Fallout 4: New Vegas is an impassioned fan project that brings the best of New Vegas into the world of Fallout 4. It’s so impressive, in fact, that Bethesda themselves have given this team their seal of approval. While this team of dedicated fans continue to make progress until completion, the F4NV crew wanted to dispel a few misconceptions about shading and light in their most recent Devlog update.
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“Following some of our preview shots that have gone out, we’ve seen a number of concerns and misconceptions come to light in regards to the use of lighting or post processing effects in F4NV,” began the most recent update. “There are two core things here we wanted to discuss in those regards.”
They added, “ENB and Reshade are fantastic tools that allow users to customize the look of their game, and can fundamentally change the overall tone of a game with the tweaks they allow. For some older games, they can even enable the use of post processing effects that these games would otherwise never have. That said, depending on the hardware of the user, they can have a serious impact upon performance. As well, much of what these tools enable can be done natively within the Creation Engine by utilizing the various imagespace and weather modifiers available to our effects and level design teams, so such a potential performance hit is unneeded. To that end, F4NV will not have any official Reshade or ENB presets included, and none of the images we have showcased have these effects applied. Indeed, none of our shots have been edited, instead being taken straight from in-engine.”
They were clear in saying that they wouldn’t turn down a new preset in the future from additional creators, however right now their focus is on the core completion and they have decided that this just isn’t vital to the original vision.
Where there is light, there is also dark, which is what the team tackled next. “Many users have commented on how dark some of our night time screenshots look, and asked whether or not we’re aiming for some sort of exaggerated look like some lighting overhauls aim to do, or simply asked why we made that choice.”
Areas where there’s little natural or man-made lighting will be appropriately dark and require use of either the Pip-Boy flashlight, or for stealthy characters encourage the use of chems like Cateye to evade and sneak past enemies without giving yourself away with the bright light source on your wrist. We ultimately feel this will make stealth gameplay more interesting and varied, and provide some alternate methods for players to work through scenarios – something that ultimately only serves to benefit a game like Fallout: New Vegas.”
“As many will remember, chems like Cateye, or tools like the NCR Veteran Ranger Helmet in Fallout: New Vegas provided the player with ability to see better at night. Unfortunately, due to the way lighting was handled in New Vegas, these pieces of equipment were more often than not useless due to the way lighting was handled in the older engine, as well as choices in some locations that undermined their use.
“As F4NV aims to be more than a remaster, we see this as an opportunity to increase the utility of these items where appropriate. Areas where there’s little natural or man-made lighting will be appropriately dark and require use of either the Pip-Boy flashlight, or for stealthy characters encourage the use of chems like Cateye to evade and sneak past enemies without giving yourself away with the bright light source on your wrist. We ultimately feel this will make stealth gameplay more interesting and varied, and provide some alternate methods for players to work through scenarios – something that ultimately only serves to benefit a game like Fallout: New Vegas.”
They ended their dev update by mentioning, “Combined, these design decisions will – we believe – allow us to take advantage of the Creation Engine to create a better looking and more encounter-rich setting.”
That’s all for this week’s Featured Content Friday! To learn more about the project that has been years in the making, check out their previous updates over on their site right here!
Like Fallout and modding? Did we just become best friends? Feel free to follow the author of this story over on Twitter @DirtyEffinHippy for both and full-on fangirl!
