Fallout Nuka Cola Bottle Caps

[EmmaInCandyland]

Are you sure the cap stash is that small? I'm pretty sure it's more like one of these vintage cigarette or candy tins no?

It looks to be 16cm in length to me.

Maybe one of these vintage first aid kit tins (I think they are 7" in length, need to double check):

 

[EmmaInCandyland]

Double post

 

[zapwizard]

B Wo, I didn't realize you could etch tin like that. My wife has all the supplies listed in her scrapbooking room, I have the rest in my garage.
EmmaInCandyland, I think if someone can find a larger tin that looks close enough then that is great. However, the scale on some props in Fallout is sort of ridiculous. That box is on top of a clipboard, assuming that it is an 8.5"x11" clipboard, then that cap box is close to 10 inches long. However, if you compare it to the keyboard next to it, then it looks around 6 inches long. My other issues with the scale in the game is the tape. Normal tape like that is 0.5" wide. I think they created the original model based on something like a altoids tin, but then scaled it up to make it easier to find inside the game.

 

[B Wo]

I've got 4 friends/coworkers that all play Fallout, and we all talk about it pretty much ad nauseam. When AaronHorrocks started this thread, and GhostMinion identified BottleMark as a good source for caps, and zapwizard provided the .png, I couldn't not-buy 30 caps. I was going to toss a couple to my buddies, until Sprocket made the comment about a caps stash. Then, I thought if I made 5 little caps stash boxes, with the caps inside, well, that would be pretty sharp.

So, very long, and needlessly informative story short: I set out to make little caps stashes. I should have said that up front.

Zapwizard is right, though, the scale of these things is all over the place.
zapwizard If your wife scrapbooks, she may have an indelible ink pad, where you could use a rubber stamp and just stamp the resist down.
EmmaInCandyland Thank you for the reference pictures.

 

[Mike J.]

Image enlarged, lightened, etc. Leaves seems most likely.

 

[falconNL]

I have been ordering a bunch of bottlecaps since a year or so and have done a bunch with them ever since.

Version two

Difference between the two

Im looking for the perfect bottlecap design for a while, and I have been looking for the perfect bottle as wel (screen printed on glass).
Most people that are really into bottlecaps tell me that bottlecaps are only have a colour on top and the edges are silver. I know Zap is always looking for 100% accurate, but i have no clue where that cirkel came from, can you help me out on that one?

The best way to disform them is to buy a capper. They are only like $12 and its the most realistic way to disform them
If anybody has got more information about caps im always willing to learn

 

[GhostMinion]

I always got the impression that the caps in F3 were red, but had severely scratched up edges. It's been something I've actually looked a great deal into. In Fallout Tactics they were shown as all red with a white logo. It's really, to be honest, a matter of preference, I believe. The texture is just too mottled to be completely definitive. They could have intented them to be silver edges, for all we know. But it seems it would match most of the look they had going in F3, worn old and dirty. Like the edges were worn down to the metal, from years of being handled.

Now, they clearly changed them in F4. They look to have a white edge, red circle with white logo. You can also see if you look very carefully that the little "swoosh" in between the words nuka and cola changed very slightly from F3. The words nuka and cola seem to be unchanged, however.

While I have hundreds of nuka and sunset caps, all made from BottleMark, I do need to make an order for some of the F4 nuka caps. Might as well have them all if it's that easy.

 

[falconNL]

GhostMinion: I havent seen any pictures of the caps in F4, are they one color, and white text and a white circle?

Its a shame that mark doesn't carry the oxy colors that I want anymore, so this is the next best thing

 

[GhostMinion]

@GhostMinion: I havent seen any pictures of the caps in F4, are they one color, and white text and a white circle?

Its a shame that mark doesn't carry the oxy colors that I want anymore, so this is the next best thing

In Fallout 4 the caps are red, but the edges are white. Text is white, just like the previous caps.

I'll try to remember to do a screen grab, but a good tip on examining them in the game yourself is to look at them through a scope. The texture is a lot cleaner and easier to see than the previous caps in F3. The tricky part is finding somewhere where the caps are laying around. You can't drop them from your inventory, nor examine them in your inventory. But there are areas here and there that they'll be on a counter or something. There will also be a pile of them left after a bottlecap mine explodes.

- - - Updated - - -

I see you can now find a good pic of the new caps here: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Bottlecap_(Fallout_4)

 

[GhostMinion]

Close up of the Fallout 4 version nuka cap.

 

[zapwizard]

falconNL, I wasn't as much going for "Accuracy" as I was going for what would look correct if it were manufactured by Nuka in the real world. The circle around the logo on mine came from the circle around the logo visible on the Nuka Cola gun. So your version 2 caps are actually a bit closer to the game model.

