New dev diary on Fallout 3 site

[Bodybag]

Correct me if I wrong, but the art is steampunk in style due to an overly large amount of utterly useless pipes, buttons, pockets and thingamajigs crammed everywhere. Steampunk tends to have that with gears and pistons.

He has a point - how many other genres incorporate pipes, buttons, pockets and thingamajigs? That's right, only STEAMPUNK does you fools!

Speaking of Steampunk...

The furturistic, steampunk-esc Iron Giant has no place in Fallout

Does anyone here even know what Steampunk means? The Iron fucking Giant? Really?

 

[ashley52]

Ok, the artwork is technically good. Some of Terbikun's opinions are very valid.

The mad max influence is great, considering the original fallout was heavily influenced by it.

The gadgets and gizmos are spot on. The motor sword is brilliant.

But what is it missing.....?

The more and more I think about all of this, the more I realise how alike the resurrection of fallout is to the star wars prequels. Its now been almost ten years since fallout 2, and a new team of people are trying to recapture a highly stylized fantasy in a medium of technology that has evolved beyond recognition. Lucas had the same problem... vastly superior special effects Vs the nostalgic puppetry of analogs and props. How do you get the right balance.

Well, you have to get the concept artwork spot on.

We know its going to feel very strange when we play fallout 3, since it will be in 3d. The combat will be different, the story too.. different. The only thing that will bring the flavor of nostalgia of the old games... is its artwork.

The artwork is half of FALLOUT. Its style, its atmosphere and the sense of humor in its visuals made fallout the cult it is today.

That reason alone, I think the artist needs to take a step back. Their is a lack of humor in the visuals. The monsters look very Resident Evil (as someone described). The game already feels like its lacking the cheek in tongue humor. The atmosphere has changed drastically.

Fallout was never suppose to scare you. It wasnt doom 3.

Yeh the ravaged city looks cool but the fallout style is missing.

This is suppose to be fallout 3.

 

[Anani Masu]

The complete lack of any large renders or concept art makes this a real pain in the ass to argue. So I attempted to take a shot from the ovrrun.mve and sharpen it up and colorize it as best I could given the hour and my propensity to be lazy.

The concept art doesn't seem to be the huge leap from this that some of you act like it is. Again I don't really see how the new stuff is more orc like than whats above.

 

[terebikun]

No it isn't, and that's a cop-out. I don't know how you could possibly not identify the difference between evolving the style of supermutants as I described it or going for the "bigger humans" mutants we've seen in Return to Castle Wolfenstein and so many other games and are just popular now.

Sorry, I missed this bit in my first pass. I just finished up a Linguistics degree, and I can say from a few years of experience now that there is truly nothing more pointless than arguing semantics. So yeah, it's a bit of a cop-out, but it's also true. Evolution is what, a change or series of changes that becomes a new standard over time. Now, for all intents and purposes I think we can state that "change" and "deviation" are synonyms. So, what we have here is a style that has changed/deviated from the original, and seems to have made it into the game as the Behemoth. I don't see any concept art, screenshots, or video of the old supermutants in Fallout 3, so you can say that the design has changed and evolved.

As for this "difference", one person even made a photo example of how supposedly the old orcs/supermutants looked more human than the new guys. I also think the mutants/Behemoths I've pointed out previously fit your bodybuilding comparison of the drastically over-sized build (although I'm not sure how valid that comparison is now with Anani Masu's screenshot showing that the old mutants really weren't so disproportionately muscle-y).

Finally, I'd like to point out that even if the new guys turn out exactly like mutants in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, it would still be evolving the Fallout supermutant design. It may not be evolving mutant designs in general in the entertainment world, but it is developing the Fallout mutant design. In my opinion for the better, but like I said, subjective.

Does anyone here even know what Steampunk means? The Iron fucking Giant? Really?

Hey, I'm just learning that something can apparently be both futuristic and steampunk.

Some of Terbikun's opinions are very valid.

