its not superior, its superior for pc players like you and i FOR NOW, because we have very few alternatives to the anime trend blowing through the modding comunity. your looking at something SO far from what has been shown. i already explained to you how rens hairs work, we have no clue how hair in skyrim will behave or look on release. so the argument is flawed. and also i disagree that rens looks better, i have a sneaky feeling that the barmaids hair in hi res with aa will look better than rens hair under the same circumstances.

I noticed the hair on the Barbarian w/Helmet Guy when the first showed the screens and thought "hey, all these screenshots show him from the back, I bet the face isn't finished yet." and "The hair looks pretty placeholder too"

Someone did a pretty good job with hair in Fallout 3, I'd expect there's better to come.

I'm talking about edge fidelity. In no way does "anime" come into that. I don't know why you keep bringing it up. And I know how Ren's hairs work. You didn't explain anything to me. At least nothing useful. The edge fidelity of Ren's hairs are vastly superior to anything we've seen so far from Skyrim.

And we can only hope it will make it look better. So far it's well behind.

ok...first of all, what?
beauty i get, i get most of your post and agree with much, but when you start talking about elder scrolls fantasy elements [which are purposely intended to be LOW fantasy] and the grit and dirt thats implied in skyrim you lose me, especially when you start calling braids and beards impractical in a norse themed war torn cold climate. beards have an implied cultural element and an aesthetic thats been missing since morrowind...so what?, and braids were a practical way of organizing hair without the need to cut it and the same visual aesthetic that i was saying that has not been seen in a long time. that right there is a choice to reconcile with flawed design elements from previous games and an atempt to further establish a cultural bond with an individual race.

I agree with OP, the hair looks like a clump of it was glued onto their head. Obviously in picture 3 the guy has slightly longer hair and is sneaking, so we all get to see the beauty this produces. Some weird, silky slime head.

You mean Waifu Simulator IV :poke:

I think you might've misunderstood what I was trying to say. Since my post was a bit of a mess (I typed it quickly), I'll try to break it down into the separate points.

1) The genre is heroic fantasy - arguably high fantasy, or sword & sorcery, but certainly not meant to be a super-gritty medieval environment if we look at all the lore and past games. So the potential for beautiful characters -- with beautiful hair -- seems much more important than enforcing the idea that realistic dirt, uncleanliness and hardship will result in all characters having greasy, matted, unsightly hair.

2) Skyrim has a "nordic" theme, which realistically will include beards, braids, and so on. But since it's also a deeply fantastical game, we can assume that those things will be exaggerated and expanded upon, so the potential for highly impractical -- yet nordic -- styles is clearly there. Historically I'm sure men braided their hair for both practical and aesthetic reasons (I honestly don't know much about that), but it's a safe assumption that a fantasy game can reach to the extremes of that. Eg, Sigfrud Trolleater might have "golden braids that fall half as long as his height, tied with the trophies of his many victories," and it doesn't diminish the gritty nordic heroic fantasy at all.

2.1) Essentially, I'm not saying braids and beards are unrealistic - I'm saying that lots of realistic and semi-realistic hairstyles (especially when we take other races into account) will still require a more artful and complex way of rendering hair in a computer game. Hence, we need Final Fantasy's way of doing character hair (not their individual styles or colour palettes).

I should also add,
3) Realistic hair does not equal hair that looks poor graphically. The closer Bethesda can come to real strands of hair the better, regardless of a given style, colour, volume... Hair looks like hair whether you're a malnourished, greying peasant or an immortal magic-wielding asian teenager. Final Fantasy's hair looks and moves more like actual hair; how it's styled, coloured and managed isn't really relevant to a discussion of game graphics and their many technical considerations.

You can't get more realistic than reality, though I've encountered plenty of RPG fans who'd seem to disagree...

What? have you even listened to Todd?,the game is ''low tech'' not ''High Fantasy'' It's supposed to be dirty and gritty and Low tech.

See, this is what I don't get. From the screenshots it looks like Skyrim's hair is closer to individual strands than Morrowind or Oblivion. It actually has texture and separate pieces where both the others used what looked like hair helmets. This seems like progress enough to me.

Regardless, I don't see why you're arguing for Final Fantasy hair. It's unrealistic. Not unrealistic in the sense that the hair does not match up with real hair. Unrealistic in the sense that it is a different type of game. I'm not incredibly familiar with it but I'm pretty sure it doesn't rely on very much physics and doesn't have thousands upon thousands of placeable and dynamic object littered around. Also isn't it a segmented game instead of open world? The amount of processing needed to have so many things going on AND hair physics that involves multiple strands can get prohibitive. You can't just say "lets put X mechanic from Y game into Z game" because they are often COMPLETELY different games with completely different mechancis.

The screeny #2 looks more like a hood stuck on the persons head, but looks like hair that has been frozen solid. Sure this could be the biggest game "breaking" thing about Skyrim.

Agreed; the hair in the second screenshot looks absolutly diabolical!

I honestly think it just bugged out to be honest when that screenshot it was pre-alpha.

I haven't noticed that same issue on any other characters from trailers/screenshots.

