Oblivion had some bad Physics, and i mean bad
like for example, if you were to shoot someone, they would fly back, like they just got shot with a cannon or something
or with melee, you hit someone, they flop around screaming OHHWAA!!
and magic was just the worst
and how everything was slow when they fell

i just wanted to know how this will play out in Skyrim, and will we see fishes when we kill someone???

The game used a very early version of the Havok engine. It has evolved a great deal since then.

I just hope objects don't float. This has to do more with the collision mesh of the object than actual Havok physics though, but it is still related to the topic of physics.

Yeah, physics and animations (other than outdated graphics and lots of bugs) were the two main problems with the old engine, IMO. Hopefully it has improved a lot.
Hated it how you'd pick up an item and the rest would fall through the table, or they'd float mysteriously.

I for one am hoping for Earth rate gravity in Skyrim, though being able to jump nearly as high as Oblivion, but no changing direction mid air.

Hopefully the collision boxes will more closely follow the objects' visual appearance this time. And you won't end up with a room full of objects being catapulted around at very high speed because you accidentally brushed against something... or get arrested because you tried to put it back. :banghead:

You're completely right and I agree with you, except if a person was shot by a cannon, and the cannon ball impacted them, it would go right through them leaving a very large hole, they wouldn't fly back with it like some cartoon.



This really got to me in the game. What's the point of being able to grab objects in the game and move them around when you do said action, all the other objects go flying or start floating off mysteriously? :facepalm:

I agree, there's no excuse for that, I don't even see how it would be hard to fix, you just need a collision mesh that isn't larger than the visible model of the object.



Animations are not really an engine issue, though, they're more a problem with the animators not doing a good job. And while the physics are a problem with the engine, it's the version of Havok Physics that Bethesda used that's too blame, not a problem with Gamebryo, which is just used for graphics rendering.

But yes, the physics could certainly be a lot better, I mean, Oblivion's physics were a very major improvement over Morrowind, since they actually existed, but they still need improving. Objects often seemed to lack friction and things seemed to fall too slowly, and in some cases, the force on things was overdone, just look at how objects have a tendency to fly off tables from even a minor touch, I mean, yes, it makes sense that bumping into something can knock it down, but in real life, things on tables or shelves don't tend to go flying the moment you come in contact with them. Also, it seemed that the physics engine could get glitchy at times, causing objects to fall through other objects, or shift upon loading cells, but I think Bethesda will improve the physics engine, we just don't have a clear indication of how much just yet, and whether they can successfully fix all the problems it had in Oblivion.

Not really, the Havok Oblivion use is a later/better version than the one that Half-Life 2 use, and Half-Life 2 have better physics. It all depends on how the developers use it and implement it into the game. Physics aren't automatically good because they use Havok, PhysX or whatever, it requires a lot of finetuning for each game.

How the developer actually use the tech is far more important than what tech they use. That doesn't only matter when it comes to physics, but all kinds of aspects of the development. A game is never ever awesome just because the developers decided to use X.

I was thinking the same thing; I don't remember offhand if HL2 had quite as many physics-enabled objects, though there must've been quite a few as its use of Havok was quite big news at the time, but they did seem significantly more well-behaved. Oblivion was just cantankerous and bizarre in comparison. I was so glad when the Decorator Assistant mod arrived since placing stuff by hand was next to impossible...

I don't really know about the version of Havok used in each of these games, but here's something from the Skyrim Information topic:

Again, we don't really know how well they are using the tech, we only know they are using the tech. There's quite a difference between the two, and it's too early to make assumptions about Bethesda using Havok in the most super awesome way. They didn't the last time.

Yeah, and we don't really have any real indication of what the physics will be like. I just think it will be significantly better than Oblivion's physics.

I too hope this time the ragdoll physics are going to be better.


It wasn't the engine's fault, it was the developers fault in using bad (too low) gravity values. With mods you could fix this.

as long as the tables don't explode when i try to change the place settings I'll be happy. That was annoying in oblivion, the unstackable books too.

For as silly as it may sound, I really enjoyed decorating my house: filling bookshelves with the books I collected, setting out bowls of gems like they were fruit, stuff like that. Oblivion made this a maddening process at times. I eventually downloaded a mod (Decorator Assistant, I think it was) that helped a lot, but it was still a very iffy process.

In Skyrim, I would like to be able to engage in interior decoration without feeling like I'm building a house of cards every time I try to put a book on a shelf. I know it's not the most important aspect of the game, but it would be really nice.

"You are over-encumbered."

"You do not have enough room to drop this item"

"You do not have enough room to drop this item"

"You do not have enough room to drop this item"

"You do not have enough room to drop this item"

"You do not have enough room to drop this item"

"You do not have enough room to drop this item"

"You do not have enough room to drop this item"

Load game

One thing thats been mentioned a long time ago is the getting hit by an arrow. The flying back from an arrow is not that bad, especially if its a heavy armour piercing arrow and a long bow like the original English longbows. These things had considerable power to punch through plate armour. Hit by one of these you would indeed go flying back from the impact. We're not talking the light plastic arrows of today. Yeah a short bow would be much weaker but a full longbow is incredibly powerful.

On topic yeah, hopefully the physics will be more realistic though, like the things falling through tables.

No, you would most definitely not go flying back from the impact. You might stagger back, sure. It may even knock you down. But no arrow (unless we're talking about some huge spear-like thing fired from a ballista) has the momentum to actually pick you up off your feet and send you flying five to ten meters through the air, as we saw in Oblivion.

