Sorry for the delay on this months FOTM winner interview readers. This month our winner is Neil from “NMC’s Texture Pack For New Vegas”, which happens to be a very large and beautiful texture pack for New Vegas that replaces a huge amount of textures with high res versions. So please read on and enjoy!

Wolfen: So Neil, why don't you tell us a bit about your self? The games you are into, modding, where you live, what ever you feel comfortable telling us.

Neil: Well I am currently a graphic designer (primarily), but spent several years as a commercial illustrator working on everything from cartooning through to technical and photo-realistic airbrush illustrations. I also currently work part-time as a videographer, so I am typically drawn to creative things. I am From Liverpool, England, love football (soccer!) support Everton FC (so quite I'm quite patient and tolerant, a very useful character trait for making large texture packs!), go to the gym about 5 days a week, and play guitar. I generally try and fill my day with useful, fun things that I enjoy...

Wolfen: And what caused your desire to make this mod? Any particular inspirations you were following?

Neil: Well, initially my motivation to make textures came from Qarl, author of the magnificent QTP3 mod for Oblivion. I'm still quite blown away by the sheer scale and quality of his work. My first few attempts at modding graphics years ago were quite small scale (for Neverwinter Nights 2, and Stalker Clear Sky), but I always had the ambition to make a comprehensive graphics pack, that would cover most of the graphics in a game. Then when my texture pack for Fallout 3 was released, it was featured in a German game magazine 'PC Action', which gave me the confidence to pursue texturing further. And so I decided to make the New Vegas Texture pack. And although Bethesda make great RPG's, the graphics are somewhat resticted (resolution-wise at least) by the limitations of consoles. But to be honest, the majority of the textures in New Vegas I simply did not like, regardless of resolution.

Wolfen: What programs did you use to create the mod? Considering the scope of your changes in textures I am curious if you had any other software to support you outside of the standard Gimp or Photoshop stuff.

Neil: Mainly I used the tools I use in my everyday work, so mainly Photoshop and occasionally Illustrator. I used Nifskope for quick viewing of the textures on the meshes and for adding parallax mapping to some textures and adding new textures, Photoshop virtually exclusively for image manipulation with a series of commercial plugins for some special effects, Nvidia photoshop tools for normal mapping and for which I have created a series of 'actions' for making normal-maps of varying depths/ sharpness/ detail etc within Photoshop. These 'actions' were designed to mimic some of the commercial tools out there. In short, I use very few applications but I try to use them imaginatively- I've been using photoshop for over 10 years, so I feel very comfortable with it now (I should be!).

Wolfen: Did you have any challenges during making this mod? If so what were they and how did you end up getting over those hoops?

Neil: Challenges? YES! The sheer volume of textures to get through was 'number 1'. Well, I simply chipped away at them in my spare time and as I have a fair bit of experience texturing I can work very quickly. Plus I have built up a huge photographic database of reference materials over time, all well organised and I am very familiar with them all so I can visualise what I want something to look like, find photo-reference for it in seconds and have the texture built in minutes and have the normal and specular maps made soon after. So I got around the sheer volume of work issue by simply being organised and working fast! I tried to keep the quality high and consistent, but obviously I could not spend too much time on any single texture due to the number of textures to get through and there was only me working on this mod. The mental aspect was something else though, it was quite challenging. But the fact I really enjoy texturing made it a labour of love... plus I got a lot of encouragement and support from the Nexus community, friends and family.


Wolfen: Considering how large the mod is can you tell us how many hours, or even days, or weeks, or months did you spend on creating this mod?

Neil: Well I spread this project out over six months, a couple of hours average a day with the occasional full day thrown in at weekends too, social commitments allowing. To be honest, I was quite shocked when I packed the finished mod up and saw how many files it contained (well over 5000!) and the actual size, over 7GB for the large version. I couldn't even remember making a lot of the textures when I had finished- I must have zoned in, and done a lot of work in a trance or something! But this is something I would like to do for a living so to me it was worth every minute spent making it.

Wolfen: Any other plans for the mod that your fans do not know about yet?

Neil: Nothing major, tweaks and updates generally... however I may look at the New Vegas DLC soon once I get around to getting it, but no specific plans as yet. I'm gonna have a break for now!

Wolfen: Do you have any other mods in the works?

Neil: As I had to retexture the DLC for Fallout 3 as part of this mod, I plan to release those DLC Texture Packs soon, which along with my Fallout 3 Texture Pack, should pretty much wrap that game up for me. I may also consider releasing an updated Fallout 3 pack after that.

Wolfen: Besides your mod, what is your favorite mod so far for New Vegas?

Neil: Thats a tough one, there are so many truly great mods out there...but personally, I couldn't live without 'URWL' by Marcurios and 'Shiloh DS - Colored Map and Icons' by Shiloh. To be honest, I haven't actually played New Vegas much, other than to test out my mod, but now I have more time I am really looking forward to checking out Nexus for the great mods out there!

Wolfen: What are some other games and game types you enjoy playing or even modding?

Neil: I still like playing Oblivion (I was quite obsessed with it for a while!), Arx Fatalis (a criminally under-rated RPG with some of the funniest and clever game-play you will ever encounter), The Witcher 2, Mass Effect and GTAIV. I like large open world games really, with depth and longevity. Can't wait to see' Deus Ex: Human Revolution'... it could be a masterpiece. and now I have more time, I can actually play some of these games!

Wolfen: Any advice for the aspiring mod authors out there?

Neil: Well for what it is worth, if you are interested in texturing then a good eye is essential, so learning 'how to see things' was the best lesson I ever learnt when I was first learning how to paint and draw. So, ask yourself 'what would this object in these conditions look like? Would it be faded, rusted, scratched, shiny, smooth, rough, stained, streaked, opaque, transparent...' etc. and apply that baseline of information into the techniques you choose to employ. If your goal is realism, then its no use making a matte object too shiny, or a smooth object overly rough, even if it looks dramatic as your brain will tell you something is wrong and break the illusion of reality... so 'learning how to see' objects in real life and absorbing that information is a major step. Sounds really obvious but its amazing how easy it is to overdo a technique, but sometimes less is more. Also, learn from other modders, but be yourself in your style and techniques and don't be scared to experiment as you can often learn more from a mistake than a success. Oh, and don't necessarily assume I have any idea what I'm talking about!.

Wolfen: And finally, do you have anything you would like to say to our readers out there?

Neil: Yes, I would like to say thank you to all the people who have supported me, both in the forum threads and via email while I was making this mod; you'd be surprised the effect a positive word can make when the going gets tough! It really helped me to push through the workload- there are some really good people out there. Hopefully the results can go someway to saying thanks, I really hope the texture pack lifts their enjoyment of the game. I'd also like to thank Nexus for providing a quality platform for modders to release their work and a place for people to access these mods, a sense of community and an opportunity for peer and public review, as it 'raises everybody's game' in every sense of the word. And of course Bethesda/Obsidian for yet another quality game.

Thanks again Neil! Keep up the fantastic work and we will see the rest of you again for another FOTM interview.