Realistic lighting through the windows would be great.

My idea is pretty complex but would actually be a good way to fake having an exterior view.

When you come open a door to any building, it automatically assesses where the windows inside are and puts a camera in the exterior world and quickly grabs a screenshot of the the view from that window. Now it has the "view" for the current time of day, etc... the view should be cleaned of all NPC's so only the scene is visible devoid of any other living forms in it. Now there should be a stock number of "people walking animations on green screen backgrounds" in a "outside view" Library. The game merges the live green-screen actors against the snapshot taken a moment ago, creating an animated faked external view that is rendered back from the window a ways so that if the player looks from different angles he still can't see the entire screen so the illusion isn't compromised. Since the game is actually rendering NPC's of that city moving about the streets from a large library of stock footage, no two viewing from the same window wuold have to be identical, making it appear "alive" ... or real.

The stock footage would have to be taken from a ground-level view and also from a 2nd-story view because of the differing angles looking down on the people as they are walking around. To create the 2nd-floor view, you would need to alter the background-wall and the floor plane's viewing angle in the outside-view window renderer. You would need two screenshots from two angles (one looking across the street at the background wall) and one looking down at the ground. These two snapshots could be mapped onto 3D flat planes respectively and rendered outside the window cell you're looking out of. From the 2nd floor, the angle would be shifted to an isometric angle, allowing a view of the background and street, and then the live-motion greenscreen actors could be merged in over the top, providing the illusion you are seeing out of the window down to the street below.

The images for all the windows are grabbed in the same transition it takes to load from the exterior world cell to the interior cell, so you won't notice it.

Then, no matter what building you went into, day or night, rain or shine, it would always reflect the current weather as when you went in, because the window animation controller could also control the weather outside, too. So if say, it began to rain, and there was a new view outside of it raining, then when you actually left the shop and went outside, it would really be raining because the window animation controller set it that way.

Keep in mind, the windows could be slightly warped (poor craftmanship) or slightly opaque to make it harder to see every detail clearly, to help sell the illusion should too much detail somehow compromise the illusion.

This would still have to be programmed. But only once. And then it would work across the entire system and for the future games also. If this didn't make sense in some way, please gently tell me why, I'll try to re-write it more clearly. Thanks...

you could fake like mods do, wait mods, this would be a fine mod.

Nah - don't care in the slightest.
If I want to see what's inside, I get to just go inside.

This is pretty much the LAST thing i want them to bother spending time on. If this happened but no guards carried spears, I would be very sad.

WINDOWS THAT YOU CAN SEE THROUGH?? ARE YOU MAD?

that would be cool though.

idc if they do this, but I would like for the window to 'glow' (like candle light) when someone is home and awake. That way thieves could see what houses would be good marks, instead of just having to risk it.

The best they'd be able to do is fake it (badly), and tbh I don't think it's worth developer time to do it.

I'm actually doing this right now for a Morrowind mod, and it is an extreme PITA. You essentially have to create a false "set" outside of the window, since you are in an interior cell. I started out enthusiastic about the idea, but after a while, I decided to restrict it to just a few buildings (upper class and tavern), and even then, I put translucent glass on all sides but one. I've used all kinds of tricks to make it look good, but it isn't nearly as easy as it sounds.

Translucent glass, with an interior acting as an exterior, is a good compromise. It gives you good lighting, and reacts appropriately to weather when properly scripted. I'm now using this technique for most of my interior buildings. (the ones with windows). I still have true "faux exteriors" for a handful of buildings - governors homes, castles, etc. but the proletariat just aren't worth the effort.

So, I fully expect we won't get transparent windows. Too much work for too little gain.

Are you serious? Do you even play on any consoles? Im pretty sure they do have the processing power... I have played games where you can "see-through" a window.

I'm willing to pretend that every window in the game world is frosted and impossible to spy out of, so long as they at least change to show when it's day and night. I don't care how frosty that window is, if it's a cloudy, moonless night, I should not be seeing bright blue panes of glass in my walls.

