Skyrim - Hi-Res Screens

Hi-res versions of the Skyrim screens you might have seen in GameInformer are available at GameReactor.eu. Thanks, r3dshift!
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That is SO the same engine just with upgrades, I don't care what they say.

1280x720 is "hi-res"? Maybe in 2003.

Originally Posted by epithumia
1280x720 is "hi-res"? Maybe in 2003.

Well, that's the resolution the console versions will be using so it's a given they will have the screenshots at that size.

Exteriors are unimpressive so far, the interiors looks really good.. nice to have shadows finally too, and gonna be great to have, hopefully, good or even impressive animations this time. The faces looks great, they've come a long way with that since Morrowind..

Wait you mean the women finally look like females instead of having man faces.

Sad, before clicking the comments I could predict what many of you would say.

Looks fantastic to me, to bad it wasn't a small european game company so you could all be happy with it.

I'm not going to judge those screens before having seen those scenes in-game. I think it looks pretty good so far. And indeed, it would appear that there are finally some decent female models.

I really have no idea where that interface is going though. For some reason it smells like Kinect to me…

Originally Posted by rune_74
Sad, before clicking the comments I could predict what many of you would say.

Looks fantastic to me, to bad it wasn't a small european game company so you could all be happy with it.

It looks good, I'm not knocking it, but from the style and geometry you can tell it's the same basic technology. They keep going on about a "new engine" and I think that's disingenuous.

Not sure why you wouldnt believe it's a new engine just because they keep the same style. I'm quite sure they're not lying about that and I don't think the creators of their older licensed engine would like that they suddenly claim it's their engine.

I think this is about as far as we get when we're restricted by old console hardware.. Totally acceptable graphics, but it's not like when you saw Morrowind for the first time, or Oblivion for that matter..

I can't believe nobody has said anything about that menu.

Originally Posted by bemushroomed
Not sure why you wouldnt believe it's a new engine just because they keep the same style. I'm quite sure they're not lying about that and I don't think the creators of their older licensed engine would like that they suddenly claim it's their engine.

I think this is about as far as we get when we're restricted by old console hardware.. Totally acceptable graphics, but it's not like when you saw Morrowind for the first time, or Oblivion for that matter..

It doesn't really work like that, the Oblivion/Fallout 3 engine was not just licensed Gamebryo, it's more complicated. They built most of that technology themselves and it was just an enhanced version of the Morrowind engine. This in turn looks exactly like an enhanced version of the Oblivion engine. Even Todd Horward told Eurogamer last year that they were never going to change technology, just update it, and Skyrim was already deep in development then.

It's a "new engine" in the sense that they have updated it, but it is the same core technology I can almost promise you. When I say you can tell it looks the same I don't mean design, I mean stuff like how the pots and plates sit on the shelf, or how the layers work in the outside areas.

Yes they've built some of their own tech and they've kept that for the new in-house developed engine, they've explained that.

And no they can absolutely not claim that Gamebryo is their own in-house developed engine and put a new name on it (Creation Engine). They've switched the core engine and kept some of the tech they've developed, that's all there is to it..

Originally Posted by bemushroomed
Yes they've built some of their own tech and they've kept that for the new in-house developed engine, they've explained that.

And no they can absolutely not claim that Gamebryo is their own in-house developed engine and put a new name on it (Creation Engine). They've switched the core engine and kept some of the tech they've developed, that's all there is to it..

Gamebryo is not one single engine style though, it is more like a technology base from what I understand. Both Morrowind and Oblivion used "Gamebryo" and yet when Oblivion was announced they said it used a "new engine."

My only point is don't expect it to feel like a new technology base. I would bet my cookies it will be the same technology as Morrowind and Oblivion, just updated. When they say "new engine" people imagine the difference of something like switching from Unreal Engine 3 to id Tech 5… it won't be anything like that.

Nice screens!

As long as working ladders are in, I'm sold!

The art direction is very similar to Oblivion, but the GfX are a notch above what we have seen in that game. Probably close to what the current console generation is capable of (for an open world game). The shot with the dragon does look cool, I wonder what it will look like in motion. Overall though it feels like an incremental improvement over Oblivion - I secretely hoped for something stylistically more daring. But of course the visuals are more than adequate if the game is good. Not so thrilled they still have problems with pop-up, hated that about the Oblivion engine.

Originally Posted by DoctorNarrative
Gamebryo is not one single engine style though, it is more like a technology base from what I understand. Both Morrowind and Oblivion used "Gamebryo" and yet when Oblivion was announced they said it used a "new engine."

My only point is don't expect it to feel like a new technology base. I would bet my cookies it will be the same technology as Morrowind and Oblivion, just updated. When they say "new engine" people imagine the difference of something like switching from Unreal Engine 3 to id Tech 5… it won't be anything like that.

It may be a *little* more like that than you seem to suspect- as changing the core engine is what has allowed them to use Havok animation as the animation tool as well as change how trees and foliage are created as well as interacted with/animated in the game. By changing to the "creation engine" they are able to dump some 3rd party tools that caused some of the goofier visuals in previous titles.

Rather than using one product for facial animation, another for foliage generation and animation, and another for physics they're now using tool-sets that are actually designed to work with each other from the get-go.

That's not to say the game experience should be expected to be vastly different - their games from morrowind on have been massive commercial and critical successes despite their flaws. They're not likely to change the style or the game - but understanding that and denying that significant changes have been made to the mechanisms by which they present their game world are not the same thing at all.

Still if you didn't like the art style (though obviously character models have improved quite a bit) or general atmosphere of the previous games then yeah you probably won't like this one either.

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
Not so thrilled they still have problems with pop-up, hated that about the Oblivion engine.

Yeah… and idTech has developed several technologies that heavily remedy that issue, although they have to be implmemented in the core engine design because they require completely changing how textures are loaded, streamed, and even created in the first place. Sadly I think they already started on development when they would have been able to borrow or license that from idTech.

The console tech is the same as with oblivion so apart from optimisation there is propably little room for improvement.

Originally Posted by jhwisner
Still if you didn't like the art style (though obviously character models have improved quite a bit) or general atmosphere of the previous games then yeah you probably won't like this one either.

I loved Morrowind's art style, as my avatar should prove. I did not like Oblivion's generic fantasy setting.

That said this is all kind of beside the point of whether the "engine" is really new or not, but I have long since learned not to argue on the internet so I will leave the debate where it is for now. When the game comes out we will see what is new and what isn't.