I honestly think graphics should come after game mechanics. If the graphics are great but the game svcked, then it wouldnt matter. If I had to have one or the other, I would choose the gameplay, because I still play older games with good game mechanics.


I still hope the graphics are amazing, and that they will continue to improve them to the very end. From what we've heard in magazines--it's been "stunning" every time, so I'm not too worried in that area.

so the logic as found on this topic is that they should devote most of their budget and time (alot of the devs are not mono skilled, they have to beable to work in other departments other wise the game would not come together smoothly) but the argument I am seeing is that they should focus their effort on details like; each blade of grass being unique, or how real the cloud look and behave, or how realistic the lighting is. yeah, i've seen the posts of people say ALL should be improved, thats true. but the fact is improving every single detail of the graphics consumes a huge portion of the budget so we end up with how OB was, looked better than MW but had at most half as much content. I am fine with them making improvements to these details, but they are too finite for them to be at the top of the list when it might bump something off and it never makes it in the game.

if "direct lighting" causes ANY amount of content to be excluded from the game, then yeah, its too much too ask for.

Why aren't you rallying against voice acting, then? You know, something that actually removes content from the game, rather than attacking directional lighting which [censored] ADDS greater ability to create unique looking scenes. Because that's what this boils down to, you're so scared of things "removing content" you won't even give something that can let the content you get be that much more atmospheric a chance. It's a damn good thing bethesda don't listen.

Exactly.

Directional lighting is a tool. It's not a huge investment in technology or resources, it's just a different way to have the lighting in the game behave. This is lighting that must and will be in the game anyway. All that i am proposing is adding another very fundamental tool that will completely diversify the way lighting is used in present and future content.

And these arguments that a game that has completely focused on having a deep, thrilling gameplay, and thus sacrificed any graphical abilities is just so misguided. You can't use old games as an example, because in almost all cases they were considered good graphics when they were released, so clearly the developers of these were aiming to at least deliver what would be considered mediocre graphics at the time.

And we are living in an age of rapidly advancing technology. We should expect that everything we see and feel and do will be improved upon. The software developer that doesn't realize this is just going to fall behind the pack. At the end of the day Bethesda is a business, not a nostalgia community.

This has already been pointed out, but I feel that it deserves further emphasis.

S/he said that lighting is one of the most important things about a game graphically.

On a purely theoretical level, you fail to aknowledge time constraints, and also expenses (such as wages for example) into the equation.

On a practical level you are probably right however. Taking into account the huge success Beth have enjoyed with Oblivion and FO3, it is quite reasonable to assume they are big enough to handle things the way you describe. Personaly, I am far more worried about the storyline,characters and art rather than graphics, simply because they require more creativity and talent in order to to get them right, wich is something that in my opinion has been scarce in many "modern" games.

To answer the original question: I think the game will definately have some sort of dynamic shadows. It is more a question of how well it will be implemented rather than if it will be in the game.

What is directional lighting? The only type of light I know is the one that spreads in all dimensions the same way? :unsure:

Concerning the graphics discussion: I think some graphical stuff isn't very important for the overall game. For example, high quality textures. Sure they're great if you have them, but as long as the lower quality textures have enough detail that they can give things the looks they're supposed to have, it's all good. Or those shader effects like Depth of Field or Ambient Occlusion, or even Bloom/HDR - they just don't seem that important to me for atmosphere in an RPG. (Nowadays it's so easy to implement the latter that I don't see the point of not doing it, though.)
However, I still think that proper lighting is extremly important. Especially in a sandbox game like TES where you have so many ways to interact with your environment. Light spells, sneaking through the shadows, experiencing the same location either by day or by night, or in different weather situations... proper lighting, good shadows, all that stuff is important for both the gameplay and the atmosphere of a game.

Lighting can decide whether you equip a shield in your free hand, or a lantern. It can have an impact on how you're gonna do that heist you've been planning. Or the angles from which you can strike your assassination target, and the directions where you can flee afterwards. That's gameplay. For atmosphere, it can decide whether a location is scary, awe-inspiring, or cozy.

I'm talking about a directional light source. Think of it like a spotlight.

All lighting in Oblivion was created by a base light setting on cells, and then spruced up with many ambient light sources. These were omni lights, emitting light equally in all directions.

Okay. But that is basically the same thing as asking for real shadows, right? Because if we have shadows, then we have directional light sources. (Well, spotlights are constructed in a way that they mostly emit parallel light, but... yeah spotlights won't be in the game. )

The "base lighting" (I always called that ambient lighting" was always a bit much in TES games, I hope they will use it more subtle than before. But having some ambient lighting in areas with light sources is reasonable, since it's the easiest and best approximation of scattered light.

To tell ya the truth Lord Dagon's cartoony model and his shadow bothered me a lot ^^" it made me feel less threatened and I took him waaaaaaay less seriously than I should have. But that's because he looked rediculous standing there surrounded by beautiful detailed environment while he looks cartoony and cute.

On six year old hardware that was not even high-end at the time? Yes.

