Game News New Oblivion Screenshots

[Seven]

It looks to me like the next inevitable level of realism. That's what's not impressive. No one seems to be experimenting with non-photorealistic rendering past cel-shading.

If someone made a game that looked cartoonish (comic book-style crosshashes and perspectives, not cel shaded) or like an oil painting, that would impressive. Damn impressive.

There are quite a few games that have that cartoonish look to it. Personally, the best early example is Grim Fandango. I don't believe that the move to that cartoonish look is the next evolution because it's been done and done well in the past and many times since then.

 

[dunduks]

While Oblivion does look pretty, I fear that the gameplay will remain the same dull experience as Morrowind. Although there is still slim hope that Bethesda might do it right this time, I wont hold my breath.

 

[Dhruin]

I rather like the art style (and it's leaps and bounds ahead of Morrowind) - except for that overpowering bloom (or whatever it is technically).

 

[Whipporowill]

Yup, the style is certainly something I find much preferrable to Morrowinds - I just have a problem with the amount of bloom, as well as light level of those screenshots.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Would you prefer it if it looked like this?

http://img147.exs.cx/img147/9766/obliv11b3tp.jpg

 

[Whipporowill]

Would you prefer it if it looked like this?

Hey, cool! Rex being ridiculous again, it's been a while...

 

[Spazmo]

No, but if it looked like this or this, it'd be terrific.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Hate to break it to you Spazmo, but that looks like shit.

 

[Seven]

Hate to break it to you Spazmo, but that looks like shit.

Wasn't it only a short while ago (a few months) that you said that SS's graphics were amazing?

BTW, I don't think he was just refering to jusr the look, I think he also meant the over all feel (ie, perspective, interface, etc...).

 

[Jinxed]

I think the graphics in SS are great. Sadly, I had to turn a lot of detail and lightning down in the really large maps because the game outright crashed on me.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Hate to break it to you Spazmo, but that looks like shit.

Wasn't it only a short while ago (a few months) that you said that SS's graphics were amazing?

BTW, I don't think he was just refering to jusr the look, I think he also meant the over all feel (ie, perspective, interface, etc...).

Wasn't it only a short while ago (a few days) that you said something to make me look like a flip flopper? Oh, you know what, if you'll look back at the logs you'll see me pissing all over Silent Storm for its craptacular AI and long enemy/ally/neutral turns.

And I don't think it looks like shit per se (the combat animations are decent but it's silly how two people can stand in front of each other, shoot, and actually miss). It just looks like shit when you compare it to Oblivion. Just look at the textures on the walls in SS's screenshots, for fucks sakes. While the game does look pretty neat at very high settings, it's also extremely demanding and not even my computer can handle those settings without some really serious slowdowns. The engine is just really poorly optimized, as evidenced by the length of the turns and the lack of a 'skip enemy movement' option.

How would Spazmo know anything about Oblivion's perspective, interface and feel, anyhow?

 

[DemonKing]

The Oblivion graphics do indeed look very nice but unless the gameplay is much improved from Morrowind, I won't be getting it...the combat engine and dialog system in particular need a lot of work.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Yeah, the game could definitely use a dialogue system like the one found in Bioware's games and Fallout. Morrowind's Wikipedia dialogue format was incredibly loathsome and it was a hassle to go through each NPC's dialogue options by clicking each and every single subject available. I didn't know which dialogues were unique to the NPCs because the dialogue options were not sorted out, either. They were alphebatized and you didn't always know what to talk about.

The game's dialogue system made the NPCs feel like nothing more than mobile information terminals instead of living, breathing entities. In my opinion, the NPCs were the main detractor from Morrowind's overall depth of immersion.

 

[Balor]

*gets a dreamy look in his eyes*
Some day, graphics, resolution, physics in games will become so detailed and realistic, that will not be distinguishable from reality. When it'll happen, I hope, most game devs will finally concentrate on story, dialogs, detailed setting, bug fixing and overall gameplay, since people will just not buy "Look, we have this shiney effect on walls, nearly realistic physics, we have this, we have that..." - cause the answer will be "Do what? Everybody does!".
I hope that'll happen in my lifetime.

