[SakSquash]

From the ign boards:
Global Shadows are gone from TES IV: Oblivion

How true this is, who knows, but it seems to be on the level. Ho hum.

[Starflux]

I'm thinking two things:

This is bullshit: as in, it's not true.

Or.

This is bullshit: they're actually doing it. They're artificially crippling the PC-version just because the stupid Xbox360 can't handle the game otherwise. And for some nazi-reason they've decided that the PC-version must suffer when the Xbox is lagging behind. You'd think that it is pretty easy to just implement it as it already was and simply provide an an/off slider in the graphic options. But this reeks of a nazi plot, I tell you.

[artwking4]

It's not Bethesda's fault the XBOX 360 can't handle the shadows.


Although, yeah. There's no reason why the PC version can't still incorporate it as an option after all they've already done. Unless they're too lazy to continue testing it alongside the XBOX 360 version.

[Dale Baldwin]

Exact same post about it on the gamespot board.

[Starflux]

Don't get me wrong; I'd probably have to get rid of the shadows myself jsut to play the game on my system. It's not the shadows- I don't give a rat's ass about the shadows. It's the idiot principle of catering to the lower end of the spectrum. The PC has the power -or will in a year-, so why cater to a stunted 'closed' system? How much is Microsoft paying them?

Horrendous is that Xbox360 owners are saying it's "only fair". I can't believe that; that's so arrogant. It's like 'if we can't have it, NO ONE can!'. Well let's tell them Oblivion also gets released on the PS1 and their Xbox360 version will be limited to fit the competing system. I think they would howl.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Erm, Flux, there may be other, more practical reasons, why Bethesda can't do that feature. They may not be telling us everything (they don't have to). We're talking about a project costing millions of dollars, is insanely intricate, and has to be finished within a certain time period even after it was delayed.

And you're sounding as if it's bloody murder. Calm down and wait and see how it goes.

EDIT: It may be also because Bethesda are being THOUGHTFUL about those who don't have the latest $3000 bleeding edge hardware to run everything, not just 360 owners. And the title of this thread is misleading. So the game will automatically look totally 'shitty' just because you took a lot of the shadows away, nevermind those other HUGE AMOUNT of features we get to enjoy? Isn't that being overdramatically drama queen?

[insane_cobra]

OMG that games gonna suck SO hard no body by it you hear me!!!!!!!1111

[Intrepid Homoludens]

cobsie

What are you? 12?

[RLacey]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Erm, Flux, there may be other, more practical reasons, why Bethesda can't do that feature. They may not be telling us everything (they don't have to). We're talking about a project costing millions of dollars, is insanely intricate, and has to be finished within a certain time period even after it was delayed.

Yes, but the shadows were already in. And how many bugs can there be left in the shadow rendering code that's been in place since the first screens were released?

[squarejawhero]

Funny how the IGN board members (to begin with at least) are -

a) More grown up and pragmatic about the decision.
b) Don't bring up the 360 at all for ages (believe me, it can handle it).
c) Make a ton of valid points not made here.

Your character and other moving characters will still cast them, just not objects. It's a shame, yeah, but the reasons aren't even listed and it'd no doubt bog down even the fastest PC. Remember Morrowind? Ran like shit out of the box on any PC due to MASSIVE overdraw... and it was a great game. Hopefully the same will be true here.

You guys are overreacting. Just like some on the Gamespot boards... saying it's a "360 weakness" without knowing the facts. Bethesda sucked at engine code with Morrowind and no doubt this incredibly technical beast (more going on than graphics) is proving difficult to master.

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

What are you? 12?

Inches? In your my your dreams, Fleischman.

Anyway, what I'd like to know is where exactly this piece of info comes from. Cause I can't find anything about it anywhere else, including the official forums.

It's even more peculiar given that just a couple of weeks ago this interview's been linked to from the game's official site.

Originally Posted by Beyond3D

Are your dynamic shadow implementation a feature across all supported systems, perhaps scaling the detail on low-end machines, or are they a high-end only checkbox? How would you describe the qualitative jump from Morrowind?

They will be supported across all systems. We will have options to toggle features like self-shadowing and the softening effect, as well as to adjust the number of characters receiving shadows to improve performance for lower end machines. The jump from Morrowind is significant. Since we aren’t doing stencil shadows anymore, our current system is more accurate while using less fill cost. Also, shadows use world space coordinates instead of Morrowind’s screen space coordinates, allowing us to do more dramatic effects like fading out and softening the shadows over distances.


Are you using any kind of pre-computed shadow technique for static shadows? If so, how well will they blend with the dynamic shadows?

We are not using any pre-computed techniques. The main reasons are that pre-computed shadow maps don’t mesh well with our dynamic time-of-day system. Also, relying on a completely dynamic solution allows much more flexibility for the artists to create whatever environment they want in an entirely WYSIWYG work environment.

