Snow Accumulation - Does It Happen?

[Xydonus]

According to the article: "they built a new precipitation system that allows artists to define how much snow will hit particular objects. The program scans the geography, then calculates where the snow should fall to make sure it accumulates properly on the trees, rocks, and bushes." Source - http://www.greenabbot.com/2011/01/skyrim-snowfall-engine.html

 

Does it accumulate? I've yet to see any signs of snow accumulation and I'm a bit sceptical to put it down as a bug, seems like a rather big bug to leave broken. Not that it matters so much for the game itself, but I'm a bit of a stickler for when features gets promised and they aren't present.

 

Despite that, Skyrim is fantastic... Love it, but snow accumulation would be a nice immersive feature to have, and hopefully a mod might come along and actually add it, if it's not present. And if it isn't present, well, I think Todd Howard and Fable creator Peter Molyneux might have something in common.

 

Growing trees anyone? :P

[Arkune]

According to the article: "they built a new precipitation system that allows artists to define how much snow will hit particular objects. The program scans the geography, then calculates where the snow should fall to make sure it accumulates properly on the trees, rocks, and bushes." Source - http://www.greenabbot.com/2011/01/skyrim-snowfall-engine.html

 

:unsure:

 

bulls***

 

:ohdear:

[JimboUK]

Not seen it, I've seen what looks like glossy white paint on rocks, does that count?

 

Todd Howard and Fable creator Peter Molyneux might have something in common.

 

Growing trees anyone? :P

 

No "Might" about it, the guy spouts just as much BS as Mr Molyneux.

[Aluminumfoil]

"Wild speculation about a vague statement by the developer turned out to be inaccurate," should not mean, "BETHESDA, HOW COULD YOU LIE TO US LIKE THIS?!?!"

 

Much of Skyrim's content is procedurally generated, as any world of this size has to be. It seems far more likely to me that the quoted text means that the accumulated snowfall you in the game was procedurally generated by the engine according to a set of variables attached to objects, not that the game is dynamically accumulating snow on objects, nor that, as the author of your quoted article seems to hope, individually tracking a trillion flakes of snow in real time.

[Trey5511]

No "Might" about it, the guy spouts just as much BS as Mr Molyneux.

 

Have we all already forgotten the Oblivion hype?

[JimboUK]

No "Might" about it, the guy spouts just as much BS as Mr Molyneux.

 

Have we all already forgotten the Oblivion hype?

 

Nope, that's why I took anything said by Mr Howard in the lead up to Skyrim with a shovelful of salt.

[RejectedCamel]

The Euclideon engine will be able to do that, but for the moment, there's simply not enough processing power to render millions of snow flakes as polygonal objects and track where they go, what they fall on, and do that over and over again. It would burn out your processor in a nanosecond.

 

All it means is that snow will change the scenery, but it will do it whilst you're not looking. For example, say you were just outside Markarth before, and the weather was clear. You fast travel to Whiterun and spend half an hour there doing some stuff. Meanwhile, it's snowing in Markarth. When you return, there will simply be a small white sheet on most geometry. Rocks will have random white bits, trees will have white bits on their branches, and so on. It doesn't look a lot like snow, but it's the best that can be done until the Euclideon SDK is given to devs.