 

[Fresh]

About graphics... Ya'll might be interested in checking out some demos of Speedtree- the tech used to render em spectacular-looking forests in Oblivion. Demos - Trees of Pangaeaâ„¢ Real-Time Demo, etc can be downloaded here: http://www.idvinc.com/index.htm

From da ES-forum:
[What is Speedtree?]
.. basically speedtree is a tool that can be added to systems such as Gamebryo(which used to be netimmerse...ie the one used in Morrowind!) to build huge environments with realistic vegetation...ie trees! Ttrees up to now, are few and far between, and not rendered in very high definition. they are more "spritey". Speedtree makes heaps of trees in realtime/with a very long view distance/in high detail/highly animated/and NOT spritey! Basically THE tool for adding your greenery to a gvaming environment!

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/inde ... opic=44020


My graphics card is too old so I can only get the older valley-demo to run btw.[/u]

 

[Balor]

All in all, I don't really care about MW story and quests, because they are bound to suck. However, they promised to improve CS enough to, finally, make creation of large randomzied (and yet beliveable) landmasses possible + better scripting system (no string varieables still, tho - hateful, lazy things).
That's what I, basically, expect from Oblivion - to make (in team) a WoT TC based on it. Otherwise, it holds no real value for me. Just like Morrowind did - it bore me to tears after a few days of playing, but modding kept me buzy untill now.

 

[dojoteef]

From da ES-forum:
[What is Speedtree?]
.. basically speedtree is a tool that can be added to systems such as Gamebryo(which used to be netimmerse...ie the one used in Morrowind!) to build huge environments with realistic vegetation...ie trees! Ttrees up to now, are few and far between, and not rendered in very high definition. they are more "spritey". Speedtree makes heaps of trees in realtime/with a very long view distance/in high detail/highly animated/and NOT spritey! Basically THE tool for adding your greenery to a gvaming environment!

I downloaded the Pangea demo and I have to say that I am less than impressed by the technology. It still looks VERY "spritey". All they have done is make the sprites rotate so that they always show the front of the sprite to the view screen, wow, big fucking deal. The trees still look like shit, that's about as simple as I can state it. I'm sure they look amazing in static images (i.e. screenshots), but when you see them in motion they pretty much look like the exact same technology that's been used before; in fact it looks very similar to Far Cry. That isn't a bad thing, but it certainly isn't the "revolutionary new technique" that it's being touted as, it's merely evolutionary at best. The only thing different in the demo than in any other game I have seen is the fact that they have the trees sway according to a wind vector.

Has anyone else downloaded the demo? If anyone has, can you guys tell me what's so damned revolutionary, because I don't see it.

 

[RGE]

*gets a dreamy look in his eyes*
Some day, graphics, resolution, physics in games will become so detailed and realistic, that will not be distinguishable from reality. When it'll happen, I hope, most game devs will finally concentrate on story, dialogs, detailed setting, bug fixing and overall gameplay, since people will just not buy "Look, we have this shiney effect on walls, nearly realistic physics, we have this, we have that..." - cause the answer will be "Do what? Everybody does!".
I hope that'll happen in my lifetime.

For a brief moment I thought you had a good point there, but then I remembered that not even movies are at that stage yet. So, fat chance. And even the movies that do get all the necessary resources still won't always have good story and dialogue. If nothing else, when we have perfect physics, people will want their own special brand of Matrix physics.

Or they'll want the movie to be in mostly black and white like a comic book. Sin City does look promising.

 

[Seven]

Wasn't it only a short while ago (a few days) that you said something to make me look like a flip flopper? Oh, you know what, if you'll look back at the logs you'll see me pissing all over Silent Storm for its craptacular AI and long enemy/ally/neutral turns.

May be you missed the question mark there. That makes it a question and not a statement, so take your feigned indignation elsewhere.

BTW, this is classic:

Hate to break it to you Spazmo, but that looks like shit.

and then you post this:

And I don't think it looks like shit per se (the combat animations are decent but it's silly how two people can stand in front of each other, shoot, and actually miss). It just looks like shit when you compare it to Oblivion. Just look at the textures on the walls in SS's screenshots, for fucks sakes. While the game does look pretty neat at very high settings, it's also extremely demanding and not even my computer can handle those settings without some really serious slowdowns. The engine is just really poorly optimized, as evidenced by the length of the turns and the lack of a 'skip enemy movement' option.

I think from this we can conclude that no one "makes you" look like a flip flopper, you do it to yourself.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Yeah well if I said it didn't look like feces literally you'd call me a flip flopper, because you just enjoy being a gay faggot with a dick in his ass all the time, Seven. My point was that Silent Storm does look pretty bad these days, what with pixelshaders and textures that don't look like they were poorly compressed in Photoshop with no knowledge of JPEGs.

