Is it just me or do some of the trees, especially in the beginning of the trailer in the snowy area look weird? Not the parts with the pc sprinting, but the shots with the dragon flying overhead. Especially the very first shot of the trailer. A lot of the trees look like they have toothpick for stumps and its just a straight, skinny, really tall toothpicks with branches jutting out only near the top of the trees? What happened to the first two thirds of the tree? Only branches and leaves towards the top of the tree? And why the toothpick stumps? Bizarre...

I also find the trees a bit low-res when I see them close. Doesn't matter, really, as the PC version will have higher res than the 360' one.

It's not about being low res it's about the models being screwed up. The trees don't have toothpick stumps and only branches near the very top because it's low res.

Look at the first shot in the trailer. Not the stone wall but the first in game shot with that cobbled stone alleyway towards the right leading up into the mountains. Some of those trees, especially around the middle area look real screwed up. Like stick figure trees?

Maybe that's how they're meant to look? I don't know, never seen a tundra.

What we do know is that Trees are one of the aspects that have made a dramatic change in Skyrim from previous BGS games. They removed SpeedTree and wrote their own method - which means the entire mechanic of how they load, what they look like close-up and far, are all different now.

I thought they looked badass personally, as did the snow and rivers and everything else. But Trees will indeed be very different in this game.

http://cache.virtualtourist.com/1286752-Trees_On_The_Tundra_In_Fog-Dillingham.jpg

Well those are tundra trees. Guess Beth did get them right except the bottom half of a lot of the trees in the trailer sure do look empty?

Nice pic. Hope we get an area like that in Skyrim!

I'm pretty sure that we'll have lots of tree replacing mods soon provided that their new trees are easier to edit/make then speedtrees. Not that I know how easy is to do speedtrees, but the tools are rather extravagant good.

Don't know if people here saw tree replacers and new trees for Morrowind, especially those made by Vurt.

I can't see your problem with the trees. I watched the trailer a few times and they looked perfectly fine. Way better than Oblivion's trees.

Trees thickness also depends on how far up they are positioned... at least in real life. A tree on a mountain is much thinner than a tree on the ground. Maybe Beth thought of this?

I think the trees look too low-res too. They're as low-res as Oblivion's trees...
Seriously.

Anyway, I really want to see MORE trees (areas with trees look too scarce), and I want to see more DIFFERENT trees. All the pine trees we've seen look pretty much the same.
I want to see more different kinds of pine trees! The trees I've seen look way too thin imo.

If you look you will find some trees are like that while others have branches all the way to the ground. I know from owning pines awhile back that yes some speciaes of pine and spruce drop thier lower limbs if they become too shadowed by other trees.

Trees with branches all the way can be seen in these trailer stills. They don't look amazing I have to say but I would hope come final release they will be better.

http://i.min.us/ilKUHo.png
http://i801.photobucket.com/albums/yy297/b_harrison/skyrim/skyrim_gameplay_forest.jpg

The trees look fine. I've spent some time in mountainous areas. Some pines' branches don't emerge until several feet about your head and the branch population is naturally sparse on some types. Branches also tend to thin out as you near the tree-line. Every pine shouldn't look like a Christmas tree.

The trees look fine to me. And if you've ever seen a pine forest, the trees all look pretty much the same.

http://www.wheressamtheman.com/uploaded_images/Pine-forest-771899.JPG. Notice the lack of leaves/branches on the bottom?

http://www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/Slide%20Show%20Images/Irchester/Tall-pine-trees.jpg.

I'd say they got the pretty much spot on.

http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2703971150072846892LmvCkY

Lodgepole pines look just like the trees in the video. Google some up and look for yourself.

If the only thing I have to think about in the game is if the trees are low res, high res, not enough lower branches etc then I will be a very very happy gamer.

I think the OP cant see the forest cause of all the trees in the way lol

They are just a tool that makes the world more immersive, If I am searching the forests for dragons i will not be looking at the detail of the trees I will be looking for the glissening scales of a mightly beast that will enable me to progress a story that in my opinions sounds pretty engaging from what I know of already.

Trees look OK. But they're way too alike, all of them.
I haven't seen any unique-looking-pine trees so far, despite we've seen many different kinds of regions.

Plus, the thing I'm kinda annoyed about is that ALL the trees I've seen have had been really "scarce/thin" concerning branches. Were are these really thick pine trees?
Also, trees are placed too scarce.

I want more unique trees: http://nsidc.org/frozenground/images/Drunken_trees.jpg
I want some more thick trees: http://www.maytreeenterprises.com/images/MAYTREE%20PHOTOS%20DISK%200206/Species%20Photos/8%27%20FRASER%20FIR%202-05.JPG
I want some thicker forest: http://www.skogeniskolan.se/bildbank/bilder/granskog%20och%20tj%C3%A4rn1.jpg

In other words, I want more variety!
Thick pine trees look AWESOME with dynamic shadows (if implemented in the right way...). That's one of the reasons I want them.
Just look at this. They're stunning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Re377ol0g


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Looking at these pictures, the "structure" of the trees feel almost exactly the same, despite most of them obviously being different regions:
http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2011/02/The-Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim-Giant.jpg
http://dl.maximumpc.com/galleries/Skyrim/Skryim-Trailer-anolysis-1-Forest1.jpg
http://dl.maximumpc.com/galleries/Skyrim/Skryim-Trailer-anolysis-4-Forest-Statue-Head.jpg

http://www.gamer-uk.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Forest.jpg
http://www.mouseandboard.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/skyrim5.jpg
http://dl.maximumpc.com/galleries/Skyrim/Skryim-Trailer-anolysis-2-Cliff-View.jpg

Well, I'm assuming that we haven't actually seen all the tree types. I'm just saying the trees that we HAVE seen look fine to me. I agree and hope there is more variation.

Perfect examples. Trees work by using their leaves to turn sunlight into energy, after combining it with water and the nutrients water contains. Pine trees, in particular in forests, drop their lower branches since they don't get enough sunlight. It's all captured by the upper branches when the sunlight is above, and by neighboring trees when the sunlight is angled. It's a waste of energy to retain those leaves and branches that are rarely being used. So technically, Skyrim's trees are incredibly realistic and pay a lot of attention to ecological detail.

I imagine they also incorporate a basic culling system, where after a certain distance from the player the trees scale down in detail in order to save on polygons and texture detail. That's why some of the more distant and mid-range trees look odd. Much better than Speedtree though when they just suddenly turned into billboards after a certain distance, and I'm sure the distance at which they switch to a low-res version will be scaleable on the PC.

We did see quite a lot of regions in the trailer. The waterfall... the fields... the snowy regions... the mountainous regions... the temperate forest regions... etc etc etc.
So. Why didn't we see more unique-looking trees based on each region? Why not any thick pine trees, or "weird"-looking ones?

I think it's because they aren't in. I can't be sure, of course, but that's what I think. Trees and such are done pretty early in the game-development if I'm not wrong.
I hope they'll add more variation though, than what we've seen already. This thread should almost be pinned

Looks fine to me.

http://www.copyright-free-images.com/full-image/nature-landscapes-copyright-free-images/canyon-copyright-free-images/brcye-canyon-winter-snow-pine-trees-utah.jpg

Well there are different trees, as I'm pretty sure http://perfectworlds.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-ranger-hunting.jpg aren't pines.

That's pretty obvious, yeah. But I'm talking about pine trees only. There should be a much greater variety in shape and "structure" in them.

Edit: Those fall trees have always amazed me. They look absolutely gorgeous. Bethesda really hit the nail with those fall trees. But they also need to hit the nail with the pine trees I think