Hi there,

I hope there isn't already a topic for that, there are so many posts in this section of the forums compared to the Morrowind modding section where I usually post

I really like the ingame trailer and have been very impressed by the graphics (the distant mist is very, very breathtaking). I have started to feel worried about one aspect of the graphics, however, the hair. From what we can see in the trailer and the released screenshots at the official skyrim website, it looks like the hair is going to be less detailed and defined than in Oblivion. I agree with those who think it may be too early to say that, but what we have now doesn't look very promising:

http://i.min.us/ijzGKg.png << hair strands don't really look great
http://i.min.us/ilG5YG.png
http://i.imgur.com/WdRNf.jpg << that one is the best of the three, but is not very impressive
http://cdn.zenimax.com/akqacms/files/tes/screenshots/Tavern01_wLegal.jpg << Notice the lack of definition of the hair strands

In my opinion, from what we have seen of hair so far, the hair in Oblivion was better. What I am worried about, judging by the screenshots, is that the new engine for Skyrim may not be able to support textures with full, gradual transparency - at all.
As you can see in this screenshot,
http://i.imgur.com/mgTG7.jpg. The hair doesn't look smooth, the edges are very rough. Which makes me think that the new engine just can't make use of textures with complex transparency. As a modder who's made a few hairstyles for Morrowind, and completely depends on the ability to use gradual transparency to create convincing hair textures (for instance, http://s62.photobucket.com/albums/h91/Mandamus_TES/Hairstyles/?action=view¤t=mandamusnordhair02.jpg and http://s62.photobucket.com/albums/h91/Mandamus_TES/Hairstyles/?action=view¤t=01.jpg use textures with full, gradual transparency), I am a bit worried. I'd REALLY like to port some of my hair to Skyrim eventually

So my questions are:
Is there any available media that shows textures using some form of complex transparency/alpha channels? I have probably missed plenty of screenshots.
Do we have any info on the engine's support of full alpha channel textures?
Would any developer reading this post be able to shed some light on the matter? (doesn't hurt to ask )
Will modders be able to use textures with full transparency? (only the developers may answer that one for now, we'll have to speculate until release I suppose)
If anyone knows anything more about the issue, please post!

I'll just bump this once in case anyone interested in the topic missed it since it had fallen to the sixth page.

I realize this is not a topic that will interest everyone - mainly prospective modders and modelers - but think about what can be textured/accomlished with gradual transparency! (realistic looking hair and feathers, glass, crystal... I'm also wondering about how detailed the hairstyles will be like when Skyrim is released.

So any info/guess on whether we'll be able to use it would be greatly appreciated.

(I won't bump this again, to respect the forum rules)

I see where you're coming from, but this is only an early teaser trailer. Stuff is still a bit rough, and nothing is set in stone. I'm sure that any problems people have right now will be polished in time for release.

I agree with magmarrax they are likely just placeholders for the trailer. I'm sure they will be improved for release.

Thanks for the replies guys!

Yes, it is probably a bit early to wonder about things like that. However, I'm guessing the engine is mostly finished by now, which is why I'm worried about not seeing any use of complex transparency in the trailer and screenshots. :/ They would probably directly make haircuts with complex transparency if they could. I'm hoping somebody will prove me wrong by posting screenshots with a model using it.


I'm not so sure about that, I know from my (amateurish) experience that doing good-looking hair with simple (opaque/transparent, no in between) transparency is more difficult than with gradual transparency.

I'm pretty sure you've pointed out the best screenshots with hair in them - there's this one of a guy hunting in the woods, don't know if you've seen it yet:
http://www.skyrimportal.com/skyrim-screenshots?page=3

Right now it's on the same level as Oblivion, and with nine months to go I think they can definitely make it look much better.

I hadn't seen it, thanks! Hmm, this screenshot shows that the hair (I thought it was a hood at first) seems to be skinned somehow, ie it bends with the body to avoid clipping. I'm guessing that from the way it is slightly distorted. That's great news if we can indeed skin hair!


I think so too, which is one of the reasons why I made this thread: to bring forward my hope that the technology (full transparency) will be available for modders, and used on vanilla hairs themselves.

It seems to me like transparancy is one of those things that is to, 'simple' to get rid of. I am pretty sure it will be in. That however I don't believe will automatically lead to great hair. I think that the hair will be very static, and probably not much better than we see here. I however would disagree whether that is better or worse than Oblivion. I think the pic of the back of his head is one of those things where it looks worse in a still frame than in motion. Yes that will probably happen occasionally but I think that most of the time you will not have a chance to see that kind of, I am not sure of the term as it applies here, glitch.

I think the vast majority of the time you will see hair such as from the front pov, or the other pictures where it is not unbelievably wonderful, but still quite acceptable.

