New Fallout 4 Screenshots Highlight Lighting, Weather Effects

Bethesda has published a new blog post that highlights how enhancements made to its Creation Engine have benefited Fallout 4 and its graphical fidelity. According to Bethesda, the addition of a new physically based deferred renderer has allowed the team to add "many more" dynamic lighting effects to every scene.

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It also means that paint on in-game surfaces should look more realistic than ever.

"We want objects and characters in the world to feel tactile and grounded, and a big part of that is ensuring that these materials are distinct--that metal reflects light in a distinct manner from wood, for example," Bethesda said.

The publisher also worked with Nvidia to create a new volumetic lighting system to benefit atmospheric effects in Fallout 4 such as the "god rays" you can see in the image above.

"The technique used here runs on the GPU and leverages hardware tessellation," Bethesda said. "It's beautiful in motion, and it adds atmospheric depth to the irradiated air of the Wasteland."

In addition, Fallout 4's Creation Engine boasts a new material system that allows for materials to react to things like rainstorms and wind.

"When a rain storm rolls in, our new material system allows the surfaces of the world to get wet, and a new cloth simulation system makes cloth, hair, and vegetation blow in the wind," Bethesda said.

"The player can go anywhere in the world at any time of day, so we added dynamic post-process techniques that enhance the vibrancy and color of our scenery for maximum emotional impact. Our virtual cameras received a major upgrade as well," the publisher added.

Below is a list of some of the new features and systems featured in the new Creation Engine.

• Tiled Deferred Lighting
• Temporal Anti-Aliasing
• Screen Space Reflections
• Bokeh Depth of Field
• Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
• Height Fog
• Motion Blur
• Filmic Tonemapping
• Custom Skin and Hair Shading
• Dynamic Dismemberment using Hardware Tessellation
• Volumetric Lighting
• Gamma Correct Physically Based Shading

Alongside this announcement, Bethesda released a handful of new Fallout 4 screenshots that highlight the game's new lighting and weather systems. Click through the image gallery above to see them all.

Bethesda didn't say which platform the images were captured on. However, the studio said, "Like all the other features here, we've made it work great regardless of your platform."

The Fallout 4 release date is set for November 10 across PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. In other news about the game, Microsoft and Bethesda have teamed up for some Fallout 4-themed Forza 6 cars, while Bethesda said the game's new shooter mechanics are modeled after Destiny's.