No realy... What was wrong with leg armour?

Post » Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:29 am

I believe you are defeated. Stand down,sir. Your arguments do not appear to be valid.
Just because you choose not to believe the facts of programing doesn't mean the facts aren't true.

Complete and utter bull [censored]. Oblivion would start to lag from ~10 NPCs. The AI was heavily optimized back then. Skyrim, I have seen 20+ NPCs with no sign of performance hit.
I was just about to say that. In oblivion hardly anyone walked the street. The streets of Whiterun are crowded and claustrophobic compared to the Imperial City.
Taking a fort in the Civil War has more NPC's in one battle then the final mission in Oblivion.
User avatar
Enny Labinjo
 
Posts: 3480
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 3:04 pm

Post » Wed Jun 13, 2012 10:14 pm

What because he said agrees with what you completely erroneously believe? What he said is gibberish.
this doesn't make sense to me. Sorry.

uhm... a bunch of cabbages or cheeses rolling down a hill has significantly more impact than greaves (and pauldrons) Yet our edible item representation seems to work in masses. Compared to everything else greaves are absolutely tiny things (and nobody seems to be taking on board what i said about saints row having a wonderfull level of character customisation AND better everything techical)
User avatar
Invasion's
 
Posts: 3546
Joined: Fri Aug 18, 2006 6:09 pm

Post » Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:01 pm

this doesn't make sense to me. Sorry.

uhm... a bunch of cabbages or cheeses rolling down a hill has significantly more impact than greaves (and pauldrons) Yet our edible item representation seems to work in masses. Compared to everything else greaves are absolutely tiny things (and nobody seems to be taking on board what i said about saints row having a wonderfull level of character customisation AND better everything techical)
But masses of cheese rolling down a cliff side is only possible if the player initiates it. At no time does such a thing happen in normal game play, Where as NPCs wearing clothing or armor is.
User avatar
Taylor Bakos
 
Posts: 3408
Joined: Mon Jan 15, 2007 12:05 am

Post » Thu Jun 14, 2012 12:02 am

That 'single line in the config' is far more important than you're giving it credit for.
No it isn't. A 1 instead of a 0 doesn't take any appreciative amount of RAM.

It's in the realms of being tenuous, and that's why the PS3 had so many problems after long-play, it became so full of information it ran out of space.
Which had to do with the game trying to reference HUNDREDS of objects in hundreds of cells and thousands of script values. It has to do with save file gradually bloating with dozens of hours of play, but you're fantasizing about some sort of hard limit that is always there. The difference between the two situations is so immense, it's clear to me that you are making everything up.


Not one cell in the game has anywhere near hundreds of trees.
Hundreds of objects, definitely. But apparently we can only have sixty! Otherwise the game would crash.


And the frame-rate is -and-was appalling, so what's your point? If that happened in normal play, people would be outraged.
Havok calculations kill framerate. Each second requires highly complex formulas to run on each object. A piece of armor, once loaded, costs NOTHING except having to render it. And you were talking about memory costs, not fps.


Because the world was no where near as detailed. Most of it was even procedurally-generated in order to save memory.
None of it was procedurally-generated, except in development. Every copy of Oblivion is the same, and it all takes up memory anyways. Generating things on the fly would COST memory. I know little about computers, but you're making me feel like Bill Gates. Skyrim does NOT have a more detailed world. I mod both games, and both have cells with 3D objects in them. No real difference. Skyrim's wilderness is less demanding on my PC, even.

For one, there is no speedtree, they are full 3d models now.
Really? Because they look worse, honestly.

But masses of cheese rolling down a cliff side is only possible if the player initiates it. At no time does such a thing happen in normal game play, Where as NPCs wearing clothing or armor is.
The "argument" was that having an extra armor slot would *crash* the game. Even a 360 doesn't crash from a few cheese wheels running down a slope. And yet HAVOK is vastly more demanding on the resources than loading an extra item.

Complete and utter bull [censored]. Oblivion would start to lag from ~10 NPCs. The AI was heavily optimized back then. Skyrim, I have seen 20+ NPCs with no sign of performance hit.
Because of the AI. Oblivion would lag from 10 naked NPCs the same as 10 equipped NPCs. Go try it! I'm serious! You can test your theories scientifically.

