Oblivion's shadows have been castrated...

Status
Not open for further replies.

Stereophile

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Dec 4, 2003
Messages
5,116
Remember that cool E3 video which showed the prison cell with the shackles on the wall casting a shadow from the torch ? And on the floor, a skeleton's ribs casting soft shadows inside itself ?

The official boards are going apeshit because it's been revealed for "performance reasons" objects will no longer cast shadows in the final build of the game. NPCs and player characters cast them and the trees in the forests have some kind of generic shadow system but despite all the earlier videos, inanimate objects will not anymore.

Anyone else sick of companies deleting features to support the mass market ?
I don't understand why they couldn't leave it as a checkbox.
I guess they're worried little Johnny will cry if the shadows melt his fx-5600.

meh
 
Uhh...lol.

They make games. Their future of making games is contingent upon selling a lot of games. Selling a lot of games means appealing to a lot of people. By definition, their goal is to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible...

That's what I would say if you were complaining about some game feature that they changed which might be interpreted as an attempt to widen the game's appeal. Removing the shadows because they couldn't get it to run well, is not one of those things. It's apparently necessary. And if they didn't do that, then I'm sure you'd be one of the posters in the thread 3 months from now titled something along the lines of, "OMFG Oblivion runs like ass!"

Most ridiculous complaint ever.
 
Stereophile said:
Remember that cool E3 video which showed the prison cell with the shackles on the wall casting a shadow from the torch ? And on the floor, a skeleton's ribs casting soft shadows inside itself ?

The official boards are going apeshit because it's been revealed for "performance reasons" objects will no longer cast shadows in the final build of the game. NPCs and player characters cast them and the trees in the forests have some kind of generic shadow system but despite all the earlier videos, inanimate objects will not anymore.

Anyone else sick of companies deleting features to support the mass market ?
I don't understand why they couldn't leave it as a checkbox.
I guess they're worried little Johnny will cry if the shadows melt his fx-5600.

meh

Well I can understnad them taking them out cause look back at some other games with cool shadows, even if you have top HW it kills your gaming experence when you drop to 6fps.
They probablly couldn't optimize it in time.
 
I am sure you will be able to pump up the shadows to that level if you have a 12 inch e-penis :D
 
Taking it out for the supposed benefit of everyone is retarded.
Leave it as an option. What happens a year from now when even mainstream cards will be powerful enough to handle it ?


Most ridiculous complaint ever ?

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
coffee33 said:
Well I can understnad them taking them out cause look back at some other games with cool shadows, even if you have top HW it kills your gaming experence when you drop to 6fps.
They probablly couldn't optimize it in time.


It was supposed to be a next generation title.
At this point, the shadows won't be any better than countless
other pc games that have come out over the last 2 years.

I don't care if it does drop performance in half.
If I enable HDR+AA on Far Cry my fps goes from 80 to 35.
Doesn't mean Crytek shouldn't give me the option.
 
Tetrahedron said:
I heard the X360 version will have the shadows...

It's the same as PC. They got cut on X360 too.

If you compare the E3 video to the latest pc games.de video
that has many of the same scenes, the difference is tremendous.
The lighting/shadow quality took a major dive.

They advertise it and put out videos/screenshots showing these amazing graphics for past
9 months and then delay the game. And a month or two before it comes out they drop this on the fans.

Weak.
:(
 
Yeah its a little bit of a let down, but graphics dont make games... if the gameplay is good, solid and fun with an engaging RPG story and side quests.. then I will be happy.
 
rcf1987 said:
I am sure you will be able to pump up the shadows to that level if you have a 12 inch e-penis :D

You have an average size E-Penis! me=24inches! :D :D
 
ScreamingBroccoli said:
anyone feel like taking some before and after pics to show everyone how 'big' the difference is?


I sent you a pm.
And anyone with video editing skills pm please.
 
rcf1987, nice picture
but that's not relevent to what I'm saying.

The forests still get some kind of shadow mesh.

It's the interior objects and buildings that no longer have shadows.
There were scenes before that showed fireplaces lighting up rooms
and the tables and chairs and everything made a shadow.

