When I say transition from Exterior into Interior, I am referring to the fact that there is a detailed interior environment existing in the same space as the outdoor environment. I really shouldn't have to, but since you seem to want to pick at words, so be it.

If I am making a game, that outputs at 720p and cannot be increased by the player. My texture resolution and object detail will reflect this, no? For a PC game that can scale anywhere between 720 - 2000+, then you would have to take finer detail into account, wouldn't you? Looking at character models, heightmap detail and textures so far I would say that Skyrim is the better looking game. I honestly don't know how you could look at RDR and tell me that it looks better than Skyrim. I own RDR on PS3 and have played it on XB360. Neither version's characters come anywhere close to Skyrim's. For crying out loud, look at the muscle definition in those screens, look at the mountains in the other screenshots.

RDR had very simple character models and detail. The textures on the characters were far from impressive and for me at least, the environments were pretty flat and uninspired, especially on the built-environment. I'm probably going to draw hell for that last comment, but I found it to be very rudimentary and transitions between different landscapes were far too abrupt at times. Plateaus and mountain ranges in the game felt like small hills.

I love RDR for what it is, I am still playing Undead Redemption to this day. But I would definitely not claim it to be better-looking than Skyrim.

EDIT: Also keep in mind I have seen the magazine and not scans.

I don't see it still, but I can't tell too well from the few images we've been given.

I pick at words because I want to make sure we're being clear here.


Yes and no. Technically, a player running at some insanely high resolution will be able to tell if your textures aren't also at some insanely high resolution... but textures for games are rarely, if ever, at resolutions that high. Particularly in terms of environment textures (which, if anywhere, seem to be where most developers cut their corners), you aren't going to be seeing resolutions so high that at least some quality issues won't be visible even at 720p. So what does that mean? It means that developers use larger textures when they run in resolutions like 720p. They'll often run their games in that resolution on the consoles specifically because it allows them to use better assets and as a result the game looks better.


I have. RDR's environments and characters still look better to me, from what I can tell. Bethesda's taken a huge step ahead from Oblivion, but the screenshots I'm seeing of the actual environments (as in, the ones that aren't distant shots of mountain ranges - I'm talking pictures that are actually in the areas themselves) simply don't look better than RDR's. They don't. This is something that we can go back and forth on for a long time without ever reaching a conclusion, and even if the game eventually releases and the visuals in the finished product are worse than RDR I'm fairly certain that I'll be unable to convince you that they are, but from what I've seen they appear to be (and really, some of the things you're talking on really are impossible to judge going by magazine screenshots - you aren't going to be able to tell how good the textures are by looking at a magazine, which is why I'm not touching on them).


It really didn't, no. The bandits and random enemies were less detailed than the main cast but they still looked pretty impressive, and the main cast itself looked quite a bit better than the one or two I've seen for Skyrim.


Did you finish the game? Because the environments stop being flat pretty much entirely nearer to the end of it, and there are some extremely tall mountains by then (which you do have to climb). The parts that are flat are flat specifically because they're made up of plains and open land - that's not a graphical issue, it's just a matter of facts about the regions the game is set in. And again, talking on textures at this point makes no real sense.

I'm not unreasonable and will happily concede if they are better. But I think the single most important thing here is that you haven't seen the magazine. I just went back and read an earlier post of yours. There is one important screen that shows craggy outcrops with a dragon in flight. What you possibly don't realize with the scanned version is that player is in fact very high in the mountains already. To the left is a sheer drop off and from what I can see in the screenshot there are possibly clouds below this.

The detail on the characters is pretty stunning too, the armour looks great and is wonderfully detailed. The Nordic woman's face doesn't appear as flat as it does in the scans either.

EDIT: This is exactly why the posting of scans is banned I guess.

Actually, you've assumed that I haven't seen the magazine.


I can see that there's a drop there just fine. The angle of the screenshot makes it absolutely impossible to tell how "sheer" of a drop it is or what's beneath it, however. The camera in the screenshot isn't pointing down and it isn't positioned on the edge of the drop. There are definitely clouds in it, but not "below".


They do look pretty impressive, especially for a Bethesda game. I won't deny this. RDR's characters still look better. It's not a matter of the Nord woman's face looking "flat", it's a matter of the Nord woman's face not looking as good as the faces of the cast of RDR. A pretty large amount of that may well be artistic choices - Rockstar has some of the best character artists in the industry, and Bethesda has yet to develop a single 3D game whose characters aren't outright hideous (though Skyrim seems to be a change in that trend) - but I haven't seen anything in any of the screenshots to indicate that the actual character models or textures in Skyrim are more detailed than the ones in RDR either (with that, again, being something that screenshots in a magazine or in a scan can't accurately convey).


It's banned because it's illegal. No other reason.

