Renzatic on 9/1/2011 at 21:36
Quote Posted by steo
Is it just me or does it basically just look like Oblivion?
Just from the screenshots, I can already tell the characters and lighting are a vast improvement over Oblivion.
And anyway, I'd say it looks more like Bloodmoon.
Sulphur on 9/1/2011 at 21:52
Indeed, detail's been given a significant bump, and the lights/shadows seem to be pointing towards the dynamic and non pre-baked side of things. Deferred renderer or something similar? God, I hope so.
Also, and this might just be the scans or my imagination or a blurry commingling of the two, but it seems to have a greyer, less over-saturated palette and none of the bloom/HDR abuse of Oblivion. Awesome.
Still, the major problem with Oblivion and Fallout 3 and Morrowind's visuals wasn't so much all of the above as it was the modelling and animation. All this stuff looks great, and the one face in the shots looks all right (it'd better given the amount of criticism) but none of it will be worth a copper farthing if the models look and animate like wooden marionettes jerking along to the tug of a string.
Eldron on 9/1/2011 at 22:53
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Indeed, detail's been given a significant bump, and the lights/shadows seem to be pointing towards the dynamic and non pre-baked side of things. Deferred renderer or something similar? God, I hope so.
Also, and this might just be the scans or my imagination or a blurry commingling of the two, but it seems to have a greyer, less over-saturated palette and none of the bloom/HDR abuse of Oblivion. Awesome.
Still, the major problem with Oblivion and Fallout 3 and Morrowind's visuals wasn't so much all of the above as it was the modelling and animation. All this stuff looks great, and the one face in the shots looks all right (it'd better given the amount of criticism) but none of it will be worth a copper farthing if the models look and animate like wooden marionettes jerking along to the tug of a string.
Animations were even further up on the things people complained on, so I'm betting that's been given the same treatment.
Also, I also wonder if they've build a deferred renderer, it's very fitting with the non-baked lighting they've always had, and I love the snow shaders that apply snow on a per pixel basis.
The toolset is going to be wonderful to play around with
steo on 10/1/2011 at 10:58
I think we'll all agree that Oblivion looked amazing when it came out. Somehow I was expecting Skyrim to be similarly impressive. Maybe the lighting in it is way better than Oblivion's, but from the screenshots I certainly wouldn't say there was anything really good about it, and in terms of model/world detail, it really doesn't look like much of an improvement over Oblivion. I guess it's because it has to run on the same tech that Oblivion did...
Eldron on 10/1/2011 at 11:49
Quote Posted by steo
I think we'll all agree that Oblivion looked amazing when it came out. Somehow I was expecting Skyrim to be similarly impressive. Maybe the lighting in it is way better than Oblivion's, but from the screenshots I certainly wouldn't say there was anything really good about it, and in terms of model/world detail, it really doesn't look like much of an improvement over Oblivion. I guess it's because it has to run on the same tech that Oblivion did...
The rendering part (gamebryo) in the engine they made have been replace by something custombuilt, you can see full shadows (something that people have been screaming for in both oblivion and fallout3), you can see better built skin shading on character, you can see snow shaders, more powerful post processing.
I'm betting they might even have improved it in the way that they can do more with less.
you can see the artists have made way better character models, and that faces finally have proper looks to them.
There's a big difference that it's not even funny, considering the fact that it runs on the same hardware as oblivion did.
The snow stuff is really useful too, it means you can build environments with models and rotate them however you wish, and snow will still accumulate on the surface that points up to the sky.
steo on 10/1/2011 at 12:04
And yet, what I see in the screenshots is a game that graphically looks like Oblivion with very slightly higher-poly models and lighting that, while better than Oblivion's, isn't remotely impressive compared to the games that had good lighting when Oblivion came out. Lighting isn't something best shown via screenshots, but I would have thought that if it was good by modern standards they would have done their best to show it off in the screens.
Eldron on 10/1/2011 at 13:52
Quote Posted by steo
And yet, what I see in the screenshots is a game that graphically looks like Oblivion with very slightly higher-poly models and lighting that, while better than Oblivion's, isn't remotely impressive compared to the games that had good lighting when Oblivion came out. Lighting isn't something best shown via screenshots, but I would have thought that if it was good by modern standards they would have done their best to show it off in the screens.
Inline Image:
http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/4493/oblivionskyrim.jpgslightly?
Briareos H on 10/1/2011 at 14:00
None of the Elder Scroll games were particularly ahead of their time graphics-wise anyway. They had a few interesting and innovative features - from Daggerfall's ability to display a randomised world, to Morrowind's 1.1 pixel shaders, to Oblivion's way of rendering vegetation but I don't agree that Oblivion "looked amazing when it came out".
So even if from those screens Skyrim doesn't look better than other games of the same kind that have been out for already a year (case in mind: (
http://img.hexus.net/v2/gaming/screenshots_xbox360/justcause2/just2_large.jpg) Just Cause 2), the design consistency and taste of the world will tell whether the game looks good or not.
Eldron on 10/1/2011 at 15:45
Quote Posted by Briareos H
None of the Elder Scroll games were particularly ahead of their time graphics-wise anyway. They had a few interesting and innovative features - from Daggerfall's ability to display a randomised world, to Morrowind's 1.1 pixel shaders, to Oblivion's way of rendering vegetation but I don't agree that Oblivion "looked amazing when it came out".
So even if from those screens Skyrim doesn't look better than other games of the same kind that have been out for already a year (case in mind: (
http://img.hexus.net/v2/gaming/screenshots_xbox360/justcause2/just2_large.jpg) Just Cause 2), the design consistency and taste of the world will tell whether the game looks good or not.
Yes, but those games were made by studios who knew their stuff, bethesda will not be able to top their quality because of the hardware roof that exists, but can reach it in ways they were never able to do before.
Also, as I've mentioned before, I'm quite sure we'll see some heavy improvements in the animations, which have always been the worst side of any modern elderscrolls game.
steo on 12/1/2011 at 20:58
The graininess of those scans does a good job of disguising graphical flaws. Particularly looking at those spires of rock, you can see the low poly count. There are more flattering screenshots of Oblivion out there than the one you used as well. The graphics in Skyrim will be better, sure, but while Oblivion wowed me, particularly in regards to skies and vast open landscapes, I can't see Skyrim doing the same. The only major improvement to Oblivion appears to be in lighting, which is still miles behind what are now old games.
