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Does Bethesda Have the Worst/Ugliest Art Direction Among AAA Developers?
- Thread starter s y
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Well the common thread is they're shoehorning stuff into their old ass engine they've been using for basically 15 years.
The lighting, texture work, and facial and body animation are all handicapped by using that old thing.
The lighting, texture work, and facial and body animation are all handicapped by using that old thing.
I've played hundreds of hours of Morrowind (which was okayish), hundreds of hours of Oblivion (which is one of the worst looking games ever released in the character department) and also hundreds of hours of Skyrim (which is a lot better than Oblivion, but still looks like ass) and hundreds of hours Fallout 3 and New Vegas.
It's safe to say that I wouldn't have played this long, if I wasn't able to mod Bethesdas hideous faces.
It's not the engine. I mean, Gamebryo sucks ass, too, but modders can build decent faces in it.
It's safe to say that I wouldn't have played this long, if I wasn't able to mod Bethesdas hideous faces.
It's not the engine. I mean, Gamebryo sucks ass, too, but modders can build decent faces in it.
Fallout 3's green and gray aside I disagree. The Elder Scrolls games especially had excellent environment designs, and the different themes for the Skyrim towns were really great too.
Their character models are still pretty rough though, especially how they're presented in the 'chat zoom in' frame. They've definitely made improvements, but I distinctly remember Fallout 4 standing out amongst everything released around the same time. They've made some really impressive improvements to the engine and game world overall though, clearly focuses need to be shifted depending on their priorities.
Their character models are still pretty rough though, especially how they're presented in the 'chat zoom in' frame. They've definitely made improvements, but I distinctly remember Fallout 4 standing out amongst everything released around the same time. They've made some really impressive improvements to the engine and game world overall though, clearly focuses need to be shifted depending on their priorities.
Look, be as pedantic as you'd like. I understand, it's your line of work. In my opinion, the quality of art output has little to do with head count and much more to do with talent. I would rather work with a couple of high quality, consistent artists than a small/medium sized team of mediocrity. But i'm not a game developer, so what do i know?
I personally dislike their art choices but that's just a personal opinion. Their execution on them is generally very poor though, and that's not really fertile ground for debate, it seems to me. The mod community has time and again elevated Bethesda's efforts from mediocrity, not only on the visuals but on the sheer playability of their games.
I'd say yes but weirdly this doesn't extend to Elder Scrolls as much which imo has fantastic art direction.
Fallout series though is vomit for the eyes.
Fallout series though is vomit for the eyes.
It says something when upon the reveal of F4 my thoughts were...this looks incredible!....(for bethesda)
Seriously mods make their games
Seriously mods make their games
nah. that game looks horrible tbh
i.e.
far harbor dlc, super generic / boring environment design coupled with ugly engine graphics. the good areas are really few and far between, and the characters designs globally suck a butt.
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At the same time modders don't usually worry about polygon counts and lower end systems. Modders also tend to make every female character look like perfect dolls and overall I feel Bethesda's rougher faces make them at least realistic in the sense that they don't just represent the good looking people. They are still too rough and could use a few more polygons instead of being just vertex tweaked versions of the same model.
Dev's mentioned there aren't Bethesda studios, they're published by Bethesda.
They are Id software, Arkane Studios etc...
It's between them and Netherrealm, yeah.
I'll probably give this shame to Bethesda. The ugliness is made even worse by the terrible animations.
I'll probably give this shame to Bethesda. The ugliness is made even worse by the terrible animations.
I would say yes, but they did improve some with Fallout 4. The volumetric effects did bring out the post-apocalyptic world that they wanted, more than it did for their previous games. This is partly why, I feel, Skyrim SE looks so much better than the original. This is a great thread, btw.
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On paper Bethesda studio games sound pretty bad so it's incredible how much they sell every time.
- The engine sucks and they reuse it for every game.
- Art design ranges from terrible to mediocre.
- The writing isn't exactly good by RPG standards and Fallout 4 was the worst of all.
- Sound design is poor and had the same issues every time.
- Same stiff animations every time.
- Buggy across the board every time.
And this is coming from someone who bought Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3/4. Not touching 76 though.
- The engine sucks and they reuse it for every game.
- Art design ranges from terrible to mediocre.
- The writing isn't exactly good by RPG standards and Fallout 4 was the worst of all.
- Sound design is poor and had the same issues every time.
- Same stiff animations every time.
- Buggy across the board every time.
And this is coming from someone who bought Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3/4. Not touching 76 though.
It's not an engine thing. Mods exist where people have put anything and everything (including many styles of human) into their games. An engine is a canvas.