But all of that is moot, considering what you said reads like this:

Oh look I am a huge faggot I like making Exitium look like a flip flopper lol I AM THE WINNER!

Go you, champ. When's the last time you ever made a meaningful post. E.g. one that didn't consist of making me look bad?

"OH YOU DO A SUPERB JOB OF MAKING YOURSELF LOOK BAD!" I'm sure you'll say, and it wouldn't be a baseless assumption due to your previous posts.

Well gee whiz, Conker, thanks for the elite fucking comeback. I got totally sk00led by Seven on TEH INTERNETS! You are teh winnar. What a great achievement that is. That's real swell Timmy, I bet your mom is real proud. Oh boy!

You fucking pathetic sack of shit.

 

[Dhruin]

From da ES-forum:
[What is Speedtree?]
.. basically speedtree is a tool that can be added to systems such as Gamebryo(which used to be netimmerse...ie the one used in Morrowind!) to build huge environments with realistic vegetation...ie trees! Ttrees up to now, are few and far between, and not rendered in very high definition. they are more "spritey". Speedtree makes heaps of trees in realtime/with a very long view distance/in high detail/highly animated/and NOT spritey! Basically THE tool for adding your greenery to a gvaming environment!

I downloaded the Pangea demo and I have to say that I am less than impressed by the technology. It still looks VERY "spritey". All they have done is make the sprites rotate so that they always show the front of the sprite to the view screen, wow, big fucking deal. The trees still look like shit, that's about as simple as I can state it. I'm sure they look amazing in static images (i.e. screenshots), but when you see them in motion they pretty much look like the exact same technology that's been used before; in fact it looks very similar to Far Cry. That isn't a bad thing, but it certainly isn't the "revolutionary new technique" that it's being touted as, it's merely evolutionary at best. The only thing different in the demo than in any other game I have seen is the fact that they have the trees sway according to a wind vector.

Has anyone else downloaded the demo? If anyone has, can you guys tell me what's so damned revolutionary, because I don't see it.

They look pretty good to me. A dev team that just saved a bunch of time implementing nice trees with real wind movement might think it was revolutionary.

 

[Sol Invictus]

It's kind of like how Photoshop might be revolutionary in comparison to designing graphics with MS Paint. You might not think much of it, dojoteef, but you're not the one doing it, either.

 

[Ortchel]

It hurts my eyes.

 

[EvoG]

Dojo, whats 'revolutionary' ( lets say evolutionary really ) is the further breaking down of the components of a tree. For example, old skool trees as you recall, were billboards...single polygons with a complete tree texture that always faced you whereever you stood. Move up several years, and you have standard, low-poly trees, that are full polygonal constructs, with specific texturing now for the trunk, brances and leaves. Now when viewed from certain angles, you can clearly make out the 'edge' of the leaf polys, sometimes having them disappear altogther. It looks rough and primitive. You never see the 'edge' of a billboard tree, but of course it looks far from a real tree by any stretch. Speedtree is offering a blend of each kind of tech. You have your full trunk and brances modeled like normal, but instead of modeling out the shape of the leaves with sculpted polygons, each 'cluster' of leaves is now a billboard that will always face the camera. The tree IS 3D and made of several clusters that make up the volume of the leaf mass, and you'll never see a hard edge on the leaf polys as they are always facing you. This effect is very convincing with higher numbers of clusters, giving a real sense of depth and bringing us closer to that complexity. If you want to see Speedtree( or something similar rather ) in action, take a look at Silent Storm as well as Pangea.

ADD : ...I forgot to mention also that that process isn't particularly cheap, brute force, as you're calculating the orientation of each cluster to the camera...Speedtree has obviously optimized the algorithm making it 'affordable' for a game engine to implement.

Cheers

 

[Balor]

Yea, SS had pretty desent trees - if they are rather slow (expecially with shadows) on slower machines.
But anyway, about my "absolute realism" post - I didn't say that I'll happen in next year or something. I said ti'll happen in my lifetime. That'll about next 50 years, maybe less, but nonetheless .
Now remember Daggerfall (graphics, not gameplay wise, since I doubt that there would be a lot of improvement in that field, heh... I hope at least there would be less bugs), and compare it with Oblivion... And remeber how much time will have passed when Oblivion ships. And try to think ahead next 10 years. I'd say that if there would be much difference between games and reality, it would be noticedable under microscope.
Expecially if nanotech revolution will strike and quantium computers will turn out not something out of sci-fi after all. Cyberpunk will sound like boring news from the past in comparison, I'm sure.