Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Game Engine Details
by Keith Sadler, posted on 18 January 2011 / 2,228 Views
Skyrim's new game engine is called the Creation Engine and we've got some new details for you.
"The big things for us were to draw a lot of stuff in the distance so we have a really sophisticated level of detail, more so than what we've had in the past for how things stream in and how detail gets added to them as they get closer to the camera," Bethesda Studio's creative director Todd Howard told Game Informer.
"Because our worlds are so big all of the lighting has to be dynamic," he said. "That's something we had a little bit of in the past with shadowing, but not on everything. Now we have it on everything. It just makes the whole thing a lot more believable when you're there."
The game is set in a more northern region than Oblivion's Cyrodiil and so the engine has to deal with more blustery weather conditions, and the trees get their own custom-made engine.
The environments will definitely be nice to look at, but also the game's AI is getting an upgrade. Dubbed 'Radiant AI' it will deliver more believable NPC behavior with Skyrim's inhabitants displaying more personality than previous versions have seen. They'll also look more distinctive and believable due to 'Havok Behavior.'
"I think we're the first real big game to use it," said Howard "We definitely have made a significant jump in how it plays [in third person perspective],"
Finally, the game is smarter about context than previous versions.
"Traditionally in an assassination quest, we would pick someone of interest and have you assassinate them," Howard said. "Now there is a template for an assassination mission and the game can conditionalize all the roles – where it happens, under what conditions does it take place, who wants someone assassinated, and who they want assassinated. All this can be generated based on where the character is, who he's met. They can conditionalize that someone who you've done a quest for before wants someone assassinated, and the target could be someone with whom you've spent a lot of time before."
Be sure to click to the source for the rest of the article.
