Graphic/texture mods...really Bethesda?

[Karasuman]

I don't mean to beat up on Bethesda because I think they worked hard on Skyrim and I personally have really enjoyed it. I honestly believe they are lacking the skill and talent to make decent graphics, though. I see plenty of evidence for the lack of skill in their art department while looking through the game's texture files. They did they best they could with what they had I guess, but the reason you see modern games even on console with such jaw-dropping graphics is because they have talented graphic designers with a vast repertoire of tricks to make top-notch textures, and Bethesda just has a couple of guys with Adobe Image Ready and a Wacom tablet. Making textures is not hard, it is without a doubt the easiest part of graphic design; thus the most simple answer is that there is a decisive lack of creative talent behind the scenes.

 

The Witcher 2 has gorgeous graphics because CDPR poured their heart (and paid artists to do magic) into the game. Skyrim has... a very mixed bag of good and bad textures because they refuse to recruit modern talent.

 

That's one way to look at it, and I can understand the sentiment you're expressing. But to play devil's advocate (and to be fair to Bethesda), TES games can be modded, most other games can't. Oblivion, when it first shipped, looked pretty amazing. Sure, the LOD texes didn't look great, but things in your character's immediate surroundings were jaw-dropping. Stock Oblivion is still a good-looking game even by today's standards. Regardless, within a year of its release, modders had released a wide variety of retexes and graphical enhancements for it anyway.

 

I hate to say it, but if I am Bethesda, looking to make max profit, and I'm looking at the Oblivion example, why would I pay more than necessary this time around when I know that no matter how good I make the game look upon release, there -will- be a modder within 6 months time that will make it look better? And he will do this for free. Everyone may not like that philosophy, but, like it or not, it is a sound business decision. I honestly would probably do the same in their shoes.

[natelovesyou]

I hear what you're saying, and I do agree. But I feel that if you're playing Skyrim for the graphics, you might be playing for the wrong reason. All of the awesome things in the game, with still rather great graphics, I'm not too concerned with the condition it came in out of the box.

 

Minus the once-an-hour crash I get. :/

[Brittainy]

One argument that drives me up the wall is the console excuse.

 

It HAS to be low resolution textures for the pc version just because the console has them? NO. It does not. That's nothing more than laziness.

 

As to performance, as someone who has almost always had shonky pc's and who runs a lot of texture replacers, I can very safely say it's not hard to produce a decent texture that performs well. I don't mean to be nasty to Bethesda, but someone who posted earlier nailed it when they pointed out that Bethesda has never been good at making games look decent.

 

Oblivion had the luck of a combination of enough impressive elements here and there in conjunction with a generally attractive and inviting world to give an overall impression of beauty.

 

If we get really picky, even if you don't bump up the resolution at all with Skyrim or Oblivion's textures, they really aren't done particularly well. A decent texture can be considerably dumbed down in resolution and still look pretty good. Skyrim and Oblivion's textures definitely fail on that front. If anything, in fact, Skyrim's plants and trees look worse than Oblivion's do in terms of style.

 

I will give credit where it's due when I acknowledge that at times they give quite an effective illusion of quality - the right highlights and contrasts from a distance. But once you stick your face a little closer to them you really see the flaws...and they aren't pretty.

 

Ultimately - to me, anyway - it's inexcusable for a pc game made in this day and age to look as out-dated as Skyrim does. New textures don't take that long to make...release the pc version a bit later and give it some decent quality. Let the consoles have their low res textures. Put a bit more effort into the pc version and give it the visuals it deserves and don't leave it all up to modders.

 

Frankly, while I do love modding, if Skyrim or Oblivion came with decent quality textures I would never have bothered making my own. I would have simply recoloured them to suit my taste and left it at that.

 

People don't make high resolution texture replacements for the sake of it. It's only to fill a void.

 

A void that shouldn't exist in the first place.

 

Being ported from a console just doesn't cut it as an excuse for a sloppy pc version.

[OnlyOneWing]

That's why I'd be pissed if Steamworks tries to charge people for these mods. Then Bethesda would profit off of people who do the work that they should have done to begin with.

 

I seriously would never pay for another Bethesda title again.

Edited December 7, 2011 by OnlyOneWing

[jesusismyairbag]

Sorry, rant thread.

 

I was just on here earlier, perusing the site to see what new mods had cropped up since the last time I checked. Then it hit me. About the ONLY mods out right now are graphical in nature; mostly, people upping the resolution on the shoddy graphics Skyrim shipped with. I facepalmed.

 

Bethesda has been releasing their games in this condition for as long as I can remember. They ship them with crappy graphics, bugs they never intend to fix (or fix one, break 20 others, as is the case with the 1.02 patch!) and in general, just release a half-assed game. It's really getting depressing. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Skyrim. The story and gameplay are amazing. Except for all the bugs, and all the bad textures that really kill the immersion. So I come here every few days to see what else people have finally brought up to a respectable resolution. I've probably downloaded close to 2 GB of updated textures, and the creation kit isn't even out yet!

 

It's kind of sad when multi-player games, which really need to focus on performance, look better than a single-player game. I was watching a friend play...MW3, or COD3, or whatever iteration those games are currently on, and my god, the graphics were amazing. Then I boot up Skyrim and have a heart attack. Is this really the craftsmanship we're to expect from such a monolithic gaming company?

 

I really appreciate all the hard work the modders go through to make these upgraded texture mods. They look absolutely amazing. But the question arises, why the hell couldn't Bethesda do that in the FIRST PLACE? Oh that's right, because it's a freaking CONSOLE PORT. ><

 

you feel the need to cry over graphics? sort it out, whats wrong with you.

[OnlyOneWing]

you feel the need to cry over graphics? sort it out, whats wrong with you.

The problem is not with the OP. Think about it, when you buy the game for Xbox360 or PS3 you are getting a game that is fully optimized for the format of your choice. However, when you buy the PC version, you are getting a game that is still designed for another/inferior format. You pay the same price for the game regardless of format.

 

Considering the money that Bethesda made off of PC gamers and how little time it would take for a full team to retexure Skyrim in HD, or at least the major parts of Skyrim... then they really ripped us off. Xbox360/PS3 reviewers would never stand for a game that was ported from Wii, with clunky controls, relatively inferior graphics and more bugs to top it off.

Edited December 7, 2011 by OnlyOneWing

[brevard1986]

Admittedly, I have installed several texture mods on Skyrim now but I thought vanilla Skyrim was pretty damn good looking.

 

Massive world structure and varying levels of environments from snowscapes to hot swamps? Looked very nice vanilla. I love watching wind blowing snow off the crest of a hill.

 

So I don't really consider Skyrim 'outdated' in anyway :confused: Maybe it's me.

 

p.s. I own BF3, Witcher 2 and Crysis 2 - and yes they are much better looking games than Skyrim but not one of them allowed me to crest the top of a mountain and look down at a frozen tundra with a night aurora light

[zuluknob]

i think 18,000 textures might take a while.... saying that i upscaled and fracaly enhanced all 18k with perfect resize 7 in less than a day. :) what would be nice of bethsoft is for them to release the source photos they used to make the landscape textures and trees.

[elvinkun]

Well, the (other) reason why most of the mods are re-texts is because you can't really do anything else without the CK.

Except for those people with real skills of course, or those willing to learn with the other editors.

[huntsman2310]

The vanilla textures don't look bad at all, its stupid to think they wouldn't care about the state of their own game. Besides I don't use graphics mods, they don't have a tangible impact on gameplay and all they do is either straighten up the individual cracks in a rock or the edges of a leaf.

 

Who looks that closely at textures anyway?