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Retro Dive Bar

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Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
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Here's my second attempt at a full environment. This time it will be indoors. I did some pre-planning first and have planned out the layout, references, and colour theme of the bar. The full idea is a 50's style bar with 80's style lighting (neon lights, computers, etc). I started off by making a simple bar stool and creating a worn leather material for the cushion in designer.

The inspiration is pre-nuclear war fallout bar. A place which used to have class, but is now run down. There is an occasional singer performing on a small round stage.




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  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Went for the booth next. Having a little difficulty trying to decide whether to make the leather colours match the leather colour of the stool. Then again, it is a dive bar, so they didn't exactly hire an interior decorator :P


  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Made a mic for the stage of the bar. I want the mic to be somewhat sparkly, to draw the eye of the viewer.


    Also, made a material for the wall. I'll have some pictures hanging on the wall to break up the repetition a bit.




  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Created a tile floor texture. I really like the colours here, gives that retro look I'm going for. But of course, I'll have the make the final decision on the colours when I'm placing everything together.


  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Here's a neon sign I made for behind the stage;


  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Still working on the brick material on the wall. Threw some of the props into UE4 to start blocking out and getting a general feel for the scene.


  • RustySpannerz
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    RustySpannerz polycounter lvl 13
    I'm not a big fan of the floor, but maybe that's because it reminds me of the Source Engine missing texture. :P Right now the whole thing doesn't seem very cohesive, but it's still early days. What kind of references are you working with? 
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Thanks @RustySpannerz ! That missing texture floor looks like it would be cool on a dance floor hahah

    I drew out floor plans and collected a bunch of references from 50's diners and bars, while collecting lighting and colour references from 80's bars and clubs (outrun style). I don't have the reference compilation with me at the moment else I'd post it. Do you think it's the colour scheme which is ruining the cohesiveness of it? I've still yet to do the bar and stage  and posters on the wall and the like.
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Two months later, I shall continue! The weather has been sunny and roommates drinking beer in the backyard, as well as working on a Skyrim mod, this has taken a back seat. But alas, I have a week off and I'm looking forward to working away at this. I completed the bar. I've gotta create the stage and finalize the mic, as well as create a few doors and random junk to scatter all over the place.

  • Eohek
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    Eohek polycounter lvl 5
    this is looking really cool so far. your texture are really great , it gives a nice feel that chairs and stools have been used a lot. the colour scheme you are using is really nice but I think that the floor colour is maybe to bright. My eyes keep going back to the floor and it takes me away from the rest of the bar. also playing around with the light colours could help as i think they are to white. try making them a bit red to match the light shades. Other then that, this is looking really great. Can't wait to see your next post on this :)  
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    @Eohek Thanks! I totally agree with the floor colour. I've changed the tiles to white and black for now. In my reference picture the tiles were purple, but upon checking it out again, I've realized they're actually white with purple lights, which originally tricked me. Will play with light colour nearer to the end!

    I created the mic a while ago, just have been too lazy to combine all the texture maps into one. Finally did that today as well as created a stage (probably the easiest thing I've ever modeled). I'll need to create some posters and a drinks fridge thing for the bar. Doing some taps for the bar would be cool too!






  • Eohek
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    Eohek polycounter lvl 5
    Looking much nicer now. really love the little stage, a guitar or saxophone case just leaning against the steps would look nice :D . keep up the awesome work
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    You're on to something with the instrument! That's a good idea :)

    So far today I created cement ceiling tilable texture. Also, I created wall and ceiling modular pieces so I could more easily edit the layout. Will start on the taps and such after a much needed break this morning.


  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Didn't do taps: Did doors instead! I'm beginning to think there is too much floor space. Might narrow the bar up, but currently unsure.

  • BucketOfNuggets
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    BucketOfNuggets polycounter lvl 6
    The scale does look a  bit off, the textures seem a bit too grungey too. What is your reference?
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    @BucketOfNuggets
    My reference was just a bunch of images I collected in the beginning (below). I think the scale looked off because most of the renders I've taken have been from atop the stage. I've done a floor level / stage level render below, and the scales definitely do look off when standing on the stage, but I'm thinking they look correct when floor level (?).

    I've also narrowed the bar a bit because it seemed like way too much floor space.




