About High Quality Textures in Skyrim (somewhat a rant)

[red33mer666]

The consoles are 5 years old. Any guy with a job can buy a PC ten times better than that in a month, and then change the graphic card and RAM once every 3rd year to keep it up to date.

 

The textures was downscaled to fit the consoles, THEN ported over. Why would you do that? Instead of making all high ress, releasing for the PC, then downgrading for the old hardware? It is very common to work with textures at 2048x2048 or 1024x1024 and downscaling. It is not normal to texture anything at 256x256. A few times they might texture 512x512 diectly, if they are in a rush.

 

I agree completely with the workflow problem. this is how it should have been done.

and yes any guy with a job can buy a machine that will pwn the hell out of a console. That however is not any longer the target market for games. the people who bethsoft and EA and Ubisoft are all looking to grab are 10-15 year old kids who dont have jobs and have to beg their parents for games and upgrades. This is a very smart marketing move by both game studios and sony/microsoft. After All they have been hitting record sales numbers year after year by selling the same product that is, yes, five years old.

 

the nice thing for us to think about is all of the actual innovation is being done on the pc end. Just think, when oblivion was released programs like Zbrush and mudbox had just barely come out and the back end integration of those programs into existing 3d editing software and game engines is where the real revolution has taken place. and look at how much better skyrim looks then oblivion, at least on the character level (I think the environment textures are about the same) but what is possible now was not possible 6 years ago when oblivion was released on the very same platform. none of that could have been done without the demands of the modding community. we are what pushes companies to do better, because we innovate for free on our own time and help shape standards that weren't around at release

 

I agree that Skyrim deserves to be a next gen game, but I am a pc gamer and I realize that I am a minority on earth in that respect.

and really isn't reaching for the very limits of what your Game experience can be part of why we are here? We buy and mod and rebuy components because that is what owning and running a pc is all about. I mean if you wanted everything to be perfect out of the box wouldn't you just be happy if the box were an xbox? there is always the next threshold

[Matth85]

and really isn't reaching for the very limits of what your Game experience can be part of why we are here?

I see your point. I simply do not understand Bethesda: Crap it down to fit a toaster -- I mean Xbox, and then port it to the PC? Why not the other way around? They were all released at the same date, no?

[Ghogiel]

and really isn't reaching for the very limits of what your Game experience can be part of why we are here?

I see your point. I simply do not understand Bethesda: Crap it down to fit a toaster -- I mean Xbox, and then port it to the PC? Why not the other way around? They were all released at the same date, no?

Well the target platform is the xbox. So it makes sense, you wouldn't build a game for a market that only makes up like 5--10% of your sales. You choose the on that makes 75%.

[darthsloth74]

I would like to think that the PC version was developed first and then ported to the consoles in an optimised way. This simply wasn't the case we got a port of an Xbox game. Why? I thought most Xbox games were developed on PC's anyway, you don't see Zbrush and 3ds Max runnning on an Xbox. So really whats the excuse? Not keeping any high res textures archived is very bad workflow.

Say what you like about Dragon Age 2 but at least some form of Higher Res texture pack was released by Bioware. However in regard to Skyrim's graphics and to quote Todd Howard:

 

Obviously Skyrim on the PC looks better. It has higher textures and can run at much higher resolution.

We rewrote all the graphics and gameplay engine.so we can get a lot more detail on the screen.

 

When you publicly make statements like that is it any surprise we have graphics the way they are.

[Matth85]

Well the target platform is the xbox. So it makes sense, you wouldn't build a game for a market that only makes up like 5--10% of your sales. You choose the on that makes 75%.

Whch I understand, with the UI. But the textures? Why crush it into small bits, then port it back to the PC, than just save high res textures then smack it in the console?

The release date was the same, so where it got ported first made no different.

 

Of course, modders fix it all.

[Ghogiel]

I would like to think that the PC version was developed first and then ported to the consoles in an optimised way. This simply wasn't the case we got a port of an Xbox game. Why? I thought most Xbox games were developed on PC's anyway, you don't see Zbrush and 3ds Max runnning on an Xbox. So really whats the excuse? Not keeping any high res textures archived is very bad workflow.

Texture res aside, as that isn't really that much of important point to whether developing on the PC for the xbox makes more sense than deving for the PC first then porting to the xbox.

 

 

Firstly the design philosophy is that their lead platform will not look or be any worse than any other platform. They do not want to risk any resentment from their primary source of income. So in a sense marketing plays a role in the decision.

 

secondly it's a design decision. the consoles hardware needs particular coding to make the engine work in the most optimised manner. Ideally the engine, art pipeline, and even the original design document should have the console in mind. It needs to squeeze that hardware these days for it to be competitive AAA game.

 

If you were to build the game with the idea of of a mid range system, I bet the console port would take a beating. I think this is partially why virtually like 3 developers who do multi platform releases actually do PC first then port..

 

and no the textures thing makes no sense, I am under the impression we did get bigger texture for the bodies... but everything else...? :confused:

Even after they said like 5 times it would get high res textures.

 

maybe it'll come with the CK... :unsure:

Edited December 21, 2011 by Ghogiel

[darthsloth74]

Ghogiel: You're right of course they have to develop where the money is these days theres no getting around that. Though if you think high res textures will come with the CK or released shortly afterward then you're dreaming. Look at Bethesda's track record, not likely. :rolleyes:

[Ghogiel]

I don't believe it they will do anything of the sort.

 

I would say they would have dropped mod support totally if they weren't actually trying to consolize those as well..

[runicNomad]

all I can say is thank you to all the new upped textures being released here on the nexus.

I am sad that the future of pc game swill be console to pc most likely continuing on into the future but luckily we have the modding community

[throttlekitty]

I think we're forgetting the part where a very small percent of textures actually go through the process of being made large and then scaled down.

 

If you know your target resolution, you don't waste time creating details that are going to be smudged away when downsampled. Baking larger maps and downsizing them is a huge waste of processor time, not to mention that you're probably killing quality on a normal map, introducing more problems.

 

 

What I have a problem with is the objects that use terrible or much lower res than other objects in the scene.

And ultra-sharp HD super photo retextures with the wtf pattern overlays that are all the rage. -I'm really not trying to start a flame war, honest, but I do find it curious the things people will do to call something high-res simply for the sake of.