Open cities confirmed. : V - Skyrim

» Fri May 13, 2011 8:46 pm

not necessarily. The strip in New Vegas is all one world, yet it still has loading screens. Just because they say it is all one open space doesn't mean we won't still have to deal with loading screens. If this turns out to be the case, console users will not be able to do anything about it, but pc modders will be able to open the cities up.

That doesn't make sense. The strip in New Vegas is distinctly seperated from EVERYTHING else. You can't jump over the walls into it, you can't get into it any other way than using the door to load the cell. It is technically an interior cell.

The quote says "EVERYTHING that it outside is ONE OPEN SPACE." Everything, this means cities, towns, etc. All one big open space. If you had to use a loading door to get into the city then it isn't one big open space, it is a large space with closed spaces within it.

» Fri May 13, 2011 4:55 pm

not necessarily. The strip in New Vegas is all one world, yet it still has loading screens. Just because they say it is all one open space doesn't mean we won't still have to deal with loading screens. If this turns out to be the case, console users will not be able to do anything about it, but pc modders will be able to open the cities up.

No they weren't, they were seperate worldspaces just like the oblivion cities.

Well, I personally had framerate dips even in closed cities at certain angles. Turn on the debug text, and stare at a wall and see how high the geometry is.We're also on much more modern GPUs than the consoles. But try Open BETTER Cities, and it'll bring the computer to its knees because of all the extra geometry.

I do

My rig isn't that good (it's a laptop). I use the latest better cities and they have a toggle open cities option on most of the cities, and I don't see much framerate drop at all. Maybe a few, but not enough to make it stutter/unplayable.

» Fri May 13, 2011 8:43 pm

Arthmoor will be happy.

» Fri May 13, 2011 12:54 pm

wait wut...how in the world wuld that confirm umbra? they ha open cities in morrowind. its not the first time. plus i take it u dont mean the sword but umbriel the town since we r talking about towns and umbra is just a weapon. anyway. morrowind also had open cities and umbriel takes place in morrowind doesnt it?

http://www.umbrasoftware.com/

» Fri May 13, 2011 3:51 pm

wait wut...how in the world wuld that confirm umbra? they ha open cities in morrowind. its not the first time. plus i take it u dont mean the sword but umbriel the town since we r talking about towns and umbra is just a weapon. anyway. morrowind also had open cities and umbriel takes place in morrowind doesnt it?

Umbra is a 3rd party middleware.

http://www.umbrasoftware.com/

It uses a rendering technique that only renders what your eyes can see, the rest stays hidden. So it won't consume much power and resources.

» Sat May 14, 2011 2:58 am

wait wut...how in the world wuld that confirm umbra? they ha open cities in morrowind. its not the first time. plus i take it u dont mean the sword but umbriel the town since we r talking about towns and umbra is just a weapon. anyway. morrowind also had open cities and umbriel takes place in morrowind doesnt it?

http://www.umbrasoftware.com/ Ninja'd twice

Morrowind was different, it didn't have LOD.

» Fri May 13, 2011 6:40 pm

wait wut...how in the world wuld that confirm umbra? they ha open cities in morrowind. its not the first time. plus i take it u dont mean the sword but umbriel the town since we r talking about towns and umbra is just a weapon. anyway. morrowind also had open cities and umbriel takes place in morrowind doesnt it?

http://www.umbrasoftware.com/ is a middleware software used to optimize rendering on 3D engines...

» Fri May 13, 2011 9:39 pm

Oh snap, you're right. In the oblivion.esm there were lot's of unused world spaces like Toddland and such, and if there are daedric shrines then you will probably go to a different worldspace. So it's probably all cool. You can continue planning your province mods

Morrowind had only one worldspace and they still managed to get Daedric spaces and test cells though interiors. I don't think they'd abandon it after it worked so well in OB/FO3, but I'd still like to know for sure.

» Sat May 14, 2011 12:59 am

THIS IS DEFINATLY NOT CONFIRMATION.

Only if he misunderstood the question. And don't shout.

» Sat May 14, 2011 2:05 am

Well Umbriel is most assuredly dealt with in the second book so yeah.... As for the debate whether this is confirmation or not, if you are a modder or game designer then you know that confirms that cities are open and that only buildings and ruins are separate cells.

» Fri May 13, 2011 2:00 pm

It's just middleware to save people time.

Precisely why they may be using it. It is confirmed that they have licensed middle-ware in the Creation Engine so it's not very far fetched.

» Fri May 13, 2011 7:27 pm

Morrowind had only one worldspace and they still managed to get Daedric spaces and test cells though interiors. I don't think they'd abandon it after it worked so well in OB/FO3, but I'd still like to know for sure.

