Shadows and Other Stuff

[IAMTHEEMPEROR]

Don't know if it belongs here or in the Modding board, so I'll just stick it here.

Looking through the old E3 Videos of Oblivion, I remembered Chapter 5, and all of the secrets in contained while Oblivion was in the stages of development (go ahead, see how many you can find)

Now, one such secret is shadows. Looking in the video in Renoit's Books, upstairs she has a chair. But this chair is different. It has a shadow.



Looking ingame, the chair upstairs has no shadow.



Anyone know how they did it?



To point out just a few more things:
TES3 Dunmer Voices
TES3 Imperial Voices
Two Unique Dog Animations (begging and barking)
Showing NPCs actually drinking a potion when they use one
A town called Sutch on the map north of Kvatch
What looks like both HDR and AA working at the same time
Nothing big, but Renoit is old hrug:
A more advanced map

Why don't we have those things? Makes me cry...and this is just one of their six E3 Videos.

Ok, I'm now bored enough to point out all of the differences between the finished product we have and what was advertized at E3.

Chapter 1
-Not even 40 seconds in you notce a cooler startup menu, complete with scenery, a different map, and a rework of the Morrowind theme.
-The hanging cuffs cast shadows
-The misc items cast shadows
-Baurus is an Imperial

Chapter 2
-Many wildlife sounds
That's pretty much it, besides that mine doesn't look nearly as cool as that...

Chapter 3
-Different Enemy Health Bar that shows colors
-Different Magic Sounds
-Every ruin contains a Great Welkynd Stone

Chapter 4
Nothin to report

Chapter 5
Already said it all

Chapter 6
Technically it's all still there if you go to the worldspace called "E3Kvatch"

[Dave_91]

Now, one such secret is shadows. Looking in the video in Renoit's Books, upstairs she has a chair. But this chair is different. It has a shadow.

Yeah it's celled soft shadowing or something. They originally had it planned for Oblivion, but it was taken out because of severe slowdown, as far as I remember.

A town called Sutch on the map north of Kvatch

It was removed. By lore it should be there, I think. They replaced it with 'Fort Sutch'. I'd rather have had the town.

It makes me angry that they took all of those things out. When I got the game, I didn't really realise, or care, but after a while, it makes the graphics (compared to the videos) and certain bits of gameplay seem crap.

[Mormacil]

OB is rushed, simple as that.

[Dave_91]

I agree. Now that I look at IATE's list, there are lots of things that would have made it much better. I remember the map, I saw that in a demo... perhaps they couldn't be bothered to finish off Sutch so they swapped it for some dungeon. hrug:

[Alasdair]

I want Sutch.

[IAMTHEEMPEROR]

Yeah, we could all use a little more of the sutch and sutch that was advertized.

The thing for shadows must be a part of the game still, right? There are many functions Bethesda just turned off and left there, like this one that I really like

[Water]
bUseWaterReflectionsMisc=1
bUseWaterReflectionsStatics=1
bUseWaterReflectionsTrees=1
bUseWaterReflectionsActors=1
bUseWaterReflections=1

Lets everything be reflected by water, and I noticed no FPS hit at all, very small if there even is one. There are many functions that look interesting in the ini that are just turned off. I'll try to find some, see if anyone knows what they do. Some of these may be normal functions many people use but my computer is just to crappy to use them.

[General]
bActorLookWithHavok=0

[Display]
bEquippedTorchesCastShadows=0
bHighQuality20Lighting=0
bDrawShadows=0
iShadowFilter=0
bShadowsOnGrass=0
bDoStaticAndArchShadows=0
bDoActorShadows=0

[HAVOK]
bDisablePlayerCollision=0
bTreeTops=0

[Gameplay]
bAllowHavokGrabTheLiving=0

[SpeedTree]
bForceFullLOD=0

[LOD]
bUseFaceGenLOD=0



Some of those shadow settings might be it. I'm too afraid to play with them though.

I also found an option with lights in the CS, it's a checkbox that says "Casts Shadows". Probably just for NPC's and Creatures.

[Dave_91]

Yeah, it was actually removed by Bethesda, they said it was for 'performance reasons'. The actors and trees make basic shadows, but inanimate objects won't cause shadows. Similarly, it was proposed on BS Forums a few weeks ago about tweaking .ini settings for the shadowing effects, but apparently none of them functioned in the way that the soft shadowing would work.

Edit- typos

[IAMTHEEMPEROR]

Hmm, maybe we should ask the devs about it. They have video cards designed already for next-gen after the 360 that are out, and it would be a cool thing to play with when I get one. I'd also like to use AA and HDR at the same time too like they showed in the videos.

[Dave_91]

They probably lied about the performance side of things, if you ask me it was all for the hype just to get people excited and get some attention. Half (if not more than half) of the content in the video in Renoit's Books didn't make it in game. Very disappointing. It'd be neat if Bethesda could have released the feature somehow at a later date, if it were possible.

I'd also like to use AA and HDR at the same time too like they showed in the videos.

Same here, but GeForce 8800's can do that can't they?

Mine shuts down (whole computer) when I turn on HDR alone most of the time.

[IAMTHEEMPEROR]

My video card sucks, plain and simple. It's gotten to the point where I can't even play with distant land, so it looks like it did in Morrowind.

I've been saving up for an 8800 for a few months now, and have about $550. They're definately better than what the 360 has, so I will have a good game. The 360 did definately ruin it for us though, everything they had to get rid of to prevent lag or to fit onto one disk is because of the 360. Otherwise Oblivion could be an absolutely amazing game with a whopping total of 4 disks of content if they wanted. But the 360 can only use 1 disk, so they only made 1 disk.

I still love Oblivion, but Bethesda could have done so much better with what we all saw in the E3 Previews. I mainly miss:
Dark Elf Voices
Sutch
The Reworked Morrowind Theme
The Ayleid Ruins as advertized (if they had taken the time to make dungeon diving much better as for rewards in the end like that, I'd definately do it more)
Whatever they did to make that forest so much better than mine...