Sweet! Kind of!

That reason alone, I think the artist needs to take a step back. Their is a lack of humor in the visuals. The monsters look very Resident Evil (as someone described). The game already feels like its lacking the cheek in tongue humor. The atmosphere has changed drastically.

Fallout was never suppose to scare you. It wasnt doom 3.

Yeh the ravaged city looks cool but the fallout style is missing.

First of all, I think elements of Fallout were maybe not supposed to scare you, but it was a scary world. There's bad things and bad people abound. Most people seemed to be living in a constant state of violence and/or despair. You can't have dark humor without the dark.

Second, I think there's a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor in the concept art. You might not be partial to it (as many people in the thread aren't), but it's there if you look for it. There's the toy car (and maybe/hopefully the fire sword), there's the cow and the shopping cart strapped to these guy' backs, there's the Buck Rogers-ish helmet on that dude, not to mention the kids in the ill-fitting pre-war uniforms, the giant ridable vaccuum cleaner and the duck and cover booth, and the possible-centaur's receding hairline, glasses, and remains of a suit.

Now, there's not a whole lot of humor in the architecture or city environments (save maybe the plane tail-building), but I don't recall much humor in the actual city designs themselves in Fallout.

 

[Black]

Evolution is what, a change or series of changes that becomes a new standard over time.

What definition of evolution are you using?

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

What definition of evolution are you using?

That sequels to classic games should appeal to AD/HD 15 year olds that believe all games should be like Halo 3/GOW2/GTA4, being extreme in graphics yet not bore them with choices of morality or complex story-lines that involve something other than "Find this guy and kill him 'cause you're the dude!"

 

[Public]

I know lots of people have problems with the vault suits. I don't, they look very 50's. They're not identical to the originals, and I can see why that would bug some, but they look fine to me.

Right, but what we forgeting is, it's not like it was in previous Fallouts.

 

[ashley52]

SteamPunk

As far as I know, have a look at manga cartoons by Hayao Miyazaki.
Worlds portrayed like "steamBoy". "castle in the Sky", "Spirited Away", "nausicca of the Valley of Wind"..... etc

They are post industrial - post apocalyptic worlds where the future is run on steam, hydraulics and clockwork mechanics. This world has a particular style.... and some of the concept artwork presented here does feel influenced by it.

Most notably...

The pockets, goggles and toolkit are very steampunkish... but I cant find a specific picture to show you.. you have to watch the movies.

 

[ashley52]

terebikun

I can see some elements of humor... mostly in the gadgets as you pointed out... But its different. The inspirations are different.

The monster is what I think most people are referring to... and I agree with them. Its taking itself too serious.

The world of fallout wasnt scary because of big bad monsters, it was mostly scary because of the social breakdown, the anarchy and the defragmentation of the society. The darkness was not so much in the landscape.... it was more so in the actions of the characters and the post-apocalyptic rebirth of the towns and villages.

It was so atmospheric, between the lines... if you get what I mean.

As far as the artwork goes, I just think that it needs to retain the style of fallout. There is too much innovation in the concept art... not that the art is bad... but it isnt fallout.

I would love to see other post-apocalyptic games based on other influences... but not as fallout 3. My personal feeling.

... why call this fallout 3... if nothing is retained but... War... war never changes.

 

[Section8]

and then the bug-juice thing, which doesn't seem to make much sense, but I could deal with if using "bug juice" was somehow tactical. I'm guessing poison spell.

Pretty sure there was a poison gun in the concept art for Van Buren. Food for thought.

That would be this one presumably? It is food for thought, but I'm certainly not one of "those people" who think everything Van Buren is gold. I'm not sure if "those people" even exist.

And in this specific case, I like the styling of the germ guns. They're simple, retrofuturistic and for lack of a better word, "Fallout-y". However, I don't quite get them. Do they shoot germ filled syringes? Spray germ fluid? What use is germ warfare at infantry range? Is a shot in the eye more critical than a shot in the arm? They seem a bit silly.

