I agreed with the OP to a point.

I agree that a draw distance, what ever it is, should have everything drawn in it and that polygon "management" is important. BETHESDA!!!.... Stop wasting polygons on land and grass and buildings that are pretty much large flat areas. Since we're at it, stop doing what ever you are doing to textures that make everything a bunch of little squares because it looks like crap. ES:V doesn't need to be the next Crysis/Metro 2033, it doesn't need to use tessellation ridiculously.

IF ES:V does need to do something in the graphics department, that something would be to give the landscape aesthetic continuity. What I should see in a given situation should be seen, not fade in, not pop in. I wouldn't of cared if Oblivion's draw distance was a 1/2 or 1/3 of what it was.


...if I add in anything else, I'd say HL2's [2004] H2O reflection >>>>>>>>> Oblivion's [2006].

OP's "poll" is a false choice. Dragon Age's engine just svcked, and did not in fact allow for that many characters, the appearance of such just a bunch of tricks. A game like Assassin's Creed 2 looks generally better than DA and displayed far more actual characters (up to 120 at a time I believe). Bethesda just needs to decide what it's priorities are, and displaying a hundred characters at once isn't that high on the list.

Besides, I'd rather have an entirely open and seamless world than 120 or even 60 characters at once. No more fake windows or load times!

Funny I pretty much expect it to be looking like Crysis in Exteriors and Metro 2033 in interiors. Or even better.

I am pretty sure Bethesda designers know what is good graphics.

Thief 3:
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2004/reviews/528587_20040525_screen002.jpg
http://www.moboid.com/portfolio/thief/TDS_GAM_Screen_Map.jpg

Thief 2:
http://darkfate.ru/files/fan-missions/Thief2/Night_in_Rocksbourg/Rocksbourg_4/screenshots/dump002.jpg
http://darkfate.ru/files/fan-missions/Thief2/Night_in_Rocksbourg/Rocksbourg_4/screenshots/dump007.jpg


TES4:
http://www.elitistsnob.com/images/Oblivion%202006-05-21%2008-38-25-15.jpg
http://www.cheats.ru/uploaded/e/elderscrolls4oblivion/elderscrolls4oblivion0410.jpg

TES3:
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i201/Vality7/Screenshots4/SolE_02.jpg?1290304990#.jpg
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/3811/birdvvardenfell.jpg

Crysis
http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/140/shots/crysis-4.jpg

Metro 2033
http://kokugamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/metro2033.jpg

I have no point, just want to add some screenshots.

PS. Off course Morrowind and Thief 2 are modded. But they are still technologically behind of others. Metro 2033 deserves all the praise. That's a bad Crysis shot, there are insane shots. Oblivion isn't bad at all, it is just too... bright. Thief 3 PC uses the textures for XBOX and this applies to Oblivion too. Thief 3 uses more dynamic lighting and it helps the gameplay mechanics. So Thief 3 is only guilty because of texture limitations of consoles and porting it to PC badly. If it wasn't for Metro and Crysis one could say game graphics are getting worse and worse. BTW, bump mapping is only used good in Metro 2033. Others just look [censored] with it except partly Crysis(which avoids its overuse) and Oblivion to some degree.

Here are some shots, I did polish with shader fx for Oblivion. No texture packs only shader post processing.

http://tesnexus.com/downloads/images/30054-2-1289262292.jpg
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/images/30054-3-1289262292.jpg
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/images/30054-1-1289262291.jpg
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/images/30054-4-1289262292.jpg

PPS. Oblivion and Morrowind modded shots are created within DX 9.

Anyone know if Tech5 allows no load time between indoor/outdoor?

First off I'll admit I didn't take the liberty of reading 4 pages of discussion, so I'm probably just repeating other people.

-We know the graphics will be better than fo3, because they are required by their investors to keep up with the industry.
-THey'll invest a lot of effort into animations and less on environments, or they'll keep the same amount of details in their environments and have much more of the other aspects. We assume they arent interested in inproving their world building tech, as theyve stated in interviews that they are happy with their environments.
-It'll be a satisfying game for me, regardless

I wouldn't mind it if ES:V looked like your Vvardenfell landscape or your Crysis landscape. I also wouldn't mind it if it looked like this:

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/6928/oblivion201004270859253.png


...I don't care because I can see what I'm supposed to see. I was using low-poly grass, it looked good and I could extend the grass draw distance a lot, the distant trees and the distant land of the mountain range too for about the same hit as regular grass. BUT, there is one two things you can't see in my pic... there is a piece of wall missing from the LOD version of Bravil behind the church. This happens to a few other cities too. And the bridge doesn't touch the ground

Secondly, I absolutely hate depth of field. What the hell is the point of texture packs and other graphical improvements if you're going to blur everything that is more than 20 feet in front of you?

