Fallout New Vegas - 'Serious' Game Review

The reasoning behind choosing 'Fallout: New Vegas' is the great divide the game showcases almost immediately upon playing the game. The idea behind gang rivalry within a territorial war is something that is stated almost immediately. The player is thrown into this madness without warning and is expected to make decisions within an instance of meeting people.

The way the game persuades the player is by using their own levels of emotion to be shown, either by helping a lonesome town or by helping a gang overthrow that town. It is also possible to just walk away from the situation but as a beginning quest you almost feel you have to complete the first quest you get, not only that it helps with the story line later in the game. It is very much a linear game using engagement to change the state to a non-linear game if chosen too. The way the game relays information itself through interactive HUD and UI is another way that the game slightly breaks immersion but there isn't much to be done about this. The best way to overcome this is choosing the options that you think would suit your character. If this means killing hundreds of people then so be it, you are allowing the emotional and psychological feedback to come your way through choice,

The game is amazing for the reason that it allows you to have these different levels of emotional connection, using the idea of karma and a feedback of this sublimely throughout the game. There is a pop of of the karma system but at the times of it appearing you are too enticed in the game play to care for what it says. This gives off a procedural rhetoric through game play in itself as it's something that can be deemed unnecessary. Noticing this, the rules of the game and the manipulation used to force you into choosing something you wouldn't necessarily choose. This is something unrelenting in games which drives the player to either stop playing due to boredom shown through a linear structure but also can entice the player to choose the worst options to make the game play more excitable.

Either way Fallout New Vegas itself allows for all these game rules to be changed whether the player chooses to. It's a manipulative game forcing the player to follow a linear path but also allowing them to be non-linear and discover new locations.

Barrel

The second task given to us in 3D was to create a oil barrel. This concept was something that seemed simple enough but knowing minimal amounts about 3D it was outside of my limits (with the amount of detail we went into). The concept was to create a cylindrical shaped oil barrel just like the ones we use everyday. I was curious if we were to create a futuristic version, knowing we didn't have to saved me a little bit. The process was simple, make a cylindrical shape (Shown below).

The second step was to cut out a ring shape within the barrel, then add in a indent into the barrel so that it gives off a curve form. This allows for a more detail, realistic view on the barrel itself. Not only that but creating the indent using the edge loop tool was a good way of me learning how to add in detail to a model.

We then took the cut out ring and created the same style of detail onto it. Using the same tools to create the indented detail and marking more detail on our actual barrel model. The best way of forming the barrel from this point onward was to discard the main part and using the extrude tool and creating the size, shape and dimensions of our barrel themselves. 

After completing the extrusions and adding all the detail and shapes that we needed, we then used the low-poly barrel to create a high-poly version. The way we done this was by smoothing off the low-poly and adding a slight bevel to it, this adds a bunch of tris to the model adding more detail allowing it to round off more and for it to be able to bake over the top of our low-poly. 

Low-Poly

High poly

A few weeks later we then went onto texturing the barrel and using the baking process. The best way to bake is by creating a 'cage' from the low-poly object and then wrapping it around both the low-poly and high-poly. The best way to think of this is the cage being the oven, the low-poly and high-poly being two metals melting into each other creating a detailed piece of metal but instead it's a detailed object. This also allows for texture and detail to be put onto the low-poly but also keep the tri/polly count low. 

Cage & Low-poly