The other method to get a better view is to click on the item and use the console command: "Setscale 50" to blow it up to a huge model. Also the OCDecorator mod allows you to place bottlecaps.






Here you can see that the caps on the bottles in-game are actually different than the individual caps you pick up in game.
The normal Nuka Bottle just has a red top, no logo. You see they found room in the texture file to put a logo on the Nuka Cherry bottle.
However, the giveaway is the Quantum Bottle cap. It is actually on upside down!



If I look at the bottom side of the individual cap, you can see it marked "D32", and it is metal with no paint. If you look closely, the Quantum cap also says D32!
My bet is in the effort to save texture size and precious memory space for consoles, they selected to reuse some of the same texture elements. Because, really, who is going to be looking that close at it. (Besides us)

------------------



Also bonus image of the bottles blown up.

 

[B Wo]

I tried machining a bottle capper out of some scrap carbon steel at work. I based the design off some Google images and dimenions from a beer bottle a coworker had on his desk. I failed utterly, and decided to spare myself further headache by spending $14 on a bottle capper off of Amazon.



I bought a glass Coka Cola bottle from the grocery store, and set to work fastening and removing caps. It was stupid fun.



I used zapwizard's method of distressing caps, initially. I threw some screws, shreds of various grades of sandpaper, some chunks of slate tile and plaster in a mason jar and shook it like a Polaroid picture. Then, I dumped the contents on a paper plate. I put the caps back on the bottle, one at a time, and then mashed the cap into the pile of debris to get some scuffing. Then, I hit it with a copper wire brush, a little spot scuffing with sandpaper, a steel wire brush, and, finally, some 0000 steel wool. This was all pretty convoluted; there are probably better ways and worse ways. I document, here, so peeps can pick and choose the method that's right for them.



After my caps were sufficiently scuffed, I took a product called Scenic Rust by Deluxe Materials, and used an acid brush to hit the bare metal parts of the caps.



I let the Scenic Rust sit overnight, and my caps ended up looking like this:



This morning, after my fiance had left for work, I cracked the window in our condo's spare room, spread out some cheap brown paper that you buy in rolls from the hardware store, and hit them with some matte clear coat, to inhibit the spread of rust to my recipient's skin when the caps are being handled, and knock off any sheen that the steel wool didn't remove. I will seal the backs the same way.



My tins arrive today, so I will start work on the caps stashes, tonight.

 

[GhostMinion]

I tried machining a bottle capper out of some scrap carbon steel at work. I based the design off some Google images and dimenions from a beer bottle a coworker had on his desk. I failed utterly, and decided to spare myself further headache by spending $14 on a bottle capper off of Amazon.

View attachment 586012

I bought a glass Coka Cola bottle from the grocery store, and set to work fastening and removing caps. It was stupid fun.

View attachment 586014 View attachment 586015 View attachment 586016 View attachment 586017

I used zapwizard's method of distressing caps, initially. I threw some screws, shreds of various grades of sandpaper, some chunks of slate tile and plaster in a mason jar and shook it like a Polaroid picture. Then, I dumped the contents on a paper plate. I put the caps back on the bottle, one at a time, and then mashed the cap into the pile of debris to get some scuffing. Then, I hit it with a copper wire brush, a little spot scuffing with sandpaper, a steel wire brush, and, finally, some 0000 steel wool. This was all pretty convoluted; there are probably better ways and worse ways. I document, here, so peeps can pick and choose the method that's right for them.

View attachment 586021 View attachment 586022

After my caps were sufficiently scuffed, I took a product called Scenic Rust by Deluxe Materials, and used an acid brush to hit the bare metal parts of the caps.

View attachment 586023

I let the Scenic Rust sit overnight, and my caps ended up looking like this:

View attachment 586024

This morning, after my fiance had left for work, I cracked the window in our condo's spare room, spread out some cheap brown paper that you buy in rolls from the hardware store, and hit them with some matte clear coat, to inhibit the spread of rust to my recipient's skin when the caps are being handled, and knock off any sheen that the steel wool didn't remove. I will seal the backs the same way.

View attachment 586025

My tins arrive today, so I will start work on the caps stashes, tonight.

Thanks for the write up. I was just literally looking at buying a capper, so I can finally get my bottles finished. :thumbsup



One thing I'm pondering on over here is this: Is there anywhere we can get some custom bottle screen printing? Anybody have any ideas?

 

[falconNL]

I have been looking for this for a while now, but unfortunate there isn't a place. Beside, shipping glass bottles will cost you a fortune.

I did found this:
http://ezscreenprint.com/

screenprinting at home, im waiting for my stuff. But because i live over sea it will take a while

 

[B Wo]

GhostMinion You're welcome. The capper wasn't expensive, and the thing works like a charm. I only wish I'd had more caps to....well, cap.

