Mutton Chops!!!!
http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/3533/mutton.png



I can't believe people are complaining about texture quality.

Look at the "console exclusive" Red Dead Redemption's ground textures.
http://gamerinvestments.com/video-game-stocks/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/red-dead-redemption-new-screens-100.jpg

The point is that these screenshots are from the console version, they will look loads better on the PC.

Good point about RDR. That was bad textures there...
Then again that game wasn't 1st person, so no need for that hi-res of textures.
Still some textures look really detailed, while others definitely not. Balance plz. I'm hoping for a lot more detail in the PC textures... There should be no need for a new QTP3 mod, imo

I don't know about you, but that screenshot featuring the 'giant' is one ugly screenshot. :sadvaultboy: I'm disappointed with the 'archer and deer' picture as well, look at the hair.

This happens all the time, when you are actually sitting there playing the game, you WILL NOT notice these things. Your critical mind turns off when you are having fun.

The hair Bethesda/Bioware create looks just fine, to me, Japanese developer's hair/Anime hair looks absolutely ridiculous, girly(even on the men) and putrid.

It's all opinion mate.


And guys, I don't get what you were expecting with Skyrim's graphics.

They are still developing for 5 year old consoles, as long as that is happening the graphics CAN'T be any better. Oblivion already basically pushed the 360/PS3 to their very limits, Skyrim even more so.

Also if you are PC players, don't be disappointed yet. We haven't seen a single PC screen/video yet and I'm sure if you have good computers, running the game on max settings and using your in built graphics control program to set 24x Edge Detect Supersample AA and 16x ansiotropic filtering the game will look absolutely amazing, just like Oblivion does with them on.

So wait, you think the screenshot of the forest clearing with the deer is bad because 4% of the screenshot doesn't quite look right on the 360? Wow....

Obviously you have no idea for detail. Those are the screens for the 360 version. It is one of the best looking 360 games yet, if not the best. What do you think that translates to on the PC? Your just trying to find something wrong with the game so you can occupy the time you have to wait for the next game with seething rage...

It does look better than Oblivion, but I can see the flaws. I'm hoping that it's mostly because of a mixture of the fact that it's an older version and that it's a console version. The fall forest looks better than the pine forest, which needs some antialiasing. Oblivion's forests are admittedly prettier, albeit lower in detail. I miss the moist grass/leaves feel a bit. Everything so far looks rather dry and sharp.

Quick Question: what kind of skull is on the giant's fur skirt in that screenshot? Doesn't look familar.

The first picture on the slide show, if you look closely, Chuck Norris is standing behind the counted on the left, though it appears he has grown his hair a little longer, and his beard a little thicker.
When Chuck Norris stands in your picture, you know that either you will be very successful, or you a very stupid for believing that Chuck Norris is as amazing as the internet makes him out to be.

Detailed

Back on subject.... If you look closely, it appears that interiors look much, much better. Exteriors don't appear to have gained that, but much more appears possible than in Oblivion and the draw distances are much farther and convincing. It looks like they have kept their concept from Oblivion where you have multiple landscape textures, with two versions of each, a grass and non-grass version. What this means is that most grass probably does not have the greatest quality. For the grass to look realistic, they must add the individual meshes by hand, or make a much better system for placing them which would likely be much more taxing on the systems. In basic terms: the grass has to look like it does so as to not kill your xbox and/or Ps3 and/or PC. The textures appear to be much more detailed than those found in Oblivion, but from the looks of these pictures, the self shadowing on characters and and landscapes look blurry. This is because the shadows do not allow for good screenshots. The shadows in-game are always moving, or at least that is what I understood from the gameinformer articles, which means that it is hard to make the shadow and the texture underneath the shadow look good in a screenshot. Because of this,I assure you all that either the game will look much better in video form, or it will look much worse. If you look at image 3 of 11, on the right, there is a moss covered rock that looks extremely blurred. This is an example of what I was just talking about. The clashing of the texture and the shadow does not allow for good screenshots... Another thing that is somewhat obvious if you are looking closely enough is that textures at a medium distance look amazing, while things up close and far away look blurred. Also, static (non-moving) objects appear to look much, much better while moving textures (shadows, the arm in the picture in which the character is fighting what appears to be a lycanthrope (were-creature), and anything with an animation in general) look blurred. Some of this blurring can probably be attributed to motion blur, a much wanted addition (as can be seen in the Oblivion modding community).

Simplified

Interiors > Exteriors
Movement on screen caused motion blur (like taking a picture of someone who is moving) which makes the screenshots look worse
The game will either look much better or much worse in video form
Some things such as grass are simplified and not placed by hand so as to not kill your console or PC.

Edit: Oh and if these are Xbox screens, expect the PC version to look 4X better on maximum settings and about 6X better after the modding community is done with it.

