I have no idea what to rank it, as I don't got a list of all important features in Skyrim in my pocket

All I know is that it's important to have a tree variety. It's a huge part of what landscapes consist of, obviously...

I hope to see more of the game to prove myself wrong, but so far it looks like not that much variety. It could/should certainly be much much more, look at Vurt's Solstheim mod. And it does look great to have a variety, like with pretty much anything else.

And who says what is important and what is not? And what we are allowed to discuss on this forum and what we are not allowed to discuss? You? Personally I think the look and diversity of the trees is important. At least some other people seem to think the same as it seems. Which is reason enough to justify a discussion here. Maybe there are things more important than that. And at night it's colder than outside.



This is from the 'The technology behind Skyrim' article on the game informer website.

In previous games the team licensed the SpeedTree middleware to render the forests. For Skyrim, they've created their own platform that allows artists to build whatever kind of trees they want and to dictate how they animate. Artists can alter the weight of the branches to adjust how much they move in the wind, which is an effective way of, for instance, actualizing the danger of traversing steep mountain passes with howling winds violently shaking branches.

They don't say that this tool will be available to modders though. But I hope it will since it's their creation and doesn't rely on middleware.

A VERY good point! Notice that in some of the screenshots you see a big, thick, hallowed broken tree laying on the ground. Also notice that there aren't ANY trees like that around that same tree log, heck, you look to the distance and there isn't even one!
Kinda weird having such big trees laying on the ground without a single tree of the same size/type standing near them, don't you think?

http://thebigunknown.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/mr-worry-a-story-about-ocd.jpg

What do you mean? Low res or just their look? If you mean just their look, there are real life examples of trees like that. If it's the resolution, your looking at a 360 screen on a PC so it's not going to look adequate as the 360 isn't meant to be played so close on a monitor. The PC version will fix that problem for close up.

How about we see the other 99% of the game please?

Thanks

I don't think there should be any reason for them not to include this feature in the Creation Kit for us modders, we always had almost full control on the Construction Set (besides being limited with the animations and with the scripting, but we always found a way!).

I've only seen one single big tree so far. http://cdnstatic.gamesas.com/akqacms/files/tes/screenshots/LakeMountains_wLegal.jpg
To the very right in the middle.

I personally also think there should be more "half-fallen" trees in Skyrim. It's a really rugged environment. Lots of storms and wind in general I'm guessing. Especially near high cliffs and such.

Seeing this once in a while would be nice I think https://ipydis.org/frozenground/images/Drunken_trees.jpg

Good point ! :clap:

Like in Crysis? Would be cool having impact physics. Even without these physics, include such trees as stiff models would be cool too, increases variety just like talked about. But there's one in the Forest Hunt picture on the website. Looks cool.

And as for other big fallen trees:
http://www.elderscrolls.com/skyrim/media
Check:
Mountain Forest Path
Orc Night


Good point, though look again at the screenshots, look at the distance and you'll noticed that even in the distant mountains we still have the same type of trees.
Ofcourse we haven't seen all of Skyrim, we're discussing about having a bigger variety of trees in the forests we've already seen. So that remark is not valid.

Indeed, and preferably without that disgusting blur effect too. I HATE that in games.

I like a little blur
Makes it blend better with the end of the view distance (fog).

I think you've accidentally completely misunderstood what I was saying. Who says what is important? - well my open question was really asking for you to say what is important. That way we would have a little perspective on this minutae in which we all insist on flogging.

I don't recall any attempt to quell the discussion. Maybe you could be kind enough to quote my post which has riled you so?

That means nothing, the key element is the climate. The colder it gets, the less variety you'll see. And since Skyrim for the most part is supposed to a cold, forbidding place, much like the Canadian north, I wouldn't expect to see a huge variety in it's vegetation. I take it you've never spent time in Northern Manitoba, close to the Arctic Circle. There's nothing much there but scrawny evergreens.

1) I take you don't understand what relevancy is.
2) I take you don't read full comments.

This is not a philosophy forum. It's a computer game forum. We're talking about tree variety (or the possible lack of it) in this thread here. I wonder what your constant nagging about the 'importance' of tree variety has to do with it if you don't want to quell the discussion. It doesn't matter how important it is in the grand scheme of things as it's obviously important enough for the people participating in this discussion (including me) to think and write about it. If it was not important for me I would skip this thread. But since I don't, it is obviously important for me. How important compared to other parts of the game is completely irrelevant.

I hope that answered your question satisfactorily.

Good answer

Just to straighten some things up:
Trees are a huge graphical impact on Skyrim, they fill most of the land (even more than snow, which is the theme) and they help you immerse with the world, telling you which direction or how powerful the wind is, combat advantages, appearance and so on.
From what we've seen so far, trees don't have the greatest variety in Skyrim. To be clear, I'm not referring to the rest of Skyrim which we have not seen. I am referring to the places we have seen. In my opinion Beth could use a bigger variety of tree types over there, with more rugged and complex plant life, such as bigger trees, taller trees, trees with more leaves on them.

I want to know that I could walk in a forest, look into the sky and see that leaves are covering my sight. After clearing the forest and reaching a river, I want to look to the sky and tell myself "There, that was satisfying"

Didn't read everything by now, so dunno if it was already mentioned.
What I totally dislike is that I don't see any roots at some of the trees.
So they seem just to be stuck into thte ground.

Here's an good example
http://skyrimguild.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/SkyrimTrailer1-1.jpg

Bethesda said they aren't using Speedtree anymore, so personally that's fine by me. A more conventional approach to trees, ye olden "leaf textures draqed over branches" approach (think Morrowind's style but denser and more detailed) will win over those stupid spinny trees any day. New Vegas used lots of hand-modelled trees as well: it looked infinitely better than the few instances wherein they used Oblivion style foliage. They light and blend in with the fog far more nicely in my opinion, as well.

But yes, more variety is always good.



They'll probably justify it by the roots always being under the snow. The heightmap textured snow mind you, not the accumulated particles.

Well not really because it was a rhetorical question... lol

And with the anti-logic these forums throw around I think it's abundantly clear this is no philosophy forum
---------------

"It's obviously important enough" - who's philosophising now? Subjective Relativism - fascinating...

(edit: oh yeah, and obviously I would want to disregard the discussion because I think it's ultimately pretty pointless. But my point was that I haven't attempted [nor would I] to quell the discussion - I simply gave my opinion just like everyone else)

Frankly, we have already seen multiple trees, all of which look great (will look worlds better on the PC with AA and AAA) and they all have variety and all look like real trees you would find in the world.

So basically I say, don't worry about things that you "haven't seen" and think they aren't in. Just because you haven't seen something doesn't mean it doesn't exist (even though we have seen plenty of variation in trees, just not massive trees yet). You don't see me going and making a thread saying "I haven't seen daedra yet", even though it's pretty much a given that daedra are going to be in. Too much worrying about things that should be a given.



Most of the trees we have seen so far are pine, they tend not to have roots showing a lot. It's best to not have your roots exposed to the cold.

Eh, it doesn't really bother me. But I would appreciate the time they put into making diverse trees

Maybe they just modelled one iteration of each tree type, with the average shape/branch spread as a placeholder? They still have a few months to polish up the game and add more details. I could imagine making 20 variants of each tree isn't the most pressing matter right now.

Speaking of trees I just heard Todd say something exciting that I hadnt noticed him say of the game b4 but I may have just missed it but having to to do with trees,... they actually grow back !!!!! this sounds like we can actually cut them down not just cut logs does it not ???

I read in the Giantbomb article that they do not use speed tree anymore.

edit: :toughninja: By Mr stonefrog.