Incidentally, Fallout 4 has okay looking people. If you go further back they're pretty awful, but so were lots of things last gen
I played Morrowind a few months ago (without any mod). Ended up liking it it more than The Witcher 3 (which I really love).
I think it (and Oblivion, which is not as memorable but still pretty good) offers a more immersive experience than many modern open world games ? Does this even make sense lol ?
I found it pretty ugly tbh, playing in 2018. Maybe it's just the art style.
All it would take is someone that can make an open world RPG in the style of TES to tap into a gigantic audience that Skyrim has proved is starving for that kind of game. Maybe thats what MS saw with Obsidian?
To me Witcher 3 has the best art direction this gen, I am playing it right now and it still surprises me how good and cohesive all of it looks
Idk if this is "shallow" but it's legitimately the reason I've never played a fallout game, and a big deterrent from playing Skyrim.
Fallout 3 and New Vegas are so unapologetically ugly, and not even a tolerable ugly. I can't stand them. I'd love to see what the hype's about, but I just can't make myself interested. They're so ugly man.
Fallout 3 and New Vegas are so unapologetically ugly, and not even a tolerable ugly. I can't stand them. I'd love to see what the hype's about, but I just can't make myself interested. They're so ugly man.
Visually speaking, their games are pretty horrendously charmless. I mean there's shit I can look at and think "Man, I bet the concept art for this area or this enemy is real fucking cool." But god... shit just looks bad.
It's not to say they don't excel in other areas. They absolutely do, and their games (when not technically falling apart) are worth playing to see that. But they don't make it easy. I was kinda revolted by Fallout 3 for a while because of how the game looked. I eventually did play it, and loved it. But yeah...
It's not to say they don't excel in other areas. They absolutely do, and their games (when not technically falling apart) are worth playing to see that. But they don't make it easy. I was kinda revolted by Fallout 3 for a while because of how the game looked. I eventually did play it, and loved it. But yeah...
I won't fault anyone for showing restraint with their budgets, especially when the rest of their game must be extremely expensive to make. But there is something fundamentally incohesive and aesthetically displeasing about their games. They look great in parts and then absolutely atrocious in others and nothing really fits together. I can only speculate on why that is but I doubt it has anything to do with effort or artistic proficiency.
This is the funniest thing I've seen today. I've not even played Oblivion but lmao.
All that needs to be said, really. I find Bethesda games always look at least a decade old. Their art direction is like baby's first video game. The engine has been trash since forever and they don't care enough to change it so every new game releases with performance issues that (for the most part) never get fixed. I think I've bought two Bethesda game in the past 15 years or so and I could only get through New Vegas because of how good the writing was in that game.
EDIT - I'm aware New Vegas was made by Oblivion, but what I meant was that even that had a really bad art style. For those wondering what the second game I bought was, it's Skyrim.
On top of my head there is nobody coming to mind so i have to agree.
Always thought Bethesda games are the bottom of the barrel in terms of art direction for AAA.
Always thought Bethesda games are the bottom of the barrel in terms of art direction for AAA.
Not necessarily talking about model replacers. Even within the standard parameters, Bethesda makes some hideous faces. Just look at literally every Oblivion NPC. It's gotten better with Skyrim and isn't much of a problem from what I've seen in Fallout 4.
Have to agree. I know the engine has its quirks - and I respect that it supports their game design aims - but the overall aesthetics really don't do them any justice in my opinion. A brand new art team could be a real breath of fresh air for their universes.
Bethesda's character models and animations are completely wretched. I hope they tap into their considerable resources to hire talent that can make the games more visually appealing.
Witcher 3 is also, you know, three (3) years old game at this point. It's going to look dated as graphical bar has risen since that time.
Throw in few graphics and textures mods and game will look stunning again. Even as vanilla it has dated quite well, imo.
I think for the kinds of games they make (approximating realism on an enormous scale) they had to be conservative with their overall aesthetic. But I wouldn't say it's been to a detriment.
At least Fallout 4 added a few more colours to the palette than 3 had.
That being said, if an Elder Scolls spin-off that was a little smaller had Dishonored's stylized look (or even something else a little cartoonish) I'd be down.
At least Fallout 4 added a few more colours to the palette than 3 had.
That being said, if an Elder Scolls spin-off that was a little smaller had Dishonored's stylized look (or even something else a little cartoonish) I'd be down.
Yup, the grayness of skyrim is unbearable to me. I can't play the game without installing an ENB so I can actually get some color to make the world feel more interesting.
Other than Skyrim all of their games looks like shit imo. Skyrim is at least somewhat atmospheric.