Maybe having flat hair is a performance tradeoff ? and its one which i could live with , if it means either more npc's on screen or a smoother framerate.

This is just my guess though - since i really know nothing

Yeah, it is entirely subjective whether or not the hair is better looking than in Oblivion, that was just my opinion. I am not really trying to argue about that, and realize they have more time to polish them. I am more interested in the technological side of things. In NwN 2 for instance, there was no full transparency available on hairs and for modders to use. I think that the same limitation is present in Dragon Age (I could be wrong ). Which is why I'm not too positive about its implementation in Skyrim.

About the hair being static... it will probably be, I think dynamic hair is probably too heavy for consoles and PCs alike.


This is what I fear... As a (admitedly self centered ) modder who creates hair, I'd love to port my hair meshes over to Skyrim, and it is important to me.

I see what you mean. I seriously doubt the Creation Engine is incapable of this, though.

And maybe a lack of antialiasing (obviously only a real issue on the consoles) is making small details like the hair look worse than they might otherwise, especially on things like the spider.

That's a good point. The edges of the hair strands on these screenshots are really sharp, though, and from my experience that means 1-bit alpha transparency (opaque, or transparent; no gradual smoothness).
Maybe they're still sorting the engine out on that specific issue? After all, they don't really need it for many things. I mean, even water doesn't really need it all that much- white water sure doesn't. Maybe they're keeping it for the end, or maybe it's being cut (as I said, it is not improbable; see NwN2 and (I think) DA)

edit: actually just checked out some screenshots from DA and there seems to be transparency, apologies Nwn2 still stands, though.
edit2: I'm really not sure about DA looking at more screenshots, lol! A DA modder would probably be able to shed more light on this.

I just realized what was I found wrong with the plants and leaves. It's the same 1 bit alpha you noticed with the hairs.
Btw this can be bad. If all the textures contain 1 bit alphas only, then they would need to redo them when 8 bit alphas become supported.

Are you the modder who made Nifor for Morrowind? I used it a lot a few years back!
Yes, it can also be seen on plants and leaves, unfortunately. I didn't really want to bring this up as I think most games use 1 bit alpha for their foliage, so that would be a bit unfair (granted I don't really keep up with games nowadays)
I really hope the option will be available for modders, though, and I hope that there won't be the same bug with alpha clipping that was present in both Morrowind and Oblivion (basically, it's a graphical glitch that makes transparency look really bad)

Yep, that was me.

Not a real issue imo, do not worry that skyrim won't be capable of rendering a gradient alpha textures.

Those textures could probably contain a full 8bit alpha as well, this could just be alpha flags and threshold related, I can get that result, And in fact you actually have that result in F3. From many examples, The creature Yao Guai, the texture has a full 8bit channel (it could be dxt3, but it is certainly not a 1bit alpha)
but the alpha flag is 4844, which is just like 4845 but without blending.. and with threshold whacked up to over 100. IF you enable blending it looks much softer. However, you get a very minor lit edge, you'd never see unless you were right up close, and it could just be a nifskope thing, IF you use the hair alpha flag, which is 4333, this will look even softer, but there is no alpha testing...in I guess the zbuffer, anyway this makes vertex order very important for correct rendering with this flag. And in the case of the spiders legs, there is no logical way to order the verts so that it renders inside to outside from all angles. So if they did do that, then hair would disappear as alpha'd planes obscure other planes. Looks crap big time.


In any case Skyrim will be capable of blended alpha. that I am most certain of. Also the amount of FX, fire, magic, that will need to use that would be quite a large library. Alpha is not just for hair.

Modded hair will just look that much better :liplick:

The game is MONTHS FROM RELEASE, so don't worry about hairs.

this http://images.wikia.com/fallout/images/3/3d/Yao_Guai.png will hopefully relieve some of your worries.

Well, you have a (very) belated thanks from me for releasing that nifty and easy-to-use tool

I know it's minor for most people, it's just important for me





Yes, your explanation and that picture are a relief, that is the kind of post I was hoping for. Obviously I don't know much technical-wise, but if I get what you mean correctly, then you're saying that the situation will be basically the same than in Oblivion, which is good enough. However, isn't there any way the developers could make complex alpha layers work without having to worry about vertex order? Why is there this problem in clipping in Morrowind and Oblivion? I'm sure there is a logical explanation, but as I said, I don't know much about the technology behind. It is a real pain to work around that issue, and it makes very complex blended alpha layers (like those spider legs could be) impossible. Is it a well-known difficitulty among game engine developers?

edit: and as I said, I was mostly worried because I have seen this problem (no blended alpha for hair) in Nwn2. Nwn2 has good-looking fire, magic and whatnot, but blended alpha for hair is just not possible. I'm wondering why?