Yes, I've played on the console and no, the do not. They will probably have the power to look out but not in. In any given city, there can be upwards of 1000-2000 renderable objects. This is why there must be separate cells. It could bog down all but the best computers, let alone the consoles. Allowing for transparent windows would defeat the purpose of the process saving separate cells for the console and if they had time they could make it an option for the PC. If not, I will be working to mod it in right after I make the meshes for my characters signature armor, and then I'll move on to the transparent windows. There can be work arounds for the consoles that could make an option that gives the illusion that you are looking in but that would require a lot of time and work and like I said, if they have enough extra time and they see us asking for it, they may add it in.

You should give heavy rain a look at, they had some nice windows to look out of... oh and in fable, I enjoyed walking past a shop and seeing what they were selling... through a window.


It would be nice if skyrim had this, but not needed. If anything, I do like the idea of being able to tell if its light or dark out through windows.

The new engine they're using definitely looks like it can support it easily, if RDR can do it, so can Skyrim! Plus it's been how long since Oblivions release? I think we can assume that anything they couldn't do back then, they can do now.

Neither game of course had 1000-2000 rendered objects to load in one area either. It's possible to make an optical illusion in the game but it takes alot of hard work which is time consumed that BGS will not allow if they don't have extra time since transparent windows isn't an essential feature.

I'm directing this at Jacobah too because neither of you know what you are talking about.

The difference between the two is there is basically no items with actual physics besides NPCs in those games, whereas the console has to render all the HUNDREDS of items with physics at once in a TES game. This is what I said on an earlier post (about the same topic):



Edit:
@Sleign: Is it just me, or are we always making the same argument in the same thread at the same time? Are we just attracted to this topic and come to every thread concerning it?

how about being able to crack open a door to be more sneaky??

Great minds think alike :thumbsup:

Of course! I want to be able to see argonians taking a bath.

Well see-trough windows was in oblivion with mods
Reneers Interiors Mod
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35897
Nice to see some stealth entrance into houses for example via windows.
Thats nice immersive feature but developers will ignore it I'm sure.

It would add so much to the game, looking through the window to see if guards are outside before leaving the house you just murdered a person in, or looking inside to see if the person inside is visible and if he/she would instantly see you when you sneak in. Yay!

Skyrim might not have much in the way of transparent glass windows anyway. Parchment, horn or simple wooden shutters would probably be the norm. Besides the climate doesn't really suit having large/frequent windows. I've never seen any in the Viking long houses I've visited and even stave churches have are distinctly lacking save a handful of shutters at ground level.

However, I'd still love to have the ability to see in or out of a building, whether via a cracked open door or open shutter.

While it would be cool to actually be able to see through windows, I have to wonder (like Meliadus) how appropriate glass windows would be in Skyrim. In the medieval era glass windows were a relatively rare luxury, and the impression I have gotten so far of Skyrim is that--even though the time period is later than Oblivion--it represents a more primitive era. So I second what Meliadus said above.

In addition to that, even if we were to have glass windows, it's unlikely they would be the pristine glass windows we are used to today. To be honest, I would be satisfied with heavily distorted glass that was mostly for lighting purposes and just gave you a hint as to whether or not anything was going on on the other side. So if it's bright sunlight outside, the window would be bright, and maybe occasionally you would see a rough shape move by. From the outside of a building, windows would be lit if the inhabitants of the building are awake, and dark if not. That would be enough for me.

OR getting cut because you didn't roll down the curtains... now THAT would be fun...

I wanted to repost this because I think it got lost on the other page.

If the cells work like the previous TES titles (you load to go inside) this cannot be done. But now that theres dynamic lighting and the [censored] sun wont shine through everything in its path, on PC we could combine exterior and interior housing with no load screens if we wwanted. It would be a lot of work, but would probably greatly improve the game. Poll - I agree.