http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/114/1149185/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110211094601315.jpg

some stuff looks realy good, others- not so much. fancy shaders,cloth physics and tessellation would fix this.

bethesdas texture artist,s arent doing a good job either. look at the quiver- bethesda should do what bungie did in halo 3 and slap a load of "detail" textures over their regular ones (seriously, that game used 512 x 512 textures for things such as tanks, and then used some other form of witchcraft to add scratch details to make it look like they were 4k in size textures, the same thing could easily be done by bethesda for leather,wood,fur,rocks,terrain,steel and cloth) bethesda have also never made a decent looking rock,but anyways



1: cloth physics help immersion and levels of awesome greatly- think of gears of war- therons,kantus,butchers and the boss skorge would have looked boring without it. gears of war is on the 360- so all platforms can handle it .
i do not want a static robe- i want a robe that FLOWS in the wind and to my movements, aswell as a beard and hair that similarly moves. every piece of cloth and hair should move!

2: tessellation- it has no downsides (aside from perhaps moders making lower polly models in the hope of them being tessellated) tessellation simply divides the triangles in a model into more triangles so they appear less blocky . dx 11 tessellation also allows for completely new geometry to be made http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zdvZPIQpsQo#t=30s - and so long as this is put into the engine modders can use it too . tessellation would also help with the cloth physics . consoles might not be able to have the level of tesselation the pc has (the 360 has tesselation but it isnt used much, it is used in halo reach's water- i have no idea what the ps3 has) but as evil supermarket empire tesco says- "every little helps".

3: detail textures
i cant find a good example in an image . imagine a high res texture of translucent fur. now imagine a brown bear. as you get closer to the bear you can see that the translucent fur texture has gone over the bears main texture giving the appearance of a bear with every strand of hair visible. this would turn the graphics up to eleven. what Bethesda may try to do is possibly have a "wet dur detail" texture to give the appearance of a wet bear when the bear is wet. this "fur" texture group could be applied to everything furry (fur armour,deer,trolls etc) and thus save lots of memory space.

4: colour shaders (or "color" shaders) for making clothes,hair,fur and whatnot different colours without needing a new texture would be nice- one because it saves memory, two because it means you can have a red shirt,blue shirt, green shirt, brown shirt, yellow shirt and whatever shirt from one model or perhaps make dogs have randomized fur, two or three textures and a few items in the cs. it would also be nice if a person could make it so that all of the tiles in his cave could change to any colour the designer wants!

the solution to the grass problem is to model it better :nope:

Could you just calm down and appreciate the hard work Bethesda has put into this game? Skyrim doesn't look cutting edge, but I still think it looks worlds better than Oblivion and Fallout 3. They're grappling with new engine tech, but I think so far they've made the preservation of quality as seamless as possible. Honestly, half of the things you've described aren't even necessary to achieve high graphical detail. Or as Todd would put it, "they're superfluous."

EDIT: And just to make a point, excessive detail textures/normal maps do NOT always look good. If anything I think they mar the clarity of the original texture. Have you seen some of the amazing work that the Morrowind modders have accomplished graphically? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r6hilB6Dlc Aside from some MGE shaders, there is virtually no detail mapping/blending going on, and yet I think modded Morrowind produces one of the most pristine and realistic visual experiences yet because details aren't completely glossed over, as Bethesda attempted in Oblivion.

Also:

Ok, I'll say it for the last time (it won't be the last time, I'll have to say it again in another thread.) These.....are.....screens....of.....the.....consoles. People keep trying to compare the graphics of Oblivion on the PC (and alot of the times with mods graphical mods) to Skyrim console screens. For the console, those screens all look incredible (except the waterfall screen but that's just a bad view and an older version of the game) The PC version is going to look insane, stop killing yourself with worry when there is nothing to worry about....

If you have the GI mag and you look at some of the screens in it like the adventurer in a cave with a staff emitting white light from his left hand or the lighting in a couple of the other screens, that's the 360 and it looks more akin to a PC game. If you put a Crysis 360 screen up to the Skyrim 360 screens, you will see they look pretty damn similar. What does that mean for the PC version? Crysis quality game?

But StoneFrog, clearly jack254’s many years of game development and graphics programming/3D art experience mean he’s qualified to talk about what Bethesda should or shouldn’t be able to do with their tech and their game’s scope. We should consider his input carefully.

look at the picture

TELL ME that the characters cloths and hair look fine

I think the OP is jumping the gun a bit here plus the graphics look fine much better then Oblivion.

The ruined-looking city with the rock faces and waterfalls in the background looks beautiful, in my opinion, as do several other screenshots. In one of the screenshots, however, a character model does look a little cartoony, to me, and in another, the plants look rather meh, to me, but overall, I'm actually really impressed with the graphics... especially if they will look like that on my PS3 while the game runs well.

i'll wait for high setting pc shots

I agree. The creation engine literally seems like an upgraded gamebyro.

The picture with the giant has clothes clipping through his leg. I hope for cloth animations.

Didn't one of the developers say that it looks "next-gen"? LOL

As a console player, myself sadly lacking in the epic computer department, I can agree with this. It looks really good in my opinion. And...

