6 "New" Screenshots Discussion : V - Skyrim

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 1:09 pm

Nice screens! ...still shaken from that Dragon Age, erm, "2?" debacle. Show Bioware how it's done :goodjob:

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:07 pm

Dull landscape is dull. :shrug:

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 2:30 pm

I'm not a big fan of the desaturated/brown look that plagues most games today.

I wish the colors were more like this:
http://i.imgur.com/tJShj.jpg

Gladly, we will be able to change the settings on PC to make it look like that.
Sometimes I like to set the saturation to lowest to play in greyscale, just "for the lulz".

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 4:53 pm

The new screenshots looks snazzy, thanks for sharing! :foodndrink:

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/115/1158651/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110330052304153.jpg

Is that a shrouded armor/hood the stabbing guy is wearing? I like how it conceals his eyes more than the hoods in Oblivion..

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 2:09 pm

When I get home I'll set the last screenshot of the scenery as my wallpaper. Looks amazing.
I'm curious of how running water will look though, in the gameplay trailer it was horrible and now that I've seen how still water looks I'm having high hopes.

One thing that bugs me in those screenies is the casting hand. It doesn't look that good.

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 4:13 pm

These were previously available only in magazines. So what do you think of them?

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/115/1158651/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110330052304153.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/115/1158651/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110330052307231.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/115/1158651/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110330052311168.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/115/1158651/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110330052314715.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/115/1158651/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110330052317887.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/115/1158651/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110330052320824.jpg

Screenshots look very good.
But
in #1, there is still some noticable polygonalization in the stabed guy's buttocks.
in #2, the fox/wolf is not casting any shadow on the ground. Even taking in account the additional light source (the spell casting hand), a shadow would have been cast on the ground nonetheless.

» Thu Sep 02, 2010 12:37 am

in #2, the fox/wolf is not casting any shadow on the ground. Even taking in account the additional light source (the spell casting hand), a shadow would have been cast on the ground nonetheless.

I think there is a shadow, you can see a tiny part of it near the bottom right side of the spell casting arm. Anyway, I'm much more interested by the third wolf in the picture that's seems to be circling around the character. Combat ai seems to be recieving a huge improvement for both animals and humanoids. Its one thing for them to say it, but seeing it is even better.

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 3:56 pm

I think there is a shadow, you can see a tiny part of it near the bottom right side of the spell casting arm.

No.
If that were the case then the two fore legs would also cast shadows in that same direction.

» Thu Sep 02, 2010 1:03 am

Morrowind's Bonemold, Dreugh, Bone, and Indoril armors are all unbeatable in my book. I can't really get into most of the Armors in Oblivion for some reason. Ironically, if memory serves all or most of the Morrowind armors listed were Medium armor, which was taken out of Oblivion. Coincidence?

I couldn't stand Dreugh. The helmet looked stupid, and the body made you look 30lbs underweight. Indoril was good, It's hard to explain, I didn't really like the style, but it just "Made Sense", in sort of that 'it's a different culture" kind of way, bonemold too.

I'm a fan of subtlety though. The Mithril armor in Oblivion takes an elegant simplicity in it's design. The Elven Armor. That's what's catching me on the Elven armor, it doesn't look Daedric abstract and unwieldy, and doesn't come off 'loud' like the glass armor in Oblivion.

No.
If that were the case then the two fore paws would also cast shadows in that same direction.

Not surprising. Honestly, I don't really care about character shadows as much as environmental. That said, I think you're trying to hard to find faults. (inb4 i didnt even try to c those!)

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 11:52 am

Not surprising. Honestly, I don't really care about character shadows as much as environmental. That said, I think you're trying to hard to find faults. (inb4 i didnt even try to c those!)

I don't seem to get your point.
What's not surprising about not having full shadows?
To me, this apparent technical glitch is indded serious. One of the major improvemts over Oblivion is having full shadowns on everything.
Of course there is always the chance i'm missing something.

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 11:18 am

just looked for a while at that elven armor and sword, so much love went into making them. the feather and foliage patterns, the wing like arrangement, the beautiful sword... I mean wow it does seem inspired from LoTR films but that's not even a bad thing

looks great that's all I'm gonna say can't w8 for more

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 4:32 pm

Wow just noticed these thanks for it, saw the link on the Elder Scrolls Council page but didn't think much of it at the time. Here's what I think!

