New Vegas sign. This is such an Icon we were very careful to take no liberties with it, except to shrink it slightly for the camera. Executed in SketchUp and Layout. Renders featured in Lower L are by Alex Nice, executed in Unreal.
New Vegas sign, plans, and elevations. For such a basic item, it had a LOT of parts. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
New Vegas sign Detail Drawing. This was one of many for this piece. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
Vault 21 hotel sign, The Strip. This had to light up to match the video game. Again, since these were fan favorites, we took pains to keep from altering anything. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
Luckey 38 sign, The Strip. For reasons I can't explain, I was the Sign Guy for The Strip. Not that I mind, these were challenging. The more so since we had to stay so faithful to the game. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
The Tops sign The Strip. Executed in SketchUp and Layout. You'd never know how many pieces had to be delineated in these...
Freeside Welcome sign. Honestly, these were all really complicated. All the mismatched neon and improvised structure were not easy to explain or build. The lower right shows about a third of the Freeside street in plan. It was a big backlot.
Freeside Welcome sign plans and elevations. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
Freeside Welcome sign detail. Again, it's one of many. You can see how involved each sign letter was, and there were quite a few of them. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
Freeside Welcome sign detail. We had a lot of leeway in this, since Bethesda did not like the asset they used in the game and asked us to 'make it look decent'. We decided to make it all out of junk. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
Freeside Welcome sign detail drawing. Yes, our details had details. This had to be built around a steel pole since the town crier's platform was attached to it. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
Freeside Welcome sign detail drawing. This is a streetlight pole that supports the side opposite the telephone pole. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
Freeside sign, finished set...well, in process of being finished, anyway.
Freeside sign, finished set
Freeside sign, finished set
Freeside sign, finished set. All lit up and dressed. We still had to get the genie lift out of there, but there were a lot of last-minute things that needed putting up before the company arrived that night.
Freeside Strip Gate. This was a challenge. It had to be made out of junk, accommodate SFX and VFX, AND it had to break down so we could quickly move it to our Strip location in Van Nuys. And back. Several times. Executed in SketchUp and Layout
Freeside Strip Gate. Plans, elevations, and assembly instructions. Yes, it went together like an Ikea Bookshelf. Executed in SketchUp and Layout
Freeside Strip Gate. Marquee detail. Everything had to look like it was thrown together. But it all had to have structure so it could hold together (Pixels don't worry about things like that, we do). Executed in SketchUp and Layout
Freeside Strip Gate. Marquee sign detail. The signs had to be held up by a structure so we could undo some bolts and take them down as a unit for travel. Executed in SketchUp and Layout
Freeside Strip Gate. Secret entrance. Originally Coop and Lucy sneak into Freeside Via a hiden door. It was never used. Sssshhh, let's keep this between us, ok? Executed in SketchUp and Layout
Freeside Strip Gate. Marquee sign detail. Sign letters were complicated because we had to bend metal around the plywood bases, and all of them were mismatched. The deep metal sleeve protected the neon. Executed in SketchUp and Layout
Freeside Strip Gate. Set in process, please stand by...
Freeside Strip Gate. Set in process. Your business is important to us. Please stay on the website, and a set will be with you in a moment...
Tah DAH! Freeside Gate finished set.
Freeside Gate finished set.
Freeside Gate finished set.
Freeside Gate finished set. Backside. When this went to Van Nuys, we gave it a sign on the reverse side that said "Come Back Soon".
Freeside Gate finished set, Lit.
Freeside Gate finished set, Lit.
Freeside, Silver Rush Casino. Ramsey Avery and I did this one. It had an extra story added in VFX, because ruins at that scale are expensive. So, CG it was, but only for the ruined bits. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
Freeside, Silver Rush Casino.Plans and elevations. This went very quickly because of the facade's relative simplicity and lack of a functional interior. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
Freeside, Silver Rush Casino.Sections and details. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
Freeside, Silver Rush Casino.Window details. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
Freeside, Silver Rush Casino. Front entry detail. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
Freeside, Silver Rush Casino. Front entry, door detail. This used all the bells and whistles. 3D printing, CNC, Everything. Sooo fun to figure out. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
Silver rush, in process.