But enough to cut into performance, yes. Remember that console games need to be able to run at a damn near constant 30FPS under any circumstance.
Go load up twenty naked NPCs and measure FPS. Then load up twenty clothed and armored NPCs. Until then, I call BS.

due to the mesh polygons as well as the extra data pertaining to the beards equip slot.
Infinitesimally, it's true there would be a difference. The game has to render a LOT of things, and each little item makes a barely-noticeable difference. This is the heart of why Bethesda's excuse is so laughable.
User avatar
~Amy~
 
Posts: 3478
Joined: Sat Aug 12, 2006 5:38 am

Post » Thu Jun 14, 2012 3:17 am

The "argument" was that having an extra armor slot would *crash* the game. Even a 360 doesn't crash from a few cheese wheels running down a slope. And yet HAVOK is vastly more demanding on the resources than loading an extra item.
I don't know where that argument was stated, but I'm just saying its wrong. It wouldn't crash the game, but would require more memory from the already limited 512MB on consoles.


Because of the AI. Oblivion would lag from 10 naked NPCs the same as 10 equipped NPCs. Go try it! I'm serious! You can test your theories scientifically.
Yeah, they would lag either way, but a fully armord person would lag MORE then a naked NPC due to more data having to be loaded into memory.
User avatar
Emma louise Wendelk
 
Posts: 3385
Joined: Sat Dec 09, 2006 9:31 pm

Post » Thu Jun 14, 2012 6:42 am

I know little about computers
This would appear to be the problem.
User avatar
Toby Green
 
Posts: 3365
Joined: Sun May 27, 2007 5:27 pm

Post » Thu Jun 14, 2012 3:41 am

:dry: Let's become further entrenched in our views by arguing with others!!


Should i be saddened by how you two don't seem to read the valid parts of mine and sonic's arguments? One or two extra body parts adds a laughable, almost non existent addition to performance. Many of your statements on game development and techniques (Such as oblivion not working so hard because of procedural generation) are laughable and show a lack of knowledge on the subject. There are a few reasons (that i don't particularly like) about the lack of greaves (and spaulders) that bethesda could use as a legitimate reason/excuse. Performance is not one of them. Skyrim Did not push the limit of consoles. It was unoptimised in many ways (and for the ps3) it does not use all the techniques that modern games use (or the game does not use them consistently- Bethesda can use colour shaders for the sky and for effects but do not do so for clothing)

It's late in my country and i need to sleep. hopefully i won't see this argument still going tomorrow
User avatar
christelle047
 
Posts: 3407
Joined: Mon Apr 09, 2007 12:50 pm

Post » Thu Jun 14, 2012 1:15 am

Yeah, they would lag either way, but a fully armord person would lag MORE then a naked NPC due to more data having to be loaded into memory.
The burden of proof is on you. Load them naked svckers up and turn your back to them (to test your memory idea, not the GPU load) and see if you get an appreciable difference. You mentioned PCs in your earlier posts, and it's the same engine, so platform should be no object. You can even limit your RAM and virtual memory artificially! Your task manager can record your RAM usage for you.

Come on, can you really resist winning an argument?

One or two extra body parts adds a laughable, almost non existent addition to performance.
Yep. I wonder what would happen if we asked this question in the modding forum. Snickering all round.
User avatar
Chenae Butler
 
Posts: 3485
Joined: Sat Feb 17, 2007 3:54 pm

Post » Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:43 am

Taking a fort in the Civil War has more NPC's in one battle then the final mission in Oblivion.

True this, I was quite happy to find that te game didn't stutter at all either, whereas Oblivion seemed to struggle with half the number at any given time. This is on the xbox, so the comparison is on the same platform. For me that shows that skyrim is optimised better than oblivion, along with the fact that on average I have had far less hard freezes than I did with oblivion.

