Lead designer Joel Burgess and lead artist Nathan Purkeypile take us through the process of graphic and world design development of Point Lookout in a new dev diary.<blockquote>In order to establish the aesthetic for Point Lookout, we didn’t just start building the whole world at once, but instead focused on small locations that became “benchmark” areas. This way, we could make sure that we had the look that we wanted, proving our visual ideas. This is sometimes referred to as a “vertical slice”. Once a benchmark convinced us that our visual goals were feasible, the team would build the whole world using those themes, colors and density of clutter as a metric. We built two major benchmarks; a typical marsh area and the Mansion, which is part of the coastal cliff area.
The marsh benchmark area is where we placed all of our new plant life and trees. While everything is dead and dry in the Wasteland, we wanted Point Lookout to be a region where plant life has managed to survive and proliferate in wet conditions. Team artists labored over new trees and plants that would define the area. These new assets had to sacrifice some of the detail of clutter from the base game in order to achieve a much higher level of visual density in Point Lookout. While things in the Capital Wasteland are spread pretty far apart, we wanted to capture the feeling of wading through a dangerous and dense marsh. A whole new set of landscape textures was created to get the dark and muddy feel that we wanted to achieve. Thanks to clever optimization, very few sacrifices were made to realize the team’s visual goals.</blockquote>As for the denizens...<blockquote>Point Lookout wouldn’t have been complete without characters to populate it. The setting yielded no shortage of ideas for new enemy types and characters, but with finite resources we had to be selective about what work the team could take on. Tobar is the Steamboat ferryman, and this grafter is one of the first characters the player will meet. He received a custom outfit to match his unique and ebullient personality. Point Lookout is also home to a group of transcendental Tribals, who received new garments to help reinforce their beliefs and set them apart from citizens of the Capital Wasteland. Perhaps most involved was our new enemy type; the Swampfolk. These denizens of the marsh are descended from the reclusive natives of the swamp, inspired by Bayou legends and other modern myths. Everything about these enemies was a challenge – we chose to embrace a certain amount of humor in their presentation, but they needed to be dangerous, yet still human. They’re people, albeit mutated by radiation and deformed by generations of poor breeding. These new enemies are as much a part of the environment as the shacks they inhabit, and help reinforce the sense of place which is so important to the player experience of Point Lookout.</blockquote>'Coz everyone knows Fallout is all about Bayou legends and other modern myths. Hi-yuck!
The marsh benchmark area is where we placed all of our new plant life and trees. While everything is dead and dry in the Wasteland, we wanted Point Lookout to be a region where plant life has managed to survive and proliferate in wet conditions. Team artists labored over new trees and plants that would define the area. These new assets had to sacrifice some of the detail of clutter from the base game in order to achieve a much higher level of visual density in Point Lookout. While things in the Capital Wasteland are spread pretty far apart, we wanted to capture the feeling of wading through a dangerous and dense marsh. A whole new set of landscape textures was created to get the dark and muddy feel that we wanted to achieve. Thanks to clever optimization, very few sacrifices were made to realize the team’s visual goals.</blockquote>As for the denizens...<blockquote>Point Lookout wouldn’t have been complete without characters to populate it. The setting yielded no shortage of ideas for new enemy types and characters, but with finite resources we had to be selective about what work the team could take on. Tobar is the Steamboat ferryman, and this grafter is one of the first characters the player will meet. He received a custom outfit to match his unique and ebullient personality. Point Lookout is also home to a group of transcendental Tribals, who received new garments to help reinforce their beliefs and set them apart from citizens of the Capital Wasteland. Perhaps most involved was our new enemy type; the Swampfolk. These denizens of the marsh are descended from the reclusive natives of the swamp, inspired by Bayou legends and other modern myths. Everything about these enemies was a challenge – we chose to embrace a certain amount of humor in their presentation, but they needed to be dangerous, yet still human. They’re people, albeit mutated by radiation and deformed by generations of poor breeding. These new enemies are as much a part of the environment as the shacks they inhabit, and help reinforce the sense of place which is so important to the player experience of Point Lookout.</blockquote>'Coz everyone knows Fallout is all about Bayou legends and other modern myths. Hi-yuck!