  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Added some decals; posters, garbage on the floor. Posters are all 1950'esque, including a few from Fallout. Spent a few hours working on collisions for some of the meshes and took the grunge down a bit on the bar brass rails. The neon sign now flickers on and off! I've made the floor into tiles as well, now the tiles perfectly fit around the walls. If anybody knows how to prevent material normals from transferring onto decals, that'd make my day :)
    Here's a small list of to-do's;
    -Bar taps
    -Spinning fan
    -Ventilation duct
    -smoking ash tray
    -Toilet
    -Sink
    -Generic ceiling light



  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter

    Now that my art test is complete, I can continue work on this project. I’m going to set myself a deadline of September 20th so as to push myself. This gives me 2 weeks to buckle down! Someone on Ten Thousand Hours suggested I should be spending some time in the blockout phase, which sounds like a good idea.

    Here’s a completed toilet for the bar. I’ll probably add more polys to the front of the toilet because it looks blocky from this angle. With a sink, stall walls and a mirror, the bathroom will look pretty cool!



  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Created a galvanized steel material and some ducts. Truth be told I love simple props. I think with the ducts I don't need a fan anymore. The roof just feels a bit empty, and the part where the wall meets the roof feels a bit odd. Going to adjust the layout of the bar as well. It's a bit too much of a boring square shape.

    I'm going to reduce the opacity of the pink lights to make them more see through. I might also increase the amount of plaster on the wall to show less bricks. As BucketOfNuggets said earlier on, I think the overall grunginess of the scene is taking over. I'd also like to put some hanging pictures on the walls, maybe get rid of a couple of posters. Sink is in the works currently!

  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Googled it and turns out the reason to galvanize steel is so it won't rust. Will get rid of the rust bits on the air ducts!
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    "Wow Thomas such an amazing shelf, you're going to go far as an artist and be revered by all video game artists and fans"

    It's for behind the bar.

  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    So I've been having this issue lately with anything with low roughness. If you check out my render of the shelf above, and then compare it to the render of the shelf in UE4 below, the painted metal doors are far too reflective. I had the issue with the air ducts and the toilet, they were both extremely shinny. I basically had to multiply the roughness a huge amount to get ride of the issue. Now I can't do that since I don't want the wood texture to become super rough. I'm using the packed UE4 texture option from Substance, and all the nodes are plugged into the correct values. Any ideas?

  • RustySpannerz
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    RustySpannerz polycounter lvl 13
    I think it has something to do with reflections. Make sure you have a reflection capture and also check your screen space reflection settings. 
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    @RustySpannerz  Didn't really help  :/  I've added reflection capture and played around with the screen space reflection but to no avail. Thanks for the suggestion!

    I created the lights for above the bar and doors. I've also played around with the layout of the bar to make it a bit more interesting. I spent a few hours playing with lighting, but I'm definitely no expert on this, so it'll take me a while longer to figure everything out. I think I'm going to tone down the grunge on the brass bars on the bar.

  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Have to admit I've been getting down with regards to my own artwork lately. Seems like the longer I work on any given thing, the worse it gets. GF told me not to be silly so I guess I'll keep pumpin away at it.

    I've learned that when making tilable textures, or textures which will appear next to each other (i.e. modular pieces), not to make any large marks. If you look at the bar up close, you can see obvious tiling.

    Narrowed the area between the bar and the tables, it gave the scene a bit more of a normal inside look. Kept messing with the lighting until I got something more along the lines I've been going for. Deleted all the glasses as I think I'll add those later. I'm not sure how I'm going to populate the shelves behind the bar, I'm not going to make 30 different bottles, so I might make around 5 different alcohol bottles and then put a bunch of pint glasses on the bottom shelf.

  • RustySpannerz
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    RustySpannerz polycounter lvl 13
    I found this concept on Artstation that might be able to help you with the overall mood and composition. It's a little different to what you've got going on, but it might help push you in the right direction at least. 
    https://www.artstation.com/artwork/QR42L
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    @RustySpannerz Oh wow, thanks so much for that! Definitely will use that for lighting reference.
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Started this after work, finished it right before bed. Nice. I had fun on this prop. Label designed by myself! It'll look more like i want it to when I get it into UE4.

