The Big Fallout 4 Thread

[Arthmoor]

Interesting - For reasons unknown, Steam now shows the release date for FO4 as November 9 instead of November 10.

[zilav]

Rain occlusion, finally, I can't believe my eyes

[Jon]

Interesting - For reasons unknown, Steam now shows the release date for FO4 as November 9 instead of November 10.

 

You're PST, so you get it November 9th at 9:00PM.  Though if I view the Steam page it still says November 9th for me, but it says 6 days and 9 hours, which is the 10th for me.

 

Edit:  OK figured it out.  The release date was November 10th at 12:01AM, EST.  Then DST took effect so this sort of became November 9th at 11:01PM in their systems.  But I am guessing that it will still be released at midnight and the date is just not taking DST into account correctly.

[Jon]

Rain occlusion, finally, I can't believe my eyes

 

Yeah, it better be true and not a photoshop.  Because there was some leaked gameplay last night that shows numerous open buildings.  It was a Co-Op / farm type area, with a large barn/shed and like 5 shacks/cabins and they were all open interiors.  I can't imagine them having this many open interiors and not fixing the rain particle issue.  Why they'd provide the option to turn it off is beyond me though, and it's why I'm going to remain skeptical about the options menu images.

[Arthmoor]

If rain occlusion is performance intensive, it may be an option for that reason. I'd be quite thrilled to find out they finally have this after 20 years (and their competitors having it for the last 15).

 

The only other thing I'd really like to know is have they finally done away with worldspaced cities? Or am I going to have to fix that again?

[sonicadam132]

https://bethesda.net/#en/events/game/facing-the-music-in-fallout-4/2015/11/02/42

 Bethesda said Fallout 4 has three times the amount of music of Fallout 3. Fallout 3 had 39 songs. That means Fallout 4 has 117 songs. 

[pStyl3]

FWIW, the options image was posted here by NeoGAF user "PetriP-TNT". Since I'm new to NeoGAF (I don't even have an account) I cannot really tell if that person is credible or not. In any case, we will know for sure in a couple of days.

[Jon]

FWIW, the options image was posted here by NeoGAF user "PetriP-TNT". Since I'm new to NeoGAF (I don't even have an account) I cannot really tell if that person is credible or not. In any case, we will know for sure in a couple of days.

 

Actually there was a person streaming the PC version already on random sites and I verified the game was using Screen Space Reflections, for water at least.  Quality was too low to verify SSR with other reflective surfaces.  The effect is very shallow though, shallower than most other uses of SSR I have seen.   Obviously since it is in screen space it has limited information anyway, i.e. it can't reflect what isn't on screen.   Basically the effect helps the intersections of water planes with other objects and it's heavily dependent on angle.

 

I was also able to verify the game is using hair and cloth physics.   The game definitely uses a very high quality depth of field blur.  In previous games the depth blur was unbearable and I actually turned it off with ENB.

 

I wasn't able to see any rainy weathers with indoor areas however.

 

So, I'm less skeptical of the PC options images.  I would guess they are real, possibly from the same guy that has been streaming the PC version.  Mostly I just refuse to believe they've fixed rain occlusion until I see it for myself.

[pStyl3]

Bethesda.net - The Graphics Technology of Fallout 4

[VaultDuke]

Seen already. The list of features looks nice, though i don't know how competitive the engine now is compared to others.

All i know is: Damn the screenshots are gorgeous. I so want to play this game.

[Jon]

...though i don't know how competitive the engine now is compared to others.

 

Well, extremely few games right now have view-independent volumetric lighting.  Most "volumetric lighting" ("god rays") requires the sun to be on screen.  The only other game I know of for sure that has true volumetric lighting is GTA V on PC/PS4/XBO.

 

In other words, Boris (ENB author) is pretty much out of a job.  I mean, obviously he will find stuff that is tweakable, and he may be able to improve the somewhat lackluster Screen Space Reflections (from what I've seen so far),  but no longer does he need to add things like height fog, god rays, temporal AA, or proper DoF to the game.  And again, his god rays were only a screen space effect, not true volumetric lighting.

 

 

• Tiled Deferred Lighting

 

Should mean that there is no longer a 4-light limit per object.  Meaning lights will no longer randomly turn off if more than 4 lights happen to be touching the same object.   This "feature" in Skyrim caused the one lighting overhaul author to have to cut up all the NIFs into a tiny grid system so that they could use more lights.   This is sort of the same as Tiled Deferred Lighting, but the grid system is in screen space so you don't have to cut up the meshes.

 

There may still be a limit on shadow casting lights, and as far as I could tell, none of the open interiors had shadow casting lights. So the new renderer may still not be able to handle combining a directional light source shadow (sun) with point/spot light shadows.  For example in Skyrim,  if you gave a torch a shadow casting light, it didn't work correctly outdoors at all.  (EDIT:  I just saw for myself that point lights can indeed cast shadows while outdoors, so I predict lighting mods to spice up the open interiors )

 

• Height Fog

 

This one feature took Skyrim from THIS to THIS when Boris added it to ENB.  So... yeah.  A more typical example:  Before | After ... note how the silhouette of all the mountains and buildings suddenly pop out and give real depth to the scene.

