Two layers of textures in certain buildings? (incl. screenshots)

Moonshadow66 · March 2015

Since, on my end, the game takes a while to load everything after update 6, I've had the chance to see something we usually don't see.
I've seen this a few days ago already, but this time I took screenshots while I was waiting for the interior to show up.

On these two pictures: the Fighter's Guild in Daggerfall.

The first picture shows the interior while it was still loading which you can tell f.e. from the low resolution of the crates and barrels (which is normal at this point), but the biggest difference are the textures (look at these fantastic textures!) and even the architecture (that pillar in the background and all the other differences!).

The second picture shows the exact same interior just a few seconds later when it has finished loading (I'm playing on medium settings, so this is normal as well)

I've seen this in other locations as well, f.e. the Castle in Daggerfall, but I guess all of this kind of buildings (of the same architecture) or maybe even more have a second layer. And these are obviously no distantland textures.

My question is now: does this not take a lot more memory than it should??
After seeing this, I'm not really surprised anymore that I get about 5 billions of random loading screens while walking through Daggerfall just once.. (ok, that was exaggerated, but you know what I mean).

And the other question I just ask because of my personal taste: why didn't you make the other/invisible layer the default/standard? This looks sooo awesome!

Finally, here are the pictures:

Edit (added a later comment of mine in here):

After modding for another TES game for more than 10k hours, and after seeing in my own and other people's mods too often visual glitches, textures or even meshes which shouldn't be there, or conflicting NPCs and activators/interactibles which made you unable to start or complete a quest, only one thing comes in mind:

Clean the mod! - In this case here, clean the game! It is not clean!

My posted screenshots only show the Daggerfall Fighter's Guild, but I've seen it in other buildings as well, and who knows if this is not the case EVERYwhere in the game?!

I'm not suprised about the lousy performance and certain bugs anymore.

If I'm right, - and somehow I'm sure I am, unfortunately - this is a disaster!

This might not have any impact on the performance running the game on monster machines (high-end PC or luxurious and precious Mac!) which can run 5 huge games at the same time without any performance issue, but this game should run on standard/average machines which are listed in the requirements. Such as my own which is even much higher than average.

MornaBaine · March 2015

Wow, I like these "underlaying" textures as well! But yeah I also have to wonder if they are part of the problem I experience with this game. It would be great if these hidden textures were available when, you know, they finally get around to player housing and/or guild cities.

Elsonso · March 2015

Does this happen every time you go into the fighter's guild building?

I have to ask because of all the times I have been in and out of that building, I do not recall ever seeing the first image, not even for an instant. The scene depicted by the second picture is the initial scene loaded.

Moonshadow66 · March 2015

@MornaBaine That's what I think, that this could cause a lot of fps decrease in general.. But yeah, these textures would be awesome for housing

@lordrichter This only happens after update 6; in most interiors (not only the Fighter's Guild) I see just a blank nothing when I enter (except for parts of the exterior where players and NPCs walk around about 20-30 meters above; interiors are far below ground level), then it takes a while to build up the meshes, textures, items and NPCs. But as nice as this second layer is, it might take up some precious memory we would need for a better performance..
Before the update, I saw everything right away (most of the time, at least).

Rune_Relic · March 2015

PTS data clashing with Server Data ?
Either that or what they call LOD [load on demand] layers.
They are normally range dependant to save memory rendering distant objects.
Sometimes they are graphics performance dependant (degradation fallback).

Perhaps they updated LOD0 textures and neglected LOD1+.. so you see two completely different skins instead of lo-res version.

bellanca6561n · March 2015

Or the original meaning of LOD: Level of Detail. Most graphics engines will swap out low resolution shapes with higher level ones depending on context. You need LOD switching in games like this, whereas console engines, such as Unreal, didn't have LOD switching until 2005.

But this is disturbing, as MornaBaine noted, because it could be a look behind the curtain at an underlying inefficiency.

If it's just swapping, it's no big deal. If the shapes and textures behind the wall continue to be drawn after the wall is rendered, then things get messy.