Silver rush, in process.
Silver rush, in process.
Silver rush, in process.
Silver rush, in process. Wait for it...
Silver rush, all done...
Silver rush, finished set. This is part of the city wall that connects to the Silver rush. Beyond, there be pixels...
Vault 31, Cryo Chamber, Perspective views. This was one of those sets that needed serious upgrading. Yellow-tinted units are the existing set. They had to be upgraded to match our new units.Green is the process screen we for our digital set extension.
Vault 31, Cryo Chamber, Plans and elevations. Yellow-tinted units are the existing set.
Vault 31, Cryo Chamber, Elevations. Yellow-tinted units are the existing set. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
Vault 31, Cryo Chamber, Cryo Pod Detail. These were the things that needed reworking. Since we were seeing the inside of so many of them, empty, we needed to do a lot to them to add interest. For such a simple shape, a lot was going on, as you will see...
Vault 31, Cryo Chamber, Cryo Pod Full-Sized detail. As I said, it has a LOT of parts, many of which had to be fabricated.
Vault 31, Cryo Chamber, Cryo Pod Detail. These were the CNC router and CNC Foam hotknife notes, and the assembly instructions. Looooooots of parts...
Vault 31, Cryo Chamber, pump Detail. This had to be actor/stunt friendly and they had to have a fair amount of detail cluged onto them as well.
Vault 31, Cryo Chamber, pump Detail. CNC and assembly notes. Believe it or not, the PVC pipes were the big expense. Never let anyone tell you 'Plastic is cheap.'
Vault 31, Cryo Chamber, finished set. The concrete wall for the Vault-Tec executive class cryo-bay sat in front of the process screen.
Vault 31, Cryo Chamber, Finished set. There is the pump from earlier.
Vault 31, Cryo Chamber, Finished set. Cryopod. The canopy is removed to show all that tasty detail we added.
X-Branch Storage Room. Location Plan. This was built on a location with a digital set extension. The walls were from the same location that shot as the Vault-Tech HQ vault. Mostly dressing, EXCEPT the storage room door.
X-Branch Storage Room. Storage room door detail. This one had a lot of moving parts (I am being literal here), and it had to travel to a location, so it had to conveniently come apart to fit in an elevator. Yes, an elevator, welcome to the movies...
X-Branch Storage Room. Storage room door detail. Executed in SketchUp and Layout.
X-Branch Storage Room. Storage room door detail. CNC notes and assembly insturctions. We used a lot of industrial components, but it was still a job and a half, and the rods and latches had to move. And it had to light up.
X-Branch Storage Room. Storage room door, in process.
X-Branch Storage Room. Storage room finished set. The door is open, BTW.
X-Branch Storage Room. Storage room door finished set, door open.
X-Branch Storage Room. Storage room door Finished set. Yes, this is supposed to look shiny and new.
X-Branch Storage Room. Finished door in closed position with lights.
Vault 31 exhaust vent. Concept render. Modeled in SketchUp, rendered in Fluid Interactive's Ambient Occlusion plugin. The textures were the fun part of this one, and the bodies...
Vault 31 exhaust vent. Concept render. Modeled in SketchUp, rendered in Fluid Interactive's Ambient Occlusion plugin. Helga, the cleaning lady, is by Max Grueter on 3D Warehouse. She's ready to clean up the Wastelandm one mutant at a time.
Vault 31 exhaust vent. Perspective views. This was built on location and had to have a dozen people leave it.
Vault 31 exhaust vent. Plans and elevations. This had to have a functional interior since we wanted to see past the people coming out of it. Executed in SketchUp and layout.
Vault 31 exhaust vent. Plaster and paint detail. Executed in SketchUp and layout. Custom texture in Adobe Photoshop. Had a blast doing this. Eroding the concrete was done in SketchUp.