+1 to what falconNL recommended.

I was watching some YouTube videos for EZ Screen Print system. It looks pretty straightforward.

I found a link to their site in THIS YouTube video that came up from a "screen printing on glass" search.

It seems like, unless you're doing quite a few bottles, custom runs could be pretty expensive, and may limit what bottle shapes you can work with.

 

[B Wo]

Here is how my caps turned out:



That didn't sound grammatically correct when I was typing it, haha.

I picked up some 100 grit rusty orange sandpaper, today. My tins arrived yesterday. The supplies for etching arrive tomorrow. I will post a WIP once I've got my mini caps stashes wrapped up.

 

[zapwizard]

Looking good. The bottle capper does make them look a bit puffy or perhaps it's just the lighting. But I will have to add some rust to the next group I weather.
I have already distributed half of my batch to family and co-workers.

I mean when you walk by the desk of the new hire and see the Charisma Bobblehead winking at you, what else can you do but leave a few caps out of respect.

 

[B Wo]

Some notes on Deluxe Materials Scenic Rust:

The Scenic Rust system comprises of an iron powder, a medium (like watered-down PVA glue), and an activator (the blue stuff you can kind of make out in my photos, above). The idea is, you mix the iron powder into the medium to make a paste, and you brush it on to the surface you want to weather. Once the past has dried, you apply the activator, which oxidizes the powder, and, presto, authentic rust.

In most cases, Scenic Rust is being applied to a styrene or resin surface, as it's used in building scale models. This is significant, because once the iron powder has oxidized, the reaction is over; the substrate is inert, and can be sealed with varnish.

In the case of metal caps, after the activator has been applied to the exposed metal, it will rust, but applying varnish to the surface will only inhibit it spreading topically. The substrate is still metal, so, like that troublesome bubbling around my Honda's front wheel well, it will continue to rust internally, beneath the finish.

I don't know precisely what this means for my caps, as they're only a couple days old. One thing is for certain, and it's that they will only look more and more authentic until they are an orange powder and flakes of red and white paint.

In hindsight, beautiful hindsight, I should have scuffed them up, then sealed them, thoroughly, then applied the metal paste, activated only the paste, and then sealed it again. This would have insured that the caps would be of archival quality.

I share this so anyone reading can be aware of how their weathering techniques may impact the materials they are working with.

 

[GhostMinion]

@falconNL, I wasn't as much going for "Accuracy" as I was going for what would look correct if it were manufactured by Nuka in the real world. The circle around the logo on mine came from the circle around the logo visible on the Nuka Cola gun. So your version 2 caps are actually a bit closer to the game model.

The other method to get a better view is to click on the item and use the console command: "Setscale 50" to blow it up to a huge model. Also the OCDecorator mod allows you to place bottlecaps.

View attachment 584664


View attachment 584666

Here you can see that the caps on the bottles in-game are actually different than the individual caps you pick up in game.
The normal Nuka Bottle just has a red top, no logo. You see they found room in the texture file to put a logo on the Nuka Cherry bottle.
However, the giveaway is the Quantum Bottle cap. It is actually on upside down!

View attachment 584668

If I look at the bottom side of the individual cap, you can see it marked "D32", and it is metal with no paint. If you look closely, the Quantum cap also says D32!
My bet is in the effort to save texture size and precious memory space for consoles, they selected to reuse some of the same texture elements. Because, really, who is going to be looking that close at it. (Besides us)

------------------

View attachment 584672

Also bonus image of the bottles blown up.

Hey Zap, when you open up the texture for the Nuka Bottle Cap, does it show up correctly? Either on the model in Nifskope or opening the texture file in photo viewer?

When I open it up in Noesis, it's wrapped on the model wrong. When I open the texture file with photo viewer (basic windows one) there are two cap tops, and they're both squished looking.

Trying to use it as a template for perfect replica caps (for F4) to be made at Bottle Mark. My thinking was to make the logo itself transparent, and the rest of it red. You could then center that on a white cap to get the white edges.

Any help would be appreciated. :thumbsup

Also, thanks for pointing out the logo on the Nuka Cherry cap! Hadn't noticed that before, might have to make some of them up as well..........

 

[zapwizard]

I just tried extracting the textures using B.A.E. (I never got any to work in Nifskcope)
It is so odd that they didn't put proper images on the tops of the caps, looking at the textures they did have space and were not saving any memory.
The Quantum bottl texture even has the same "D32" metal image placed on it twice! I may have to make my first Mod to publish on the Nexus.

I also don't see the edges as "White" see them as raw metal. The edge on the extracted texture is the same as the backside of the cap.
I am using the nVidia Windows Texture Viewer to read the files.