Progress enough for me too. I don't mind it. I'm already pretty convinced, based on my preferences, that Skyrim will blow 99% of all previous games clean out of the water. But if something can be better, should it not be? I want my characters' hair to be as varied and visually appealing as possible, and this is a discussion about how hair in Skyrim currently looks (based on the limited evidence we have). A strong argument could be made that the discussion is utterly pointless, but that's then true of almost every post on these forums... I'm enjoying the discussion, and that's enough for me. :shrug:



Maybe FF is a poor example, since it has a lot of irrelevant, but extremely negative connotations attached in many gamers' minds. I'm using it as an example of a superior implementation of video game hair - that doesn't seem relevant to how practical the particular styles and colours in the games are. Could the very same technology and artistic ability used to create, say, http://www.fangirl.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/ff13-lightning.jpg not be applied to realistically-styled and coloured, perhaps even sweaty and blood-spattered hair on a Nord warrior? Would it look superior? I think so.

Much better examples would probably be tech demos for hair physics and whatnot.

As to a given game style or genre's resource and technical considerations, I honestly don't know enough about it to make much of a call on that (I know more than most, a lot less than some).

I always thought that the figure in screen 2 had a cloth hood.

But after looking at it again I really can't decide on what that it is.

Hrm <_<

I'm not sure you see what I'm trying to get at. I'm not saying anything about the particular hair styles in FF or any other game. I'm talking about they TYPE of game and how that changes what they can do in it in terms of tech. In fighting games you get all sorts of hair physics, cloth physics, even boob physics and whatnot; this is because fighting games are usually in a single cell with two or so characters. They don't need to code millions of placeable, real time objects in and have the system constantly knowing where they are. So suggesting physics from, say, Dead or Alive for Skyrim would be kind of silly. In the same way it is hard to argue for FF physics since that game takes place in cells with little to no real time 3d objects and combat takes place in a COMPLETELY segmented cell. A tech demo is even FURTHER from these depictions because in a tech demo all they have to worry about is showing off the tech in question; they don't have to have the computer run ANYTHING else at all so it is hardly feasible to say that you can just put it into a game.

I'm just saying that there is a lot of coding and processing that goes into hair physics. You have to keep in mind that TES is open world and thus has LOTS of things running at once and that TES uses a borrowed physics engine in the first place

Ahh, I see what you mean now - sorry about that. I misunderstood this part completely:


That I can accept; if the size and scope of Skyrim simply means it's not technically feasible to implement a better hair solution, I'll join you in saying "good enough," and leave it at that.

Has anybody considered the hair/fur of the latest wolf screenshot? The hair there looks much better, which implies (to me anyway) that the human hair we've seen so far is probably a placeholder.

I agree the hair looks bad indeed...
It looks almost the same as in Oblivion. Which is really bad
I'm hoping for a havok-ed hair physics/animations not just like in Oblivion.

graphics do not bother me much..as long as the gameplay is good. i believe the developers focused on the latter alot , and thats wise because a game with over the top graphics doesn't necessarily make it a good game.

So does the hair of Rick Astley, doesn't mean it's not real(istic).

Yea, I mean, I'm not a developer or a computer whiz/geek so I don't know about how possible it is considering the software and hardware involved. I just think it's a little rash to say "this game has it, why can't Skyrim?". Given the limitations of consoles it is difficult to say that Skyrim should have everything including the kitchen sink. Bethesda has had to struggle to get graphical fidelity of all of their games in line with market expectations because they're style of game makes graphics difficult to impliment

I made a thread last February to talk about the technical aspect of hair in skyrim, some of you might find it interesting to read:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1169264-hair-in-skyrim/

I agree that the hair could look better, but that's my very personal opinion. Since I am a modder, I just hope they'll give us the tools to add new hair meshes to Skyrim. Personally I'd like to port these haircuts I made for Morrowind:
http://s62.photobucket.com/albums/h91/Mandamus_TES/Hairstyles/?action=view¤t=mandamusnordhair02.jpg
http://s62.photobucket.com/albums/h91/Mandamus_TES/Hairstyles/?action=view¤t=mandamusnordhair01.jpg
I know Ren's work is probably more impressive than this stuff, but hopefully some will find it interesting. I always have a hard time finding good short male haircuts for Morrowind and Oblivion.

I am not going to judge Ren's work negatively - her work is technically very impressive, and although I do think it looks a bit too anime for my taste, it was groundbreaking when it was first released for Morrowind.

Have you ever considered the possibility that Bethesda does this on purpose, because (1) most people don't give a [censored] and (2) Bethesda wants to see what modders are able to do and then, potentially, offer them a job?

this website reminds me of my nothern english little hometown.

OP, your the sanest person I've seen here. people come in with their bold, sweeping statements that sound impressive or take the mick but hold no value ("this game should all about hair, hur dur", "its all about graphics isn't it, hur dur, never mind gameplay") and you brush it off and point out "your talking nonsense". You have raised a point, the hair looks bad, you have STATED that you are not knocking bethesda. You are not saying this is something to obssess over, you are saying this is something to improve on. And you are regarded as a selfish, childish, nit picking idiot, because you have pointed out something wrong.

I think, objectivly, you can say the hair IS low quality compared to the rest of the game. Not that it LOOKS low quality, that is IS low quality- feel free disagree with that though. Now, wether or not you care is your opinion. This guy cares. You might not. You don't need to burn the guy down, little trolls, just because he's not constantly licking bethesdas feet for them.

And, on a side note:



EARTH SHATTERING NEWS PEOPLE, SKYRIMMER HATH PASSED JUDGEMENT!!! Jesus, if you don't care, DONT READ. Your saying it like your making a point that you don't care.

URGH. I need to have a coffee and calm down. And stop reading these bloody forums.

I agree with you. But, we'll have to wait until another video is released.