So, did they leave out greaves to protect consoles? I reckon so. But it seems to me, from what I've heard, that they left the infrastructure in the CK to easily mod greaves in yes? No great shakes for you PC guys then :)
User avatar
Floor Punch
 
Posts: 3568
Joined: Tue May 29, 2007 7:18 am

Post » Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:06 pm

Nothing is wrong with having greaves as a seperate piece of armor. The developers simply prefered to have them merged with cuirass into "armor".

Personally I never found this to be a big deal, but I hope they do not reduce the amount of euipment slots further and give us back the option to have 2 rings.
User avatar
Peetay
 
Posts: 3303
Joined: Sun Jul 22, 2007 10:33 am

Post » Wed Jun 13, 2012 10:45 pm

Since at least Morrowind, gamesas have been cutting down on what one player has been able to wear at any given time in the Elder Scrolls series. Observe-

Morrowind: 17 items (Two Pauldrons (left and right), Two Gauntlets (left and right), boots, cuirass, greaves, helmet, shield, 1h weapon, shirt, pants, skirt, robe, amulet, and two rings)

Oblivion: 10 Items (Gloves, Cuirass, Greaves, Boots, Helmet, Shield, 1h weapon, amulet, and two rings)

Skyrim: 8 items (Gloves, Armor, Boots, Shield, Helmet, 1h weapon, amulet, and ONE ring)

I think the devs are caving to time pressures by the Exes and adding less armor as time goes on. Looking into the CS editors, Oblivion has far more slots available to play around with than just the 10, same goes for Skyrim. In fact, the limiting factor in these games is incompatability if two armors share a same slot. In Morrowind, it was far more rigid. A bracer and a gauntlet took up one wrist/hand slot. You couldn't wear a small glove with a bracer because the game wouldn't allow two peices to occupy the wrist/hand area, even though the glove affects only the hand and the bracer only affects the wrist. In Oblivion, theoretically, you could since the armor is based on what is currently occupied where, instead of the type of armor/clothing it is. You could wear two cuirasses if one was slotted to the "head' and the other to the "torso"!
Sooooo true..., Bethesda has gotten progressively lame in terms of customizing
User avatar
Lovingly
 
Posts: 3414
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 6:36 am

Post » Thu Jun 14, 2012 2:03 am


Sooooo true..., Bethesda has gotten progressively lame in terms of customizing

If we are talking about aesthetics, then yes I suppose that the choice there has dwindled somewhat. In Oblivion however, you could master every. Single. Skill on one character. Now you have to specialise due to limited perk points. Now you have to specialise. The former is handing everything to you on a plate, the latter is customisation :)
User avatar
Lauren Graves
 
Posts: 3343
Joined: Fri Aug 04, 2006 6:03 pm

Post » Wed Jun 13, 2012 4:47 pm

Regardless of the reasons I miss having multiple armor slots. It gave the player the possibility for a lot more variety when dressing a character. It was fun to mix things up and I liked having more than one ring. I don't understand why they changed it up but I wish they would change it back.
User avatar
Sophie Louise Edge
 
Posts: 3461
Joined: Sat Oct 21, 2006 7:09 pm

Post » Wed Jun 13, 2012 7:50 pm

Didn't seem to help with clipping all that much. I've yet to even find a pair of vanilla gloves that DON'T clip with my robes. Guess they better merge gloves into armor, too!

The pants/torso merge I didn't honestly think was that awful. One ring bothered me a lot and I can't find a mod that allows two without giving infinite rings. It is good that there's a bunch of unused slots in Skyrim though, gives us some stuff to play with.
User avatar
Emmie Cate
 
Posts: 3372
Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2007 12:01 am

Post » Thu Jun 14, 2012 2:20 am

For the talk about performance hit from number Polygons on two seperate items, consider this.

I take a current armor, split the mesh into cuirass and greaves, modify Skyrim to accept "legs" as a valid equipment slot, and then reload the two. Depsite me splitting the base mesh, performance now takes a hit because of additional rendering on the legs?

