No more interior environments?

[Deleted1031864User]

Ok so I was reading the topic about invironment destruction and burning down towns. Someone suggested that having houses and such burn down would require interiors to be handled differently and it got me thinking... At E3 we saw some clips from the 30 min demo being shown in private.

 

 

The video cuts right before entering the cave which had openings to the exterior in the ceiling allowing light to enter, then right as he was following the water, which he said is used to guide the player out of dungeons, you can see a large opening to what could be outside once again the video cuts before we get to see. Could this be evidence that there will be no loading screens to enter interiors?

 

Like I said this is all speculation but I can't help but be excited by the possibility...

 

Anyone else have any counter arguements or other proof supported by ingame footage or ligitimate quotes by devs?

[Myriss]

Interesting observation. Never noticed it before.

 

If the game was able to do that, then I'd be highly impressed, however, it's possible Skyrim has pseudo-interior environments only. What I mean is, when the video cuts to the Dohvahkin wielding a staff and sword, it's possible he had just came through a door, and that cave area near the exit was part of the exterior of the game world, but the actual interior area of the cave is in a separate cell.

 

Then again, like you mentioned, we never really properly saw the exterior area from the cave.

[Corakus]

This is something we won't be able to tell until we really play the game or a dev clarifies for us.In my opinion though, where he said "the water will lead you out sometimes" he wasn't right at the exit for the dungeon, if you look at the 14 min video that aired on G4 you can see he goes up through that tunnel to fight more draugr and a dragon priest, and then he goes to an exit where it says "To Skyrim" under the crosshair.I don't think they would have had the "To Skyrim" displayed if the dungeon was open. Edited June 16, 2011 by Corakus

[erloriel]

I'll be just dandy as long as it's just the dungeons that load and not every single room within a building (even though it is quick, it still kinda disrupts the game flow, while with a dungeon it gives you time to kinda change mental gears from "oh, I'm prancing through beautiful nature" to "ARGH, they are everywhere". Though that might just be me. Also, this is not to say that I enjoy loading times, just that I have found a way to tolerate them. It would have course be great to have a sort of streaming loading or whatnot, but if not, then that's fine as well.

[Povuholo]

I'm 90% sure interiors are still separate 'click on door to enter' cells.

[Corakus]

Either way, looking at the demos I'm almost certain that caves don't have doors anymore, it probably works something like the Immersive Caves mod where you either automatically enter the cave when walking towards it and get a loading screen or you have to press the activate button when you get to the cave entrance. Edited June 16, 2011 by Corakus

[Deleted1031864User]

Well I won't be completely disappointed if there are interior cells separated by teleporting doors but if not and they are loaded the exterior cells I can't wait for actual realistic windows. The immersion boost would make me a very happy man.

[jhardingame]

Actually, after delving into scripts myself and testing stuff, making destructible environments is easily do-able. It's all about having the right meshes/animations/resources. The scripts to do it are already there in the engine.

 

Someone suggested that having houses and such burn down would require interiors to be handled differently

 

Nope, just gotta have the resources. Once the house catches fire, it burns down. Door to interior/exterior is disabled(in which is disappeared, so you don't have to worry about the whole transition thing AT ALL)

 

Shoot, if the right meshes/animations where readily available, then the exact same thing is doable in Oblivion. Burning down a house is currently exactly doable in Fallout right now, since meshes are somewhat provided. It would a bit weird since there were no specific animations made for a house burning down(there would be a burnt house fade in instead of actual burning down), but destructible environments is completely doable. The devs just have to make the resources and *ta-da* Dwagonz burning the town.

[FavoredSoul]

If the cities in Skyrim still have to be self contained from the outside world (which they are) then I reckon there are still transitions between interior and exterior cells.

 

 

Those openings to the sky are probably just a new system of having skyboxes for interior cells. In oblivion, those cave exits with the rickety wood gate had skyboxes behind them so that you could see small glimpses of the outside world from inside a cave. Its probably the same technique but on much larger scale (probably dynamic too i.e., moving clouds). Its a "new" engine afterall, and we know they've been pushing to do things in the new game that they haven't/couldn't do in the previous games.

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Edited June 20, 2011 by FavoredSoul

[billyro]

In the video, it shows the player going through the fort when he is fighting the second dragon. The lighting changes slightly after entering the fort, so perhaps it will work differently than previously.