[courtnay]

i was reading one of the legend of the drow series the week that skyrim was announced called the crystal shard (i belive its 4rth in the series) well anyway it got me super excited about all the posabilitys that a new engine may provide things like acctualy differing body type for different races i mean the only signifigant differences were woodelves and orcs. I want my elves to be slender and graceful i want my nords to be bulkey hearty types and the redguard brenton to fall somewhere in between


what do you guys want?

edit: mostly illiterate

[LijLuva]

DX11 support is essential imo. It will allow the game to be modded for many years into the future, much like Morrowind and Oblivion have, and to take advantage of new technology whether provided by the devs or the modding community.

Tessellation, for example, can do some amazing things to the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blZHGKTpS6I, and really http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPQ5Vy_5MP0.

[Lou]

DX11 support is essential imo. It will allow the game to be modded for many years into the future, much like Morrowind and Oblivion have, and to take advantage of new technology whether provided by the devs or the modding community.

Tessellation, for example, can do some amazing things to the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blZHGKTpS6I, and really http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPQ5Vy_5MP0.

After seeing that....I have to agree, essential. Thanks for the links!

[Shelby McDonald]

now this is a good thread. lol
really there is a number of things i would like to see taken advantage of with the new engine such as: fast loading the landscape and the content. when i play oblivion it seems unless you're inside of a cave or building the game only loads about 30 or 40 ft before it gets smooth and unrefined. another thing that i didn't like too much about the loading was when ever you download an expansion pack like shivering isles the loading at the main menu was dreadfully long.
other things i'd like to see taken advantage of are:
smother animations
different mounts
more customization
different types of character interactions
ect.

[Jerry Jr. Ortiz]

This video contains content from playcast, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.
Sorry about that.

Second link is fubar.

The Tessellation looks like it just adds extra polys to all of the models. It has an undesired effect on the cobblestone road though as cobblestones are supposed to look like they do in the left pane, flat and smooth, The tessellation make them look pointed and we all know you don't make a road with pointy rocks. It looks great on the stone walls though.

[trisha punch]

i hope for good shadows and physics along with nice view distance

[louise hamilton]

Second link is fubar.

The Tessellation looks like it just adds extra polys to all of the models. It has an undesired effect on the cobblestone road though as cobblestones are supposed to look like they do in the left pane, flat and smooth, The tessellation make them look pointed and we all know you don't make a road with pointy rocks. It looks great on the stone walls though.

Tessellation doesn't always make things look pointed or sharp, though in tech demos that's usually the way it's done specifically so that the kind of difference it makes can be seen. It can also be used for things like making rounder objects actually look round, or just generally making objects look more detailed - it's a bit like adding vertices that aren't actually there.

In general, there's no reason for Bethesda's new engine to avoid supporting it or DX11 in general, since those are the current tech and this is a new engine.

[April]

DX11 support is essential imo. It will allow the game to be modded for many years into the future, much like Morrowind and Oblivion have, and to take advantage of new technology whether provided by the devs or the modding community.

Tessellation, for example, can do some amazing things to the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blZHGKTpS6I, and really http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPQ5Vy_5MP0.

That stuff is amazing! I cant wait to see games take advantage of things like that!

[Invasion's]

I'd love to see seamless indoors/outdoors for cities and buildings.

[Benjamin Holz]

That stuff is amazing! I cant wait to see games take advantage of things like that!

There already are quite a few games available that do. The technology's been available for a while.

[Flutterby]

I seriously doubt wer're going to get tessellation and from what I understand the pipeline to create assets is a serious pain. I'm hoping for the following though:

1) Dynamic lighting (shadows on statics) especially on big items like architecture
2) Superior culling allowing more objects onscreen
3) Collidable particles (no rain under cover)
4) 3D gridpathing
5) Different body types (young, old, slim, muscular, etc.)
6) Cloth effects (havoked or animated)

Modding:

7) Ability to better manage levelled lists
8) Ability to add special anim groups on a per item basis

Now all of these things are doable but if its a question of time/asset generation I'd hope that BGS would at least give us a way of modding them in if they don't want to spend the time themselves. We've got an army of modders standing by. Just don't tie our hands [please].

[how solid]

I'd love to see seamless indoors/outdoors for cities and buildings.

Seconded.

[Kevan Olson]

I seriously doubt wer're going to get tessellation and from what I understand the pipeline to create assets is a serious pain.

I'd actually be very, very surprised if we don't get it. It's not a feature I'd expect to be left out of any modern engine, and I'd even be surprised if they left it out of the game itself.

5) Different body types (young, old, slim, muscular, etc.)

This isn't really an engine feature, just a matter of Bethesda putting the effort in to include it in the game itself. The same applies to the things you've asked for modding - the engine could support those before, Bethesda just doesn't implement them as options in the CS.

[des lynam]

DX11 support is essential imo. It will allow the game to be modded for many years into the future, much like Morrowind and Oblivion have, and to take advantage of new technology whether provided by the devs or the modding community.

