I'm talking about the first batch of screenshots that are now available digitally in higher resolution: http://www.gamereactor.se/bild/?textid=26057&id=235971

Well, to avoid beating the dead horse, if Bethesda is not gonna implement advanced lighting features, like true global illumination, sub-surface scattering and ambient occlusion, the least they can do to enhance the realism a bit is to play with the color grading. This way they can avoid Oblivion's washed out look and oversaturated colors, both a result of simpler lighting alternatives.

1) http://i.imgur.com/EDiaw.jpg

Assuming the sun is behind the character, his legs and the bottom side of the stone should be brighter, as they would be lit by more indirect light. Not much can be changed there, but color grading could help get rid of the strange yellow tint in this image, when the day is fairly overcast. There's too much black in this image for too little sunlight. Also, since the sun is overcast, there would less of a yellow tint in the image. This is not a very good snow shader at all. If you look at pictures of snow, the shadows are tinted with the sky's color, because ice and snow scatter light.

Look how beautfiful it looks in Uncharted: http://www.gamus.com.br/wp-content/gallery/uncharted-2-180809/uncharted_2_among_thieves-11353-1769_0002.jpg (a little over the top, but point made)

http://i.imgur.com/DANFC.jpg

This one is very worrying. I've seen modded Oblivion looking better. The good news is that the dynamic shadows are there, but totally underplayed. Everything, once again looks washed in a green/yellowish ambient light. The greens should be only so saturated in sunlight, and here it's even stranger seeing that color, since it's not Cyrodill's forests or a jungle.

The water is a mess for some reason, I assume the fresnel reflections were turned off for permance reasons. Something that REALLY compromises the realism of this scene is the fact that trees are not casting shadows on themselves. So they look as flat as a billboard, even more so than in Oblivion. Color grading here would at least enhance the shadows and get rid of all the vibrant green in the midtones.

Those touches make a HUGE difference in realism. The screenshots below are examples of my points above, especially about the trees:

http://i48.tinypic.com/rw72bn.jpg
http://rpg-galaxy.de/content/pom/t3.jpg
http://mmohut.com/wp-content/gallery/the-hunter/the-hunter-free.jpg
http://www.thehunter.com/pub/images/screenshots/screenshot_015_large.jpg
http://www.allaboutthegames.co.uk/images/screenshots/The_Hunter/The_Hunter_screenshot4.jpg


3) http://imgur.com/egZlk&rMoGb&9pr2c

The interior shot is much more pleasing. The models are certainly an improvement. The dynamic shadows really help here (even though they could be way smoother). I really miss some sub-surface scattering and/or better specularity maps for the skin shader. It still looks like plastic and that hair model is no better than Fallout's. Examples of better skin/hair shaders:

http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/988/988786/e3-2009-alan-wake-screens-20090601012313836.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gy6GeL0HNSk/S60A1f_ZZ8I/AAAAAAAAADo/PuU-PlkDHhs/s1600/resident-evil-5-screen4.jpg
http://lagcast.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/50025_orig.jpg

Some color grading here could really improve the atmosphere of the scene and once again, get rid of the oversaturated yellows/reds, making the whole image easier a little more natural. Still an improvement over Oblivion though.

All in all, the game is far from breathtaking. Hopefully the gameplay will make up for the lack of visual impact. As for the game looking different on a PC, I think Todd has stated very clearly we're not expect alot.

The game is in early stages of development, it comes out in nearly a year.
Why are you worried about how it looks..?

:confused:

Eh, the game has been in production for years. It's in the final stages of development, if you were to measure in the actual development timeline. You pretty much determine how the game is going to look in pre-production. You may scale it down or up a bit as you progress, and new features may be implemented or removed. But if at this point, they're already marketing the game with those screenshots, that's more or less what we'll be seeing.

They actually have added all the realistic things like ambient occlusion and all of that. They have a very nice lighting system in this new engine. Like Shinovakhiin said, the environmental lighting can be easily tweaked whenever they want. So it is most likely going to be changed between now and release.

The reason Oblivion was GOTY and won so many awards because it was beautiful. The overall plot was meh, but the openworld freedom and specifically the graphics were off the charts. That was 2006. Crysis was not the par then.

So, to reinforce the OPs point, graphics matter. If Bethesda is trying to beat the par, they need to bring their A-game, and 2006-era visuals will just not cut it. The OP is not saying that Skyrim is [censored], he is saying that visual improvements should be made.

Bethesda may win awards for Skyrim based on plot lines etc., but the graphics would not really make an impact. And for a AAA game, that is a bummer.

Maybe it's just me, but the screenshots that you added filters to look worse. Besides that The Hunter, which you used some screens of as demonstration, looks horrible in motion, for some reason still shots of it look great though. The only example you used that really looks significantly better than Skyrim is Uncharted.

Graphics look fine.


I'd actually like to run the game and they are planning to release the game on multipule platforms.

The point I'm trying to make, however, is the fact that they can change things if they want. The screenshots that you see aren't set in stone. They'll tweak the visuals probably dozens of times before the game releases.

