Bethesda will scan real environments and 'Skyrim Grandma' into Elder Scrolls 6

[mongeese]

Why it matters: If there’s one reason why so many people are drawn to Skyrim, it’s because it has something for everyone to love. The most heart-warming example of this is ‘Skyrim Grandma,’ aka Shirley Curry, who started making Skyrim videos in her 80s and now has almost half a million YouTube subscribers. And thanks to a fan petition with 50,000 signatures, she’s been added into Elder Scrolls 6.

“This means a lot to me,” Curry said at Bethesda’s PAX East conference. “Because I would be extremely happy to know that somebody else was playing with my character in a future Elder Scrolls game.”

Rather than having artists construct all the environments in their eagerly anticipated Elder Scrolls 6 and Starfield games, Bethesda will be using photogrammetry to scan 3D environments and people to make their upcoming games more realistic. Not everything will be scanned in though, obviously – I don’t know where they’d find dragons nor spaceships, for example.

“We’re using photogrammetry to scan in all these real-world assets and push our future tech for games to levels we have not done before,” said Bethesda. Just a week ago we saw the same technique used to stunning effect in Unreal Engine 4, but fans have questioned the ability of Bethesda’s aging Creation Engine to handle the graphical fidelity.

There are also questions if Bethesda will go the extra mile for better in-game textures. Skyrim didn’t look bad when it was new, but it wasn’t pushing the envelope. The Elder Scrolls: Blades, now in early access, looks rather downtrodden. And I needn’t bring up Fallout 76.

It seems that Bethesda would rather bait us than provide more reassurance at E3 this year. “Before anyone asks, please be patient,” Bethesda’s Todd Howard said to an eager crowd. “It’s not something we’re going to be talking about at E3, either of those games this year.”

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https://www.techspot.com/news/79438-bethesda-scan-real-environments-kyrim-grandma-elder-scrolls.html

 

[ghostf1re]

That's probably because their visuals aren't "impressive." I find it very hard to believe anything developed by Bethesda could ever be "impressive." They have said they are using the Creation Engine for both ES6 and Starfield. The Creation Engine is old and full of bugs. I have absolutely no intentions in buying anything developed by Bethesda until I see more. Not after the dumpster fire that was Fallout 76. I have 0 confidence in them as a developer at the moment.

 

[toooooot]

I agree with the comment above. But if you wanna see something impressive, check out quickscans for unity. The plugin can bring real textures and places into games. Book of the dead or a game with a similar name used it. It is simply amazing because instead of wasting time trying to make something that will look realistic in a game, it allows to bring HD pieces of the real earth.

 

[Lounds]

Onrush the racing game did this already.

 

[Thisisdavid]

Aww how endearing Bethesda... BUT we haven't forgotten FALLOUT 76 !!!

No matter how much of this pathetic PR you pull out, we won't forget how you have treated your customers and long term fans!

We are all hoping TES 6 is a failure.

...and we won't be fooled into reordering or buying the game on release, oh no, we will wait and wait and wait till we know for sure it's an actual finished game and worth buying.

You have fooled us too many times, never again.

 

[Nocturne]

That's probably because their visuals aren't "impressive." I find it very hard to believe anything developed by Bethesda could ever be "impressive." They have said they are using the Creation Engine for both ES6 and Starfield. The Creation Engine is old and full of bugs. I have absolutely no intentions in buying anything developed by Bethesda until I see more. Not after the dumpster fire that was Fallout 76. I have 0 confidence in them as a developer at the moment.

Used to be impressive Morrowind and earlier the really did push boundaries as to what was possible, a bit less so with Oblivion, right now with the money they make there is zero excuses to create a new version of the creation engine that has modern technologies, I will be ultra pissed if tesselation and Ray Tracing/ Pathtracing isn't integrated with a 64 bit extension from the start, on top of that a script extender should be released by them and integrated.

 

[Nocturne]

Aww how endearing Bethesda... BUT we haven't forgotten FALLOUT 76 !!!

No matter how much of this pathetic PR you pull out, we won't forget how you have treated your customers and long term fans!

We are all hoping TES 6 is a failure.

...and we won't be fooled into reordering or buying the game on release, oh no, we will wait and wait and wait till we know for sure it's an actual finished game and worth buying.

You have fooled us too many times, never again.

Yeah don't include "us" with "you", personally I hope they wise up before losing the rest of the actual core that supported them with Fallout and ElderScrolls. There is zero reason to wish for failure. Fans don't want failures trolls and toxic morons however wish for it all the time.

 

[Capaill]

I hope they scan her quickly. The point of the petition was that she likely wouldn't be around when Skyrim 6 eventually gets released. At this rate, I might not be either.

 

[robb213]

... but fans have questioned the ability of Bethesda’s aging Creation Engine to handle the graphical fidelity.

This was my very first question when I read the headline. If it weren't for the fact technology improves over time, then their games wouldn't be playable at all (sometimes barely as is).

Skyrim didn’t look bad when it was new, but it wasn’t pushing the envelope.

It looked like most other X360 games of the time--aged and way past their time. It came out later in the cycle, but even I was disappointed at the time. And I was a lot more naive/forgiving when I was 18.