One Fallout 4 subject that I have read a lot of around the web is the moaning comments about the lame graphics how they are using the creation engine... SAY WHAT???

I am absolutely chuffed that they are using the Creation Engine... Why? BECAUSE SKYRIM DIDN'T CRASH AND LOCK UP EVER HOUR OR SO... grrr... It ran without framerates dropping into single digits on my 360, looked awesome compared to the Fallout games and generally was a better experience. But then again I still enjoy the Fallout games because of the story, not the graphics.

So why am I ranting now? Yup, I've been playing the old Fallout 3 and New Vegas and OMG is New Vegas a pain in the behind at times. I can play up to around 2-3 hours and then the game will lock up solid needing a full Xbox reboot at worst or a return to dash at least. Now Skyrim I played for hours and hours and I think I had a crash all of twice with that game. Missions glitch out... Mission texts from locked out parts appear when they shouldn't and generally New Vegas still hasn't been fixed properly after all this time... so yeah, when it ruins my Fallout experience I get mad. But not because of the graphics.

Also people are moaning that Fallout 4 is using a last gen engine running on the new consoles.... not so! It's the Creation Engine yeah but they have updated the core for the new platforms. This will not be a recycled Fallout 3 like one review has said.

So when you hear people moaning about Fallout 4 looks crap because of the last gen Creation Engine just tell them "Would you rather it be the same ugly Gamebyro engine with the janky animation and was so unstable that fell over if you sneezed slightly?". Personally I will be saying "HAIL TO THE CREATION ENGINE BABY!"

p.s. I like the vibrancy of the new graphics... and it takes a lot for me to like the colour palette because I have partial colour blindness which means that trying to find character models in the brown/brownygrey/brownyred of Fallout 3/New Vegas is a pain where in Fallout 4 I CAN ACTUALLY SEE WHERE THE MOLE RATS ARE and not have to rely on VATS.

p.p.s. Sorry for the caps but I get worked up every time I think about graphics complaints when playing New Vegas and it locks up on me again. lol. Roll on November.

I love the Netimmerse/Gamebryo/Creation engine. The Esp, ESM, BSA and ESS formats are pure genius for modding and I'm sure it makes creating expansions and DLCs easy too. I hope they never get rid of it.

Same here, glad they haven't changed too much over the years, it just gets better and better for modding, imo.

* God I sooooooo hope Fallout 4 is more stable than New Vegas... I hate having to keep clearing the cache as the game crashes more than Homer Simpson when he hears there is a Donut sale at the Quickie Mart and he is stuck in nose to tail traffic on the freeway.

I think it just shows how addictive the Fallout universe is when people laud praises on such a crappy build that New Vegas actually was at launch.... and to a certain extent STILL IS. I'm on my fourth crash of the day so far (or is that fifth???).

Edit: I am now up to the sixth crash.... and it always seems to happen at the same point near the railway junction close to the Ranger Safe House. God, please let November come sooooooon.

how can someone complain about the graphics? it looks absolutely amazing

People are spoiled by games with exceedingly great graphice like Crysis, so when a game doesn't melt their eyes balls with beuty they.complain

While I fully agree the ease of modding is great, keep in mind that the addition of the reported console modding just might restrict that "ease of use" PC modders have been used to since Morrowind. I'm not saying this with any evidence other than Bethesda is likely being pressured by Console Manf (Microsoft) into some level of control over mod installation / use and one cours of action they could take is to make this "control" universal in the Creation Engine changes (so the controls exist for the PC version as well).

Not saying it's going to happen, but just that it's a possibility over enthusiastic mod players might want to prepare for.

Yep! Looking good!

If Bethesda Game Studios limits the capabilities for the modding tools for the PC version of Fallout 4. I guarantee you that PC gamers will riot.

No one ones the PC, not even Microsoft so Bethesda Game Studios and Microsoft cannot limit what mods appear, all they can issue is take downs, but nvde mods will appear on the PC version of Fallout 4 no matter what.

People also have exceedingly bad memories when it comes to comparing past graphics. I even have that problem.. Going back and replaying older games I've sometimes been amazed at how dated the graphics look in comparison to my memory of what I thought they looked like. "Was this always so pixilated and blurry? I don't remember it being that way. Something must be wrong with my ps2."

The game looks pretty meh for next gen. Apart from the obvious like Witcher3, the new Battlefront, and Unity....even Horizon (A ps4 exclusive) looks better, so it's not really consoles fault.

Anyways I'm hoping PC footage on Ultra shows off some more beef.

Witcher 3 might have better graphical fidelity then what Ive seen from fallout 4's creation engine but [censored] was the countryside really boring and similar. I don't know if FO4 will be any better but I am sure hoping it is.

No doubt it would be a huge deal and with Steam allowing for refunds now, it could be a huge financial as well as PR issue. Nobody owns THE PC, but if you read the licence, you don't actually OWN the software either. You actually buy the rights to USE the software under the publishers rules (the license agreement). I doubt they would try to lock down and limit PC mods, but that does not mean they might not try to make it difficult to get nvde mods on the PC version. Again, this is all speculation, but I think many PC mod users (myself included) may be in for a bit of a shock in terms of HOW mods work in FO4. Nothing may change, but assuming mods will be the same as Skyrim is maybe being a bit naive.

