Personally, the glow doesn't bother me, because it is very slight, but I do agree on the plastic sort of looking textures. However, the quality of these pictures still aren't comparable to what we will see on a tv or PC screen, especially in motion, and especially on my Nvidia 460. I think we'll have to wait before we can declare anything about the final product.

Even then, its practically a given that modders will create textures that make us wonder why Bethesda doesn't hire them.


You didn't look hard enough at the skeleton picture. Their bodies have a slight glow effect around them from the light. Its very obvious on the right most skeleton.

From the look of everything and to judge the pics, I will be satisfied with it.

I'm easy to please with graphics.

Although we'll never know what the Bethesda texturers could produce if they had no memory/performance restrictions or development schedule deadlines. And could choose to produce just the textures they wanted to, instead of every single texture on every single object in the game.

I was looking at the textures for weapons in Fallout-3 just the other day, and damn, those are complex! Trying to fit the UV-unwrap into the smallest possible texture, with as much re-use of the same texture areas as possible, while still getting the object in-game looking good... that is obviously an extremely skilled job.

Nope, it didn't bother me much in Oblivion and Skyrim looks in even slightly better in that department.

On a seperate note, I haven't seen these pics before. Did I miss a thread? :huh:

Bloom overuse annoyed me in Oblivion, but not to the point where I would stop playing. Just to the point where my eyes would start to bleed.

I voted "it doesn′t bother me" since the OP forgot a "I don′t think it looks glowy or plastic" option.

I see the plastic look as well, and after having tweaked so many graphics options in oblivion I can say that they need more bump mapping and less reflection. Unless every stone in the game was carved by a river, it wouldn't be smooth enough to reflect light so well. Though the characters look good, those screen shots do not make the rocks and cave systems look that appealing.

Speaking of the caves, we will need more screen shots, but it looks like they haven't done anything to address the glowing "fog" in caves that show real lighting and darkness.

I really and honestly hate the plasticy look of this and also OBRIVION. Same for BioShock 1 and 2, DOOM 3 and a ton of other games where current gen graphics = plasticy sheen [censored].
Source engine has it right by not making everything look like it's been heavily laminated and subtley having HDR/Bloom. Of course there'll be mods.
These graphics look almost on par with Oblivion and that's a detractor. Are Bethesda even making this game for PC users first and consoles second? I think it's the other way around this time.

It was mentioned that they're producing this as a console game because it's far less difficult to optimize for the console and port to PC than it is to work on it for PC and port to console.

The graphics we've seen look fine to me. I'm not a fan of too many bloom effects, but it doesn't seem like they're overused the technique so much.

Of course, I did like LotRO's graphics, and they used a lot of bloom.

I turn it off in my games but I like the effect, just a bit toned down would make it better for me. I do not like the whole world to glow. It makes my eyes hurt after a while.

Those "overused" and kind of obligatory because of the technology.

Not skeletons in that picture, skeletons don't have muscle or flesh. Those are zombies

Graphics is not all about making things look realistic. If you really want realistic graphics, open the door and go outside. Fantastic dynamic shadowing and everything.

Now, what is more important when it comes to graphics, at least according to me (though this may be purely from an artist's perspective. Maybe realism is all there is for other people), is the art style of the game itself. As long as those "extreme bloom effects" work with the overall style of the game, I'm completely fine with it. And from what I've seen so far, it does work. It fits very nicely with this entire fantastical fantasy-setting, and the added "shiny-effect" adds more visual depth to things. Kind of like adding unusually bright parts to an oil-painting to make it look more interesting, rather than the grey blandness that it might otherwise feature. And as far as I've understood, the graphical design team has taken lots of inspiration from certain painters (although I do not remember their names).

Still, I will admit that the bloom effects in the screenshot with the troll is a tad too much, even for me. You can barely see in that thing without wearing sunglasses.

:confused:

I think a lot of you need to get your eyes checked.

It comes out in November, until the final product is out I'm keeping my mouth shut about graphics.

I think the giant looks awesome. Exactly how I imagine giants to look when I read fantasy novels. I'm really pleased with it.

Yeah after looking at the screens, some things definitely kind of plastic looking, and the humanoid anatomy seems a bit off(specifically the joints) which makes it worse. Still a lot better than Oblivion though.

It's a huge game, so it can't have the best graphics around. Glowing can minimalize and sort of camouflage bad textures. As long as the game gives you freedom, some real role-playing and all the other things we'd expect, I'm happy.

I actually liked this look in Oblivion.

Everything in Morrowind felt solid and compact. NPCs were built with very angular features, like Greek god statues. Interiors felt very cold, perhaps in part due to the reduced amount of ambient lighting usage compared to in Oblivion. I really liked this subdued, dreamy feeling. In Oblivion, buildings and NPCs seem so smushy and "inflated" compared to their rigid Morrowind counterparts. The bricks in fortress and city walls look like they're made of plastic or cake icing, whilst Morrowind's looked worn and smoothed after years of exposure to the elements. Whilst wearing armor, both the male and female characters in Oblivion have formless, almost tube-shaped bodies. The field of view must've been smaller in Oblivion or something, because everything felt bigger and closer to the screen. I'm hoping they do away with this in TES V and strive to make things look "edgier" again.

EDIT: The other issue I'm noticing is that, as with the Fallout games, everything in Skyrim still seems to have a bit of a warm ambient tint to it. The rocks in the screenshot of the giant, for example, would be far more believable if they had a bit more blue undertone to them and looked less like matte, uniformly-lit plastic.

>>looks at graphics on oblivion with quarls texture pack and other visaul mods....nope yeah guys about right.

Not sure what you mean by that? You mean that the guy you quoted is right about some people needing to get their eyes checked or are you saying the guy saying that Oblivion looked just as good as Skyrim? If you saying that Oblivion looked just as good as Skyrim because of Quarl's texture pack and other visual mods, that's not Oblivion, that's mods. Visual mods were created with years of extra time past development time by us modders, who are working directly at a single aspect of the game and spending massive amounts of time on that one aspect to improve it, something no developer can do because they have a game to build and can't spend all their time on one aspect of the game. Also those texture packs replace the stylized textures of the base game because some people don't like stylized textures, even though they are in the game because they are easier on the system, thus is why FPS takes a hit when you put in those textures. Also, the screens of Skyrim, for the last time, are from the console, so your comparing a modded PC version of Oblivion with highest detail to a console version of Skyrim, which looks really nice for a 360 game.

Technical explanation for those who care: The plastic look is down to the model pretty much every game uses for BDRF or bi-directional reflectance function. It's basically a shader that simulates tiny little variations in the material that we generally don't notice individually. The model pretty much every game uses right now is Blinn-Phong, which is good at making things look like plastic, and is used simply because it's the cheapest.

However there are several tricks to combat this look. Things like subsurface scattering and rim lighting can make skin, fur, and foliage look like. Well like themselves instead of plastic. Meanwhile glass and metal are better simulated by a more complicated bdrf such as http://www.gamedev.net/topic/594687-finally-nailing-the-torrance-sparrow-shader-once-and-for-all/.

Every game I have played that uses bloom looks like fuzzy glowing crap. I turn it off and use HDR instead if I can. HDR looks 100x better imo.

If you have ever watched the Lord of the Rings movies you would note that it also has this type of annoying bright hdr type effect. It seems to be a fantasy thing.