Thats a bit of a biased comparision. You post a close up of MW's sky and a distance shot of OB's.....hmmm, i wonder which will look more defined.

For starters, stars shouldn't be perfectly visible during cloudy nights. Also, Masser and Secunda look a bit awkward in Oblivion. Look at the MW-Oblivion comparison shots above, in Morrowind they look like they belong to the skybox, they are very natural, but in Oblivion they look like a bad user mod.

The problem is that there is zero sense in making aurora borealis in Skyrim. If you do not understand why I think so, just read something on nature of, as we call them in Russian (literally translated to english), "polar shinings".

Yeah, they are pretty. No, I don't want them in game. Yeah, they probably would be included, because thats what people await from sky in relatively cold climate, ignoring latitude.

Both Morrowind and Oblivion skies were beautiful. And I agree with Kiralyn2000's explanation of their differences. Style before substance — that's how it is.

Which I must admit is my biggest problem with it. Like a couple of gumballs between the sky and the ground.

Lets just have SI's Sky and we'll all be fine.

But Oblivion sky was fine, the planet/moon thing looked great too. Lore Holders is that the moon in TES world or what?

As long as its not just light blue with yellow circle I'll be fine.

Hey, don't sell them too short. I live in a much warmer climate and we still see the aurora boralis once in a blue moon (ok, freakish circumstance, but still). It's simply the notion that Skyrim is based off of Scandinavia, and Scandinavian nations often get to see the aurora. Not all the time, mind you, but it is present. It would make more sense to have it in a game like Atmora, but that will probably never be a game. Plus Solstheim has come and gone with no sign of the aurora, so Skyrim is really just the only remaining place where it could happen, but not necessarily will.

As far as I'm concerned, Skyrim is far enough north to have it and so is Morrowind/Solstheim, and the problem is not that the prior will get it when the other did not, it's that Morrowind/ Solstheim didn't have it in the first place.

But there were red, blue and/or green colored patches in Morrowind's night sky, which is the point. They were often faint, but they were there. The real Aurora can be red, green and blue.

Also, TES games so far have not had seasons depicted in game, but they are part of the universe. Morrowind definitely wasn't portrayed in winter. Skyrim may have seasons, but we know winter will be "one of" or "the only" season(s).

Thanks for the HD pictures...

But I don't see such giant difference.
The nebula is visible too on the Oblivion one, and I wouldn't be suprised if those red parts on the Morrowind one are actually parts of the Ash-storm in the atmosphere.

As for the moons.. on the Oblivion one there's a visible contrast, yes, but the Morrowind one look like it was made from polygons for some reason...

I prefer realistic skyboxes. I'm not even kidding with this statement I'm about to make: The number one reason I've never been able to tolerate SI for more than a couple hours before returning to Cyrodiil was the sky, especially the night sky. Too much color. In the unlikely event that Skyrim's sky is as outlandish as Shivering Isles', I will have quite a bit of trouble appreciating it.

If we get the slight purple nebula like in the MW screenshot, I'll be fine with that. But barring the pitiful-looking moons, I still prefer what we got in Oblivion. Ultimately, when I look at the night sky, I expect to see a night sky, not a false color Hubble image.

Foggy mornings and evenings... Accurate lunar cycles for the moons...Grey, cloudy, overcast days only occasionally broken by few days of sunlight...

Yes please.

Odd, I'd thought the opposite... the moons in MW are too focussed & visible, too sharp.... the Oblivion ones looked a bit better.

Grey cloudy days? WTF, this isn't Scotland.

And it boggles the mind that so few people who played SI actually got the crucial fact in that it takes place in Sheogorath's realm of madness, and not a real physical space on Nirn.

Yes...Cold...Grey...Fog-ridden...Wet...Cloudy Days...

I'd argue that while the Morrowind sky was more attractive, Oblivion's looks more realistic in that comparison, if you look up at our real life moon, it's not nearly as huge as the moons were in Morrowind, nor will you be able to clearly make out craters just viewing it with the naked eye, for example, but that's kind of the problem, really, I don't need my night sky to look realistic, after all, the Elder Scrolls is a fantasy world with its own stars and other celestial bodies that are very different from the real world, so this is one area where I think Bethesda really has a lot of freedom to use their imagination. It's going to look pretty strange if the human races don't look anything like real humans, but the night sky doesn't have to look like what you'd expect to see if you looked up at the sky, as long as it's still plausible, and I felt Morrowind's night skies were mostly plausible for a game taking place in a world with its own distinct stars, except for how huge the moons were, because if the moon got close enough to the Earth to appear that big, I think we can safely say that the effects of it would be felt, but given what the lore has to say on the nature of the moons in the Elder Scrolls, I'll give Bethesda a free pass on that one. Who knows how the corpse of a god effects the tides of Nirn, if at all?

So yes, I don't mind if Bethesda takes a few artistic liberties with the sky, as long as it doesn't look too out of place.



That's true, we're not going to see night skies like the ones in Shivering Isles in Skyrim, because that's not Nirn's sky at all. I like the sky in Shivering Isles, mind you, it seemed to fit the place, but I'd no more want to see it in Skyrim than I'd want to see giant mushrooms.



Sounds extremely boring and monotonous to me, no thank you on that one.

Here in Australia we get quite a few grey cloudy days... And we all know how hot it gets here, dunno if that has anything to do with anything :/

Not for me...If I want to see 360 days of sun-drenched skies, I'll go outside...

What, so only Scotland is allowed to have overcast days? Guess somewhere forgot to tell the silly American sky hanging over my head.

Not sure where you live where you have sun-shine all year round, because it's definitely NOT like that over here. In fact, given how things have been here lately, I'd argue that if I want to see cloudy days, I can just go outside.

Bottom line is, either there is a balanced variety or some people will be bored by it. What else is new?

I think the only qualitative difference between the Morrowind sky and the Oblivion sky is the clouds. If you look at the first screen shot posted which isn't very high def, the clouds really add to the setting. Seeing the clouds move acrosss the moons in the background really gives a sense of presense to the celestial objects. Whereas sadly this wasn't the case in Oblivion. If they had just added clouds, Oblivion would look just as good.

I was just watchin the epic Skyrim trailer... and in that scene with the deer... umm 1:29 ... there are grey skies ... just thought I'd point that out

Tucson, Arizona: Mild temperate winters with freakishly unnatural cold snaps...Damnably long hot dry summers, with a little rain in August if you're lucky...

I think it looks better in Oblivion too.

This thread is destined to turn into Astrology 101 isn't it...