Bear in mind that the ONLY reason I think Bethesda might change how PC mods work is they are going to be FORCED to put some control over how mods work on the console(s) and in the process it is likely easier for them to use common code for mod installation, enabling and possibly distribution (don't forget about the announced Bethesda.net we know very little about at this point).

Witcher 3 is pretty and has an immersing story with in-depth characters but everything else about it is highly overrated.

I think that F4 graphics look fantastic.

Unlike alot of companies Beth haven't limited the frame rates or resolution for pc gamers just because the consoles cant keep up, so I doubt they would mess with how modding works simply to put console gamers on the same level, that said console gamers (like me) should feel privileged at any modding interface Beth throw at us, since they could of easily not even attempted to bring it to consoles and no one would of thought twice about it.

Plus Beth knows how big the modding community is and I doubt they would want to p*** them off.

It's not like animations got any better. They look the same, but a bit less goofy.

Animation quality has nothing whatsoever to do with game engines. Animations are created with modeling software, when a mesh is created. The game engine merely plays the animation.

I was just talking about this:

The thing is, it's hard to see how they might limit mods that can be made with the Creation-Kit/GECK in any meaningful way that wouldn't essentially make almost any mod impossible.

Remember, in all previous games a mod has exactly the same structure as a DLC - an ESP or ESM file containing mod definition data and a BSA file containing mod assets.

The only way they could really restrict mods is either by forbidding certain assets from being included, or forbidding any assets from being included. But which assets might be selectively excluded? Models? Textures? Sounds? Dialogue? All can be potentially console unfriendly (over large textures, models with too many polygons, sound files that are way too big), all can be used to contain objectionable material... and all are vital for mods that actually extend upon the game. It'd be almost impossible to create any quest mod without sound files for the NPC dialogue. No retextures. No new weapons.

It would be sensible for them to have some sort of sanity check for console mods, such as checking on texture sizes or model polygon counts, and those could be automated. Cursory curation for obviously objectionable material, and a complaints facility (I believe a similar take-down system that was used for pirated mods and certain mods relating to child NPCs will be implemented), but beyond that, they either have modding or they don't.

And Todd Howard has said that they intend to have a very light touch on controlling mods on console, only banning or taking down full-nudity mods (and a few others). He said they're fine with mods that can potentially break the game - caveat emptor and all that . So I really doubt there'll be any serious restriction on PC mods, and not too many on console mods.

Eh, to a point. The basic game engines just playback animations, however a lot of the better ones (I only worked with Unreal and CryEngine to be fair), have a lot of animation options. (Blending, physics, recoveries, etc). Mostly it seems like the Creation Kits animations are way better then those of the old GECKs

In Skyrim they started using Havok Behaviour for animation (I gather it's now Havok Animation Studio?) They may be using it again for FO4, and have got more experience at getting the best out of it, or they may have switched to another piece of middleware. In any case, it'll be the development and runtime capabilities of their chosen middleware that will be significant, rather than something inherent in the Creation Engine.

Indeed, as significant parts of the Creation Engine are middleware, the engine can change drastically in some areas between different games. Other parts that are wholly in-house may remain relatively static if they continue to do their job well. The system Bethesda use for loading in cells around the player-character as they move through the external gameworld is probably not going to change all that much, although there may be far more objects with distant LOD allowed by new-gen consoles' extra memory, so we may (may) see less pop-in of objects.

Given different constraints, the same engine can give different results

Lol, it's refreshing to see a thread about how Creation engine doesn't svck, and isn't just "new Gamebryo". Usually threads about the engine are the exact opposite of this.

It'd be interesting to know what's handled by middleware versus what's handled in-engine. I know with Creation, they stopped using the Speedtree middleware in favor of an in-house method of handling trees... is facegen and lip-sync handled with middleware, or is it their own thing? I know when they made the iteration to Creation, they pretty much completely replaced Gamebryo's renderer, too. Cell-streaming has always been their code, I think.

One advantage Creation (and Gamebryo before it) has over other engines like Unreal or CryEngine is how well it can handle dynamic environments and keep track of thousands of different objects. Since Bethesda builds each cell with small, modular kit pieces instead of large environments baked into one mesh, each cell can make scores of drawcalls before you evens start adding furniture and physics-enabled clutter (which puts each cell into the hundreds or thousands). Fallout 4 seems to be taking full advantage of the dynamic nature of the engine with in-game settlement building. I dare you to try and make a system like that in Unreal that works as smoothly and to the same scale.

If you look at the animation where the dog does a grabbing attack by the leg that looks very much like a paired animation so I think it's pretty safe to say that we have Havok and Behaviour graphs again.

Yeah, as I said my experience with ingame animation creation doesnt include the Creation Engine. Its great to hear its using Havok Physics, I really liked it with Autodesk back before they switched it over to MassFX.

As long as the animations keep getting better, and they keep the cell based technology I can't wait to see what they can pull out of the Creation Kit

That's where my money would be as well, but I'm not familiar with what other animation middleware exists or may be capable of. For all I know that's two animations with physics blending and a physics connection between dog jaw and victim leg. Or lots of little pixies hand-drawing each frame really really fast