Graphics and gameplay are mutually exclusive to one another. One does not hinder the production of the other.

Not to mention he said lighting was most important GRAPHICALLY, not gameplay wise.

Why cant people understand that there are those that want both good graphics AND good gameplay... I have never heard anyone ever say that they would prefer a game to have super graphics and no gameplay, but yet almost anyone who runs the Gameplay > graphics" rant nover stops to consider that, hey, what about both...

You can see trees and objects casting shadows relative to where the brightest light source is in the screenshots. It wasn't this way for everything in Oblivion, some objects cast shadows, but their contrast/brightness was not relative to the lightsource. I can see trees casting a soft shadow and a set of candles casting a darker shadow.

OP please elaborate.

Its unfortunate but I do not believe the game will feature full-range directional light, which is something I love of the unreal engine. Games based in wilderness have so much graphical potential if directional light and light shafts are added.

Yeah it is. Stop complaining, please.
At least it's not as bad as the people who make threads with a photograph of a mountain saying "Why aren't Skyrim's graphics like this?" and it just pisses me off.

Yes, it's a wonderful game, but not as advanced as you're thinking.

Why aren't Skyrim's graphics as good as Crysis? A game that came out in 2007!? This is 2011 it is four years later wtf is Beth doing, living in the stone age?

They are still building huge dynamic worlds so until 64bit drops there is no way your going to see a Bethesda open world with Crysis level graphics. 32bit just doesn't have enough memory and even if they did manage to squeeze it into 2gigs then it would be a PC only release because the consoles only have 512mb and that includes VRAM.

:goodjob:

Shining light through a virtual forest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtFc8Hq80B4

I've scratched it up to three possibilities. Either they don't own a PC capable of supporting high-end graphics, and just because they can't experience cutting-edge visuals - they're adamant that no-one should experience them. Or, they're flat out lying to appear elitist. Seriously, the amount of times I've seen people saying "I'd be happier if the game had Morrowind or Daggerfall quality graphics, just so long as the gameplay was great!" But if Bethesda actually went ahead and released Skyrim with Daggerfall quality graphics, I bet they'd be complaining with the rest of us.

The third possibility is that they really haven't given it much thought. They've worked out which aspects of the game they enjoy the most (gameplay) and damn anyone else who thinks otherwise. I'm an explorer when it comes to games, so the most satisfying moments come from breathtaking views and secluded waterfalls. People who say they don't care about graphics clearly get the most enjoyment from gameplay and story, but haven't taken the time to wake up and realize just how much great visuals lend themselves to all aspects of a game. It's a shame. Just ignore them when they try and exert their own opinions as fact.

In http://www.gamereactor.eu/media/59/elderscrolls5_235970.jpg you can, yes. The stools cast obvious shadows, and it looks fantastic.

In http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc212/darkstorne/bigimage.jpg, the light obviously comes from a setting sun off to the left of the shot. Yet the ruins don't cast shadows. I've circled an area where a shadow should be cast from a small pillar of the ruin, and you can still actually see the sun's light on the snow BEHIND the small pillar.

Trees still have canopy shadows, but even Oblivion had those. I haven't seen a definitive Skyrim screenshot to show that canopy shadows in Skyrim work differently to the ones in Oblivion yet. Hopefully one of the first videos Bethesda release is an engine showcase video, and makes special mention of lighting and shadows. That'll solve these questions once and for all.

Im gunna say that shadows have a render range which hopefully PC owners can ramp up. If the screenshots are indeed from the XBox, then we cant hope to see what the game can actually do till we get our hands on it.

Until 64-bit drops? You can't even *buy* a 32-bit processor anymore. It's been that way for years. The last processors that were not 64-bit ready stopped being manufactured altogether in 2006., maybe even earlier. 64-bit has been the only standard available from manufacturers for years now.

Hey, your preaching to the choir buddy. You have to convince the gaming industry that it's time to make 64bit runtime standard. That is what I meant about it dropping and it's not likely to happen until the next gen consoles drop and they will most certainly be 64bit standard runtime probably with 128bit processors.

I was immersed by this. [img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3a/Legend_of_Zelda_NES.PNG[/img]

I am not saying we shouldn't improve things, but graphics are low on my list of things needed to help immerse myself in a game.

You only have two senses available to you when playing a game. Sight and Sound, you can't botch either one. The game can still be fun, but it'll be a game of "fun" and "fun" only, not a game of "fun" AND "immersion"

The only thing about Oblivion's graphics I still don't like is the faces, and they fixed that for Skyrim. People look good now.

Also, dynamic environment shadows have been confirmed, and you can see them in a few screen shots so this whole thread is null anyways.

No. Graphics improve with each generation and an increase in graphical power does not correlate with less content. It's not even the same fellows that work on both so your point is mute. Bethesda has more developers and a bigger budget so I expect Skyrim to be all around better.

I dont see why people keep acting as if better graphics means less content. And Oblivion was not even close to as bad as what you make it sound.