Before anyone says "omg you'll complain about ANYTHING," no, I don't actually care about this at all. It'd be ridiculous if the "feature" I'm about to name got in the way of anyone's enjoyment of the game.

....But that doesn't change that I'm INCREDIBLY curious as to why those skulls in the bone piles strung about the Soul Cairn look like they have graphics at N64 quality. Like what the hell?! This is the most random thing ever! Skyrim and Dawnguard all have their quality of graphics we're familiar with, but then the Soul Cairn randomly has these piles of bones that look like they're from the days of N64. The piles themselves don't look distinct at all; like they're literally almost perfectly cone-shaped, with no actual depth to the individual bones or a natural looking shape, but rather and obviously manufactured one, where the bones aren't actual world items but just a texture.

And in the moment you think "eh it's lazy but it's fine, I'm used to the olden days when this unnatural cone shape was standard," then there's a cartoonish skull on the top of the pile that looks like it's straight out of the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy or something.


"Hey, should we use those high texture bones, skulls and ribcages we've already created? Yknow, just kinda jam them into the ground and make them immobile?"
"WTF no of course not! Let's make new ones. And not only new ones, let's make CRAPPY new ones!"


Were they on ACID when they made these? xD
I -HAVE- to ask because I was just watching a let's play vid and the dude takes a little too much time to enjoy the scenery for my tastes, and the ONE thing he skipped over were these eye-popping 16-bit skulls and bone piles. I found myself pausing the video and staring at them with as much fascination as him with the rest of the GOOD scenery.

Please tell me I'm not the only one staring at these in bewilderment. Please tell me I'm not the only one that's noticed these and thought "wtf???" They're very poorly rendered, yet so hysterically bad and interesting. They peak my curiousity like no other. These are my new favorite feature of Skyrim, as if Sheogorath himself designed them FOR NO APPARENT REASON other than to confuse the crap outta me and make absolutely NOOOOOOO sense.

These bones are amazing. Crappy bones for president, 2012.

Cut down on the poly count to improve performance. Its a common tactic when you have something all over your world.

Still! To me they seem like a drastic drop in graphics quality.

But I love them. <3 They're so hysterically out of place they make me giggle. They make me wanna buy Dawnguard.

I'm sure they had their reasons.

To confuse the hell out of me! That's the reason!
Cause yeah, I'm stumped. On one hand they could just leave them out entirely if they can't make them look good, on another they could make less piles but with the higher quality textures/items they've already got.
I'd love to be able to ask the devs why they chose those, but something tells me they'd also look at me with the same puzzled expression I have when I see them, thinking "of all the things he could ask, he asked that?!"

Do you have a screenshot of said skulls?

It's to cut down on memory usage, and gamebryo games seems to push consoles to their limits.
Obsidian had to remove NPCs in the world cell as they released DLCs for FO:NV.

That, or it's a LEGO reference

I actually do. Took one just a couple minutes ago.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v174/mr.people/dembonez.png

They're QUITE noticeable. Especially when you compare them to the actual skeleton object to the right.
At first I thought they must be a world object, yknow like some interactable object that might contain items? Don't think they are though.

Looks rather minor. More of a coloring difference then model quality.

You can visually see all the polygons. The beautiful, beautiful polygons.
Though yeah I think the color adds to the skulls in particular.



Suddenly it all makes sense.

Damn. I need to check that out when I go back there.

Those look diffrent from the ones I saw... Albiet those ones were actually worse. It still feels like it doesn't flow with the world. They look like they belong in something more grungy in art style. I think it may be they tried giving it texture to the ground but at the same time they didn't want to make the ground literally just items. However the result turned out less than spectacular.

Those bones are amazing, you're just jealous you didn't think of them first!

I think that they lend to the surrealistic look/feel of the Soul Cairn.