Now, do not take this as a "bash" thread agains the graphics of Skyrim. We haven't seen much. We only have a few screenshots, a short trailer that shows off very little, and our hopes and dreams.
But, one thing that we HAVE had a good look at, is the hair in Skyrim.
Now, the one screenshot of the woman in the tavern looks good. But, she's also not moving. It looks as if the hair is a part of the bodies skeleton this time around, and that is a horrible, HORRIBLE idea. People did this 10 years ago, not today. It's an old style of doing hair.
Lets take a look at a few screenshots.

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/115/1158651/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110330052314715.jpg
This screenshot really takes my breath away. The body sculpting, the muscle tone, the "look" of that mans body is simply realistic to a great degree. Speaking completely heterosixually, that man is gorgeous.
...except his hair. My god, is this 1996? Did someone photoshop a screenshot from a game on the N64 onto the back of this mans head? What on earth is under his helmet? Please tell me this is placeholder Bethesda, because that looks atrocious. It really does. I'm sorry, and I am not simply being "mean" about it, but it DOES look awful. It looks nothing like the rest of the game. The poly count is atrociously low compared to the detail of EVERYTHING else we've seen.

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/elderscrollsvskyrim/images/0/13/?full_size=1
Again, the same deal. Amazing detail in the arm, clothes, animal, the surroundings, it all looks breathtaking. Really good job...
...except the hair. And again, WHAT on earth is the deal? This legimitely looks like a fake screenshot to me, because again, the hair looks NOTHING like the rest of this game. The hair folds and bends in creases as the backbone moves, like it's mapped to the body instead of freemoving. That looks hideous. :facepalm:

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/elderscrollsvskyrim/images/0/7/?full_size=1
Now, this is the only one that I've seen that doesn't look absolutely hideous, but that's because she's standing still, not turning her head, or bending over. If she were to go into sneak mode, I'd imagine that it would look just like the 2nd screenshot. This gives me hope. But again, she's not moving, so that hope is dim.

Does anyone else agree? Does the hair look this bad to you all? Literally, the FIRST thing that jumped out at me when I saw all of the screens so far is how hideous the hair looks, and how it's "mapped" to the skeleton of the body and doesn't move freely like it did in Oblivion. This is simply a horrible idea to me.
Discuss.

Haha, I was wondering why you edited your post in the screenshot evaluation thread. The barmaids hair doesn't look too bad I think.

I agree, the barmaid looks great, until she moves, then the hair will probably stick to her back like it's apart of her body like the #2 screenshot. Don't you think that looks awful?

How does it look horrible? All I see is....just hair

:) Okay...


:stare:

Nice constructive post bro. Thanks for contributing.
There's this thing called constructive criticism, and sometimes it's not all flowers and candy. When something looks awful, you have to bring it up.

If you zoom in on pic #2 it doesn't look as bad. I think it looks weird from afar because the color of the clothing near his head looks like the same color as the hair.

I agree with you on screenshot #2.

The hair is hideous and unnatural.

The other two screenshots don't bother me that much, but I'll be severely disappointed if the hair shown on the man in screenshot #2 makes it into the final game...

I disagree. If you look down at the ends of her hair, it has the same problem as the first two screenshots. And I've always thought she had a 5 o`clock shadow, but that's another matter.

It could be better but I don't think it looks awful as you put it. I would suppose hair is quite challenging to do but I don't model so I don't know. Maybe they will change it, maybe they won't. I'm more excited that your hair doesn't just stop being rendered anymore when you wear a helm or (hopefully this time around) hat. In Oblivion they just stop rendering all the hair, it's good to see them improve at least somewhat.

Always constructive to point out hypocrisy.

Yeah, the hair in Screenshot #2 looks pretty bad with the sudden angle, but the hair on the rest looks great to me. You didn't offer any constructive criticism yourself though, you just said "bad bad bad."


You seriously call that post constructive criticism? The entire point of my post was to point out how it was terribly non-constructive and just straight up bashing, which you said it wasn't.

Yeah, the ends of her hair "bend" because her head is slightly looking off center. That pretty much proves the hair is apart of the bodies skeleton, and not free moving.


How can hair be challenging when they did it better in Morrowind AND Oblivion? In both games, the hair was apart of the head, not the body. In Skyrim, it seems as if the hair is mapped to the skeleton of the body, thus making the hair do what it does in screenshot #2.

This.

I think people need to stop being spoiled, wanting more and more.

This game I know will already be groundbreaking, I guess to each his own because for me I wounldnt care less if the game had Morrowind graphics but had absolute superb gameplay.

Doesn't seem that bad to me. Although the 2nd shot's hair does seem to bend strangely. Anyway, we shouldn't make judgements on how something moves from screenshots; they're bloody static! We need video for that.

Besides; it's only graphics, it's nothing important. :whistling:

The hair in #1 could well be the "helmet hair" default replacement that you get when you put a helmet on. i.e, you're barely going to see it.

(and actually.... how can you judge the # of polygons in that hair? I can barely even see it!)



....I'm surprised, given that you're looking at the head, that your comment on #2 isn't "why the heck is the head so small?" I know it's just a perspective thing, but looking at that shot, I wonder if he's been to see a headshrinker. :rofl:

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(question: by "hair moving freely" in Oblivion, are you referring to the way that any long hair would just ignore the body and clip wildly in any pose other than the default standing idle?)

I'm biased because I'm bald but since they improved the looks of NPC's I think they deserve some undesirable looking qualities. Average people are not that good looking and its not like they have modern medicine to cure hair loss which is way more common than most men will admit
Although the hair looks fine to me in the screen shots, just saying.

So, not rendering hair at all when wearing a helmet like in Oblivion is better?

I agree Kiralyn, the head on the infamous "slug head" looks really small. I don't even want to know what race that is, lol. The whole character just looks goofy. Really really really hope it doesn't look like that in the final game. His head looks like a big thumb sticking up from his shirt.
@Dragonborn1, I agree the system in Oblivion wasn't perfect, it could be improved on, but I don't see how this is an improvement. Either way, it looks awful.

You know what OP? I don't care.

I agree. It was one of the few things in Oblivion and Fallout 3 that I found horrendous. Hopefully this can somehow be addressed, Evan at least a little bit. It would be nice to see some weight and phisics of some kind added to hair einstead of make it a fixed geometry helmet. Its sort of a similar issue to the way clothes behaved in previous games as well, being fixed when in reality they are flowing and weighted. Saddly, I would be more surprised if these issues were fixed than I would be if they returned. They seem to have already devoted so much of their recources to other asomome and often more important things that I would be surprised if they fixed it.

It's an improvement by default for just having hair under a helmet to begin with.

On that particular feature, yes, given. But that doesn't mean the hair on your head while not wearing a helmet needs to look hideous. :mellow:

I just hope all of the male characters aren't so buff and veiny.. I want my wizard to be all scrawny and suches.

That Nord looks roided up for sure.