Armor in skyrim, by the way, doesn't have that much information from Oblivion. Mesh, Texture, slot(s), Armor, armor type, value, weight. Icon and name. Most of these are loaded if it's accessed by the PC. "Owner" is only applied if left as a seperate in-game item rather than worn by default, and physics aren't required because, as long as it's worn, it uses the (N)PC's hitbox to determine hits. Oblivion had a "health" stat that the game needed to track for damage to the item that modified armor rating. That's the only real difference between armor in Oblivion and armor in Skyrim. Per armor peice, Oblivion's armor contained more Data than Skyrim, yet Oblivion is an older system!

How is it that Skyrim is so high-performance that a "fix" is to discontinue one line of information and two equipment slots? In terms of information in-game, that's basically shaving three ounces off of a one-ton block, and you're telling us that doing so makes the one-ton block significantly easier to lift!
User avatar
Andrew Lang
 
Posts: 3489
Joined: Thu Oct 11, 2007 8:50 pm

Post » Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:34 pm



That's not true - re: all weapons are either just "one handed" or "two handed". No more than in previous games.

Weapons are either one or two handed, yes, but there are perks that allow you to specialize in swords, axes, maces, greatswords, battleaxes, and warhammers. Which ultimately would end up being the same as taking the Long Blade, Short Blade, Blunt, or Axe skills in previous games. So that hasn't been removed. And in fact, there are now different bonuses for each type. Swords are fastest, but do the least amount of damage. Axes are medium speed, medium damage. Maces / Warhammers are highest damage, but slowest speed. There is also critical strike / bleed / armor negation bonuses for each one.

Now, admittedly those bonuses are probably rather minor, however it is more than we've had in weapons in the past. The special power moves also still exist coming in perk form as well. So we actually haven't lost anything in that regard.

And having to invest in your One Handed perks to do more damage is really no different than putting attribute points into Strength to do more damage.

I also disagree with you on attributes, I believe that the current attributes and perks make up for everything attributes provided, and more. True, you can't adjust actual speed, however you can increase stamina, which increases sprinting ability, which allows you to move quicker, which allows you to create a quick and agile character. Just in a different manner than past games provided.

I see your points, as from a gameplay perspective. But if you look at it, why would welding a mace affect your ability to handle a sword? Also the sprinting wouldn't mean he's really naturally quicker, just his lungs are more conditioned.

Also thanks for not flaming, reviewing my other post it seemed a little inflammatory and am glad you didn't jump here to roast me. :P
User avatar
Meghan Terry
 
Posts: 3414
Joined: Sun Aug 12, 2007 11:53 am

Post » Thu Jun 14, 2012 6:17 am

I'm more disappointed in the fact that I can only wear one ring. Its nothing deal-breaking for me, I can manage but still another ring slot wouldn't of hurt.
User avatar
Neliel Kudoh
 
Posts: 3348
Joined: Thu Oct 26, 2006 2:39 am

Post » Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:59 pm

All of those sound worse in some way to the current system. Either being vastly more complicated to program.(especially for NPC's) or simply more irritating. Still does not address the rendering issues which can only be solved by limited the number of NPC's in a cell or limiting the number of item slots available.
Skyrim already have limits on enchantment based on body parts, Boots and helmet take different enchants, had been no problem continued this, mostly two enchantments who are overpowered, the +40% weapon damage enchant, you have four slots for them, 3 slots or max on 30% and the 100% reduction in casting cost enchant.
User avatar
Charity Hughes
 
Posts: 3408
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2007 3:22 pm

Post » Wed Jun 13, 2012 4:16 pm

Laziness. Laziness and only laziness.

All excuses are dishonest rationalizations. The performance argument was the most hilarious bull-[censored] I have ever heard.

Or rather, I should say 'priorities.' They did not see it as a good use of their resources.

Some claim it's because of console limitations, not number of polygons but number of animated objects.
Probably more important is laziness and separate legs would crash with the armor design in Skyrim where most armor has skirts. Notice that cuirasses and shirts in Oblivion end at the same place. This is so you can use any combination,
They probably realized this early and decided to drop them rater than to change the style.

