Concept art is the backbone of the visual development of any visual medium.
In game development especially, concept art is often used to stir up ideas for the writers
and game designers.
It's one of the first steps to any game.
But it's not just a pre-production tool.
Its used throughout the entirety of development to constantly shape ideas and communicate
them to the team.
In all of my research I've found that most of the time the concept art looks WAY BETTER
than the finished product.
Why is that?
What happens to these games that makes them stray so far from the original idea?
My favorite pieces of art are the ones that tell a story.
Like this piece of your in-game wife having her baby ripped from her arms.
The lighting is harsh, creating a stark contrast and a pleasing rim light outlining the characters.
There's a lot of motion.
The left side being forced away from the screen, and the right side being forced towards it.
The figures make it like a renaissance painting.
Take special note of the framing.
The actual game has something very different.
The circumstances have changed, there's one less person for example.
But, not for nothing, this shot is a lot more boring.
Why is that?
Well, the framing is limited by the first person camera angle.
This isn't technically a cut scene, it's an in game event.
There are no cut scenes in Fallout 4 at all, unless you count the conversations.
This helps with emersion, but limits the amount of motion and depth capable.
In this scene, each character is confined to their spaces.
The animation is limited.
This doesn't excuse the lack of dramatic lighting.
This scene would actually look sick if the inside of the pod was still just a glowing
light.
But, lighting in games is difficult.
Maybe they couldn't get it just right or they ran out of time.
Or maybe it was never even considered a priority to begin with.
Now this is just one example.
Games typically have HUNDREDS of concept illustrations.
There's a whole book of these for Fallout.
So, why even bother with all of this work if the end result is going to be so different?
In the very early stages of game development, studio heads and sometimes writers will come
up with a direction they want to take their game, and call in concept artists to flesh
out random ideas.
They're artists, so they know what looks cool.
A consumer's first impression of the game is it's visuals, and at the end of the day
these are PRODUCTS to be SOLD.
So the studios trust these artists to stir up some visual ideas with a loose story in
mind to serve as a jumping off point.
This is something they do for movies too.
There's some great pieces from the pre-production of Star Wars Ep. 7, including this VERY primitive
light saber concept that probably spawned the idea for Kylo Ren's light saber.
And you might be thinking "wait that's not Kylo Ren at all!" and you'd be correct!
Perhaps my favorite story showing the importance of this step of the process is the canceled
4th Jak and Daxter game.
They weren't sure if this was going to be a reboot, a sequel or what, so artists were
throwing out some very wacky ideas.
The team realized their most interesting work was coming from pieces that stretched beyond
the typical cartoony Jak and Daxter aesthetic.
Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley, in their first ever directing rolls asked the execs
at Naughtydog...
"do we REALLY have to stick to doing a Jak & Daxter game?"
To their surprise the execs said "no, not at all" and from these pieces, stemmed The
Last of Us of all things.
Pre-production art is where the most interesting ideas come from, and so much gets thrown out
because each piece is so different from the next.
During the pre-produciton of Fallout 4, artists focused on the important bits.
The vault suit, the pip-boy, and loose concepts of the environment.
Concept art is also used to set the mood and the tone of the game.
Part of this is helping visualize key moments to get a feel for what the game will look
and feel like.
This is where we got the piece of the baby being ripped from his mother.
If it was created this early in development, that would explain how it ended up becoming
so different.
But to their defense, for pre-pro art they came pretty damn close.
Concept art isn't just used to stir up ideas.
It's also used to solidify those ideas.
Characters are drawn and iterated upon over and over until the creative director is satisfied.
These images are then passed over to the character artists to sculpt the 3D models.
Basically every time they want to add something to the game, be it a different outfit, or
even, idk, a BLENDER, a concept artist has to design it 2 dimensionally first.
This is what keeps concept artists busy throughout the duration of the development.
There's always something to be added or tweaked.
I believe this is where it's most tragic to lose those beautiful nuances of the concept
art.
At least in the beginning of development the ideas are so radically different that its
inevitable that things get thrown out.
