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Senior Character Artist - Double Eleven
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Remaking the Mojave: Interstate 15 & Ivanpah Dry lake in Fallout 4

Today ill be breaking down how we recreated the Ivanpah Dry lake section of the Mojave Wasteland for Project Mojave and some of the challenges it brought. This will be focusing mainly in the Artwork part of it and wont really show much about the Level Design. I will break down how we achieved the look of keeping fresh while still keeping it true to the original while taking advantage of newer technology.

To start off with here is a comparison shot of the final ingame area vs the original Fallout New Vegas level design we based it off, for us it was extremely important to maintain the original look and vision intended by the developers of the original.

To start off with here is a comparison shot of the final ingame area vs the original Fallout New Vegas level design we based it off, for us it was extremely important to maintain the original look and vision intended by the developers of the original.

So first things first I needed a small section of the Mojave wasteland that has a decent mixture of different things like rocks, foliage, setdressing etc (screenshot from the GECK)

So first things first I needed a small section of the Mojave wasteland that has a decent mixture of different things like rocks, foliage, setdressing etc (screenshot from the GECK)

So the very first thing I had to do to was to make the terrain textures. This comes with some limitations, since Fallout 4 can only use 4 textures per quad on a cell. so I had to break down the major textures, Then I opted to use Vertex paint for variety.

So the very first thing I had to do to was to make the terrain textures. This comes with some limitations, since Fallout 4 can only use 4 textures per quad on a cell. so I had to break down the major textures, Then I opted to use Vertex paint for variety.

Next up was the Rocks, these where very important to get right since they are used everywhere. These where all sculpted in ZBrush, but bigger rocks didnt receive baked textures due to them being to big and thus reducing quality. But smaller ones did.

Next up was the Rocks, these where very important to get right since they are used everywhere. These where all sculpted in ZBrush, but bigger rocks didnt receive baked textures due to them being to big and thus reducing quality. But smaller ones did.

For the larger rocks I used two tiling texture sheets so I can maintain detail and keep file size and texture streaming down. To give them more depth I vertex painted and kept sculpted detail as geometry.

For the larger rocks I used two tiling texture sheets so I can maintain detail and keep file size and texture streaming down. To give them more depth I vertex painted and kept sculpted detail as geometry.

So next is foliage (which there is tons of) so im only going to go over some key things. The joshua trees where a very important on so for these the I used some references off the internet to make them look more detailed by adding extra alpha detail etc.

So next is foliage (which there is tons of) so im only going to go over some key things. The joshua trees where a very important on so for these the I used some references off the internet to make them look more detailed by adding extra alpha detail etc.

Various other pieces of Foliage I had to remake using a mixture of sculpting, and alpha cards.

Various other pieces of Foliage I had to remake using a mixture of sculpting, and alpha cards.

Once all was said and done with the various assets they needed to be placed down, so many days later we now have something that looks like the Mojave, now we have the issue of there isn't any ground cover...

Once all was said and done with the various assets they needed to be placed down, so many days later we now have something that looks like the Mojave, now we have the issue of there isn't any ground cover...

So I made some custom shrub and rock 'Grass' aswell as putting in some Fallout 4 grass for extra variety, this makes the wasteland feel less 'static'.

So I made some custom shrub and rock 'Grass' aswell as putting in some Fallout 4 grass for extra variety, this makes the wasteland feel less 'static'.

So now this looks better, but something is still way off with this, now this is the final step of getting the feel right which is the weather and colour palette.

So now this looks better, but something is still way off with this, now this is the final step of getting the feel right which is the weather and colour palette.

After a lot of time, tweaking and patience I created a weather that faithfully recreates the palette and feel of NV, and also makes the worldspace fell very dry and sunny. This took a lot of eyeballing photo of IRL and studying the original game.

After a lot of time, tweaking and patience I created a weather that faithfully recreates the palette and feel of NV, and also makes the worldspace fell very dry and sunny. This took a lot of eyeballing photo of IRL and studying the original game.

Once all is said and done we now have a worldspace theme and palette to work with to expand upon and add different built up areas. This was a insanely fun thing to work on since I'm not actually a environment artist but I like to learn new things.

Once all is said and done we now have a worldspace theme and palette to work with to expand upon and add different built up areas. This was a insanely fun thing to work on since I'm not actually a environment artist but I like to learn new things.

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