...the hair and the character cloth looks fine.

think for a second.

why would they show pics from the 360 platform? it is technically the weakest platform- so isnt it strange that they would pick that to do the screenshots? if you were a dev marketer and you had one platform with graphics far superior to the others would you not pick that?

This is kind of bugging me about some people here---it DOESNT matter if these are screens from the consoles!!!! Do you really expect a huge change from console to PC (if so, you may be in for a surprise, because I doubt it will be happening)

A) The graphics we have seen so far are pretty good--not cutting edge, but really really good for an open world game.

B) The consoles can handle pretty graphics-intensive stuff, as proved by many of the games that are already out now. Dont underestimate them or assume that the consoles are "dragging down" the production to a lower standard. This is not the case. (that was supposed to be a "b", not a smiley)

C) I expect some minor graphic issues to be improved upon before minor release.

D) You can't expect Beth to make any profit marketing to only people who have high-end PCs.

You Sir, should be named the Saint or Prophet of Common Sense for this post!

I think you have said all that needs to be said on this topic. =)

Just looked at picture yet again.

I'm TELLING YOU that the character's clothes and hair look fine.

I don't know, ask them. But they did, they are all 360 screens.

And I think its because Todd likes 360

XD Look at the hair again and you'll see a weird 90 degree rotation.

They already confirmed that the screens were 360 screens. They make the game for 360 first then make the changes for the PC graphics and this time around in Skyrim, they also are making a UI just for the PC also. You can't put tesselation and other graphic intensive features in the 360 version, mainly because the consoles don't support dx11.



Real hair will do that when it's tucked into a tunic, which it is in that screen. On the pc we will have AAA so the hair, trees, grass and fences will all look more real because the consoles don't support AAA.

They're a step up from Oblivion. Yes, I think that there has to be some additional shaders on characters: particularly hair, so that it lights less sharly and has less of a matte, artificial look about it. But staring at NPCs' faces isn't exactly going to be the focal point of me playing the game, is it? Heh, it's actually funny that Bethesda's done away with the conversation camera-zoom now that their characters are actually bearable to look at. :hehe:

What has me impressed about Skyrim, jack, is the overall "style" of the game's artwork. A stark, earthy approach. I'm really impressed with how much more evenly balanced colors are in the screenshots we've seen, compared to the often overwhelmingly monochromatic Ayleid ruins in Oblivion or the West Gash in Morrowind. And as Seti pointed out, there's lots of nice big details about the ruined city image: no, we can't see every little fine crack and crevasse, but I'm quite impressed with the screenshot both architecturally and for how much verticality it has compared to locations we've seen in previous games. And I really do appreciate these nuances: they show Bethesda's a conscientious company that learns from their past works and cares about the "feel" of a game first and the amount of tech/rendering features they can slap onto the box second.


Actually if I were a marketer I'd show the lowest common denominator, so that PC gamers with exemplary hardware will be in for a pleasant surprise and so I don't get complaints from the console demographic about how they were "cheated" and the game's graphics were falsely advertised. :mellow:

You're really setting yourself up for disappointment.

:shrug:

In the end, they are just graphics anyway. From the looks of it, Skyrim is on par with the games of today in terms of graphics. Thats more than enough for me.

The only thing I would be worried about is the cloth physics. I admit that cloth can decide whether a robe or set of clothing is worth wearing or not. Something that sticks to the back of my legs is ugly and ultimately isn't worth wearing.

Besides that, if the content of grass is someone's biggest worry than obviously there's something wrong with one's priorities.

No, I actually know game design and can judge the transition from one system to another and how different features will effect gameplay or graphical performance. There will be no disappointment, I don't set my expectations too high, I set them to a point that I can judge by the data I have and that is the point it is. I say things how they are and if people don't want to see it then fine, it's your choice to be a ultra-pessimist.

The 360 is the weakest of the consoles (I hate to admit that as I'm a 360 owner) so it makes perfect sense for them to show pictures of it on the 360. The PC will always be superior to the consoles and Beth will probably have Direct X11 support for it.

Yeah, I would agree with you there. Robes and skirts don't stretch very naturally on strafing characters in MW/OB and Bethesda's low poly UV mapping doesn't help much to alleviate this either.

I didn't say they weren't. I think the game looks beautiful, but Sleign is assuming far too much based on no evidence. Bethesda said nothing about a PC-exclusive interface or DX11/tesselation support, and to be honest, I really don't think I can imagine a game much more beautiful than Skyrim on any platform. If anyone is expecting Crysis-like graphics or the best graphics ever simply because they're thinking about the PC version and don't have any evidence supporting their thoughts whatsoever, than that person is overhyping the game... and the company has nothing to do with it. Sleign, I respect your opinion and really hope you get what you wish for, but if you're not comfortable with graphics as they've been shown in the screenshots, I don't know what to tell you other than you'll have to get used to the idea that when you play Skyrim, your graphics may not be much more advanced. I'm sure the PC version will have a higher resolution and anti-aliasing, as Todd said it would, but other than that, and based on what Todd said, I'm assuming the PC version will look largely the same. I wouldn't even expect DX10 support.