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/115/1158651/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110330052314715.jpg

I LOVE this shot, I am so glad that Bethesda decided to go with realistic looking rather than cartoonish goofy looking charachters like they did in Oblivion and earlier, just look at the detail in the warriors back and arms, look at that muscle definition, heck you can even see veins! The level of detail and effort they have gone into is amazing, 3rd person view will now be a joy to play in rather than a nuisance that it was in Oblivion alot of the times. And look at that (dreugh?) extremely fearsome looking I may actually be more wary now when looting dungeons I would hate to see that thing coming at you in 52 inchs

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/115/1158651/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110330052320824.jpg

Glad this will be an end to the multitude of 'the water suxorz' threads that the white water screenshot attracted for some reason! Looks fantastic, I can seriously see my Ranger going for a dip in there when he gets a bit on the nose

And look there, underwater plants and foliage ! Fantastic! I hope that fog around the mountain peaks is dynamic, would look great too see it drift in and out and then head up through it! This screenshot also adds truth to Bethesda when they stated that the land of Skyrim is much more rugged than that of Oblivion and previous TES titles, just look at those craggy peaks and slopes! Just hurts my legs thinking about climbing up there!

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/115/1158651/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110330052317887.jpg

Brrrrrrr! That looks cold and dangerous, I love the armor and that shortsword just looks downright nasty (in a good way!) Once again a high degree of attention to detail!

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/115/1158651/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110330052304153.jpg

Never played a thief in TES games before, going all the way back to Arena infact, not sure why, maybe I didn't feel as though it was powerful enough as I love to swing big swords and shields around or shoot bows from range... but this might make me change my mind! Look at the way the battle appears to be unfolding, the thief at the back appears to have deftly blocked the others sword arm while thrusting a dagger up into his unfortunate foe's midrift! Is this the final touch of a finishing move that we have heard so much about?

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/115/1158651/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110330052311168.jpg

I love this screenshot on a few levels. Firstly the Elven(?) Armor looks fantastic! Here we can clearily see the warrior has a sword and staff equipped at the same time, the staff lighting the way! Then there is the water at his feet, see the way it seems to gush and bubble as it races over the rocks? Once again a strong argument and example that Bethesda have done a fantastic job on the water and particle effects! The lighting also looks great, cant wait to get into the game and explore the same spot

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/115/1158651/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110330052307231.jpg

First thing I am drawn to in this screenshot is obviously the great spell effect errupting from the mans left hand, look once again at the attention to detail in his arm and hand! Then there are the amazingly realistic wolves, look a the way the fur seems to appear matted and follows the contours of their bodies! There is almost a look of fear in the closest wolves eyes and you can see a third behind the log keeping a lookout! Great tree's grass and foliage too, can't wait to see all of this flow in motion with the breeze! In regards to the fallen log I wonder if this belonged to one of the tree's that you can fell yourself?

Fantastic job once again Bethesda, the more I see of this game the more I seem to want it, why does November seem so far away? !!

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 12:31 pm

No, it really doesn't, it looks no better than Oblivion's water, in fact, I'd argue my current water in Oblivion looks better, although I've used a water enhancing mod and have enabled full water reflections in the .ini (By default only the landscape, sky and city walls are reflected, I believe.) so I'm not going to say the water is a downgrade from Oblivion's on that basis, just as it would be unreasonable to say that Skyrim looks worse than Oblivion because the textures aren't as good as Qarl's.

The water doesn't actually look like it's reflecting the surroundings at all, even though it looks like it's under conditions where it should have noticable reflections, it looks like there's a bit of sun glare in the bottom left corner, but that's about all, I'm not noticing any refractions either, though that could just be since it's static, I'm certainly not sure it doesn't have them.

In fact, I just did a Google search using the river, and found a lot of photographs that look a lot better than the river in the one screenshot here, and I don't mean that as in more realistic, that's obvious, since they're actual photographs, I mean more attractive, and while they're not all highly reflective (That goes back to what I said about the conditions, water tends to be more reflective under certain conditions, and these are conditions I'm seeing in both the river screenshot and the forest lake or pond or whatever it is, and while you could argue on that point if you disagree, game's rarely take such details into account anyway, and if none of the screenshots of water we've seen show visible reflections, then there's a good chance the game doesn't have them at all, at least not on the Xbox 360 version. Maybe the PC version has an option to enable them, but right now, we can only judge the game based on what we've seen of it, for all we know, Skyrim could have pink polka dotted elephants in it, that's very unlikely, of course, but the fact that we haven't seem them doesn't automatically prove they're not in the game. And yet, we can't judge Skyrim under the assumption that it has pink polka-dotted elephants, similarly, there's no guarentee that Skyrim, once finished, will not have better water than the screenshots and videos we've seen would lead us to believe, but sincwe we haven't seen that, we can't judge it, we can only judge what we've seen.

Now if you want to see some water that does look good in games, try http://www.webwallpapers.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/image_red_dead_redemption-11738-1780_0002.jpg, from Red Dead Redemption, I wouldn't say it's actually the best water I've seen in any game, but I choose it because I played the game on on Xbox 360, so not only is it released on that platform, I know it actually looks like that on it, so you can't say "The consoles couldn't handle that." It's also an open world game with a world which I'm pretty sure is larger than Skyrim's. Now, I'm certainly not saying Skyrim's water has to look like that, however, it hardly seems right to call Skyrim's water effects good, based on what we've seen. You can say they're okay if you like, you could even say you don't care if you want (Just don't expect me to decide they're fine as they are just because you don't care.) but that doesn't change the fact that better effects have been done before, and many times. .