The Bug-o-later-juice-tron-o-matic Boy I also like some of the stylistic elements of - such as the recycled toys, but again, I don't quite get it. It shoots darts. How does the poison get from the jar to the tip of the darts? In any case, could that jar contain anything, including <s>healing</s> curative fluids? Is it in effect a multipurpose dispenser of chemical fluids? Could I load it up with poison, disease, radiation, blinding, healing, buffout, psycho?

And being forever cynical, I wonder if Bethesda has asked these questions or if it's just their way of introducing the familiar territory of a ranged damage-over-time spell, with the addition of being a "this plus that" item, much like the flame sword. Toy Car + Bug Sprayer = Poison Dart Gun. O-lator. Matic. Boy.

Food for thought.

 

[Anani Masu]

SteamPunk

As far as I know, have a look at manga cartoons by Hayao Miyazaki.
Worlds portrayed like "steamBoy". "castle in the Sky", "Spirited Away", "nausicca of the Valley of Wind"..... etc

They are post industrial - post apocalyptic worlds where the future is run on steam, hydraulics and clockwork mechanics. This world has a particular style.... and some of the concept artwork presented here does feel influenced by it.

Oy... where to start? Ok first off Steamboy was by the guy who did Akira and not Miyazaki. Spirited Away was set in modern Japan where a girl happens to stumble into a bathhouse for gods and spirits and features no steampunk at all (unless you want to count a boiler that heats water for baths). Castle in the Sky is set in a faux welsh mining town that is very much alternate history and not post apocalyptic. Nausicaa is post apoc and features no steam tech at all. It does however feature giant bioengineered superweapons that shoot atomic lasers from their mouths and building sized psychic wood lice. Note also that some purists would say that castle in the sky isn't steampunk since almost everything runs on internal combustion engines/ancient technomagical crystal power.

Steamboy however is a perfect example of steampunk. It is set in the victorian era and uses steam based technology for all it's devices. Check out this example image from the movie.

Here we see Ray Steam escaping from a big steam powered machine on his home made steam powered monowheel.

If you noticed the word steam appeared in that sentence three times then good, it's kinda important.

 

[Tagaziel]

The complete lack of any large renders or concept art makes this a real pain in the ass to argue. So I attempted to take a shot from the ovrrun.mve and sharpen it up and colorize it as best I could given the hour and my propensity to be lazy.

The concept art doesn't seem to be the huge leap from this that some of you act like it is. Again I don't really see how the new stuff is more orc like than whats above.

It's the way they move. When they stand still, they are hunched over and menacing. When they move, they move sluggishly, slowly. When they run, they run weirdly.

Though I see your point and in this particular context, right, they don't look much different.

 

[Brother None]

Not sure what that is, but it sure doesn't look like this supermutant. Somehow I feel your interpretation doesn't have high fidelity.

Also, I'll repeat this again: we're not just complaining about the concept art. Some of those concepts are closer to the supermutants of Fallout 1 than the supermutants of Fallout 3 are. But that doesn't matter, since the supermutants in Fallout 3 don't look like those concepts.

Since this always tends to happen after a while, here's a group shot of mutants from Fallout 1


Things that changed (and again, I'm talking in Fallout 3, not necessarily concept arts):
- Facial features: big jowels, small cranium, small eyes and nose, face held up by straps. All gone.
- Stance: the hunched look seen most clearly in the standing sprite in the supermutant walking down the hall (top left and right) is not in the game.
- Proportions: look at the arms of the supermutant lying down and tell me those aren't disproportionate. Also look at the small head versus big body proportions.

If you noticed the word steam appeared in that sentence three times then good, it's kinda important.

Look, I'm not going to keep repeating myself.

When I say it's "steampunk-ish", I don't mean it looks like the robots are driven by steam, it looks like it unnecessarily incorporates elements from steampunk ART that don't necessarily fit the art of Fallout.

