I'd just like to pose a question to the developers and other users here with regards to the shadow implementation in Skyrim. If another thread like this has been made, I apologize and would appreciate a link.

Why was the shadow mapping technique used? Stencil shadows have essentially been the industry standard for a long time (at least pre-soft shadowing), and have proven relatively easy to implement from a performance standpoint on both consoles and pc. That is not to say that shadow mapping doesn't have its merits, but hardware tessellation is not used in Skyrim and the resolution of the default shadow maps is truly awful (probably linked to performance concerns). Oblivion's shadows for example looked significantly better. So what was the reasoning? Was DX11 support planned at some point or did performance constraints just get in the way too late into development?

For non-hobbyists/developers:
2003 shadows on the original xbox:
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/07/Doom3shadows.jpg[/img]


2011 shadows on the pc/xbox360/ps3:
[img]http://64digits.com/users/Cesque/Skyrim//misc_wolfshade.jpg[/img]

seems like a step backward to me tbh. though to be fair shadows cant be easy to code for.

Also noticed a weird mosaic effect on every shadow since the 1.4 update on the 360.

I prefer it over Oblivion's weird... http://www.tweakguides.com/images/Oblivion_16a.jpg thing they've got going on there..