Tessellation, for example, can do some amazing things to the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blZHGKTpS6I, and really http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPQ5Vy_5MP0.

water looks hot

[Timara White]

DirectX 11 game is essential. Many games already use it and by late 2011 there is no reason not to release a game that can take advantage of DX11 features.
Tessellation could eliminate geometry pop in as well. Render a simple mesh and the closer you get the house/stone/tree/whatever the tessellation engine on the GPU can adaptively add geometry. No need to have things popping in or drastically morphing before your eyes.
Soft Shadows, dynamic shadows all of that is essential, especially in caves. Global Illumination will be great too! Having each light actually cast shadows and effect the lighting of the scene. Because of various light sources and lighting a differed render would be the most efficient and practical way to go. DX10 and DX11 can give us and Anti ailaising option with the render as well. Consoles can also apply AA to a differed render. Its DX9 PC's that have a very hard time doing it and when done its taken a large effort on the programming side.
Fluid simulation, water simulation, soft particles, could all be done via geometry and compute shaders.
Tessellation is not just adding geometry. With multiple displacement maps things like rust, blood and damage could dynamically appear on armour or characters. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c_PVtMIz-A .
DX11 would save Bethesda time/money/ and it would make a PC game look incredible. No reason not to use it.

Imagine using this for effects of spells or something: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c_PVtMIz-A

[Verity Hurding]

I seriously doubt it will take advantage of DX11, as much as I would love it to. It needs to be perfectly compatible with current consoles. I am currently playing through Metro 2033 and Crysis Warhead to see how well they play on my 6970 (extremely well). I love the features that DX11 puts in for Metro 2033, it looks amazing and especially with Heaven Benchmark. It would be nice, but not necessary for it to be in Skyrim. I would rather the time and money be spent on ironing out bugs.

[Alexandra Ryan]

This isn't really an engine feature, just a matter of Bethesda putting the effort in to include it in the game itself. The same applies to the things you've asked for modding - the engine could support those before, Bethesda just doesn't implement them as options in the CS.

Engine 'could' support multiple body meshes but they locked out (or failed to provision) the ability. I can understand cause you'd have to re-model each clothing/armor item for each body type which multiplies the assets needed and then flag PC/NPC so they use the right mesh on-equip. Would probably want to have alternate anim groups as well which compounds the assets again.

But then the engine could have supported static shadows but they hardcode the shadow caster list.

[Undisclosed Desires]

There already are quite a few games available that do. The technology's been available for a while.

Really? Like what? I have seen no games that look that good.

[Kirsty Wood]

Really? Like what? I have seen no games that look that good.

Metro 2033 is one of them that looks amazing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_11_support

[Arrogant SId]

Really? Like what? I have seen no games that look that good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_11_support although none of them look as good as the demos, some of them are still pretty good.


Damn, ninja'd. :ninja:

I think the new engine needs DX 11 support of course, dynamic shadows, and cloth using the hardware tessellation in DX 11 looks pretty nice, so animated cloth.

[james reed]

Engine 'could' support multiple body meshes but they locked out (or failed to provision) the ability. I can understand cause you'd have to re-model each clothing/armor item for each body type which multiplies the assets needed and then flag PC/NPC so they use the right mesh on-equip. Would probably want to have alternate anim groups as well which compounds the assets again.

Except there are mods that offer different body types (specifically on a race-by-race basis - Martigen's Monster Mod currently includes one - but race-by-race or not, that makes it apparent that it's possible), so it's very clearly supported both by the engine and by the tools for it. Don't think it required re-modeling anything either. This basically just isn't an engine feature so much as a Bethesda-didn't-do-it-with-the-engine feature.

[Nymph]

better sprites/effects+ better charecter gen+better faceposing+better lod+better shaders+awsome physics=win



dx11 would be nice, but most people dont have the cards right now. i would like it to be implemented so the game lasts longer, but i doubt it will



we are going to assume dynamic lighting is in, aswell as slightly better faces

[JR Cash]

I would like to see stronger environmental effects in the game. Since they chose skyrim as the next location, snow will be an obvious feature. If they can alter the amount of snow on the ground and have it effect gameplay (slower running speed, sound, snow getting stuck on armor, vision etc.), that would just be awesome.

[Ellie English]

Except there are mods that offer different body types (specifically on a race-by-race basis - Martigen's Monster Mod currently includes one - but race-by-race or not, that makes it apparent that it's possible), so it's very clearly supported both by the engine and by the tools for it. Don't think it required re-modeling anything either. This basically just isn't an engine feature so much as a Bethesda-didn't-do-it-with-the-engine feature.

Sorry. I've checked thru several versions of MMM and didn't see this feature so if you could point me to a hyperlink I'd appreciate it. Just curious how this was done as there are only two skeleton NIFs supported by the system and you can't specify different bodies in the CS like you can heads. Likewise each skeleton has anim groups that can only be replaced not expanded. Only methods I knew to vary bodies was a technique to rescale the bones which, although clever, created distortion and the other method which was a fat suit using force equip scripting. Not disputing you. Just curious.

[Emily abigail Villarreal]

Better mod support would be nice. As the number of mods go up, the ability to manage them even with 3rd party tools becomes a mess. If a mod causes a crash there is no way to track down which one is doing it without turning them off one by one and waiting to see if they crash. Being able to see the last few things that occurred would be very helpful, as mods usually crash when they load something new in.