Moonshadow66 · March 2015

@Rune_Relic I'm no expert, but I don't think the PTS data/folder has any influence on the live data/folder.
And I understand the LOD layers etc., but these (which I've seen in Daggerfall) are not the same thing since they are a) very different from the original and b) in high-res (as "high" as it can be on medium settings which I use).

Gidorick · March 2015

Lol. Wow. Those looks like completely different locations. I would love to see more if you can capture more! I've never experienced this!

Moonshadow66 · March 2015

bellanca6561n wrote: »

Or the original meaning of LOD: Level of Detail. Most graphics engines will swap out low resolution shapes with higher level ones depending on context. You need LOD switching in games like this, whereas console engines, such as Unreal, didn't have LOD switching until 2005.

But this is disturbing, as MornaBaine noted, because it could be a look behind the curtain at an underlying inefficiency.

If it's just swapping, it's no big deal. If the shapes and textures behind the wall continue to be drawn after the wall is rendered, then things get messy.

^This.
Sometimes I'm getting these low-res textures in cities when it's crowded, but the ones I've seen in the Fighter's Guild (and other buildings) are different.

Moonshadow66 · March 2015

Gidorick wrote: »

Lol. Wow. Those looks like completely different locations. I would love to see more if you can capture more! I've never experienced this!

I'll take some more as soon as I notice another difference

Thank the Eight my performance is so horrible (at least in this case)^^

Crica · March 2015

phasing prolly

Rune_Relic · March 2015

Crica wrote: »

phasing prolly

You mean different servers have different data on the cluster....eeek!
Might explain a few things if servers are not running the same patch.
Some 1.5 textures and some 1.6 textures

@ OP ...is this NA or EU server ?

Elsonso · March 2015

bellanca6561n wrote: »

Or the original meaning of LOD: Level of Detail. Most graphics engines will swap out low resolution shapes with higher level ones depending on context. You need LOD switching in games like this, whereas console engines, such as Unreal, didn't have LOD switching until 2005.

But this is disturbing, as MornaBaine noted, because it could be a look behind the curtain at an underlying inefficiency.

If it's just swapping, it's no big deal. If the shapes and textures behind the wall continue to be drawn after the wall is rendered, then things get messy.

More likely, there is a bug in the LOD progression for that interior space.

Rune_Relic · March 2015

Rune_Relic wrote: »

Crica wrote: »

phasing prolly

You mean different servers have different data on the cluster....eeek!
Might explain a few things if servers are not running the same patch.
Some 1.5 textures and some 1.6 textures

@ OP ...is this NA or EU server ?

Someone link the mods in on this....could be pretty important.

Moonshadow66 · March 2015

Rune_Relic wrote: »

Crica wrote: »

phasing prolly

You mean different servers have different data on the cluster....eeek!
Might explain a few things if servers are not running the same patch.
Some 1.5 textures and some 1.6 textures

@ OP ...is this NA or EU server ?

I'm on the NA server.
But the textures were always the same (the visible ones) though, before and after update 6. If they are different now, then maybe only the resolution or some other kind of improvement, but not completely different like on the pictures.

Moonshadow66 · March 2015

lordrichter wrote: »

bellanca6561n wrote: »

Or the original meaning of LOD: Level of Detail. Most graphics engines will swap out low resolution shapes with higher level ones depending on context. You need LOD switching in games like this, whereas console engines, such as Unreal, didn't have LOD switching until 2005.

But this is disturbing, as MornaBaine noted, because it could be a look behind the curtain at an underlying inefficiency.

If it's just swapping, it's no big deal. If the shapes and textures behind the wall continue to be drawn after the wall is rendered, then things get messy.

More likely, there is a bug in the LOD progression for that interior space.

But where would these others layers came from when it's just a bug? They do exist.
And it's not just in this interior space, as I wrote above.

Spryt · March 2015

Never seen differnet textures either.

But maybe they have some system that will load a low res smaller less detailed texture when you move around and only load the higher res more detailed when you actually stay in same place long enough for it to load. As most of the time you probobly just run past textures and wont even notice if its some low res version or not. So maybe it even saves some gpu and memory by only loading low res textures until you actually stop and let high res one load in.