How is judging the quality of textures difficult by looking at a magazine? It's pretty easy to judge the resolution, judging the quality of surface shaders would be a little more difficult I guess.

I'm going to have to end this here though, you seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing. If you have seen the magazine and have judged that RDR's characters are of a higher quality (technically), then you are mistaken, there really isn't room for argument here, the technology on display speaks for itself.

I know I have tried it dozens of times in blender it is hard, but it also depends on how difficult it is, like if there are objects varying textures

I also think that only some useless skills are gone, like acrobatics probably got merged with athletics

It's difficult because, unless the textures are exceptionally low-quality, the images are going to be too small and too low-quality for issues with the textures to be apparent. The same happened with Oblivion - early magazine shots of the 360 version of the game looked fine, but closer examination of the game makes it pretty apparent that a lot of the textures in it are... less than great, to say the least.


Just stating that I'm wrong because I'm wrong and that I'm arguing for the sake of arguing after I've been civil with you and explained my reasoning and everything behind it isn't exactly a classy note to go out on, and it doesn't really do anything for your claims except make them seem far more questionable. Well done.

No, you haven't actually explained anything regarding the RDR > Skyrim decision.

I'm really hoping the animations don't look like the clunky gamebryo animations. Im hoping we see stuff close to assasins creed Brohood or something of that nature

Him->"Dude I bet you svck at basketball."
You->"I'm in the NBA."
Pwn Hammered.

I think that the graphics look pretty darn good from what I've seen. And I've only seen the scans on my friend's computer. Lossless->(Lossy?)->Print->Scanner->Computer monitor and it still makes me salivate. What did you guys expect, HDR images of nature?

That's within a single paragraph in the most recent post I've made (aside from the one you were directly quoting). This thread's seven pages deep, and I've been talking about that on several of them. There's really not much I can do without being able to provide any actual comparisons for people to see, but... really, it's still more than you've offered.


The quality of the animations in Oblivion had absolutely nothing to do with Gamebryo.

Ouch! My one and only Oblivion character was a 26th level acrobat with maxed acrobatics.
I sincerely hope you are mistaken in this. (more silly skill mergers)

My thoughts exactly. I believe immersion is looking at the clock and realizing that five hours have gone by and you didn't even notice. All this talk of immersion is silly until we get the game in our hands. Immersion is the sum of its parts, not a variable of the equation.

The Witcher 2 is going to look AMAZING. I think Skyrim looks amazing as well. It's all about keeping their own style.

Hi I am a bit of an animator, I probably know more about the gamebryo animation system than anyone currently in this thread,

You know that the gamebryo animation system does actually have an impact here. No matter how good your actual run animation is, the character will still look odd sliding across the floor when running at diagonals.

Word of advice, don't bother arguing with this dude.

I really dont know how anyone could have expected better visuals for a game like Skyrim on consoles. I think its a tech wonder that the game looks this good on hardware that is going on 6 years old. Now the PC version significantly needs a big gap in visual quality. More than just resolution and AA.

Hey I could be lying. and just trying to see if anyone actually knows wtf they are talking about

There are several titles that use Gamebryo where characters can move diagonally, but their control schemes are different, I have never tried "strafing diagonally" in Warhammer online though. I didn't think that Gamebryo was capable of anything more than Keyframe animation and lacked any sort of ability to string two animations together smoothly. After FO3 and whatnot they did actually integrate part of the Naturalmotion system into Gamebryo but sadly we'll never see the results.

besides the usual bone priorities that are used to blend anims together, this is how you can run and fire a bow at the same time, say the bow draw anim: the bone priority for most bones bellow the spine would be very low, allowing the bones in the run anim to over ride them, but the run anim has a low priority on all the bones abouve the pelvis, so other anims can still affect those bones.

gamebryo animation system also had what they called morph tags, which were used to determine at what frames in the 2 anims that when transitioned between them they would blend.. for example walk and run. both would have a tag that made sure that the anim wouldn't skip from left foot on the floor when walking to all of a sudden the right root on the floor when blending to the run anim.

Further, it allowed for certain special transitional anims to exist, that would only be called in special circumstances. for example, if you were knocked down, the get up anim would be forced into the situation no matter what animation the player was calling, like you couldn't go from being on the floor straight to running, and a transitional amim. get up would play first.

those techniques are fairly common and robust. dunno just saying. :shrug:

The skating across the ground thing I believe is avoidable.

I don't understand why people complain about skills, yes now there is 18. But they are all still there they just aren't classes. So they are all major skills, not a big deal?

Tessellation ftw.

Skyrim has the best mountains I have ever seen in any game, by far.

The object-textures seem a bit low-res to me, but that might be either because of poor scan quality or xbox limitations.

you can't just turn on tessellation. The assets need to be developed with that in mind, there are several things that must be laid out correctly for them to tesselate correctly, and have displacement maps, or else it will just turn into a blob.