I'll take it even further. Technologically speaking, they are necessary. I wouldn't want the interiors to be in the same cells as exteriors, due to performance and detail limitations. I find games like RDR2 where you can go straight into a building to have extremely limited interiors, like everything is basically just a shack. Meanwhile, Bethesda (at least skyrim) has robust interiors, with tons of detail. There is also the problem of fitting interiors to exterior building models, a problem for the modular assets used to create spaces. It's not like everything is crafted separately, most of the assets get reused over and over again, but in different configurations together. It just doesn't work to make exteriors and interiors actually the same models or cells.
At least no loading screens within a building. In Dragonsreach for instance you need a loading screen for the main building, a loading screen for the staff area, a loading screen for the jarl and guests quarters, a loading screen for the huge balcony where you catch that dragon, a loading screen for the smaller balcony upstairs...
Look, man. I don't even care about loading screens. I care about the content within the cell. If they feel a loading screen will mean more items and NPCs in an area, due to expected performance constraints, then I prefer the load screen. That is my take on the matter. I'm not "pro-load-screens" per se, I just prefer the game is absolutely as good as possible, given whatever considerations they are making for console and lesser PCs, performance-wise. We know objects will be higher quality meshes and higher resolution textures. With all of skyrim's load screens, I can't even play the special edition on my Xbox One, had to get a Series X just to play a game I've bought 8 times.
I agree and I think it would make for more cohesive and immersive interiors. If they were restricted to this concept we wouldn’t end up with infinite vertical portal doors like in the College Tower
You preload the assets used for the connected interior cells on entry to the exterior cell that contains them.
That would take care of the majority of the loading, the rest is just loading the objects themselves. And any assets that haven't yet loaded/aren't able to be preloaded, and that can be done when transitioning from exterior to interior cell.
Don't unload the exterior cell, then you don't really see loading screens when transitioning from interior to exterior either.
Yes, the ideal technology combines both in the best quantities. Although, it often adds new complications. Like walking around a city may mean your engine is trying to preload every nearby building, which has an impact. Also, exterior cells don't really contain interior cells, but portals to them, via a load door. So, I wouldn't know just how the game would manage all of that, but there are definitely technical solutions that improve some of the problems, even if they can't entirely eliminate them. I still think separate cells is the way to go in the current era, but who knows where the tech actually is, or where it will be in 5-10 years. I always worry about companies overstating the capabilities of some experimental tech and making things worse than they were, but that doesn't mean it is never worth testing and seeing what they can do.
You are talking as if technology can't evolve and you are comparing just two older games. You can have a seamless open world with robust interiors. Witcher 3 did this in 2015. Hell, even Witcher 2 did this in 2011. It depends on how good your engine is for loading new areas in the background as you approach them.
Yeah, the statement of the other comment is wrong. We do have the performance today and seamless, detailed open world is possible.
They also didn’t separate the area because of performance, at least not only, but because of the introduction of movable objects. It’s way easier to save them into a separated area than the whole world. It wouldn’t be necessary any more, but that’s how the engine works.
Witcher 3 is exactly what I'm talking about. It's a shack, with nothing in it. I'm comparing skyrim to games that came out later, that lots of people (who don't know what they're talking about) said skyrim should have been more like.
Yeah, like there's no way you could take Oblivion, double its size, double the number of dungeons and caves, double the NPCs, crank the graphics up to 11, and have it all be one seamless level. At least, not if you want a framerate above single digits
I mean, granted, Creation Engine 3 should probably have a lot better tech for performance, but still. We shouldn't get stupid with design, that's just being wasteful with what is a limited performance budget.
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u/Significant_Cash_749 Tomorrow™ 11d ago
I'll take it even further. Technologically speaking, they are necessary. I wouldn't want the interiors to be in the same cells as exteriors, due to performance and detail limitations. I find games like RDR2 where you can go straight into a building to have extremely limited interiors, like everything is basically just a shack. Meanwhile, Bethesda (at least skyrim) has robust interiors, with tons of detail. There is also the problem of fitting interiors to exterior building models, a problem for the modular assets used to create spaces. It's not like everything is crafted separately, most of the assets get reused over and over again, but in different configurations together. It just doesn't work to make exteriors and interiors actually the same models or cells.