Check out the link below, and imagin it as a forrest in skyrim.

I want the quality graphics like this any day! http://ve3dmedia.ign.com/images/04/42/44215_orig.jpg

What intro animations? think the intro animations are less in fallout 3 than in OB. Intro animation would mostly bee a movie shot in the game running a special mod anyway not big deal, size depend on the story they want to tell before the game starts.
Environments in fallout 3 feels better than OB mainly because better light, fixed the physic and more variation also enemy hideouts mostly feel more real and lived in. Works well enough for me, would like an improvement of combat AI as it feels weak.

But yes graphic would be better than FO3, they would learn from it and improve same way they learned from OB making fallout 3. Had fallout 3 been released first you would have the opposite situation.

yes game would be good, forum would be filled with people complaining about everything,

I voted for everything.

I like good graphics, but my standards for what is acceptable is pretty low, anyways since everybody is posting screens, I'm gonna show what would really be kind of awesome for a possible Daggerfall 2 or TES spin off RPG.

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn32/sportslegends/z14%20retro%20franchises%20feature/HexenHeretic.jpg

http://games.news24.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Hexen.jpg <-- I'd like to point out that this is more detailed realistic hands than Morrowind or OB, awesome spell effect too.

Had enough? http://www.pdroms.de/media/upload/images/news/20090611_hexen_v1.6.0_(dingoo_linux_game_port).gif

EDIT:

Yeah, I'm not done yet:

http://ui11.gamefaqs.com/1418/gfs_42287_2_4.jpg

As long as it looks somewhere near http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_FV3UIGV-iMA/S__ZPwGsuzI/AAAAAAAAAVw/lsD1hpDjOz0/s1600/RedDeadRedemption_01.jpg then I'll be all well and good. That game was so pretty I didn't mind spend 20 hours on my horse because I could just watch the scenery as it went past. Of course a big part of that was scale. RDR had a much larger and more real feel and look than any other open world game I've played. Probably because it was so large.

That looks quite [censored]. Cryengine on XBOX/PS3 or bad image quality?


The first time I played Duke, I was in awe with the hand reload animations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opUWFt5XWLc

And mortal kombat. Sprite graphics doesn't count though.


That still looks bad graphics wise. The texture quality is too low with ground. But I agree the scale must be much larger. Mountains should be utilized as in "under, around, over or through", that would be epic...

Bad compression artifacts from a video, here you go vtastek: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kvl31g77Z8

I just hope Bethesda has a better sense for art direction than Crytek. Crysis 2 looks bland as hell, and without their traditional pushing of ultra high end pc's it doesn't look that technically impressive either. At least compared to say Uncharted 2 or RAGE

I heard that DX11 with tessellation can keep the detail and make smoother models while using a lot less polygons. By the time TES5 is released, we would have better hardwares with (hopefully) Win7. I wonder if TES can use it to improve performance and graphic at the same time.
If I understand correctly, having massive number of NPC in TES is more about cpu issue than graphic. NPCs come with A.I. and physics, so if my cpu can't handle 100 of them at the same time, I don't think having better graphic card or less polygons would help in that situation.

Oh yeah. It looked quite bad to be Crysis. Uncharted looks nice for a PS3 game, Naughty Dog programmers deserve the praise.

We shouldn't be really criticizing Crytek's art direction though, they were targeting real life. RL looks bland. But not always.
http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f386/vtastek/crysis/sc01/00005.jpg

Their game is supporting dynamic lightings and day night cycles. They are really ahead of the curve by miles in technicality. Others are only catching up.

I have faith in Bethesda in art direction of landscape and architectural departments. Other games mostly look like children book illustrations when compared. I wish they polish the game this time for PC a little more.

In my eyes though, best production quality goes to Metro 2033. Quality and Quantity(density wise), I rated 10/10 each. The game wins with its attention to details. I won't compare it to Fallout 3 but I just want a new engine. It is not like they need to light everything one by one. Content is fixed, they need a better lighting solution. Half of it is post processing already. I am hoping Rage will increase the scope while giving Metro 2033 like quality.

And look Cryengine 3 looks like Cryengine 2.
http://www6.incrysis.com/screenshots/cryengine3_gdc_2009_booklet_console_screenshot1.jpg

They just optimized it, I guess. (Deferred Lighting can be seen as an optimization. Also they have radiosity, which alone makes me interested.)

