Yes. In fact I recommend that instead you stare at lorca's avatar for 5 minutes. I did, and what has been an altogether lackluster birthday somehow seemed just a little brighter. *sigh*

Seriously though (well, I was kinda serious before but anyway), I thought the texture work was seriously pro. In a game like this the goal isn't so much maximum res textures on everything, but rather cohesiveness, consistency, and the overall presentation.

Think about World of Warcraft. Yeah, the graphics are pretty svck by today's standards, but IMO they still pull it off because the visual "theme" is consistent. Buildings and characters and locations all have the same cartoonish unrealistic scale and scope, and together give an impression or a certain feel that captures the "mood" of the genre.

With Skyrim everything is scaled so incredibly HUGE, the texture work has to account for a whole different mood to keep things consisent. In Oblivion they did a pretty good job, but there were still areas with the HDR that seemed too bright, too colorful, or where the high rez just wasn't conveying the scale and scope quite as effectively at different ranges...

The mipmap and normal work in Skyrim is industry top notch, in fact I haven't seen a game with such masterful execution of these technologies before. Indoor environments look believably real, if not photorealistic, and the textures you are talking about (guessing some of the rocks outside, wood inside, etc. No SS so not sure...), still look great from a distance.

Besides, the few mainly landscape textures that weren't max rez will be modded within a month or so.

Even still, I played Oblivion with a combination of various overhaul mods and vanila textures I hand sorted, because certain of the photorealistic textures just didn't work for me, or stood out poorly at different view distances, which to me is more immersion breaking than more blurry or less high rez but professionally "blended" scenery.

Just my 2 septims.

pretty sure most of you guys don't know what textures are.

yeah, the textures are pretty bad. some of them are literally N64 quality. thankfully just the textures are that low-res.

Pfffff the graphics of this game look beautiful on my 52' on 1080p. Gaming at ultra with everythying turned up!! I can't get enough. But yes u get up close and personal and it looks like utter rubbish. . Come on Bethesda........EYE CANDY. Yes I'm just shallow like that.

Overall the game does look fantastic, but unfortunately it's textures like http://steamcommunity.com/id/aetherealle/screenshot/632982781784941283?tab=public (and others linked in this thread) that let down the rest of it.

I'm playing on the 360 and (after uninstalling from the hard drive) my textures look fantastic. They're clearly several orders of magnitude beyond PS2 textures, such as was proposed in the topic post.



I haven't seen anything in the game that's N64-quality, and I'm a N64 owner (still have two of them).

In the same sense that not every object needs to be highly detailed and high polied not every single image needs to be 2048x2048 especially for stuff like clutter, it can add up.

for computer users try increasing aniscopic filtering, it really helps, and if you can run them try the various high resolution textures on skyrimnexus, most are 2048 or 4048 and uncompressed, personally I think having them uncompressed in unnessary as it increases the amount of time the game needs to render them, but to each their own.

console users, you guys are just going to have to deal with it, enjoy the game not everything revolves on how pretty things are.

http://attackofthefanboy.com/videos/heres-what-skyrim-looks-like-without-textures/

Watch the video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Yeyzi8e6-yw

I'm one of those few who think's Qarl's textures (OB) and NMC's (FO3/NV) look pretty bad - they're way too noisy/contrasty. I've run into the same problem with some of the hi-res Minecraft "realistic" texture packs - people who think that adding huge amounts of noise looks better.

That said...


...yes, the spots where some of the textures in a room are crisp and some are blurry is a bit jarring at times. But the wide landscape vistas are amazing. Overall, I'm content with the visuals. And in no rational universe do they hit the level of "absolutely horrendous".

We take what we're given

I wouldn't mind it so much if the texture quality was consistent. But you see terrible textures right next to good ones.

I posted these in a thread some guy posted about Skyrim pushing the boundaries for graphics.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/192/2011112100001.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/543/2011112100002.jpg/

This is PC ultra quality by the way.

the game looks allright...i think the snow is horrible, and shading is definitely messed up in tight spaces.. im on the 360.... didnt install it though

Amazing how blind [censored] are, this game looks 4 years out dated, some of the textures even on PC are embarrassing. I'd be embarassed if i worked at a compnay they resold the same old tech and didn't want to work with the latest tech thats out. This is purely a low res console game. The environments look OK outside, but anything up close the textures are terrible.

Ya I agree some textures definitely look like crap, while others look quite nice. But really the graphics in TES games aren't meant to be inspected from 3 inches away. I find that Skyrim's graphics are really about the big picture scenery, those looks amazing. You guys need to stop being so nit-picky.

You mean the big picture with 20 meters of draw/LOD/shadow distance.

This is comedy gold. Bethesda created a massive, beautiful gameworld. But because the edge of a table is a bit blurry, that makes the game worse :rofl:

Thats funny never saw one person say that, and PS: It's not just a tabel, the game is littered with low res textures. maybe learn to read before posting.

You must have a terrible computer, or are on a console. I feel sorry that your game only draws 20 meters.
Mine looks fantastic:

http://i.imgur.com/t70l8.jpg

It makes the graphics quality worse. Why is it that you, and others like you, assume that because the games graphics are poor in areas that we hate the game?



I'm running the game on absolute maximum. Draw/LOD/Shadow rendering distances are utterly terrible, even on max. Cherry picking an image that doesn't even have a long range line of sight doesn't prove anything sport.

I can read just fine thanks :) Funny how many people say gameplay > graphics, but when some surfaces in the game aren't up to their standards it becomes a major issue all of a sudden. Step back and look at the bigger picture.

360 does have a Tex prob. And I have it to

Cheers

game play and graphics are both important... If not go play minecraft or pacman............... Like it or not bad textures take away immersion and you out of the game world.... Graphics DO help make you immersed in a game , thats a fact. Its not like you need to go looking for them these terrible textures are everywhere.

It's not like the tech doesn't exist thats the issue, it's pure laziness and pedandering to the lowest common denominator that does this. Some have higher standards.

Maybe you should learn to tweak the .ini. All those settings can be improved smart guy. And i have many many gorgeous screenshots of landscapes, but I'm not going to waste my time uploading them for you.

How is it a major issue? You're the only one here acting as if it is one. We are simply discussing it. Why do you feel the need to defend Skyrim so much?

EDIT: This is pretty much the average thread criticizing Skyrim on these boards:

Person A: Hey guys, I don't like this.
Person B: WTF IF YOU DONT LIKE IT DONT PLAY IT WHY DO YOU HATE SKYRIM SO MUCH WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Person A: I only think the textures are bad, I don't hate the game.
Person B: WHY ARE YOU MAKING SUCH A HUGE DEAL OUT OF IT OMG STOP MAKING SUCH A BIG DEAL OUT OF EVERYTHING

To Aramyn: Good luck tweaking the textures from the ini.

Yeah, I agree they're both important. I love the game but I've got quite a few complaints about Skyrim. But honestly stuff like inconsistencies in textures I hadn't even noticed, I don't find that it bothers me at all. I guess it would be nice if the graphics were of a consistent quality.

Hes right in some areas. I'm on PC maxxed out everything, and the snow textures on the rocks look like they're straight out of metal gear solid. You don't notice it from a medium-far to far distance, only when medium range and closer.

Its not on everything, but some areas are in dire need of a high resolution mod.