Please, let's not get into the definition of "RPG". You don't like JRPGs. We get it.

Regardless, modders have done some awesome work while coping with those same limitations. Better hair models are very much possible without having to sacrifice character customization.

Oh yeah, I'm not a teen either. I've been around the Elder Scrolls since Arena. I wouldn't mind having my old metabolism though

Meh why ppl want hair in video games hair is sooo overrated xD i always play argonians so i dont care bout the hair xD and if i actually manage to create man, mer char i want it to be bald xD

If the screenshots we've seen are anything to go by, then it doesn't look like Skyrim will do anything impressive in terms of hair. I know, I'd like to see good looking hair too, but none of the screenshots we've seen indicate that we'll see it. Maybe in the Elder Scrolls VI, we'll see good looking hair, but for now, I've pretty much accepted it's not happening for Skyrim.



Hair is a feature that many people have, not necessarily all people have hair, but many people there, and it's rather hard not to see it at some point or another, so naturally, unless everyone in a game is supposed to be bald, there needs to be hair, and if everything else is shown in Crysis level graphics while the hair looks like something from the original Half-Life, it's going to look kind of out of place, so people want the hair to look good. I play Argonians a lot too, but even if I don't intend to play humans or elves, I still don't want them to look bad, because I still have to look at them regardless of what race I play.

Vsions said that they've improved the hair quite a bit.

great, i'm getting my hopes for the beards, at least they're not a coat of paint on the character's chin like in oblivion anymore

Yes. Oblivion beards were bad As I stated before: Character and NPC modeling greatly affect the aesthetic of the world map modeling

Hire Square Enix. Problem solved...

Wait, Oblivion had beards?

Sheogorath is the only beard i can remember

The absolute only beard.

Everyone else had... a 5 o`clock shadow?

Yep.

I agree with everything you said (apart from the Eve Online part, because I didn't see it)
I strongly believe that hair and clothes physics would add huge amounts of immersion and "feeling" to the game. But, as others pointed out, these are probably hard to do and very, very performance-consuming.

I hope I'll live long enough to see some really natural, realistic clothes and hair physics in a 3d game. Probably not is Skyrim yet, though

Current PC hardware can already do this. That video was real-time on PC hardware you can buy today. Console popularity is the reason we don't already have games looking like that. Go look at Battlefield 3 or Eve Online's character creator.

Yes. FOUR high end GPUs ran what was shown in that video. That is a bit more than most people would be ready to pay for. Enthusiasts tend to have two at most.

Well the hair looks pretty wicked in a screenshot "trailer" on gametrailers.com. You'll see a Orc with hair the looks like it can move around while you move your character.

Yeaaah, tech demos show us the absolute height of what modern hardware can achieve, directing all their power at one particular element. They're a "One day", not a "Coming soon".

Four high end GPU's?

She asks me why, I'm just a hairy guy
I'm hairy noon and night, hair that's a fright
I'm hairy high and low, don't ask me why, don't know
It's not for lack of bread, like the Greatful Dead, darlin'

Give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen
Give me down to there, hair, shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there, momma, everywhere, daddy, daddy

Hair, flow it, show it
Long as God can grow, my hair

http://www.elyrics.net/read/h/hair-lyrics/hair-lyrics.html

Edit: http://finalfantasy13ultima.com/wallpapers/final-fantasy-13-wallpaper-fang-001-1280.jpg

They are now. Back when console gaming wasn't some unholy focus of the industry tech demos were "Coming soon." Now they're "Wait until Sony / MS decide to release a new console generation. Yeah, we know you don't own either. Whatever, have some console ports."

No, that's what they've always been. That's their thing, that's the whole reason they exist. There are tech demos from 7 years ago that have elements better than modern games - they are showcasing what you get if you pour everything we have into one particular element. A very small window into the future of real-time rendering. (Graphics) Tech demos are not made by video game developers, so why would they care about video game consoles?

Wat. No there aren't. Maybe better than modern games on consoles. Certainly not better than STALKER / Metro 2033 / Crysis 1. Also yes, some are. See: that Unreal tech demo the thread is about.

Sir. I do not appreciate your tone in calling a person with more than one gpu (myself having two) a fanatic! I demand you to apologize immediately!

Also people, keep in mind that there is no game made DX11 only. Battlefield 3 is a huge step forward, but even it is not a fully DX11 game. To be quite honest, most people just wouldn't have the rig requirements to play a full DX11 game. Don't be surprised if we don't see a game of that graphical quality for another few years at the least.

The unreal tech demo ran on 4 580s. It is not a current tech showcase in any way. Give it 4 or 5 years and we should be able to run that on a single mainstream card.

And yes, there are - there are water physics demos that are effectively unparalleled, elements of realtime lighting that CoP didn't even touch on, so on. That's what tech demos are about - showing the absolute maximum we can achieve. They're not held back by consoles, because they're not about consoles, they're about showcasing what we can do, right now, with the absolute best technology we can reasonably come up with. There will never be a time when you see stuff in games a year after you see it in demos, ever.

It's really not a difficult concept - if you put all the resources of a high end card into one particular element, it's going to look much better than you can do in the context of a game. One day it will be reasonable to run it ingame, but not for quite a while.