Shawn Driscoll's Computer Graphics Blog


Object modeling, texturing, lighting, rendering, etc.

Sunday, June 19, 2016

When Video Games Look More Like Cinema

I though I'd post this picture here, because CG.

At first I wasn't sure if I'd talk about role-playing games, where this image comes from. Or if I'd talk about the computer graphics of it all.

Some of you that have played Skyrim for a year will know the location of this shot right away. Maybe the character is recognized as well?

This is a version of Ulfric Stormcloak (yes, one version out of three, or was it four?) from a mod called Men of Winter. This is his final appearance in the game if you had him killed. If you are wondering why your Skyrim doesn't look like this, my YouTube channel lists the mods I'm using to get this kind of look in my game. Just type my name and Skyrim when searching on YouTube and you can't miss it. I think I have the most Skyrim videos on the Internet. Anyway...

I liked how this scene turned out. Technically, I can call it a computer render. This was all generated in real-time, because of it being a computer game. Even though Skyrim is almost five years old, it still renders faster than my CG rendering apps do. Some of the game's rendering speed comes from its use of smoke and mirrors, which my rendering programs don't get to use. The post-renderer adds the depth of field to the camera shot, which has an auto-focus built in. I'm using a medium strength for its setting. The letterboxing is also generated by the post-renderer. So the top and bottom of the frame is chopped. Otherwise, the frame would be a perfect 16x9 ratio.

I think I made a save of my game during this visit, so I can always go back there for more camera shots.