They're still trying to find a visual direction.
Late in development the visual identity should be pretty much nailed down.
At this stage things often get thrown out or changed due to time constraints.
Take a look at this concept of a completely vertical homestead.
It's possible this was meant to be the central city of Boston, all contained within one skyscraper.
This would have been BEFORE they came up with the idea of Diamond City.
It made it into the game, you can even see it FROM Diamond City.
It's just not accessible.
I really do like this idea, but it was probably scrapped due to technical limitations.
It would have been difficult to build upwards.
And how would your character get there?
An elevator?
A long staircase?
Would they warp there?
Would it be a different area all together?
Separated from the rest of the open world?
Ideas like this are great BECAUSE of how out there they are.
Unaffected by the constraints of...
LOGISTICS.
These god damn logistics are just ruining everything.
There's also something about how story and life is portrayed in these paintings rather
than in game.
Maybe it's the stiff character animations, but it almost looks more alive in the still
illustrations.
And once again, dramatic lighting helps.
Make this place look dreary.
More mysterious.
The final in game work is missing dynamics that the concept artists weren't afraid to
implement.
You know, a lot of it is the lighting.
The Institute is supposed to be this light and clean looking place.
The bright lighting and reflective surfaces really sell this idea.
Nothing else in the game is this bright.
The in game area actually comes pretty close.
I love the foggy glow from the lighting, indicating that it IS really bright in there.
But what about the ground and the walls?
Even the character designs are made with lots of bright white strokes.
What's making them so afraid to push that contrast in game?
Let's up that exposure a little bit.
Are they afraid to lose detail?
That's ironic... because there's more detail in the concept art.
When I'm playing Fallout, I want to FEEL like this guy.
I feel as though it wasn't a priority to faithfully recreate these pieces, so much as it was to
create the big expansive world as quickly as possible, then maybe see what details they
can go back and toss in.
The airport has these Atomic Age pillars that look like fins.
The way the light reflects off the ridges really accents them.
It really sells the stylized 1950s look.
The airport we get in the game is just... flat concrete.
This is another logistical constraint.
Would it have been worth it to model these structures for just this one location?
They're so unique looking that they might not be modular enough.
Since the game is so big, a lot of Fallout's set pieces were built modularly to be reused
elsewhere.
Time is so important that EVERYTHING needed to be thoughtfully constructed.
Characters lost some detail too.
Look at how much more badass Piper looked.
The only real noticeable difference is her short hair.
The in-game model has a brighter, slightly less ragged coat.
Is that bright burgundy?
Ew.
Here's a better example of a stylistic change.
A lot of Mama Murphy concepts had her in some sort of wheelchair.
Since stairs would pose a problem, they decided to try outfitting her with a modified Mr Handy.
The artbook claims this was removed because it was "distracting," but I'd say it was removed
because it would be one hell of a challenge to script.
You'd have a character, sitting on top of what is essentially another floating character.
And how would she interact with the environment?
Her Mr Handy would have to be much lower to the ground in order for her to stay at eye
level with other characters.
The tragic part here is that her wheel chair, Mr Handy or whatever it would have been, carried
with it so much of her personality.
She could have been such a larger than life character.
The only remnants of THIS Mama Murphy that we get in the game, is that she just has to
sit all the time..
But, this would have been a HELL of a lot of time to implement.
You can tell that someone at Bethesda was pushing for this concept HARD.
Sometimes, sacrifices just have to be made...
When it comes down to it, these are all great excuses for the game to be different than
the concept art.
Games should be as faithful to the original idea as possible, but conform to whatever
restrictions they need to in order to actually ship.
Done is better than perfect.
It's too easy for games like this to get delayed and iterated upon over and over while striving
for everything to be just right.
I'M just here to bust Bethesda's balls, and show you guys the game that we ALMOST got.
It's fun to see how things change during development.
But what do you guys think...???
IS done better than perfect?
Would you have liked to have seen a more artistic and stylized Fallout 4?
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