Skyrim uses Fallout type inventory slots, More than 10 unused, many are used for monsters or special events like beheading other are unused.
They has been very useful for moders making capes backpacks and piercings but nobody has been able to make decent leg armor as it would only work with designed tops unless it's something like tights.
User avatar
Kelly Osbourne Kelly
 
Posts: 3426
Joined: Sun Nov 05, 2006 6:56 pm

Post » Thu Jun 14, 2012 4:51 am

Y'know, I could deal with no leg armor. But what bothers me is no leg coverings. It's cold in Skyrim. Watching my character walk to Winterhold or Ysgramor's Tomb in a mini-skirt makes me cold. Couldn't they have at least added some trousers to the armor?
User avatar
Javier Borjas
 
Posts: 3392
Joined: Tue Nov 13, 2007 6:34 pm

Post » Wed Jun 13, 2012 4:21 pm

this thread is making me feel armourous.
This thread was worth creating because of this pun. Well done. :bowdown:
User avatar
REVLUTIN
 
Posts: 3498
Joined: Tue Dec 26, 2006 8:44 pm

Post » Wed Jun 13, 2012 7:09 pm

Actually, what was -said- was that the thigh pieces were integrated with the torso armor =due to animation issues=.

The animation system they are using does on the fly interpolation between data sets.
They are using mocap, not keyframed, data sets (although there is always keyframing to fix mocapping errors).
You -can not- alter things like bone length or joint centers without inviting chaos. Or forking out for developing a system that can handle such things.
As with nearly all games, they do geometry switching to keep the polycount under control. By making the torso and thighs a discreet unit, they make the majority of the body consistent, and that cuts down the adjusting they'd have to do if you could slap oddly shaped body parts into the mix. No matter what armor it is, look at the body lines from neck to knee; seem identical, don't they, despite the bulk or shape of the armor? I'd bet they are identical, which lets them use the exact same data sets without issues of self clipping and joint bends where there is no 'joint'.

THANK YOU !!

no seriously this makes sense different animation requires changes to the way object deform with each bone.

also on a side note morrrowinds animation was very poor but that was because of the limited bones they improved it in oblivion but got rid of pauldrons.

again thanks for the post
User avatar
Damian Parsons
 
Posts: 3375
Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2007 6:48 am

Post » Thu Jun 14, 2012 12:17 am

Just for the heck of it, I went and dug up the quote.

The armor system is very similar to Oblivion’s. The main difference is that the upper and lower body armors, the cuirass and greaves, have been combined into one piece. This helps create armor styles that have the look we needed for Skyrim. In most of the Nordic designs we created, the upper armor would completely cover the lower armor, making it unnecessary. We get much better visual results combining those pieces, and it renders a lot faster too, so we can put more people on screen, so that was an easy tradeoff for us. We can also make a lot more armors now, so the number and variation types are more than we’ve ever had.
User avatar
Rodney C
 
Posts: 3520
Joined: Sat Aug 18, 2007 12:54 am

Post » Wed Jun 13, 2012 4:29 pm

Are we 100% Certain that the withdrawal of the pants/greaves option was due to performance?

I apologize, but I will swear I remember reading, maybe hearing in an interview that they meshed the chest and leg pieces to put more armors in the game.

When I heard this I was thinking, "Awesome! Different stylized armours! Even more sets!". What did we get? 2-4 "sets" (Pieces really) Of steel, and 4 sets of Fur?
User avatar
Jessie Butterfield
 
Posts: 3453
Joined: Wed Jun 21, 2006 5:59 pm

Post » Wed Jun 13, 2012 3:28 pm

Are we 100% Certain that the withdrawal of the pants/greaves option was due to performance?

I apologize, but I will swear I remember reading, maybe hearing in an interview that they meshed the chest and leg pieces to put more armors in the game.

When I heard this I was thinking, "Awesome! Different stylized armours! Even more sets!". What did we get? 2-4 "sets" (Pieces really) Of steel, and 4 sets of Fur?

While I've never heard that, we do have some variations. Two steel, four fur, iron and banded iron, a few versions of studded, the three Imperial armors. Probably more, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. We have the same for robes, too.
User avatar
Luis Longoria
 
Posts: 3323
Joined: Fri Sep 07, 2007 1:21 am

PreviousNext

Return to V - Skyrim