Look at, for instance, this reimagining of Darth Vader in steampunk. What is it that makes it steampunk? There is no steam-driven mechanic in there, for sure. There are a few elements of clock mechanics that help, but there's more.

But a few more important things:
- It has a visible framework of metal, so that you can see parts of its "inner workings" visible
- The Vader image is fairly clean, for Steampunk, but another consequence is that it has odd bits and ends, either in pipes or pistons, that do not have a clear purpose (compare to typically more detailed machinery in steampunk).

Now, for your enjoyment, please take the Fallout 3 robots and put them alongside this Van Buren robot concept.

What does Van Buren do right here that Adam does wrong?

- You do not get to see any of the robot's inner mechanics.
- The robot is clean, polished (not in the literal sense, but in design), because it's the 50's. World of the future design is clean, remember that.
- The robot does not have a single bit or end that looks like it doesn't have a function.

Take Adam's piece, look at the left robot. Look at the lower body of the top right Brainbot. Look at the robot seen in the background to the left of Brainbot.

I see bits and ends on the outside. I see visible internal mechanics. I see design that is a-typical of World of the Future design, including a propensity for human anatomy.

Now posting here, I decided to sum that all up as "Steampunk-ish", convinced that all of NMA's readers would be intelligent enough to gather what I meant. Apparently I thought wrong. You can continue to hammer on the semantics of the term steampunk, or realize I'm talking about an artistic shift that shares elements with steampunk art and can thus be described by that word.

It's not an exact term, I never meant that you could put a steampunk art next to it and say "hey this looks exactly the same", I meant that design has gone from what we know of World of the Future and inched towards steampunk.

I think we've already established that the new guys are Uruk-Hai, not orcs, although people can't seem to decide whether the old guys are Hulks or orcs that happen to not have jutting teeth (does it count that they strap up their lips so you can see their teeth anyways? maybe they're trying to compensate).

Are you going to try to push this point of "you guys can't agree amongst yourselves!" much further? It's getting old. We're individuals, obviously we use different basis of comparisons and arguments. That doesn't mean we disagree on what the mutants look like, even if we use different language.

Sorry, I missed this bit in my first pass. I just finished up a Linguistics degree, and I can say from a few years of experience now that there is truly nothing more pointless than arguing semantics.

If you have a linguistics degree, you should have realised my argument isn't actually in semantics. The difference between using the style of the originals or the style of Return to Castle Wolfenstein isn't semantics, it's dichotomic, because RtCW is completely unrelated to Fallout.

Evolution is what, a change or series of changes that becomes a new standard over time.

Nope. Evolution is taking something in the series and changing it over the same lines. If I change the camera angle in GTA, it doesn't matter since viewpoint is only used to support the gameplay. Same thing goes for Fallout, though turn-based simply runs better in bird's eye view.

If I take one series, and add an element from an unrelated series, like implementing RtCW's Supersoldiers into Fallout, that does not fit any definition of evolution.

So, what we have here is a style that has changed/deviated from the original, and seems to have made it into the game as the Behemoth.

'fraid you're misinformed. The Behemoth is one type of supermutant, the extra-big one, the rest are called supermutants. All explanations so far (we've had a few in previews/interviews) is that supermutants came from FEV, so all the back-story we have now points to them being the same supermutants. But it's possible the changes will be explained as "they're different kinds".

But even that isn't fully satisfactory. If you add new supermutants that still have a 50's style to them, then ok, but these have the style of modern shooters. How does that work? It's a different style altogether.

As for this "difference", one person even made a photo example of how supposedly the old orcs/supermutants looked more human than the new guys.

Link?

I don't see your point there, by the way.

 

[Anani Masu]

Not sure what that is, but it sure doesn't look like this supermutant. Somehow I feel your interpretation doesn't have high fidelity.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

Ohh man this is great stuff. Apparently not only do Fallout 3s super mutants not look like Fallout 1s, Fallout 1 super mutants DON'T LOOK LIKE FALLOUT 1S! This isn't my interpretation at all. I spent last night downloading and fiddling with old fallout editor utilities to pull a frame out of the ovrrun.mve file that plays if you join the master. Here's the original frame unedited.