Vault 31 exhaust vent. Vent fan detail. Finding a fan this big (even after we shrank the set piece) was a challenge.
Vault 31 exhaust vent. In process. We had to have the lower louvers break away. That never got used on camera.
Vault 31 exhaust vent. In process.
Vault 31 exhaust vent. In process.
Vault 31 exhaust vent. In process.
Vault 31 exhaust vent. In process.
Vault 31 exhaust vent. Interior with that huge fan. I found a BUNCH of wacky suppliers on the internet for this whole show. Who knew? You really CAN find anything on the internet.
Vault 31 exhaust vent. Finished set. Sorry about all the people; we had to grade the sand, truck in the set, bury all the cars (we had several we toted from place to place for this purpose), and get ready for the shooting crew in a very short time.
Fallout Season Two was a great example of things getting more complicated in the process of making them simpler. Season one was epic, breathtakingly beautiful, complicated, and pricy.
Then the strikes landed with a thud, the business internationalized, and to keep things in-country, Big Indi Dawn Films was handed a restricted budget and told to keep things simple. But it also had to be bigger and more epic than Season One. Ah Hollywood...
Production moved all the show’s assets to Los Angeles. The art department was switched from nineteen or twenty New Yorkers to ten or eleven Angelinos, four of them short-timers. Construction and set dressing were local and shrank by similar amounts. I was first on and nearly last off the project. The volume of work we produced was an epic in itself. I am only showing highlights here; there were over seven or eight other sets I have not included. And everyone was as busy as I was or more so; the art directors were sleeping in their cars, stuck in some of the most inhospitable locations in Southern California. Nice and simple??? Not even close!
When the show moved to L.A., the scenery, dressing, and props arrived in sixty or seventy forty-foot shipping containers. We had to sort out where everything was buried, and figure out how to connect all the bits of Vault 33 in a way that would fit on one sound stage (in season one it wasn’t) and avoid hitting our stage’s oodles of columns (it was a repurposed warehouse). Our Production Designer, Howard Cummings, did a masterful piece of Set-Origami that stitched the whole thing together, and our construction crew (best I have EVER worked with) got it all in and looking perfect.
Then there was the CG. In season one, the sets the audience saw were not entirely the same sets that were built and shot. Beyond the usual set extensions, a lot of the surface finishes and details were also CG. Come the second season, Production realized it was cheaper to build bigger sets with more detail than to add it in post, because you cheaped out and it looks awful on camera SO FIX THE MESS DAMMIT! Sorry… So, we had to add tons of detail to, and refinish, a lot of the scenery we inherited (BEST paint and plaster crews, to say nothing of set decoration). Everything I have written up to this point was what we did in the first month and a half!
Then we started building new stuff and adding big chunks to the old. And then there was New Vegas and Freeside. The same ‘simplicity’ applied here as it did to our standing sets. It was cheaper to build a big backlot for Freeside than it would be to do it in post, so we rebuilt the entire 1920’s, Penny Dreadful street at Melody Ranch, all four blocks of it, to be 1950’s Las Vegas, two hundred years after a nuclear war. It was glorious, even if there was still a lot of CG for the deep background.
I am not complaining. Not even a little. I got to work on all of it. New Vegas, the Vaults, Freeside, Mutant lairs, 50’s Rat Pack casinos: everything. It was fun and challenging and the crew were all geniuses (they even got my buddy Ramsey Avery, of Rings of Power fame, to come art direct for a bit), I have never seen such ingenuity or so much A-List talent in one place. Our construction crew alone had EIGHT HUNDRED man-years of combined experience, and it was NOT a big crew (not kidding, tiny crew). We hit it out-of-the-park. Bethesda Games LOVED it, Amazon LOVED it, Johnathan Nolan LOVED it. The cast LOVED it. I loved it too, BTW. My thanks to art directors William Budge and Kevin Gilbert for sharing photos of the finished sets.
