work - maybe...save that preset as a baseline and share it when the time is right?

Thank you so much for testing this, I wasn't in the first flight and this was one of the couple of things that I was wondering if it could be done or not!!

I tweked Quakespasm`s quake 1 via the opengl api with Reshade and holy shit does this program deserves praise.

That Borderlands look is insane. I'm actually impressed it looks like a Halo Mod on Borderlands lol

I skipped all the way to the end and didn't even notice a difference on what you did

I love the scratches idea and wish they would implement that into the harder difficulties such as in line wolf it adds scratches when taking damage. I believe it would be so good to play it with more and more visor deterioration during the campaign.

Developer: So I added this cute little game, it’s a nice comfy experience and is just an hour to finish LNG:...So I installed reshade.

Looking forward to modding Reach when it comes out on PC. Weird to me hearing about these folks getting onto you for messing with the game's visuals, but it's cool to see you took note of that and making it feel consistent (at least for that one level).

You should do a dark and gridy halo 2 on one of the flood missions, make the lighting look like there's dust in it like there are beams of light, and the shadows dark, reflections more shiny etc. Almost a horror flood mission, I would love to see that.

I'm familiar with Reshade use it all the time, But would you mind telling me what Reshade setting you used at 4:29 to better the Shadows? Is it "Levels" or some kind of Tonemapping? Thanks.

I think the color improvements your changing already with reshade make the game look 100 times better! The vibrancy still works with the music in my opinion!

This does put a smile on my face

i feel reach being colourful is massively contrasting to the narrative. I'll admit at first i wasn't sure the first time playing reach about the grayed out art style but all halo fans know the tragic story of reach and by the end of the campaign i loved it, the more muted colors matched the tale being told. I've always loved reach and never like the argument about its artstyle trying to just be a military shooter like CoD because it just wasnt true. hell the covenant are still really colorful and shiny like older halos.

These videos are what got me to download Reshade. I'm glad they did, Reshade is pretty fun.

I'm surprised at how much I liked that borderlands style. It made the game look stylized in a way that makes it doesn't seem so aged.

When is HALO REACH comming to XBOX ONE with MCC

If I were you I wouldnt bother with the lense effects and depth of field and motion blur stuff. Just tick up the color contrast and saturation a tiny bit and leave it. Did these changes effect your game frame rate? I am always crazy about getting at least 60 fps from games (tho preferably above 100 is best)

I feel like ray tracing, higher contrast, darker shadows, higher anti aliasing, motion blur, and a bobbing FOV would really make it look next gen. Bobbing FOV and wider FOV overrall would really take it home making the player feel more part of the world, kinda like mimicking the MW2019 engine

playing halo reach on pc with a playstation controller

I'll be creating a professional grade preset in the near future. Stay tuned!

Direct x is a huge reason why the first flight went so well

We may never see true Reach remaster but at least we can fiddle around with what it may look like

With the geforce Nvidia filters, you can add subtle changes to some of the filters for more color or saturation but what I liked the most is the clarity filter.

The art style for Reach certainly didn't feel like a generic hollywood movie in my opinion. It felt like it really tried to bridge the gap between fantasy and reality with the visuals they went for along with some renaissance-esque backgrounds and skyboxes to compliment it as if we were witnessing a biblical fall, i.e. the storm in the background during the escape of the Pillar of Autumn with hues of browns and reds emanating everywhere signifying the world was not only burning, but rotting whilst a blue/greenish hurricane in the center of it to echo that it was foreign to what was causing it. The reasons why you feel the colors were so bright and playful in the other Halo series you showed wasn't actually the colors that made it feel that way, but the lighting. In the Development in Halo 3, they actually spent a lot of resources for just lighting alone for that game because they wanted to signify a sense of hope and belief (hence the believe ad campaign as well). Reach actually had plenty of color if you go around with each hexadecimal value of color in there, but it's the lighting and contrasts that make it seem different. I'm not saying it was visual perfection but I wouldn't go as far to call it a mistake in the direction and certainly wouldn't oversaturate the colors as you've shown here. The visor imperfections you added along with the bloom I personally think was a mistake. The bloom especially was way too uncomfortable for it made almost every bright shine pure white which was the biggest visual mistake that Halo 4 had in lighting, thus things became a blur, fuzzy, and no clear shape distinction or mood. For example, look at the dirt path in the game footage of Reach that you showed after the visual changes you made or every explosion. Almost completely white. I do appreciate the return of motion blur honestly. That is always tricky because there is good and bad motion blur and to me, 60fps looks too much like a soap opera. But Reaches original motionblur wasn't good either.

How exactly in reshade are you changing weapon view models? Like I've seen the sliders and stuff but I don't know what exactly you're doing to use this feature of reshade. Any help would be great, I don't see much about it specifically online.

How many weeks do you anticipate I’d have to wait until I can buy this on Steam?

I know it’s a custom or modded style look of halo reach and it’s preference base on how you want it to look but it’s looked amazing as was, the brightness and over saturation of colours and so many other things distract me from actually combat. It worked well through CE and 3 due to pacing and giving you time to look at the scenery while reach was more focused on keeping you constantly defending the planet from being glassed. Upping the colours and all that just over stimulates the senses for me. I wish I could use the program you’re using and be a pc gamer to adjust the setting myself, but I’m an adult and get how you prefer that and I prefer my style.