Here Ill put the unaltered one from that right next to my version.

See I didn't change the proportions on anything. All I did was add some color and try to smudge the blur of his face into something a little more detailed. Presumably thats the very same model used in the picture you said it didn't look like.

Ohh and finally on the whole steampunk thing. You don't get to decide that you're going to make up your own definition of steampunk style (which I personally don't agree with) and then declare that people who don't agree are stupid. Don't try and weasel out of claiming

convinced that all of NMA's readers would be intelligent enough to gather what I meant.

as meaning anything but that.

 

[Brother None]

Ohh man this is great stuff. Apparently not only do Fallout 3s super mutants not look like Fallout 1s, Fallout 1 super mutants DON'T LOOK LIKE FALLOUT 1S! This isn't my interpretation at all.

Yes it is. You chose one particular shot at one particular angle and now state it looks like all supermutants, and pretend it is the only reference we have.

Notice how I included the exact same shot in my collage? I'm not saying the shot isn't a supermutant, I'm saying that since we have more than one shot, we don't need to use only that one.

The problem isn't with the actual shot, the problem is that you pretend one shot from one angle represents all supermutants. Even though you can clearly see from different angles, and when they're in a different point of movement, that supermutants have a specific look that one frame doesn't represent well. You can see the hunch in all other shots, including talking heads and sprites, you can see the disproportionate muscles very clearly in the sprites and supermutant lying down. Your problem is that you tried to put your one selected frame above the others, and I didn't buy it.

In other words, it is your interpretation, because you clearly selected that one frame because it supports your point, and ignored frames that contradict your point. I did no such thing, instead picking up all clear frames I could. As you can see, by doing so I make a much clearer and less distorted picture than you do, including but not limited to the one frame you picked.

Also, the face is clearly your work.

Now if you want to convince me, you'd take different shots; the supermutant getting shot, the supermutant walking down the hallway, the supermutant crawling over the floor, make them all bigger, and then come back saying they all look like the concept art (which, I repeat, isn't 100% the same as the game, again, some of the concept art is better than the in-game models, just like I hate the robots I see here, but all the in-game robots looked great to me (saw only two models, though)).

Ohh and finally on the whole steampunk thing. You don't get to decide that you're going to make up your own definition of steampunk style.

I didn't. I identified elements that I have seen in steampunk and pointed out where I saw those elements again. I did not define steampunk, nor have I defined the Fallout 3 concept art as pure steampunk.

But here's the gist of it: the actual important bit is that those elements are visible in these concept arts but not present in Fallout's original concepts. In other words: they're changes. You chose to harp on the usage of the word steampunk because, and you're right there, it doesn't fit with steampunk as a setting and my interpretation can be held up to doubt. And since it confused so many people, you're right, my remark on intelligence was out of line, and my choice of words was probably poor, otherwise it wouldn't have confused so many.

But instead of actually refuting my argument, all you've done is harp on my choice of words. That doesn't exactly weaken my arguments, all it does is weaken my choice of words. If it stops this semantic debate, all I have to do is say "ok, don't call it steampunk, instead refer to my list on why it's different than Fallout's style" and you'd be left up the creek without a paddle. Because you don't seem to have a counter-argument to my actual point, only to my choice of words.

 

[Anani Masu]

I chose that shot because it is the single best instance of a front facing mutant that exists. It best shows off what his proportions are.
I'll toss in one last picture before I stop posting.

I spend a lot of time working on anatomy and I think they a close enough build to be called faithful. The fact that you think that a minor change in posture is enough to make this a wild deviation is exactly why no one outside this little circle jerk gives a shit about what you think about fallout.