---

We are at the limit of Dx9 era for a few years now. Can we max it already? And please target for 2.4 GHz CPUs or lower. 8 core 2.2 Ghz cpus are not good at any game engine. Even Morrowind is not running good on modern CPUs. And before someone mentions optimization, like every game engine runs x2 better on a dual core. I wasn't aware what programmers meant when they were mentioning batch count, but now I do. These CPUs can't handle large numbers of draw calls. Like a typical tropical scene of Crysis having huge number of objects at once in a scene causing 2500+ draw calls and even on worse graphics settings this number will choke a typical 2.8 Dual Core to 18 FPS, with zero pressure on GPU and an awful picture. This is bad. You can add GTA 4 too. I will be buying a CPU which goes as fast as possible for a single core clock speed(up to 4.). I want to play some games on high. I don't care for core count.

Great post here, made me realise one important thing: A video game is an illusion. This illusion in Morrowind is a positive thing, a video game is not about what really is going on but how you percieve it. The worse graphics make this illusion easier to achieve in Morrowind. In Oblivion it' more difficult since the graphics are more complicated. In the end, though, it's this illusion you want to create. The illusion that something is much more than it really is. This is why people say these things when comparing Morrowind and Oblivion. There seems to be more variety in Morrowind, Oblivion seems to be bland and Morrowind seems to be much larger. It isn't, but that doesn't matter at all, we're playing a game. What you imagine is what you get. I don't feel Oblivion has this effect, but Morrowind surely has. I don't know why, but there seems to be so much more than there really is.
What does this have to do with graphics? Everything, but I want to know how this effect is achieved.

Grow it up! If slightly simplier graphics get me where I`m going faster and make it more expansive, then count me in!

The effect has to do with placement, psychology, and visuals.

Put a mirror in a room, it seems bigger. Why? No distinct reason, it just does.

There are basic things you've got to include to make things seem bigger, and one of those is divisions and barriers. Now, think of Imperial City, didn't that seem pretty big? Now, imagine all of the things combined into one cell, and all of the sudden they'd feel much smaller.

In Morrowind, there weren't very fast ways of traveling, and you couldn't run indefinitely, so trekking across the land felt like a voyage.

In Morrowind, there were large barriers and things that you had to walk around to get to important places and things.

In Morrowind, there was more variety in flora, giving the illusion of traveling a greater distance. Think about it this way: Walking through a forest of all pine trees vs. Starting out at Pine Trees and ending up at Palm Trees. Going the same distance though and seeing the change in the land.

In Morrowind, there were also many islands, which had to do with it a lot.

It's not Graphics at all, it just has to do with what you decide to do with the game world and how you decide to build it. Fallout 3 felt VERY big, and it wasn't at all, it was just what they did to make it seem big.

---

The only issues with lowering the polycount and everything, are two things:

1. You can go first-person in TES, which means that people can see those textures up-close.
2. Oblivion was very poorly optimized and Fallout 3 runs at least 2x better than it.

The cake is a lie.

In two world 2 we have good and stable graphic with landmass much bigger than Oblivion, and they are poland devs - they haven,t many millions for development
so this poll is stupid and useless

Also in Oblivion you can see real far, you can see the capital from around Bruma, this makes it feel near. Having the capital as the main hub in the centre also makes thing smaller, in Morrowind you usually started from Balmora at the southern part of the map.

If they make a better engine we can have BOTH high-poly and many chars onscreen at the same time.

I have noticed that all the games that utilize gamebryo (the one used by Bethesda) always have problems with the faces, body textures and more importantly bugs. I think that switching engines will only help fix some of these problems.

I feel like TES V needs to have the best of both worlds to really be a fantastic game. It has to be both beautiful, like absolutely gorgeous.. and it needs to feel "alive." (Lot's of NPC's, changing undergrowth, lot's of variety, biomes, etc.) Although, I don't honestly know if there is an engine that can actually do all of these things (effectively), I do know that my chances of it running at about 60fps are 99.99%. For the rest of you, ehhhh notsomuch.

Cities should be basically gigantic by medieval standards, people should be abundant. There should be farmland around the cities. (With small towncenters every once in a while, because farm folk aren't going to go prancing into the city to get every little doo-dad they need.) There should be a lot of different cave types, clothes. Basically it needs to be a perfect RPG. Chop, chop! I want my TES V asap.

On a more realistic note, they'll probably stick with gamebryo, it will probably look a bit better than F: NV, and it will be unplayable for most after release. (Based on past experiences, sorry).

Remember the oblivion in cryengine? That was awesome... (hint hint) Or maybe http://www.gametrailers.com/video/unreal-overview-unreal-engine/707835

If ESV looks anything like Fallout 3, I'll be pretty upset. They're using the same engine (though they say they tweaked it a bit), so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

But if it looks anywhere close to these, I'll be happy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4kyEW1zKAM&feature=related

http://www.gameplaymonthly.com/games/crysis/Crysis_screen8.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPi0AhQgrDs&playnext=1&list=PLD1231FC2DA482365&index=31

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RITULtGxTjw (this one more for the character animations, though the graphics are great too)