Ok first of all, you need glasses. If you look at it right, there ARE reflections. And they're not that hard to see either. Water isn't a mirror, it doesn't give perfect reflections. just compare http://wallpapers-diq.com/wallpapers/42/Vermillion_River,_Kootenay_National_Park,_Canada.jpg to http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/115/1158651/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110330052320824.jpg. And try to keep in mind, the point of view in this pic is VERY low. So it probably is even more reflective than that when you see it in game

Also, I think that pic you linked to, from RDR, looks awfully bad. Since when did water look like liquid silver? Seriously, it looks reflective enough, but it doesn't look like water AT ALL, especially if you look at the part where the sun shines on the water (sorry, I dunno why, I can't find the right word for it). Definitely, Skyrim's water looks tons better than that. And keep in mind that a river and a lake have two COMPLETELY different surfaces. But judging from your post, I'm guessing you already knew that, did you?

And keep in mind, Skyrim isn't going for all out realism. They're going for semi-real with artistic style. And I think it looks just perfect for that style.

» Thu Sep 02, 2010 1:46 am

Dovahkiin is freakin jacked

» Thu Sep 02, 2010 12:32 am

I couldn't stand Dreugh. The helmet looked stupid, and the body made you look 30lbs underweight. Indoril was good, It's hard to explain, I didn't really like the style, but it just "Made Sense", in sort of that 'it's a different culture" kind of way, bonemold too.

I'm a fan of subtlety though. The Mithril armor in Oblivion takes an elegant simplicity in it's design. The Elven Armor. That's what's catching me on the Elven armor, it doesn't look Daedric abstract and unwieldy, and doesn't come off 'loud' like the glass armor in Oblivion.

Actually I thought the helm was dumb too, the body was probably my fav chest piece in the game besides dragon bone. Never was too incredibly fond of the elven armor. To me it looked like plastic (more so than the other plasticy Oblivion armors) and the color made you look a bit prim.

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 6:43 pm

The forest river is sure better looking than anything in vanilla Oblivion.

» Thu Sep 02, 2010 2:32 am

These images tease me. I so want this game right now!!

» Thu Sep 02, 2010 12:33 am

I couldn't stand Dreugh. The helmet looked stupid, and the body made you look 30lbs underweight. Indoril was good, It's hard to explain, I didn't really like the style, but it just "Made Sense", in sort of that 'it's a different culture" kind of way, bonemold too.

I'm a fan of subtlety though. The Mithril armor in Oblivion takes an elegant simplicity in it's design. The Elven Armor. That's what's catching me on the Elven armor, it doesn't look Daedric abstract and unwieldy, and doesn't come off 'loud' like the glass armor in Oblivion.

Not surprising. Honestly, I don't really care about character shadows as much as environmental. That said, I think you're trying to hard to find faults. (inb4 i didnt even try to c those!)

I'll have to disagree with you in this one. All the Morrowind armors were original and fit appropriately in the exotic culture. Oblivion's armor was waaaay too renaissance looking and half of those armors were something that we've seen a hundred times in other fantasy tales.

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 2:20 pm

Those are clearly the same thing. Look at the shoulders/pectorals of each, same break in the armor, same number of ridges. Look at the helmets, same 3 spines on each side. The gauntlets have the exact same spiral pattern, although it is mirrored. Pants are the same as well.

You just need to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZfeR-QE5io&feature=player_detailpage#t=35s.

EPIC LINK.

Anyhows, screenshots looks amazing, thanks a lot

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:27 pm

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/115/1158651/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-20110330052320824.jpg
I don't like the sky being nuclear (extremely too bright).

Have you ever spent time in Les Houches / Chamonix? That is exactly what the sky looks like...

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 5:07 pm

I hope that snow has a little bit of 'thickness' under my feet more than a painted texture.

This is what I'm worried about.

Edit:

Also all the screenshots of landscape we've seen are cloudy, I hope there are sunny blue-sky filled days in Skyrim :biggrin:

» Thu Sep 02, 2010 12:54 am

It may have ended as a stealth kill but you just know that started off as a hug.

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 2:02 pm

And they were saying the water looked bad. It looks great!

I think people were complaining more about the moving water.

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 11:05 am

Looks like a man purse.

It's not a man purse! It's called a satchel... Indian Jones wears one...

» Wed Sep 01, 2010 5:36 pm

Oh man, those wolves look SO much better than the ones in Oblivion.

Really? I think they look more cartoonish then the ones in oblivion.