And now lets talk about something else briefly. When people say that Battlefield Heroes looks exactly like TF2 and I point out that TF2 is based on mid century commercial illustrations and BH is based on stylized war posters they are likely to say 'whatever' and let it drop. Words mean things and when you say "tripped over a pile of steampunk" it tends to derail the conversation in the direction of discussing whether or not that's accurate. You think the new art looks too busy, thats fine. I think the van buren art you linked looks too sleek. I don't recall any robots in f1 or 2 having molded plastic cowling like that one appears to have. I seem to recall the humanoid combat bots having exposed infrastructure. We can argue about stylistic minutiae all day but it comes down to opinions and mine is ultimately worth as much as yours, jack shit.

 

[Brother None]

I chose that shot because it is the single best instance of a front facing mutant that exists. It best shows off what his proportions are.

No. It best shows of the proportions you want to see.

Look, this'd be different if I was only showing one pic to compare to yours. But a collage of pictures shows that your picture simply happens to look a bit out because the supermutant is in motion and captured from one angle.

I spend a lot of time working on anatomy and I think they a close enough build to be called faithful.

Why does everyone suddenly claim to be an expert? I don't care if you just studied anatomy or linguistics, appeal to authority is a logical fallacy and certainly doesn't work when you're trying to claim it yourself.

The one pic you chose looks a lit like the screenshot from Fallout 3 you chose. Other pics show the anatomy of the supermutants is significantly different. Again, I gave a point-by-point comparison before:

- Facial features: big jowels, small cranium, small eyes and nose, face held up by straps. All gone.
- Stance: the hunched look seen most clearly in the standing sprite in the supermutant walking down the hall (top left and right) is not in the game.
- Proportions: look at the arms of the supermutant lying down and tell me those aren't disproportionate. Also look at the small head versus big body proportions.

You're not refuting any of that, you're just saying "isn't" based on one screencap that is shown to be a bit deceiving when compared to others. Now you're reinforcing that by going "it's just opinion man". Fine, if that's what you think, then hold your opinion and shut up. If you actually want to argue, you'll have to argue points and not resort to fallacies like "it's just opinion" or just going "no it isn't".

The fact that you think that a minor change in posture is enough to make this a wild deviation is exactly why no one outside this little circle jerk gives a shit about what you think about fallout.

You've been doing so well so far. Please don't resort to trolling.

If you don't care about the deviation, then don't care. But so far you've been saying it's not there. Those are two different things.

Words mean things and when you say "tripped over a pile of steampunk" it tends to derail the conversation in the direction of discussing whether or not that's accurate.

No it doesn't. You chose to harp on the choice of words because you felt it was the easiest point to attack, and by doing so you chose to ignore the actual argument. My choice of words was poor, and I freely admit that, but it's not me who then thought it was a good idea to avoid any actual discussion by harping on semantics.

 

[Sander]

I think the van buren art you linked looks too sleek. I don't recall any robots in f1 or 2 having molded plastic cowling like that one appears to have. I seem to recall the humanoid combat bots having exposed infrastructure.

I think you might want to play Fallout again and look at the robots.
Like the Vaults, they were very sterile and sleek - because they were part of the futuristic vision of the '50s. I think you can see this type of sleekness pretty clearly in 2001: A Space Odyssey (yes, I know it's not a '50s movie), if you want a reference. These robots were built before the war and are hence not supposed to look scrappy, as opposed to the more Mad Max-style world that's outside the Vaults.

 

[Brother None]

I think the robot comparison is slightly more specious. It's easy to see anatomy in reference material for supermutants, but pure 2D sprite details are hard to compare when looking at something as tiny as "bits and bobs". The argument that world of the future cleanliness is a factor, makes sense.

And I personally think:


That you can clearly see when comparing the Brainbots that the original one has a cleaner chassis, and no messy bottom half like the new one.

 

[Ausir]

I like the sputnik bot, the new Mr. Handy and Brain Bot are not that bad, don't like the other ones, though.