Also look at the dungeon in this video
http://bethsoft.com/redirects/video1.htm

And then compare it to the same scene from the pcgames.de video.

Night and Day imo
 
its unfortunate. but like i said in the oblivion forums, don't you think the developers had a good reason to do this?

i mean, they want people to like their game. why would they take it away if it was as easy as leaving it in, fully functional, and just have an option for it.

there must have been some huge problem with it, and maybe not related to framerate, but a visual problem that popped up a lot. who knows.

I just get annoyed with the people who are so arrogant to say 'the devs are stupid, why not just make a checkbox for it' when they really have no idea how the development process works or what entailed their decision to take it out. neither do I! but I at least give the devs more credit than complete morons.
 
Too bad that they don't care about your high end users. Even without the shadows, most computers that ppl have won't be able to run it. I wouldnt be surprised to see it cut back even more.

And no, even 5 years now, a mainstream solution won't be able to run it, because 90% of computer users have onboard graphics. They will be doing good to be able to run it at all, even in 5 years lol.

Will this affect x360 too? I could see why for PC's, but it shouldn't affect the 360.
 
Just watched the two videos side by side...

Bloody hell...it REALLY needs to be an option.

Edit: Doing some comparison shots at the moment.

Anyone wanna tell me how to do that fancy mouse over image-change thing? >.> (quickly)
 
Before:


After:


When the poster first made this topic I thought it was just some shadows that looked different, but he sent me some videos comparing the e3 video to a more recent one. I took some screenshots and thats what's above. It looks A LOT worse, it almost looks like a totally different game, and this is even more evident in the videos. Graphics don't make a game, but this is totally different than the e3 vids
 
how do we know the second shot is not in a low detail mode? like without HDR and expensive lighting?
 
I swear, the 360 version better not look that bad. I'm sick of developers showing amazing graphics for months and then going, oops! and releasing this crap. 60 dollars? hahaha.
 
Bo_Bice said:
its unfortunate. but like i said in the oblivion forums, don't you think the developers had a good reason to do this?

I just get annoyed with the people who are so arrogant to say 'the devs are stupid, why not just make a checkbox for it' when they really have no idea how the development process works or what entailed their decision to take it out. neither do I! but I at least give the devs more credit than complete morons.

Yeah they had a good reason. It took too much work. They promised more than they could deliver.

I just get annoyed when developers make claims they can't back up. This isn't some minor thing like when they decided to cut spears or mounted combat. They showed off these real time generated videos at E3, Todd Howard is even bragging about how everything casts a shadow and at the last minute, neuter it because the performance hit was too heavy. Sorry, someone needs to call BS when devs pull this crap.

Bo_Bice said:
how do we know the second shot is not in a low detail mode? like without HDR and expensive lighting?

It's an official video, made of cuts that Bethesda specifically gave to the magazine to advertise the game. Do you think they would send out a video to show off the game that didn't look as good as the game was capable of looking ?
 
doesn't the color correction look off though? looks washed out, like they cranked up the brightness to see everything better.
 
Eh, stuff it. It is far too hard to get a respectable comparison shot from the video that I have. But you get the idea from what Broccoli posted.
 
I know this sounds dumb but how reliable are the official forums it could be just a rumor. Personaly I think the 360 version will still have the "super shadows" there is so much untapped power in the 360. Oblivion's should put it to good use.
 
That's horrible. I guess you don't know how much of a difference it makes until it's gone, heh. The game looks like ass without the shadows.
 
lol, I'm not a graphics whore or anything, but dang, that is bad. Kind of stinks that they show off all those pretty videos and then just axe it. Wonder if there will be a collectors edition with a "Making Oblivion" DVD and some anal lube :p .

Hopefully the gameplay is good though, then we can all look past this.
 
Why do people act like a company owes them something when the company is the one forking out the money to produce it and it's not even out yet?
 
It'll still look great when you're actually playing the game with a high resolution and a monitor.
 
Focker said:
Why do people act like a company owes them something when the company is the one forking out the money to produce it and it's not even out yet?
Familiar with the concept of a bait & switch?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top