How Original Fallout's Talking Heads Were Made
A nostalgic look back with Namco Community Magazine NG.
Apparently, these come from a three-page preview of Vault 13: A GURPS Post-Nuclear Adventure, the working title for what would eventually become Interplay's 1997 game Fallout, published in the June 1996 issue of Namco Community Magazine NG.
The article offers some insight into how Morpheus and other talking heads were made, using a combination of digital and traditional techniques:
"No matter what mode players end up in, the designers at Interplay have gone out of their way to ensure that the graphics measure up to the rest of the game. Besides beautiful combat scenes (reminiscent of X-COM in both look and play), and fully animated icons, the game features a sort of "talking-head" conversation system that is like nothing ever attempted before.
After the team worked out exactly what it was after, a sculptor made a clay head that fit the bill. From there, the artists took the completed head and carefully studied it to see what parts of the face needed to be animated most in order to create a realistic final image. Using a Faro Space Arm and the VertiSketch software, the team digitized the head, and then used the LightWave modeling software to do necessary geometric corrections. Next, texture maps were created in Photoshop and laid onto the modeled head. Finally, the art team began working on the animation."
You can read the full article here, and if you're interested in more behind-the-scenes looks at classic games, we sometimes share nostalgic development tools, such as Softimage 3D used in Sonic Adventure:
We also recently interviewed the Pro Machina team, who specialize in practical effects, and you might be surprised at how many miniatures you've seen in movies without realizing they weren't full-scale builds or CGI.
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