I don't know why i never see any..

Well considering the amazing overhaul to lighting we've seen in Skyrim compared to Oblivion, yes it is too much to ask. Stop complaining :slap:

You're upset over lack of directional lighting because you didn't see any in the very few screenshots...?

The light is directed from the monitor to my eyes. That works well enough for me. Some neat shadowing would be nice though.

Do you mean Dynamic Lighting? Im going to assume you do.

I play Lord of the Rings Online sometimes and a while ago they added DX10 dynamic lighting. Let me tell you, it can literally be night and day from the old stencil shadows. Its a little bit like playing vanilla Oblivion compared to playing Oblivion with OBGE/QTP3/Ambient Dungeons/Real Lights.

A lot of people write off stuff like HDR or shadows as being "fluff" but IMO they have no idea what theyre talking about and its probably because they cant run that stuff on their systems. Well done shadows and lighting really add to the immersion and I think dynamic shadows would be awesome. Not that Id want them to waste a ton of time on something like this, but I would love to see a PC patch at some point after release with all the "fluff" added in.

Edit: I say patch because its sadly unlikely they would even have DX10 support on launch because of consoles, or if they did it would just be tacked on.

would be cool if had a realistic sun lighting affect, sunset= light on tips of mountain. but ultimatly, lighting is far from the most important thing about the game.

Yes, yes it is.

Not entirely certain what you mean by directional lighting, but if it means what I think it means, then I don't know if it's too much to ask or not. All I know is that you probably shouldn't assume it's not in the game simply because it's not obviously visible in the screenshots we've seen so far, unless you see situations where it obviously should be noticable, but isn't.

LoL!

Lighting is one of the MOST important thing about a game graphically.

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Not really sure what you mean about directional lighting though...

In any case, I think Bethesda needs to tweak/improve the lighting a bit further. It looks OK. But it can look a lot better.

Directional lighting is in a game with full dynamic shadowing. Think about it, a cone of light (like a car's headlamp) is created in real life by taking a bulb and placing a mirror behind it - effectively, taking all the light that's not going in the direction you want it going, and changing its direction. If your game doesn't let light through objects, then there you go - a directional light.

I'm thinking the OP means dynamic shadows or whatever the hell people have been going on about these days

In any case it seems like http://www.gamereactor.no/media/59/elderscrolls5_235970b.jpg has some dynamic shadows in it

Makes sense. In that case, I can't see any evidence of light "bleeding" through walls in the screenshots, but that could just be the shadows covering it up too, since we already have dynamic shadows, Bethesda told us that already, and it's visible in some of the screenshots.

Of course, if dynamic shadows IS what you mean, then no, it's not too much to ask.

why? no its not. its more important that the game has content, quests and replayability. any one who cares more about the lighting than those three games should just empty every thing out of their bedrooms and leave on hanging light bulb in the center of their room and put random objects around it to cast shadows. if you want more realistic lighting, do what i just said, it will never be as realistic as that so.

directed at this, and the other 'lighting was too unrealistic', topics. not any one specificly in them.

Sorry, no offense to you. But to your comment, that was probably one of the dumbest things I've ever heard on these graphics threads.

By your argument I say, if you want quests and content - imagine in your own mind. See wut I did thure?

doesn't really work. one is an image, the other is experience. the game will be an utter failure if all it focused on was graphics. I am not saying that updating the light should not happen, but it should be one of the last things on the list as it is frivelous. no one played the final part of the MQ in OB and thought that lord dagon's shadow wasn't real or dynamic enough.

The main reason i am asking this is for moding purposes. And i think that were on the same wavelength here. Yes, i played Oblivion with most of those mods, but my point was that directional lighting would mean none of those aching tricks and methods would even be needed. Directional lighting would make it easier for anyone making content for the game who wants more control of their lighting. And i am a strong believer that lighting is the most fundamental aspect in creating mood within Bethesda titles and all games.

Graphically. He said "most important graphically!".

Graphics are very important. Super important. So is sound. So is gameplay. So is story. So is control. The end product is an amalgamation of all those things, you do not sacrifice one in order to get better at another, it's not some ridiculous slider system. Graphics are your primary interface with the game, they set the scene, they show you what's happening, they control, almost completely, the atmosphere. Lighting is rediculously important to creating a believable world, something that an immersive RPG tries very hard to do, Lighting is *incredibly important* to get right.

This whole ethos of "[censored] the graphics gameplay is important to the exclusion of all else" is, quite frankly, pants on head [censored]. I'm not sure why people even think the two detract from each other - does anybody *seriously* want to play a game that looks worse for absolutely no advantage? Why didn't TV and Film stick with pre-star wars visuals? Why don't pop videos look like they did in the 90s? Why aren't we still using magnetic tape to store the things we recorded from the wireless?

Because gosh darn it, technology evolves, and the irrational belief that half-assing the graphics will make a better game is insane. Don't half ass any of your game, anybody. Do it properly, or don't do it at all.

