[Project Brazl] Progress Update news

This week, we have an update showing the progress on the Black Bear Mountains, and can officially show exactly how big it is. We have work started on the opening scripts, the Intro video, and our dialogue implementation.

This is a example of the changes using the GECK's heightmap utility, which shows the terrain as a 2D image:

[Last week's] Work in Progress (the 10th)

[This Week's] Work in Progress (the 20th)

That's about a 1/3rd increase in size, and puts us a lot closer to being ready to show off the entire map, and get it ready for release. That dark blue square beneath the landmass is about the size of the Mojave Wasteland's playable area.

As you can see, Black Bear is going to be roughly 2/3rd that size. When you see the mountains curve along the North of the map and meet the mountains to the west, it will be DONE. ;) Then it's just a matter of filling it in with details and navmeshes, and testing the hell out of it!

Here you can watch a preview of our Opening Intro. It isn't done yet, a little rough, but definitely a step in the right direction!

The Intro video is an homage to the intro to Fallout 1 intro, which is classic in all Fallout Games. We don't have Ron Pearlman to do our voice overs (yet :p) but we will have a similar start with War. War Never Changes, voiced by one of our actors doing Coach Bragg. He will update you on our backstory for Project Brazil, and start the game.

The question we are asked most, besides "When is it going to be released," is "How big is this mod?" The honest answer is "Pretty damn big."

Here you can see the locations and points of interest on our WIP map. The dark blue areas are the unfinished portions of the map that need filling in.

This area of land in real life is about 120 miles across, and doing that in real life would destroy all of our lives. ;) So, we cut out one of the big lakes, about 75 miles of mountains and roads, and left the most essential, memorable locations & vistas essential to the Project Brazil story line. Then we slowly beat it up, shifted them around, and modified it so that all of those essential spots were tied together with playable distances, while still giving a feeling of traveling across a huge space.

Like in real life, large tracts of this land are just rocky mountains and flat, desert wasteland areas full of scrub brush and sand. The highways are very long and engineered for vehicles, then eroded by 200 years of wind, rain and nuclear devastation.

Each plot location is pretty far apart. It can take 2 - 3 ingame days to walk from end to end, at a time scale set to 5 game hours to every 1 real hour. Fast travel between major hubs and locations cuts that time down tremendously for casual players, where hardcore fans can enjoy the immersion of traversing that distance listening to the new radio, fighting their enemies and talking with their companions. There is a lot to do out there, even when it feels like a real place.

The Red Zone is the San Bernardino Mountains area - high alpine peaks covered in dead evergreens trying to grow back after the war, with a little vegetation finally starting to grow after decades of snow and drought. Vault 18 is up there, with Pinehaven being built around the base of the tallest peak.

The Green Zone is Lake Griswald - lakeside sand and rolling hills studded with dead evergreens and low trees, saturated with grasses and stagnant water. The runoff from the mountains up north feeds the river, which flows along the eroded cliff side highways.

The Blue Area is the Crestline Valley - a deforested lowland full of industrial waste and abandoned factories, mills, and machinery. It's a little toxic in places, and barren of life other than grass and hill people.

The Yellow Zone is the Mojave Desert - which is a continuation of the expanding wasteland that now spreads from Navada down into the once green valley between Hesperia and San Bernardino. It's mainly a long stretch of highway along Interstate 15, which is travelled only by the NCR army and brave caravan drivers. It's full of Joshua trees and scrub brush.

The Violet Zone is a part of the Los Angeles Mountains - Hit hard by the intense heat & radiation from the war, the Los Angeles mountains, from Mt. Baldy in the distance to the close up hills where Union city spreads, are blackened volcanic rock exposed by wind and fire.

The way these 5 areas blend together slowly is represented visually, with sets of objects found in one zone slowly merging across several in games miles. The mountains ring the entire map, forming a horizon line perpetually shrouded in tall peaks and ridges. In the mountains, all you can see are the ridges immediately around you. By the time you reach either valley, you can look back and see the areas you left behind high above in the distance, with the other distant mountains surrounding places you are not meant to see.

The climate changes also depending on which zone you have entered. There is a distant thunderstorm over the San Bernardino mountains which rumbles with thunder. The Skies above the Mojave are bright blue and dark in the distance above the mountains. A light breeze blows in from the Ocean near Union City, and the dust of Crestline lingers in the air.

Thanks for reading and watching our progress! next week, we'll have new updates on our work and a look at some of the programming & characters.

Cheers!

Brandan Lee Pittman
Project Leader