I've been following Pete for a while now on twitter and don't recall him saying that.

Snow overlay, apply to the top of player model in the same way as blood decals. Simple.

Just Cause 2 did this.

Well I live around the 50th northern paralel and snow don't just melt on you in december to march winter. It does accumulate if it snows alot.

Anyway, I would like to see walking in the snow difficult compared to walking on a road or dry ground.

At high altitude where its snows alot you can have more than 10 feet deep of snow. Just floating over that much snow in just plain boots and some heavy armor will be a bit disapointing.

I remember falling off a ski lift and getting buried in six feet of snow when I was a kid. Then again, at that point I was about three feet tall.

So, yeah. I'll be disappointed if you can't walk through deep snow.

I'm sure there might be a white texture that renders over the top of your characters shoulders and head/helm, maybe. Nothing fancy, but an acknowledgment that it is snowing hard on you. MGS4 did it to a great extent in one act of the game, and you could have different costumes and clothing there.

This got me thinking though... what about the cold? If I took all of my characters clothes off and stood in the snow and got covered it it... does he just sit there in a normal idle animation as if nothing is happening? If not health damage, then hopefully an animation showing him getting cold, such as a shiver or hold his arms close to his chest.

That was a good act in MSG4. They did a pretty good job with the snow.

I'm pretty sure this snow mechanic being dynamic is a gimmick. To me it seems like its going to be a simple texture replacement. As snow falls, textures are slowly replaced (in appropriate areas) by textures with more snow on them. They keep saying it will accumulate naturally, but couldn't they just design their textures to give the appearance of snow accumulating more in the "cracks"?

I'd love for the snow to have depth. And I'm sure it will have some depth in some way. I just don't think its going to be as dynamic as they described, and the dreams we are all getting will be replaced by some disappointment for some. I'm sure it will be acceptable though, just not up to hype.

Sure it can be dynamic and build up in "nooks and crannies," they can just have it so that textures replace themselves only where snow would fall, such as not under covered areas. I'm also sure it will have a shader, like uncharted, for some depth. As for it being dynamic like we all want, with particles, yeah right.

That is a generalization, I have had clothing get covered in snow when I was outside for a while.


Anyway, I think most people are assuming too much when it is said the snow is dynamic...as if it will accumulate over time. It seems more likely that Bethesda will do computations of how snow would accumulate in the terrain and then model it accordingly in a set way. This would be like how with Oblivion it was said that there would be random terrain when it reality the terrain was randomized in some regards during the original creation by Bethesda, but not randomized game to game.

i think it should be like uncharted snow.

I would like this but I really doubt it.

I don't know about you, but if I ever go outside and it's snowing, I still have a body temperature above freezing. Sure, a few flakes may land on you, but they melt in about 5-15 seconds. For the most part, snow makes you wet and it doesn't tend to build up if you have enough body heat.



It's pretty old news actually. I believe it was around the same time they even announced the snow system. I'm inclined to say it was brought up during the GI coverage, but I can't remember for sure. You may have to do a little digging.

If you were wearing fur, or anything that was a good insulator, your body heat wouldn't melt the snow.

I'm looking forward to seeing how they do the snow but I really think a lot of people are overestimating just how far North Skyrim is. It's more like Germany or the Northern USA/Southern Canada than it is like Scandinavia or Siberia, considering there's a continent north of Skyrim I would think. Of course the mountainous areas would be much more prone to snow cover.

As far as talk of it being difficult to walk through the snow, and having very deep snow drifts to get stuck in and such, at some point realism gets in the way of this being a game. Snow should be neat, but not extremely tedious to go through as a player in my opinion, unless there's some alternate means of travel through tedious terrain or it's used for a specific lore reason.

Fair enough. You have a point.

I suppose if we consider the distance clothes can put between you, the source of heat, and the outside cold, you can have buildup on extremities of fur, though maybe not in the deeper parts of it. But, fur isn't the only thing you will see players wearing in Skyrim, nor would fur cover every part of one's body leaving nothing exposed. Will people demand a system that determines which parts of the body are exposed to the cold vs which aren't, and which potential types of armor conduct body heat and radiate it outwards?



It is more like Scandinavia, because the northern continent is more like the Arctic (or Antarctica if we want to keep it consistent with actual landmasses). It's a difference between http://cdnstatic.gamesas.com/akqacms/files/tes/screenshots/LakeMountains_wLegal.jpg and http://www.digitaljournal.com/img/8/9/9/i/3/9/4/o/Paul_HubnerArcticLandscape.jpg The northern continent, Atmora (if it actually exists) is supposed to be desolate and uninhabitable.

Well, I was just using fur as an example, since that is known to be a good insulator (which is why animals have it in the first place and people wear furs for warmth, well, maybe not so much today.

Fur is a good example. Insulators are supposed to do just that, keep the cold out and the heat in. Inevitably, all insulators radiate some level of heat above freezing temperature, and snow sitting on it will melt. But fur, being a good example, shows a scenario of how snow can land on clothing without actually coming into contact with the surface of the clothing itself, it will cling to the strands of fur which are more distant to the body. This brings them further away from contact with your body heat, thereby having snow cling to you.

In my experience though (where I have pretty decent winters), snowfall in general will melt on average cotton and wool snow clothing like hats and gloves, but if you get snow on you through some other cause, such as falling into it, getting it thrown at you, or any other such way that makes snow land on you in clumps, then it takes a while to melt. It still does melt, but it clings to you for an extended period of time all the same.

I don't know how it would react to other materials like platemail, but I think in the real world you'd have to be pretty stupid to go out into the cold tundra in a suit of metal armor. Skyrim isn't very realistic in that regard

If it's supposed to be "desolate and uninhabitable" then how was it where the Nord civilization was located before humans were even on Tamriel?

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Atmora



Considering the lore suggests Atmora means "Elder Wood" I'd say it's a safe bet to say no, it is not a desolate wasteland.

Antarctica used to be a lush rainforest and its name means the land without bears. Point is, climates are prone to change, especially in the world of Elder Scrolls where climate change can occur on divine providence alone (see pre-Oblivion Cyrodiil). Truth is, no one knows what Atmora is like. It may very well be that no one ever has lived there. Certainly the Nord myths about it romanticize it as the fabled homeland of the Nords, but other parts of the lore claim that all life started in Tamriel. Is the belief system of a fictional race more valid than the belief system of another?

Maybe not difficult to a point where it' cripples de gameplay, but let say on a scale of 0 to 10, 0 being completely stoped and 10 being the fastest you can run. Walking on a paved or dirt road is scaled to 5 then walking on snow could be 4. You could even pushed that to lowered down the speed to 3 or even 2 in deep snow. So lets say you need to go to X cave and have to leave the road to get there. You walk on snow at the speed of 4 and instead of going down a ditch to get straight to the cave and lowering your speed you go around and stay on light snow to stay at the speed of 4.

Its not much a difference but it's enough that you can tell the difference and its enough that you actually try to stay on paved road while traveling to maximize speed. You could do the same with heavy forest.

As for the realism of snow. I will be satisfied if its similar to uncharted 2 or better.