because bethesda licensed only part of it, plus game engines arnt one stop shops for all your game developing needs alot of other stuff including a large amount of hard coding and modifications go into it, i dont know a single company other than EPIC who takes an engine out of the box and only uses the tools inherent in it. Devs code new tools, and tech as well as license bits and pieces from all over the place.

Engines are collections of tools thats all, so the tools from Gamebyro that where used include only the rendering software

Do people even read the posts of other users? Freddo posted many times that GameBryo is the RENDERER, not the engine itself. It means that it's just what draws the pixels on screen. The cell system, AI, physics and save mechanics has nothing to do with GameBryo.

Which has nothing to do with GameBryo as Freddo stated.

Actually, lightning and shadows are valid concerns as they deal with the graphical side. At least for older versions of Gamebryo, don't know how the newer Gamebryo Lightspeed improved upon that (which it most likely have).

Surely an in house engine built for a specific game is the best option. That's the case here isn't it?

"GameBryo" is the renderer, yes, but when people talk about the "GameBryo engine" they are (incorrectly) referring to the whole thing. So while they're wrong, the point stands.

The old engine wasn't particularly terrible. It had issues, a lot of issues. It was also very old. They could have updated the old one for skyrim, but trying to shoehorn modern technology into what is effectively a heavily modified 10 year old engine is hard, and starting again gives you, effectively, a chance to plan the entire thing for the future. Don't think of them abandoning their old engine because it svcked, think of them trying to make somehing better.

That was always the case. It's just now the parts used to tailor that engine belong largely to Bethesda.

That and the fact that the company behind Gamebryo went belly-up :mellow:

ITT: Form an opinion! Any opinion will do! That's right folks, anything you can imagine! Now pretend it's a fact! Spread the word! :celebration:

Honestly, Gamebryo isn't as much of a limitation or as terrible as people make it out to be. Issues consistently berated in Oblivion had less to do Gamebryo and more to do with design choices. Bad face and animation quality for instance, aren't features of Gamebryo. Those were shortcomings of Bethesda.

I'm thrilled with the prospect of real animators working on Skyrim. Screw Havok super extreme technology. Give me awesome animators any day.

On the Gamebryo homepage stands, I quote:
"Gamebryo provides all the rendering, animation and special effects features you need to create any genre of game."

Maybe Bethesda wanted to add the animation engine from Havok and that wasn't compatible with Gamebryo or difficult to implement?

Actually Gamebroyo Lightspeed not only updated the rendering engine but it contained a tool-kit for developers to make adaptation easier - it looked pretty good.

The fact that Gamebroyo was liquidated was interesting to me - I figured Bethesda wouldn't want to continue working with an engine that was no longer supported - but this may in fact have turned out good for Bethesda as they may have been able to purchase rights to the code itself when the company wen't down. In any respect, they continued using it despite the parent company condition means they must be in a very good position with it or they would not have continued. Given Gamebroyo went down in 2009, they certainly had plenty of time if they needed to make a critical switch.

I don't frankly think Anywhere here can accurately speak to how good or bad the Gamebroyo Lightspeed engine coupled with the new Skyrim middleware will really be - we have no clue. Lots of opinions about how it's bad, and yet none of us have seen it in the flesh (so to speak) - so its all just whining and speculation until actual gameplay footage is revealed and we get an chance to play it at the shows.

It was great at the time, but using it again wouldn't bring as much new things and opportunities as the new engine. Mainly the way NPCs are suicidal. Even Fo3 had suicidal enemies, but atleast they started to run away when their HP reach something like 15% of their max, not sure.

Radiant AI is Bethesda's creation and has nothing to do with Gamebryo.

Only rendering visible elements should make it easier to make far larger dungeons as long as you were careful with the design. Yes you still has to handle AI and physic for everything but the graphic card should have an easier time.

Well that's when we talk about graphics.. And yes, I stand corrected: Gamerbryo is only about the 3D computer graphics.

But any how, the engine bethesda used in OB has also been changed Yay

I just found it to be clunky. It was good for Morrowind and Oblivion's arcade style, but it really needed a shape up.