[CrimsonBlue]

Yeah, I find it suspicious that the 360 wouldn't be able to handle it, if that was it I'd be bloody dissapointed by the console. There's gotta be some other issues... and as already mentioned, Bethesda makes the buggiest games in the industry (they are at least among the worst offenders) and I don't really expect Oblivion to be much better than Morrowind in that aspect.

[squarejawhero]

Some good points on Gamespot -

The 360 cpu isnt good for rendering shadows either, its a general perpus core, and this should be left to be done by the gpu which is specifically designed for thouse types of operations. Im not saying the 360 cant handle soft shadows on all objects, in time it can, once the developers learn to optimize games for the 360 to take out a much higher % of the 360. But this is, afterall a first generation xbox 360 game and the devs have no idea how to exploit the power of the 360 to the fullest.

Lets face it, the 360 hasn't been out that long, and programming for three cores is NOT easy to do. In particular when it comes to easing the load by using all 3, and synchronizing game play. Soft Shadows is a very hard to render, at least on every item. Its not that the 360 is weak, its just that the task is ENORMOUS and finding a way to optimize it perfectly, ,especially when they have already finished almost all of the game, and distributed them to said cores, it is very difficult to reprogram or re-distribute resources so late in development time.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by squarejawhero

You guys are overreacting. Just like some on the Gamespot boards... saying it's a "360 weakness" without knowing the facts.

Tell me about it.

[squarejawhero]

... and again, where the hell does anyone from Bethesda say it's the 360 that's the problem? Hello? Hello?

Bueller? Bueller?

[squarejawhero]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Tell me about it.

Yeah, you're still looking at a $400 machine running a game which you have to spend triple on in PC terms to buy a rig good enough to run it.

[artwking4]

Originally Posted by squarejawhero

You guys are overreacting. Just like some on the Gamespot boards... saying it's a "360 weakness" without knowing the facts.

Yes, well, I was mostly joking, because it's fun to tease. Lack of a few shadows doesn't bother me in the least. Oblivion has a bunch of other things going for it and I'll buy it and play it on my laptop, running it at a resolution of 320x240 with all the graphic enhancements turned off. And probably also with the brightness at the lowest setting, in case it draws too much power. And it'll be fun, dammit!

[RLacey]

Oh, I'm not specifically bothered by the removal of shadows, it just seems like a strange decision to remove them outright without a toggle option. Taking your Morrowind example, SJH, the draw distance was left available even if most people couldn't use it at first.

So they're surely only removing the shadows for one of two reasons: they can't get it to run properly out of the box (and I include on the XBox360 here) and so decided it wasn't worth bothering with, or the code was crippled. And I seriously, seriously doubt that the code was that crippled, given the number of tech demos already released.

It just seems strange.

And please, please, please, please, please, please, please, ENOUGH with the anti/pro-Xbox360 rants, guys. The unreconcilable, polarised, biased views in both directions are now seriously beginning to get on my nerves .

[squarejawhero]

Lacey, Lacey... the overdraw wasn't related to draw distance. It was related to the fact Morrowind was drawing EVERYTHING around the avatar all the time, including the wonderful water which took up so much GPU processing power. So as you ran up that big hill, the computer was still drawing the water underneath it moving away. This led to Seyda Neens incredible jerk-o-thon and the fact that even now the game is a bit of a hog.

BTW I've got a 360 but am not being BIASED towards it. I've only ever posted facts about its tech. See above for proof. Those who want to slag it off should shut up and remember some of us HAVE one we're very happy with before they dig in with criticism with no factual grounding.

[RLacey]

Originally Posted by squarejawhero

Lacey, Lacey... the overdraw wasn't related to draw distance. It was related to the fact Morrowind was drawing EVERYTHING around the avatar all the time, including the wonderful water which took up so much GPU processing power. So as you ran up that big hill, the computer was still drawing the water underneath it moving away. This led to Seyda Neens incredible jerk-o-thon and the fact that even now the game is a bit of a hog.

Runs fine on my PC. As I'm hoping Oblivion will .

BTW I've got a 360 but am not being BIASED towards it. I've only ever posted facts about its tech. See above for proof. Those who want to slag it off should shut up and remember some of us HAVE one we're very happy with before they dig in with criticism with no factual grounding.

I think you may have missed my point. I no longer care about the factual basis of anybody's arguments - I've now been presented with them several times. I'm not even convinced that they do have no factual grounding, but let's gloss over that. What I'm getting annoyed by is the "Xbox sux!" "No, it must be great because I bought one and am enjoying it" "Look, a news post pointing out a flaw?" "What, I don't see that problem, so it can't exist and the console is great" type arguments that seem to be becoming extremely common. I'm glad that you're enjoying your console - really - and I'm also happy for people to hate the thing if they want.

I remain unsure, mind you, of why people aren't allowed to criticise something simply because it might hurt the feelings of someone who went out and spent money on it. Nobody's saying that you can't enjoy your purchase, and nobody is saying that you have to feel bad about it - in fact, that's the only part of your argument I don't get.