i have no idea what anybody's talking about, which isn't uncommon, but it seems like it's being discussed in an intelligent manner, which is rather uncommon.

however: i dunno if this would have any bearing on the smoothness of 1-bit alpha texture thingamawhatevers, but Fallout 3 supported transparent multisampling, which turns http://www.tweakguides.com/images/Fallout3_10b.jpg into http://www.tweakguides.com/images/Fallout3_10a.jpg. all the shots and footage we've seen is from the 360 version, which i highly doubt has more than basic 2xAA. i don't see why they'd remove a graphical setting like that, anyway, so it's highly likely that transparent multisampling is still in the game, which might maybe possibly help?

it also seems a little like hair is more flexible this time and moves around a bit, or at least molds to the neck/head more cleanly, so maybe this has something to do with why things don't look quite like they used to.

Depends what you mean by complex alpha. per mesh object, the geometry is drawn by vertex number order. if geometry with a lower vertex number comes in front of another part of itself with a higher vert number, then those will be drawn first, if alpha comes into it, it can't draw behind that geometry that was already drawn, so you get alpha glitches.

I think "alpha testing" comes into it here. Or at least there are probably ways to combat this issue :shrug:. I'm not a game programmer.


Also not only are things drawn in z depth and per vertex order, they are also drawn in the order of the hierarchy the mesh objects have in the nif files. if you have 2 mesh objects in the same nif, nitrishape 1 will render before nitrishape 2 if it has a lower node index number.

Certainly. this is a well known difficulty in basically most modern game engines. Basically it starts with the zbuffer or depth buffer. objects are organised from farthest away to closest to the camera. so once an object is determined to be closer and is front of something else, that's the pixel you get on screen.

Search terms would be zbuffer, alpha testing, alpha sorting,

the alpha flag settings in nifs will make more sense too.


well if there is blended alpha on in the engine in other places, it could just be a shader limitation, perhaps there is just no way to allow different alpha rendering modes by the modder. and it's hardcoded or you can't access the files that would need changing easily. I don't know. :shrug:

You can have decals on objects and tattoos and scars on people, this will not work well with 1 bit alpha, you need 8 bit. Oblivion uses 8 bit alpha, the idea that they will not support it on a new engine is pretty bastant.

Easiest explanation is that the hair is bad quality, I guess the hair is flat as you can fit a helmet over it. this is new.
I wonder if you will have two hair meshes if you have larger hair one who goes away then you put on helmet and one who stays, the other option is that you just have flat hair.

Just flat hair be pretty restrictive.
To me it looked like the blond lady in the tavern shot and the hero has pretty much the same hair?

imo likely.

F3 as an example. The hair nifs contained 2 mesh objects. Hat and NoHat. equiping items in certain Biped slots, ie hat and helmet slots, the game flags those and forces the hat version of the hair to render. The hat version is basically a kind of tightly fitting version of the hair mesh. Basically solving all the stupid issue Ob had, ie if you equiped a helmet your hair was removed to avoid clipping. Along with your ears. I expect ears to be part of the head mesh as well. Making head meshes race and gender specific. Which is so very needed.

Thanks for the post! Unfortunately I never player Fallout 3 and so have no idea what transparent multisampling actually means, but these trees sure look better when it is on. I will have to google it in order to learn more about it. And yes, hair looks like it might be skinned to bend with the character's body, which is really welcome because it should make long hair (as in, really longer than in Oblivion) possible. In Oblivion, hair was shoulder-length or shorter; I think modders could make "wigs" (ie helms) that could be longer than that, but you couldn't use sliders to select the colors and, of course, it meant no such hair for consoles.

Thanks for all the information, I will search the terms you suggested. To be honest, up until now I'd never really tried to understand how things work, I just know what I need in order to brng new hair meshes into morrowind, and that's pretty much it. I just use alpha settings that I have seen on other people's custom hair meshes, I don't actually know what they do. Time to learn more!
Also thanks for confirming my suspicions about the difficulty involved for game programmers, I thought it might be something like that but wasn't really sure.


It is possible, I don't really know as it's hard to tell from the trailer, the character is always in motion. I didn't know about the decals for tats and scars, that's pretty interesting
I would really love to have what you suggest, ie two hair meshes depending on whether you're wearing a helmet. That would be a really nice addition in my opinion!


Well, I have to thank everyone who's posted in the topic. You have succesfully relieved me of my worries regarding what I thought might me limitations on blended transparency. I hope the tools to make custom meshes (ie the exporters) will be made available after the game is released; if that is the case then I will definitely try to port some of my hair meshes over to Skyrim

Edit: this topic isn't just about my previous worries, though, so feel free to continue posting about hair/transparency if you feel so inclined!