Deathclaws, rad-creatures, Vegas and more

The visual effects and virtual production in Fallout, season 2, in the new magazine.

Issue #58 of befores & afters magazine covers the visual effects of Fallout, season 2.

DIGITAL MAGAZINE members can download the issue right now from the shop post.

Season 2 of Fallout—produced by Amazon MGM Studios and Kilter Films in association with Bethesda Game Studios and Bethesda Softworks—continues the intersecting stories established in the first outing, expanding its scope beyond the initial Vault-surface dynamic into a broader examination of post-apocalyptic power structures. This season, we visit new areas, and we meet new characters and creatures that make up the Fallout world.

Realizing this broadened scale required a tightly integrated approach across multiple effects disciplines. Practical effects teams continued to ground the series with tactile creature work and prosthetics. Digital visual effects vendors extended and built environments, delivered large-scale destruction, and all sorts of icky and nuanced creatures. Meanwhile, virtual production workflows were relied upon for filming in LED volumes where practical sets and real-time environments could be combined.

Overseeing the visual effects effort—as they had done in season 1—were visual effects supervisor Jay Worth and visual effects producer Andrea Knoll. They curated several VFX vendors, made up of Industrial Light & Magic, Raynault VFX, Important Looking Pirates, RISE, FutureWorks, Refuge, Curated, Haymaker VFX, CoSA VFX, Studio 8, Yafka VFX, Pinscreen, Enigma2 and Cinemotion VFX. The prosthetic makeup department head was Jake Garber, with Carey Jones as prosthetic makeup designer. The special effects supervisor was Brendon O’Dell. Dan Smiczek served as virtual production supervisor and Magnopus delivered virtual art department services. Legacy FX crafted practical suits and creatures, and Quantum Creation FX provided a number of creature props.

In this special issue of befores & afters magazine, we explore the key visual effects sequences and innovations featured in season 2 of Fallout. This includes the virtual production work, the approach to The Ghoul, de-aging Hank MacLean, nuclear blasts, the dirigibles and vertibirds, radscorpions and radroaches, the Super Mutant, Deathclaws, and environments like New Vegas.

You can also grab the issue in PRINT from Amazon (that’s the US store, make sure you try your local Amazon store, too).