It's much the same effect you get with the "Hollywood shotgun": obviously Newtonian physics means the shooter would go flying back at least as far instead of just standing still with their apparently recoilless contraption... but it sure looks cool.

This is true. So...we obviously need siege weapons in Skyrim! Bring on the ballista! Ready the mangonel! Do war stuff!

A real ballista bolt (yes, they're called bolts just like in crossbows) could impale 5 or more men. Some Roman ballistae had bolts 10 ft long. That's awesome.

That would actually make a great siege defense quest.....you could guard a castle and use the wall mounted ballistae against giants or (awesome!) dragons.

I dont mean flying back five to ten metres, that only happened with magic arrows as i recall. But a you would be thrown back. The old longbows had a pressure of a few hundred pounds so yes you would. Depending on the distance, the bow, the arrow, and the strength of the archer if they could pull the bow all the way back. Flying five metres yes, that is too much.

You would not be thrown back no matter the poundage of the bow. You might stumble, or be knocked over if the arrow caught you mid stride or tipped your head back, both actions wholly the result of loosing balance. There simply isn't enough KE in an arrow to physically shift 80+kg of mass more than a few millimetres. Even that assumes armour which stops the arrow dead without flexing or being partially deformed as its penetrated, and ignores the elasticity of your own body, all mechanisms which help bleed the impact energy away.

In real life bow hunting of game such as live deer, an arrow merely impales deep into the animal's body, leaving it momentarily stunned but still upright.

Sorry but I have to disagree when concerning heavy warbows or longbows. Don't know what hunting you're talking about modern or whatever, but this is old warbows with an extreme amount of energy. All I can say is this is the information I've researched. Short bows and other such wouldn't push you back. Armour piercing arrows that punch through Plate armour would have had tremendous power. Perhaps one day I'll do some real tests, until then not much to say. If you haven't I recommend researching the warbow/longbow. But this is going off topic too much now anyway.

Warning - This post is full of boring physiology and physics stuff!


I'm fairly sure sure my level of knowledge is pretty good since I'm a teacher of historical fighting and do in-depth research on ancient warfare as part of writing RPGs and historical supplements. But I might just be a gifted amateur, who knows?

However, prompted by what you posted above I'll try to illustrate a few base concepts to help clear any misconceptions some people might have.

First off lets see how much Kinetic Energy is contained in some different types of weapons. I'll give the measurements in foot-pounds for the sake of American readers, but all you really need to worry about are the relative ratios.

Hunting rifle round - about 2,700
.357 Magnum handgun - about 580
Spear - 150ish (varies greatly depending on its weight)
Medieval War Arrow - roughly 100
Modern Arrow - about 60

The value for the historical arrow is an estimation since there are few intact finds of whole Medieval arrows, so the weight of the shaft is an approximation. Since warbows don't launch arrows any faster, merely allow heavier arrows to be shot, it is a fair extrapolation. Near double the weight of the arrow results in the same proportional increase in launch energy.

Now the first thing to notice is that modern projectiles from firearms have a far, far higher kinetic energy. As we can see a historical arrow (at point blank range) has about a fifth of the force of a powerful handgun bullet or nearly a thirtieth of a rifle round. Now Newton's third law in layman's terms says that every action has an equal an opposite reaction. So since firing a hunting rifle doesn't hurl you backwards, neither can its projectile do the same to the target. If a shooter stumbles its because they were firing from an unbalanced position. Likewise when the target is hit, they will likely not fall over unless they too were caught off-balance - in fact less so because the projectile would have lost a large proportion of its KE by the time it strikes. So if a rifle round cannot forcibly throw a human a single metre, there is little hope of a war arrow doing the same.

The second thing to be aware of is more technical in nature. The velocity of the projectile when it hits influences the impulse resistance of the material it strikes - i.e. the faster the projectile travels the greater the force the flesh will generate to initially slow it. Its the effect you experience when entering water; for example lowering yourself into a swimming pool is almost resistance-free, but diving into the same pool is harder because the fluid material has less time to flow out of the way. Animal tissue is the same. More interestingly the impulse resistance grows exponentially with the velocity of the projectile. Thus being shot with a bullet means your body will act more like a solid wall than if you're shot by an arrow.

That last point is important because when you say above Armour piercing arrows that punch through Plate armour would have had tremendous power its that 'punching through' bit which produces a tremendous reduction in knock-back. Arrows have excellent penetration characteristics due to their tiny cross-section profile, (relatively) heavy weight and low velocity. In effect they go deeper because they decelerate slower. Thus because energy is transferred over a longer period of time, they will inflict even less of a knock-back.

Now I'm not saying a human can't be knocked over. Any significant force applied to an extremity can apply leverage to cause loss of balance, especially on a bipedal. Being shot in the head is a classic example because almost all the force of the projectile goes into rocking the head only, and where the head tips the rest of the body tends to follow - i.e. it overbalances and falls down. Another is to be shot from the side when running in mid-step. But they are not thrown forcibly off their feet. That is a physical impossibility with the human powered weapons we are talking about.

For more visceral proof you could search the net for video clips of actual bow hunts against live deer and boars. You'll see arrows bed deep in the animal, which usually springs away in panic and pain, but is not knocked over by the impact. In fact hitting them with arrows from 160lb bows would be more likely to cause the arrow to punch completely through the body and transfer even less momentum to the animal.