Who knows, maybe the engine is SO optimized, there's no need for worldspaces anymore...

» Fri May 13, 2011 2:51 pm

Who knows, maybe the engine is SO optimized, there's no need for worldspaces anymore...

Eh?? Do you know what a worldspace is?? If you didn't have one you'd have nothing

Unless of course they've change the whole way they do things (which is possible)

» Fri May 13, 2011 2:16 pm

http://www.umbrasoftware.com/

wait wait wait wait, they're using umbra software for Skyrim? How do we know that?

» Fri May 13, 2011 11:24 pm

Umbra and Creation a seemingly perfect marriage. :twirl:

» Fri May 13, 2011 11:00 pm

Who knows, maybe the engine is SO optimized, there's no need for worldspaces anymore...

Which would be a bad thing for modders, since all mods would have to take place in Skyrim. Dream worlds, alternate realities, total conversions... all would be made harder or impossible.

» Fri May 13, 2011 6:47 pm

wait wait wait wait, they're using umbra software for Skyrim? How do we know that?

We don't.

» Sat May 14, 2011 12:50 am

wait wait wait wait, they're using umbra software for Skyrim? How do we know that?

We don't know, we are just hoping

Edit: Ninja'd. That's twice in the same thread now

» Fri May 13, 2011 1:31 pm

wait wait wait wait, they're using umbra software for Skyrim? How do we know that?

.....

Read the thread.

Its an implication. If cities are truly open, then it is LIKELY (not confirmed, or even hinted at) that they are using Umbra because it would allow them to have open cities, with the kind of level of detail that Skyrim will have, on consoles and lower end PCs. It would allow them to render the game beautifully without slowing the systems to a crawl.

» Fri May 13, 2011 3:36 pm

Unless of course they've change the whole way they do things (which is possible)

Not really, they've said that they are still using the same methods for building their world spaces that they came up with for Morrowind. Chances are very good that the game engine's architecture is the same as the previous games which means very little will have changed when it comes to modding.

» Fri May 13, 2011 8:07 pm

Not really, they've said that they are still using the same methods for building their world spaces that they came up with for Morrowind. Chances are very good that the game engine's architecture is the same as the previous games which means very little will have changed when it comes to modding.

Ah, thanks for that, I must have missed that. Where did they say it (not doubting you, just interested)??

» Sat May 14, 2011 12:28 am

Which would be a bad thing for modders, since all mods would have to take place in Skyrim. Dream worlds, alternate realities, total conversions... all would be made harder or impossible.

Well, put in that way, it sounds certainly bad...but I'm sure there will be a way to create such content.

» Fri May 13, 2011 5:43 pm

Ahh ok that makes sense. I sure hope they did!

» Fri May 13, 2011 1:56 pm

.....

Read the thread.

Its an implication. If cities are truly open, then it is LIKELY (not confirmed, or even hinted at) that they are using Umbra because it would allow them to have open cities, with the kind of level of detail that Skyrim will have, on consoles and lower end PCs. It would allow them to render the game beautifully without slowing the systems to a crawl.

But Umbra is not the only middleware / software that can do this. Any sort of engine can, it just requires some tweaking and optimization. Especially when it was designed by their own team (BGS in this case) and tailored for their needs.

The Sims 3 had some occlusion, it could be deactivated and activated through the video options in the menu, it wasn't as extensive as Umbra, but it definately wasn't Umbra at all.

» Fri May 13, 2011 6:50 pm

No they weren't, they were seperate worldspaces just like the oblivion cities.I do

My rig isn't that good (it's a laptop). I use the latest better cities and they have a toggle open cities option on most of the cities, and I don't see much framerate drop at all. Maybe a few, but not enough to make it stutter/unplayable.

No, no, no. I'm talking about the difference between closed vanilla cities and Better Cities (opened in the menu). If you don't have a drop in FPS then I'm going to give you a medal right now. BTW, 20FPS is not a shippable framerate.

What I was explaining is that they could have done something as high quality as Open Better Cities in the vanilla game if they had proper culling, among the other things I explained.

wait wait wait wait, they're using umbra software for Skyrim? How do we know that?

We don't. And they're probably not. They clearly don't like middleware after dropping Gamebryo and Speedtree. I understand the need for Havok, nobody wants to write physics from scratch.

We don't know, we are just hoping

Edit: Ninja'd. That's twice in the same thread now

Why are we hoping? I'm not hoping. Nobody should be hoping, honestly. Middleware is usually a negative. You get something pre-made that maybe isn't exactly the best fit, but it's to save time. I hope they just wrote their own, one that fits Skyrim better. And there's really nothing that Umbra has done that isn't published in a million academic papers on the topic.