 

----

 

They didn't talk about their new shadows, which is surprising.  They are quite beautifully filtered from everything I've seen.  Still can't tell if it's a more realistic filtering like PCSS.  There is something about the way thin geometry (tree branches for example) is filtered that tells me they are doing something special to make vegetation shadows look better at least, but I don't think it's PCSS.

 

Though the shadows are still "stop and go" meaning they only move every few seconds.   Now that the shadow filtering isn't ass, I can definitely see myself turning down the time scale and making sure the shadows move continuously, as long as the INI options still exist. 

[InsanePlumber]

Walking across F4 world in 10 minutes  Warning Spoilers

[VaultDuke]

Fallout Pip Boy Companion app (the one that's to be used with the pip boy replica from that pip boy edition) is out on all mobile OSs btw.

[Jon]

Walking across F4 world in 10 minutes 

 

It's really closer to 11 minutes. I can't help but imagine the video title is intentionally trolly since everyone is being supremely negative about Fallout 4 so far (places like NeoGAF and /r/gaming).  For Skyrim it only takes about 14 but only because you have to circumnavigate some large mountains.  It also takes about the same for Fallout 3, which lacks sprinting.

 

Here's an animated comparison of FO3, Skyrim, and FO4 maps:  https://i.imgur.com/LN4GR4D.gifv

 

This is assuming the grid lines indicate the same area as in FO3 of course.    I believe FO3 is 17x17 and FO4 is 27x27, so FO4 is 2.5x larger AND more dense. 

[Jon]

 

Oh shittttttt.

[InsanePlumber]

"so FO4 is 2.5x larger AND more dense"

 

Take into account that ~one-third of the map is water.

 

FO4 Map

[Jon]

Take into account that ~one-third of the map is water.

 

There would appear to be an emphasis on underwater exploration taking into account one of the perks,  though no one has confirmed there is a ton of stuff out there yet.

 

Edit:  Actually, in the trailer above you see entire settlements out on the water.   Sort of like Water World.  Though it's possible those are what look like a bunch of small islands on the map.  Can't really tell. 

[VaultDuke]

I don't see why people would complain about the size. Skyrim's map size was fine in terms of scope and location density. Sure, it required some suspension of disbelief, to see it as a whole province, but in terms of gameplay it was great.

It's neither a GTA game, nor a survival online zombie shooter. In the latter you'd expect to be able to walk two hours straight in one direction to die to a random headshot from a hidden sniper. But you'd be hard pressed to convince me, that those type of games are fun.

[pStyl3]

Someone in the comments for the launch trailer is saying that the ending of FO4 has been leaked somewhere. So .. better be careful while reading comments, guys! Spoilers might be left, right and center.

[Jon]

Someone in the comments for the launch trailer is saying that the ending of FO4 has been leaked somewhere. So .. better be careful while reading comments, guys! Spoilers might be left, right and center.

 

Yes, a lot of people have been saying stay away from Twitter, Instagram, and all YouTube comments, because people keep posting spoilers at these places.  Basically just avoid all social media.

[Arthmoor]

"Avoid all social media" - See I knew there was a reason I don't follow any of that

 

Anyway, that launch trailer. Wow. Also if there's even one person who didn't already see The Institute as the enemy for FO4 after playing FO3, that person was asleep at the keyboard. Bethesda practically telegraphed the whole thing to you in 2008.

[Arthmoor]

Here’s a sampling of what we’ve added to the latest version of the Creation Engine:

• Tiled Deferred Lighting
• Temporal Anti-Aliasing
• Screen Space Reflections
• Bokeh Depth of Field
• Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
• Height Fog
• Motion Blur
• Filmic Tonemapping
• Custom Skin and Hair Shading
• Dynamic Dismemberment using Hardware Tessellation
• Volumetric Lighting
• Gamma Correct Physically Based Shading

So long as they let me turn off that Depth of Field, or they kept it as tame as Skyrim. That's one feature I really strongly dislike.

[Jon]

So long as they let me turn off that Depth of Field, or they kept it as tame as Skyrim. That's one feature I really strongly dislike.

 

AFAIK, it's only used in VATS and in conversations**, and it looks extremely good in both circumstances.  I WANT there to be a focus on the target/foreground in these circumstances.   Skyrim's "depth blur" is god awful.  It's mostly used in fog and blizzards to fake some kind of atmosphere.  I find it so offensive that I always turn it off with ENB even if I don't have ENB's other effects on.

 

 

Edit:

 

** Might also happen in iron sights. 

[pStyl3]

Preloading is unlocked, 23.8 GB on steam, Fallout 4 Nexus is now live, and the first 'mods' are already getting uploaded. Have a look at this wonderful new icon.

 

Edit

Found also this post from behippo.

 

A quick note - the EULA hasn't really changed that much over the years. I expect that the F4SE will continue to have the good working relationship with BGS that we have had in the past. We are prepping to start work on the script extender as soon as the game is release. We'll announce things on the forum as appropriate.

[Arthmoor]

So now all Bethesda needs to do is get their new forum software launched like they said would be done before the game launches.