I am almost certain that this method will not work correctly, simply because it never has in the history of games, including Oblivion. It doesn't even work correctly in modelling and rendering software. Its far less time consuming and painful to just make a light-source that emits more prominently on one direction.

The major reason for this is dynamic shadows never work as they would in real life. They only look correct near to the object that is casting the shadow. So if you try yo block out the sides of an omni light (which is what Oblivion only had to offer), you would only see the dark regions when you were very close to the object (a few meters). You then have the issue that most large objects in Oblivion, Fallout 3 and NV (and quite clearly Skyrim) are not fully meshed. They look correct from the inside, but from an angle you aren't meant to be seeing from, the textures are transparent. This means that an omni light will just pass through these regions without restraint, if they are on the wrong side of it. Now these issues bring up a hell of a lot of restrictions when it comes to how you want to create your lighting, albeit mostly for interiors, but still i see this as unacceptable. Directional lighting together with omni's creates so many possibilities, allowing people to create not only realistic, but incredibly moody, evocative lighting, that will improve the quality of the game, depth of feeling and immersion a hundredfold.

Well, I was assuming very good full dynamic lighting rather than the static system we had in Oblivion, but yes, I can't imagine it working well except in a few occasions.

well before I reply to this I am just going to say that its obvious different things are important to different people. i would be perfectly happy with FO3 level graphics if it meant the game would be bigger and have twice as much content. since when are the graphics halfassed any ways, there fairly realistic, the only point in improving them is to make them closer to real which is pointless when the graphics are good enough that every thing doesn't look fake.

Graphics NEED to be lower on the list other wise we get another oblivion. they spent 4 years on it and the only significant change was to the graphics and spell system while there was half as much content. I am not saying don't improve graphics ever, just make sure that you have more content than the last title.

There is absolutely no reason why a multi-structured and multi-talented software developer like Bethesda should not focus on all aspects that wind up to create a great game.

Except you *don't* get twice as much content for having worse graphics. You get *no* more content for having worse graphics. Your graphics programmers do not work on content design. They are graphics programmers because they are good at programming graphics. One does not take away from the other. Oblivion did not have "less content", and did not suffer in any way from the better graphics, if you disliked it it is because you disagreed with design decisions, not because they had better graphics so somehow couldn't do more quests(?). Now, voice acting can severely limit content by making each line of dialogue very expensive, but better graphics? Just no. This is not some giant balance in which developers decide whether they want good gameplay, good graphics, or good story, then hit "maek gaem". They are not a small studio, and can work on many different things at the same time. You don't have a "this is less important than" list, that's a stupid concept for a studio with as large a development team as bethesda. They have a "This is what we want the end result to be", and everybody works towards that. Quest designers do not interfere with graphics programmers.

For a AAA title like Skyrim, you expect every aspect of the game to be astounding.

If this was Two Worlds 2 we were looking at, we might say "Sure the story and voice acting might not be great, but the gameplay is pretty fun and the graphics are pretty sweet, so it's okay."

If we were looking at Venetica, we might say "Sure the graphics aren't all that, but the setting is unique and the voice acting is definitely in the upper tier as far as open-world RPGs go."

But we're not. We're looking at Skyrim. A title that is contending for Game of the Year. A game of the year should excel in every regard. Story, Gameplay, Graphics, Sound, Voice Acting... everything should be amazing if you want to win such a prestigious award. Mass Effect 2 and Red Dead Redemption were the main contenders last year, and most critics agree that both games took every one of those above elements to the next level. Every game seems to incorporate dynamic shadows these days, and if Skyrim can't provide modern lighting solutions (which make no mistake, http://www6.incrysis.com/screenshots/14cy5.jpg one of the biggest elements in graphics, and make for some http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLqnZfqjTiM emotional and environmental effects) then Bethesda will have dropped the ball.

But we have a quote from Todd Howard saying that everything in the game casts dynamic shadows. We have interior screenshots http://www.gamereactor.no/media/59/elderscrolls5_235970b.jpg for certain. And there's a screenshot of a village that shows housing casting shadows. For the obvious lack of shadows on the other screenshots, either the console versions have the shadows toned down a lot (great news for PC gamers since they will definitely be scalable), or they just haven't quite got around to fully implementing shadows yet (great news for everyone). We still have another 8 months to go and this is Bethesda we're talking about. We can be optimistic about this.

I couldn't agree with you more.

however labelling dynamic shadows in a game has sort of become a misnomer. Halo 3 boasted dynamic shadows, and yet you can't see any shadows on objects more than about 5 meters away from you, which makes it pretty useless. Far Cry 2 did a much better job, having shadows cast immense distances, allowing map creators to make underground cave systems, the likes of which you have never seen.

I don't know where Skyrim will stand in this you see. Dynamic shadows that are visible from a short distance may be sufficient in an interior world-space, but when your playing a go-anywhere RPG, you really want to know that shading will be present in a whole range of distances.