Keep in mind the screen shots released from GI are probably an older build of Skyrim. The one GI used in the Time Lapse Video was taken in late 2009 (over a year ago), so who really knows how well the game looks currently. It's also rather clear that the screen shots appear to have been taken on a machine with the settings of an Xbox 360. Lets wait for some of the upcoming conventions before we determine how this game will really look as they will be more accurate.

This, and besides...don't tell me everyone forgot about those epic mountains! With the fog that seemingly hangs on those mountains, people that instead of looking fuggly look like humans, and the likelyhood that what we've seen so far is almost two years old now means for me at least that this game will look amazing.

I can agree filters are a poor alternative to better lighting, still a suggestion though.

However, if you think this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH7qc8XSlnc&feature=related) looks bad in comparison to those screenshots, I don't know what to say.

so you think something that is 4/5 of the way done it should look its best?

It's not you, they do look worse.

Crysis is a piece of [censored] "game" though. It plays like ass. It was the freedom of oblivion that got them GOTY nominations. Even now its still more open then almost any rpg. Mass effect and DA:O are just corridor games with the build in unreal shader's,so it still has no competition from that department.

With all due respect, I don't think you understand light and shadows. The edits you made to the screenshots are significantly worse than the actual screenshots, and this is for one main reason: you're basing your gripes on a single frame of reference. Video games and films are meant to be seen in full motion; seeing them in motion allows us to notice the way light changes, the way day transfers into night, and the way liquid acts. A single frame of a waterfall, for example, will make any screenshot look poor because it isn't showing that facet of the landscape in the way it is meant to be seen. And another thing: if we applied your edited version of the tavern to an actual gameplay scenario, the player would be confused as to where to focus his/her attention. Why, for example, can we see the woman fully illuminated when, according to your edited version, the only realistic light source is coming from the chandelier? Furthermore, what time of the day is it in this specific screenshot and your edited version?

What gamers and developers forget when they talk about "lighting" and "shadows" is the actual reality of the two forms of nature. You cannot base judgement on light and shadow alone on a single frame because these things are dynamic parts of the natural world...they have a character of their own. This is why in paintings, for example, painters tend to accentuate and dramatize these two forms to involve the viewer and portray their subject realistically. They do this because they can't accomplish what video games can: fully interactive involvement. Crysis did not portray realistic lighting and shadows...it merely expanded the amount of these parts of nature to give the player a reason to continue through the otherwise mundane story.

What a game truly needs is style, and I'm afraid that some people are far too preoccupied with the specifics of an environment that they forget why video games are memorable in the "graphical" sense in the first place.

Well said TheFisherKing.

I've played The Hunter, I really can't explain it, but no images or videos portray it properly, when you get up close to any of the vegetation in the actual game it looks like ass.

I'm really not sure why it matters overly much. :shrug:

i'm sorry but am i the only person who think the screen shots actually look good? its pretty evident that console graphics are started to plateau. this isn't gonna be the graphic jump that was Morrowind to Oblivion. its the same generation of consoles. and yes, i know, games like ME2 or UC2 may have better graphics, but those aren't completely open world games. Every level or instance is separate from one another in those games. its harder to sustain that level of graphics in an open world without frame rate issues.
god i'm sick of all the cynics in this place. come on, you guys act like it looks like Two Worlds II. its the first batch of screenshots! can we at least hold off the cynicism until we see actual gameplay and see the graphics in motion?

1) I fail to see that yellow cast you talk about. Your edit however, is too blue.

2) It portrays a warmer area, nothing wrong with adding a shift toward red to emphasize that.

3) If you swapped out the girl in the front, I would agree. Your suggestion looks like its based on interior lights only, but then it should have this yellowish tint. The original seems to bathe with daylight, in which case your more natural purple skintone looks better (a bit too much though, I'd like it more subtle). The worst thing about Oblivion characters, was the way they always ended up in "nasty light", even outdoors.

The one thing I *REALLY* don't want, is the excessive color overlays of FONV.

Well, it might not matter to much to you, and fair enough, but some people are quie concerned with the graphical appearance of the game, as it adds significantly to the overall feel. I personally love exploring the world and admiring the scenery, and the graphics have a strong effect on how much I enjoy this. It sets a mood.

Correct me if im wrong,but i believe Todd said on the GI podcast that atm they were busy with game elements,quests,the game core itself,and only then they would retouch the visual aspect,and considering were still some months of the release date,all shots from the game arent the final version for sure,so dont go comparing a game still in the making with finalized games already out plz m8.

The screen with the pond did surprise me. I thought it was Oblivion the first time I saw it. Even if the graphics were the same as Oblivion, which they aren't, it would still look better just because of better lighting and what ever else they have improved.

I don't know what the effect is called, or if other games behave in the same way, but in Oblivion, the darker I made my game the better the graphics seemed. The more light I added the more it began to look...ugly.

Hint: According to Hines, the people who actually saw the game in motion were floored and stunned. Basing on the assumptions that a.) Hines isn't a total liar, and b.) we are assuming (logically) that they aren't floored by the game mechanics or UI, I think we should stop making stupid assumptions about graphics when we are seeing 2 month old screens that could be older.

Besides, it's idiotic to reference linear games like UC2 or PC only games.