Like I said never noticed this myself. But I run game on ultra. So maybe low/medium settings will use low res first and higher settings will skip them and just always load the more detailed high res texture direct. Just guessing.

Moonshadow66 · March 2015

Spryt wrote: »

Never seen differnet textures either.

But maybe they have some system that will load a low res smaller less detailed texture when you move around and only load the higher res more detailed when you actually stay in same place long enough for it to load. As most of the time you probobly just run past textures and wont even notice if its some low res version or not. So maybe it even saves some gpu and memory by only loading low res textures until you actually stop and let high res one load in.

Like I said never noticed this myself. But I run game on ultra. So maybe low/medium settings will use low res first and higher settings will skip them and just always load the more detailed high res texture direct. Just guessing.

Theoretically, this would make sense, of course. But when you compare these two pictures, you can see that these are two completely different textures (even the shape of parts of the room is different), not just a change between resolutions, unfortunately.
The odd thing is that this started to show up after update 6 was released. Before the update, I was playing on medium settings as well and I never saw this.

Armitas · March 2015

On a similar note I have noticed that they seem to make separate versions of identical objects. For example. There are 3 Outposts in Cyrodiil with tombshapped objects on them. On outpost 1 I can fall onto the tomb and place an oil pot , on outpost 2 I can jump onto it and place an oil pot, on outpost 3 I can jump onto it, but I cannot place an oil pot. So it appears that there are 3 different versions of what is ostensibly the exact same object.

I really hope they see this thread, seems like a really important piece of the puzzle.

Robbmrp · March 2015

@ZOS_GinaBruno, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom, @ZOS_PaulSage,

Could these multiple layer of graphics be causing the greater lag we are all seeing now? Were the lower resolutions of these supposed to be removed when the new ones were updated?

bellanca6561n · March 2015

You usually have three versions of most objects but they are different levels of detail and are swapped, one for another, as you get closer to them.

That system actually improves performance while giving you a far more graphically rich world.

What happens here can seem a bit odd at times though. Such as what you describe.

Only peculiarity I've noticed is the enchanter at Davon's Watch who changes from a rumpled sack of goodness knows what to the pretty but eccentric Dunmer NPC who's often coughing due to her various experiments

Moonshadow66 · March 2015

bellanca6561n wrote: »

You usually have three versions of most objects but they are different levels of detail and are swapped, one for another, as you get closer to them.

That system actually improves performance while giving you a far more graphically rich world.

What happens here can seem a bit odd at times though. Such as what you describe.

Only peculiarity I've noticed is the enchanter at Davon's Watch who changes from a rumpled sack of goodness knows what to the pretty but eccentric Dunmer NPC who's often coughing due to her various experiments

Oh wow, I totally forgot about this enchanter, I've seen this last year a few times, the exact same thing you are describing. Really creepy^^

But I'm still confused about these different textures (now also about the enchanter's), since they must be there in the first place to show up somehow.
Like on my screenshots, these are no different resolutions but completely different textures of the same resolution.. which makes me thinking.
The interior of the whole Daggerfall Castle looked exactly like this as well (the textures and architecture), and I'm sure these two buildings are not the only ones...

SLy_Kyti · March 2015

It looks like they took two different models for that building and stuck one inside the other. The first is the upper and lower floors showing the stairs to get there....then it loads the second part which is that room. They use the first one that happens to be nord looking with wooden arches and then when they added the second part (which is first floor) they made sure to skin it in the correct textures for that building.
In other words they are using building modules and slapping them together to achieve the shape and rooms they want. They just grab whatever they have been using in their modeling program whether the correct architecture or not then clean it up later to look consistent by skinning the textures. Here's a stairway... Put that down...now need a large room..ok...whoops this is texture set 4a, ok come back fix that...

Essentially you may have six or so pieces to create that building. You are seeing the first one rendered, then it adds the later ones that merge together. On my old laptop that barely rendered the beta, I would get frames, then sky and ground, later the skins and textures would load. Had to stay still till it all came together. I suspect that the patch actually made it more trouble for your GPU to render the game. But hey, I dunno. Just speculation.

DaniAngione · March 2015

Hey there, Ray

How you doing?

