Oblivion suffered what what's widely known as the "Doom III" problem. Where models and textures came off looking "plastic" like rather then realistic. It also suffered from the overuse of bloom/HDR, which applied a "Glowy" effect to objects, many of which shouldn't even be glowing as it were.

With the recent pics of Skyrim coming out, it seems that SKyrim also suffers from these same issues, neither of which seem to have been fixed up or even tried to have done better. The models of characters and textures still have a "plastic" like appearance rather then like real skin. Things such as rocks still "glow" with light even though they shouldn't.

Do you like these aspects of the graphics or feel they should work on getting rid of them/making things look more believable and realistic?

I'm hoping it's maybe just because of early builds and/or console performance reasons.

Some examples of this in Skyrim:

http://www.pcgames.de/The-Elder-Scrolls-5-Skyrim-PC-128680/News/The-Elder-Scrolls-5-Skyrim-Drachen-Riesen-und-mehr-Neue-Screenshots-veroeffentlicht-811029/galerie/1486913/?fullsize

See how the characters hand looks extremely "glowy."

Then:
http://www.pcgames.de/The-Elder-Scrolls-5-Skyrim-PC-128680/News/The-Elder-Scrolls-5-Skyrim-Drachen-Riesen-und-mehr-Neue-Screenshots-veroeffentlicht-811029/galerie/1486904/?fullsize

How the skeletons bones "Glow" from teh light and the rocks in the back round have a glow to them.

As far as plastic looking textures go,
http://www.pcgames.de/The-Elder-Scrolls-5-Skyrim-PC-128680/News/The-Elder-Scrolls-5-Skyrim-Drachen-Riesen-und-mehr-Neue-Screenshots-veroeffentlicht-811029/galerie/1486902/?fullsize

In the newer screens you can definitely see the plastic look to a lot of things. It simply doesn't look realistic as far as the textures and lighting go, looks more like Oblivion and not nearly as good as most modern games in taht regard.

Doesn't bother me.

The "plastic" look to the textures were typical of games of the time, can people stop complaining saying that it was bad when for the time it was just fine. The light bleeding from the bloom was a bit bad but you also have to realize that Oblivion was one of the pioneering games for such lighting and they were making Oblivion for a console that hadn't even been made yet. I don't get where you see that textures look like plastic in the screenshots, even with low res textures and I really don't see where you get that Skyrim has the same bloom problem.

You are seeing screens of the console version, if your going to judge a games graphics on the console version's graphics, that's a problem. You have to realize that the consoles are running on roughly 512mb of video memory, it is basically the equivalent of having to turn down the graphics settings on the PC to low quality to allow for no lag. The graphics are pretty good for the 360, so the PC with highest quality will look amazing, so please don't overreact and make another thread complaining that everything is horrible and asking the devs to scrap the game and rebuild, when obviously that's not going to happen because it doesn't need to happen.

Pics with examples would be great, can't say for sure until I get a better look, only seen small SSs.

I liked the bloom it made the game look beautiful, IMO
and I dont get what you mean by plastic, that could be a problem with specularity

If you want to get rid of the plastic looking textures, then you need some subsurface scattering. That can probably be a bit of a technical hurdle. As for HDR lighting, it's a good scheme to use. Much better than bloom, which just sort of makes everything glow.

Meh. Oblivion's HDR honestly didn't bother me too much, and so even if Skyrim changes absolutely nothing (not likely), I won't care much at all.

What I wish they'd do is incorporate some depth-of-field blurring.

Yes, bloom REALLY is still a problem.... :facepalm:

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/7555/compared.png

Also look at the ground textures...not to much improvement there hell some texture's dont look any better than quarls texture pack. All in all graphical improvements are minimal most of the improvements are in art direction.

:rock: :wink_smile:
Now my eyes will hurt less after 4-5 hours

HDR and Glow are the misused technologies of this generation so yes, i'd rather have them tone it down.

I don't see any evidence of those factors in the screens shown thus far. On the contrary, I see dynanic lighting and self-shadowing on everything, with a gentler, warmer sense of light in the screens shown thus far.

But that's just my personal opinion. Different standards, subjective perception.

Doesn't bother me. I haven't even noticed.

Ah yes. Bloom was the one thing I couldn't easily put up with in Oblivion. Games just grabs your eyeballs, ain't natural. First thing I was relieved about in screenshots was seeing how defined and normal they were.

So the stones, that's the plastic look of texture ? Doesn't show in all pics, but I do find rocks in that http://www.gamereactor.se/media/59/elderscrolls5_235967b.jpg to have a weird shiny look. Shows a bit in the Markath Side pic too. Other pics, the stone is decently blackened or snow covered, so no worries. It's not a lethal flaw for me, tho.

Updated first post with a couple pics to show it in Skyrim.

Yeah, hadn't seen that giant pic in hi-res. Bit glaring there, for the rocks.

Aww, you're picking for the lighting tho. Spells effects hardly count. I mean, remember that pic of the bowman in the autumn forest ? Light falls so nicely on him.

The last one I admit looks plasticy, but I don't see the problem with the other two.

does it really matter? cant you turn it off?
also what is supposed to look plasticy in the last one, I think it looks fine

doesnt bother me even if this were, but its not the final product, it looks great and the only place i see the look your talking about, is floors and walls not the rest of the environment.

Ok, plastic looking skin.

In many games the light hits the skin and bounces off. This often comes off looking wrong to most people and for good reason. It makes the skin look flat and plastic.

In reality, when light hits skin, it penetrates beneath the surface and causes a bit of a glow before bouncing off. It gives the skin the look of depth. This is subsurface scattering (SSS). This effect is also seen on other materials than just skin.

Until something like SSS is used in the game engine, most surfaces will continue to have a plastic look.

I agree that some of the things look plastic. Higher resolution textures on the PC will probably make it look a bit better though.

I don't see any lighting that looks bad, at least not close to the same as Oblivion.

So, it won't be the best looking game on the market, but honestly I don't care. New engine already looks much better than Gamebryo and if animations are decent (we have to see it in motion), that's ok with me.

Skyrim pics look amazing. I think you're confusing glow with magic in one of the pics?

You still haven't seen the game in motion yet. Everything looks better while its moving and also, you say the characters hand is "glowy". Well obviously, don't you notice he's casting a spell? He appears to be channeling magicka through him and also, fire gives off light.