Nuka-World trailer featuring DLC cover art by John Gravato.

It has been a while since I have had the time to post and I wanted to get something up about Nuka-World. Rather than hit all of the details in a bunch of smaller Nuka-World posts I decided I would cover as much as I could in one overview post. While re-watching the trailer recently, I was reminded of just how many different aspects of that DLC I got to work on as the art lead. Highlighting my work from the trailer felt like a good way to run through my efforts, so take a look at the trailer linked above and then read on below.



Nuka-World screenshot I created for marketing.

My general responsibilities began with creating the pitch for the DLC. The two design leads, Justin Schram and Alan Nanes, and I started developing a series of ideas for the DLC. After one false start, we came in with a stack of new ideas as one-sheets and started the pitch meeting with what was then called “Raiders and Rides” as a working title. Todd accepted it before even hearing the other ones. I was very happy about this as it was my favorite pitch of the group.



Nuka-World screenshot I created for marketing.



As the art lead for the project I was responsible for overseeing all things art-related; art direction, pipeline, etc. Since this was a DLC for Fallout 4, much of the core art direction was established by Istvan Pele, the art director on the base game. My job for the DLC was to create a reason for players to want to come back to the game for more. I also wanted to test some of my ideas for improvements to the pipelines and the smaller scale of a DLC was a great place for that. More than anything I wanted to use my additional influence on the DLC to give the players loads of memorable fun and value for their money.



My Nuka-World key art based on the original Fallout 4 key art.



One of the first things I did once the plan was greenlit was to create the key art. I used it in all of my slides for internal and external presentations and to set the initial tone and pillars of the DLC for the team. More detailed post on the key art here.

My original Bottle & Cappy slide art turned into Nuka-World coffee mug art.

A key contrast built into the DLC from the start was the mix of horrible, violent, raider gangs with the fun, lighthearted, theme park. To add that contrast into my slides I created a closing slide featuring who I imagined the park mascots to be. Bottle & Cappy were born as a way to incorporate a fun note as my closing slide. As the DLC progressed it became clear we needed to use them in the park and then in the marketing. Post DLC they have joined the permanent Fallout lore in other titles and in merchandising.



Nuka-World screenshot I created for marketing.

As the first artist on the project, I started by sketching key broad strokes of the DLC into the engine to guide the art team toward my vision. I added in the first-pass landscape and weather to get the environment feeling like I wanted. Then I started blocking in key landmarks of the park in grey boxed art to get the layout started. I added sub leads for the park environment art (Jason Muck) and the landscape (Andrew Barron). To help build enough new geometry to fill the park, I prototyped some park assets using the color remapping I developed for the base game. This workflow would allow faster park asset creation allowing us to build a larger environment with a smaller team.



Nuka-World screenshot I created for marketing.

Once the environment team was going I shifted focus to characters, creatures, and weapons. I knew they going to take much more hands-on work from me duse to the small team size. We had one character artist (Charles Kim) and one weapon artist (Dane Olds) in house. Concept art and the bulk of the non-environment art was planned to be outsourced. Raiders were the main focus for the DLC and I knew they would take up the majority of the resources. Inspite of that limitation I also wanted to get the players as many new creatures as I could. I came up with a list of easy but dramatic creature ideas to test to maximize reuse but feel new to the player. I did fast “proof of concept” tests for each idea to determine which ideas would work in-game. I repeated this same pattern to fill out the weapon list with cheap and fun additions at a minimal cost.



Nuka-World screenshot I created for marketing.

The raider gangs were the main feature of the DLC but due to the volume of work they required, and our lack of staff in those departments, the decision was made to outsource all of the raider concepts and the models. I knew outsourcing the concepts was going to be tricky since the outsourcing group was in China but I had no other option. I supplied lots of ref and photo bashed some quick collages to get something for them to start with besides a written description. This method yielded a few good designs but nothing good enough to move forward with alone. Luckily for me, John Gravato (concept artist) stepped up and took on wrangling some of the design revisions and additions in his spare time. Ray Leder (concept artist) also knocked out a few additional helmet designs. Leveraging their stellar support and iterating with the team in China I was able to arrive at the armor sets that defined the three raider gangs and could combine for massive variety for the player.



My trailer directorial debut: the Nuka-World E3 teaser.