Well the graphics should be upgraded... Oblivion came out 5 years ago after all. In fact, there would be a huge problem if the graphics were still on par with Oblivion. However, while there are some good leaps over Oblivion (lighting, distance terrain rendering (although your screenshot comparison is laughably bad due to your poor choice of Oblivion screenshot), and character models), the overall Skyrim graphics are not amazing or jaw droping for a game coming out in 2011.

I'm a gameplay guy, so graphics don't bother me one way or the other. But Skyrims graphics are not going to be nearly as amazing as Game Informer made them sound, or as cutting edge as you would expect from an Elder Scrolls game. Thats not really a bad thing, but it does get old hearing about how amazing the graphics are.... when thats clearly not the case.

The texture resolution and foliage could use some work judging by the screenshots, but Bethesda are working with strict limitations so I guess they're doing well in that regard.

For the most part I think the graphics look fine, this is an RPG after all

A few comments anyway:

The NPC faces appear much improved, I found the big, round, orange heads to be a big problem in Ob. Accounting for lighting I would say the barmaids face is symmetrical, which is of course incorrect, but overall a vast improvement.

Looking at the barmaids chest, her rib cage appears overly deep. Not uncommon in real life I guess, but perhaps an indication that Beth. is still using a one size fits all torso.

I find the waterfall picture http://www.gamereactor.se/media/59/elderscrolls5_235967b.jpg annoying:

Looks to be problems with the flow physics in the lower half of the waterfall. To the right and more so to the left the falling water is appearing out of nowhere. The lower part of the waterfall also looks wrong, too much rock and not enough water, perhaps the still image just caught it at the wrong time.

The tree to the left of the waterfall is, quite simply, in an impossible location. There is no way it could survive even a light wind stuck as it is on the outcrop of rock with so little soil to cling too.



The Alan Wake - Technology Trailer certainly looked good, watching a couple of play through videos painted a different picture. There could be many reasons for the sudden loss of quality in the play through videos, but overall they left me with the distinct feeling of meh.

Well, the reason why the "flow physics" look wrong is because there is no flow physics. These are probably static meshes placed there by hand. Or by some sort of system. But I don't believe there's a dynamic system for that. Meaning, the water probably isn't based on particles, just static meshes.

Well, I didn't say "bad," did I? I am just disappointed that after so long, we are still getting static hair.

Skyrim is obviously being developed on current-gen consoles. Hair physics isn't exactly a current-gen feature. It's very cpu intensive.

The last console I played was Xbox, I guess I overestimated the power of the current gen. lol

most people do


also.. blah at the photos. Morrowind was not the prettiest game.. but at least it didn't have a me too generic rpg setting. I can list about half a dozen games I've played over the last few years that already took place in Skyrim. I pray the gameplay pulls through.

-water physics

from the Italian coverage http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1163214-skyrim-italian-coverage-thread-2/page__p__17089357__hl__italian+__fromsearch__1#entry17089357



I guess it doesn't mean they use it everywhere, so yes, it could well be a static mesh.

We all need to remember that probably this screens are from an Xbox version running on a pc (with the xbox setting).
In the podcast Beth said that they will work on better texture and visual improvements for pc on subsequent steps of the project.
I'm sure enough that if u play on consolle this is the graphic (you can't pretend to do a rally race with a Fiat Panda 1.2) but for the pc users will be some improvements especially on the texture side.

Probably get a somewhat better look on PS3 as well, since despite being weaker than the PC, it is more powerful than XBOX360.

It is true that it's more powerful...

But if you judge past games, it's really about 50/50 when it comes to what looks better, xbox or ps.

http://www.ps3trophies.com/forums/mafia-ii/38609-mafia-2-demo-hugely-degraded-ps3.html

Well, at least for Oblivion, it was slightly better on PS3 than 360. And I may be wrong, but I don't think anything on the 360 has been up to the graphical standard of God of War3 or Uncharted 2/3.

Yes, the ps3 is more powerful than xbox and they can apply some little improvements, but i think that, for a marketing porpous, they can't make the 2 version for consolle too different from each other.
For the pc version we all know that is another story to tell and give us the same specifics of the Xbox/ps3 will be very disapointing

Wow you can all of that from one screenshot you are truely amazing ! The map is huge and the screenshots only show one angle and you are complaining the mountains arn't big enough? Wow I can't believe how many people get disolusioned and disapointed by a few pre-release screenshots (although this has happened when I was here for Morrowind and Oblivions pre-launch, same thing) its as though people are looking to find faults without even seeing the game in motion!

Well I am sorry people, I think they look great and to those who think Oblivion looks just as good, go and load it up on your Xbox or PS3 and look again! Wait until we get some thick green forest shots then you can compare them to the Great Forest in Oblivion! The detail in the charachter models are greatly improved, I mean look at the arm in the Wolf shot you can see the veins and hairs, now go compare that to Oblivion too! Sheesh people relax, go get a drink, load up Mass Effect 2, have your 3rd playthrough and whalla 10 months will be gone and you can see for yourself (btw I think ME2 is one the greatest games to come out in recent times so if Skyrim can compete with it it is pretty damn good!)