(Hope to see you online soon ^^)

Ok, my suggestion is: try sending a ticket - yes, ticket... Not bug report or feedback, a normal ticket.
I've sent many tickets asking curiosities or other random information and not necessarily having trouble... Though I was afraid this could bother the support team with "useless" stuff, they have always been kind and nice responding to the tickets, saying that even "silly doubts" or "curiosities" are worthy of attention

Seriously, I've even roleplayed a Khajiit with a support guy or talked about Jim Cummings (the voice actor behind Winnie the Pooh, Minsc and some of the nords in the game)

They're really a great team.

I'm sure if you make your case in a ticket and send these pictures, you'll get an awesome answer!

Pendrillion · March 2015

Intresting... Seems that maybe some architectural sets are mixing up. Maybe sort of "Data residue" The arches remind me of Nord Architecture...

Moonshadow66 · March 2015

DaniAngione wrote: »

Hey there, Ray How you doing?

(Hope to see you online soon ^^)

Ok, my suggestion is: try sending a ticket - yes, ticket... Not bug report or feedback, a normal ticket.
I've sent many tickets asking curiosities or other random information and not necessarily having trouble... Though I was afraid this could bother the support team with "useless" stuff, they have always been kind and nice responding to the tickets, saying that even "silly doubts" or "curiosities" are worthy of attention

Seriously, I've even roleplayed a Khajiit with a support guy or talked about Jim Cummings (the voice actor behind Winnie the Pooh, Minsc and some of the nords in the game) They're really a great team.

I'm sure if you make your case in a ticket and send these pictures, you'll get an awesome answer!

Hi Dani

Thank you for your reply, I guess that's what I'm really going to do next time I'm on (what will be tomorrow).
I've written mails forth and back with the support so often already that it feels like we're pen-pals, they ARE really nice people there, yes

Though, I hope that this time they can actually tell me what's going on (nah, I'm not starting with the last few times), I'll attach the screenshots.
And I'm doing fine, thanks, I hope you too?

kimboh · March 2015

I've seen exactly the same thing before, in the same location, before update 6.

Daggerfall is also one of the places where I suffered from FPS drops and random loading screens.
I suspect this unseen multi layered building structure is probably contributing to poor texture loading, as building textures in Daggerfall often take much longer to load than in other locations.

Maybe some leftover world builder ideas that were not properly removed in clean up before launch and have been forgotten about.

starkerealm · March 2015

bellanca6561n wrote: »

Or the original meaning of LOD: Level of Detail. Most graphics engines will swap out low resolution shapes with higher level ones depending on context. You need LOD switching in games like this, whereas console engines, such as Unreal, didn't have LOD switching until 2005.

But this is disturbing, as MornaBaine noted, because it could be a look behind the curtain at an underlying inefficiency.

If it's just swapping, it's no big deal. If the shapes and textures behind the wall continue to be drawn after the wall is rendered, then things get messy.

They're not. I get this in the Wayrest bank from time to time. Some of the hidden walls in there actually cut through the room's geometry at odd angles. If they were still being rendered, you'd actually see them in game.

Moonshadow66 · March 2015

kimboh wrote: »

I've seen exactly the same thing before, in the same location, before update 6.

Daggerfall is also one of the places where I suffered from FPS drops and random loading screens.
I suspect this unseen multi layered building structure is probably contributing to poor texture loading, as building textures in Daggerfall often take much longer to load than in other locations.

Maybe some leftover world builder ideas that were not properly removed in clean up before launch and have been forgotten about.

Finally someone who can confirm this, thank you for posting this! :-)
Yeah, it's the same for me, too, that Daggerfall is one of the places where the fps drops a lot (you can see that in the screenshots in the upper left corner in that info bar, 15-16 fps which is "normal" there) and the random loading screens show up.
Apparently, these textures and different architecture are not rendered anymore as soon as the "normal" ones appear, or we would still see that pillar, for example. But they are there while loading, otherwise we wouldn't have seen them.

Any post of a mod would still be appreciated.

Moonshadow66 · March 2015

*deleted and added to the original post.

Olysja · March 2015

hahaha , sorry but it looks like a jokeXD never had this problem luckly but i'm sad it exist:|