Computer Graphics World

March 2009 10 n n n n Gaming be plenty of locations and architecture that were unrecognizable in today's world." In its perpetual state of disintegration, the downtown core is suffused in dust and a fine spectral soot, casting a smoky shroud over the world that greatly impacted the lighting design. "We sought to create a thick, dusty atmosphere to enhance the sense of space and depth, or simply for dramatic effect—something lighting alone can't do," explains Pely. Using aggressive, non-linear fog-ramp settings, along with copious amounts of subtle particle clouds, the artists could simulate this smoky effect cheaply from a rendering perspective. For the god rays that blind your eyes upon first stepping out of the vault, the beams of light knifing through the thick dust of the city, and other glow effects, the artists used geometry. Specifically, they used flat planes applied with subtle, addi- tive gradient textures that were arranged so that when viewed from any angle, they'd create the illusion of volumetric fog or mist glowing from nearby intense light sources. Streamlining e Fallout universe stands apart from the world of Bethesda's Elder Scrolls titles be- cause it is far less populous, having only a few hundred non-player characters (NPCs) versus more than 15,000. Trimming the population allowed the team to spend more time with all the characters, fleshing out each one more fully by using unique texture maps; 30-plus voice actors gave them an individual look and vocal iden- tity. "Reducing the NPC count allowed us to write dialog trees with far more depth, yielding a much greater variety in the voice acting," says Pely. "In terms of the art, we were able to spend more time on particular NPCs' facial features so that they have their own individual character." Artists created all the character faces us- ing a tweaked version of Singular Inversion's FaceGen SDK. e procedural system, says Pely, allowed the team to dynamically create many unique faces quickly and flex- ibly. is technology was the secret sauce behind the DNA sequencing at the begin- ning of the game, forging the family traits in both father and son. e same level of control is also afforded to the main character's clothing and armor, which come in two parts—for the head and the body, respectively. Players, for example, can choose a pair of mechanic's coveralls to improve their repair skills. Heavier armor may provide better shielding from enemy fire, but could also leave the player encum- bered and struggling under the weight. In- voking the game's "quality versus quantity approach," the team scaled back the cloth- ing selection and modularity considerably from previous titles. "is allowed us far more artistic free- dom in costume design," says Pely. "e player can mix and match helmets, hats, and other headgear, but the rest of the ap- parel comes as one piece. is greatly sim- plifies inventory management and doesn't impose as many limitations on how we draw and model the apparel. Every cos- tume is a 'character,' and, therefore, has a certain personality that works because of the combination of elements and the de- tails in that particular ensemble." Due to an aggressive production sched- ule and the desire to keep the game space from becoming overly complicated, the team also avoided unlimited destructibility in the environments. Rather, they are not destructible beyond bullet impact decals that are automatically applied to any mesh when struck and pockmarked by gunfire. ese decals vary based on the material of the object, such as concrete, glass, and so forth, and are somewhat randomized in terms of scale and rotation, which help with visual variety. e textures them- selves use parallax mapping, an enhanced version of bump mapping, which gives a convincing 3D illusion of depth. "It really looks as though the shot-up concrete has a deep cavity dug into it, thanks to this tech- nique," says Pely. Humanoid Characters In the Capital wasteland, it is unwise to ap- proach the wildlife, grown hostile and gro- tesquely mutated by the radiation. Along with feral ghouls and three-foot ants, also stalking the area are centaurs (a four-foot hy- brid man/squid/spider), 11-foot super mu- tants, and 30-foot super mutant behemoths. For modeling and texturing all the charac- ters, the team used 3ds Max, Adobe's Pho- toshop, and Pixologic's Zbrush. Artists also used Autodesk's Mudbox for some organic modeling of environmental objects, includ- ing the rocks and the trees of the wasteland. The artists created all the characters, including sheriff Lucas Simms (shown here), using 3ds Max, Photoshop, and Zbrush. For characters' faces, they employed a version of the FaceGen SDK.

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