For this DLC, in particular, Todd’s plan for us was to market it like a full game. This meant we would work with marketing on screens, a teaser, a trailer, a theme song, a Bottle & Cappy trailer (similar to the SPECIAL videos for the base game), and a physical park map. The Bottle & Cappy trailer was handled by an outside vendor which took most of the load off of us except for lite direction and feedback. The rest was up to myself and a handful of people on the team. Animator Neal Thibodeaux did a lot of the heavy lifting on both the teaser and the trailer which were both made in the engine. Artist Natalia Smirnova created the logos and artwork for the map and we worked very hard to make it accurate to the park and have that authentic theme park map feel. Not only were we going to use it to guide people around the park in-game, we were also putting a physical version in Game Stop as a preorder bonus.

Bottle & Cappy trailer.

Nuka-World park map pre-order bonus.



One of the things that got me the leadership role on the DLC was my history of adding all kinds of content to the game in addition to my role as a VFX artist. I don’t like it when a good idea dies from a lack of resource time. Over the years I have learned all of the workflows in our engine to find clever ways to make my ideas come to life without additional help. This often includes sourcing existing art for kitbashing new work from in order to save time. Unfortunately, this is the kind of work that has often proven hard to teach and or delegate. Having the lead role allowed me to incorporate it more than ever before into our pipelines, but throughout the DLC I still had to do a lot of the work myself.



Below is a breakdown of all of my work in the trailer which turns out to be a good cross-section of all of the additional things I did on the DLC.





00:02 Direction and feedback for outsourced Bottle & Cappy video.

00:15 Unique models and editor setup for Nukatron.

Flipbook port of B&C video for in-game Nukatron and Nuka-Cola machines.

00:20 Water VFX for the landscape.

Art direction for the five themed areas of the park.

00:23 Ported mannequin models to animatronics and animated them. Created all Nuka-World mannequin outfits as texture swaps or new meshes.

00:24 Set dressed and captured trailer footage in-game.



00:26 Developed efficient color remapping pipeline (CRP) for the fast creation of park assets.

I built fake western mountain rocks for themed park area.



00:28 Created a quantum variant for all 6 Mirelurk creature types.

Created the water and VFX for the Quantum river.

00:30 Concepted and built the armor for Porter Gage the main companion for the DLC.

Modeled and posed Bottle& Cappy park sculptures (using CRP).

Built the Fizztop Mountain asset for the main landmark for the park (using CRP).

00:40 Technical assistance on execution of the intro train ride.

00:42 Created park color guide and prototype weathers for DLC color direction.

00:43 Concepted and built Nuka bottle Protectron (using CRP).

00:45 Art direction for park map and then execution of in-game navigation via map kiosks.



00:48 Created all of the painted feral ghoul DLC variants.

00:51 Created the Gatorclaw death claw variant model.

Created a Nuka-World specific lunch box player prize system from my lunch box system in the base game.

00:52 Created the Brhamaliff models.

Planned a high-level melee tree with art assets to supplement a limitation of the base game.

00:56 Created the unique robot meshes for Nuka Spray Mr. Handy

00:57 Designed the damage structure for weaponized Nuka-Cola flavors.

00:58 Created all of the western clothing meshes.

01:00 Prototyped the original sandworm concept in-game to test viability.

Created the Sandworm VFX.

Trained the character artist in kitbash modeling to add Acid Soaker.

Created all of the VFX for the acid soaker.

01:03 Art directed the raider factions.

Designed all clothing as armor/under armor for maximum mix and match.

Cleaned up all outsourced outfit meshes for maximum compatibility within the armor system.

01:04 Created all texture variants for raider underclothes.

Brought the slave collar from Fallout 3 and rebuilt for Nuka-World with power on/off functionality.

01:07 Added motion to some Bottle & Cappy statues.

01:09 Designed trash pile loot system to add the feel of overflowing trash at a theme park and add a new loot system to the park.

01:13 Concept and design for paddleball weapons and mods. (see other post)

01:18 Art direction for raider gangs.

01:19 Ported alien mesh to animatronic enemy for the park.

Revised the Fallout 3 alien blaster as playable weapon (not shipped).

01:20 Built the Overboss bumper car power armor.

Worked with design to create the plan for the opening boss fight with squirt gun mechanic (see other post).

Built all of the electric VFX for the boss fight.

01:21 Original concept for spider cricket hopper enemy.



01:17 Tuxedo mesh for Kiddie Kingdom boss ghoul.

01:23 Flying swarm as a single enemy proof of concept.

All ant variant meshes.

01:28 Shot this shot setup and set dressing for the teaser.

01:33 Original Bottle & Cappy idea and concept painting.