  • DallanP
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    DallanP polycounter lvl 8
    Nice work! I think my biggest critique with it so far is the seemingly random grunge placement, and the uniform wear on your different props such as the stage and microphone stand. The bar itself would have a lot more grunge and dirt where peoples feet are constantly bumping up on it, then the closer to the top wouldn't have near as much. 

    Excited to see where it goes!
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    @DallanP I'll adjust the grunge on the mic for ya. I'll also make a second texture for the bar so that every other piece has more dings where feet would be kicking it, this way the texture for the bar will be a bit more varied as well. Thanks for the tips!
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Making some headway! I took down the grunge on the mic stand. I also created the bar taps which was not as difficult as I was thinking it would be. I still will adjust textures of the bar, and I want to adjust the texture of the wooden shelves. They looked absolutely nothing like they do in Substance.

    Still got to finish the sink, some stalls and a mirror for the bathroom.

    Finally found out that you can turn off eye adaption in the project settings, which has made lighting the scene about 10x easier. Have been goofing around with the lighting too. As per the reference pic from Rustyspannerz, I'm thinking of creating another neon sign to give the bar an even more colourful glow. I'm having a blast lighting the scene, this is probably the first time lighting has been enjoyable for me! If you take a look at the last photo, the shadow from the mic stand is a bunch of dots, so I'll have to figure out how to turn up the quality of that light.

    Aside from these, I'm going to create one or two more bottles for the bar and I think I might be calling it after that.

  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Sink so far! I've gotta go back and adjust some of the soft and hard edges as you can see.


  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Progress on bathroom. Will do 2 toilets. Now I need to make the stall walls. Probably some toilet paper roll and a loose tissue strip on the floor. Will also create a mirror, which will require me to do some learning regarding reflections.



    I'm unsure of how great this angle looks compared to the other angles, which isn't very good, because it's the first thing the player sees when they first enter into the bar. I might fix this by putting another neon sign on the wall to the right to provide more interest.



    I figured out that the reason my wood looks so crap so far is because I was using static lights for the entire bar. I've switched a few specific lights to stationary. I was not aware that there was a quality difference between them? But anyways, I'm loving the lighting and view from this angle. Lots of places which draw the eye. I think some nice fog, i.e. smoke, will make a sick final touch when everything is ready to go.



    I'll be upping the intensity of the neon sign to get a proper blue glow. Right now I have the colours created from some spot lights which isn't doing a great job. I might increase the size of the front doors, just so the doors look a little larger than the doors inside the bar.

  • Auldbenkenobi
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    Auldbenkenobi polycounter lvl 11
    It's super dark at the minute, I'd be tempted to put in a skylight and bring the darker areas into view a bit more. I'd also maybe add a lot more clutter to make it feel a little less empty.

    I'm not feeling the white and black checkerboard floor if I'm honest. I associate that with kitchens more than I do bars. Maybe switch it up for hard wood, or maybe a more intricate tile pattern?

    The neon sign isn't really working either I think. Compared to your other assets it's definitely the weakest. Look up some neon bar signs and maybe make it a bit more visually interesting:


    I reckon you're aiming for something like Paddy's Pub in "It's Always Sunny" which is pretty much the definition of a Dive Bar. 


    Maybe have a look around online for other examples like that, and draw some ideas from them. I do like where it's going so far, but it's still definitely lacking any real character. Also, just watch for little mistakes too, like that microphones cable doesn't go anywhere.

    Keep it up.


  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    @Auldbenkenobi Thanks for the critique! I'll look into another neon sign and more clutter. Think a few trash cans, a broom, and another couple of bottles might do the trick? Maybe a few circular tables like in your reference. I'll make a cool old hardwood floor and see how that looks as well, might be really cool.

    My barber actually pointed out that the bar has the same feel as Heaven's Night from Silent Hill (below), which totally took me by surprise. I might up the intensity of the lights above the tables to show off the red couches a bit more, but I'm aiming for a decently dark pub with lots of shadowy areas. I'll play with post effects when I'm nearing completion and see about upping the general lighting of everything.


  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Bathroom stalls finished. Aside from some clutter, the bathroom should be about finished by now.

  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    re: roughness issues. have you made sure that your roughness maps have sRGB disabled in UE4? if you're not packing roughness into a single channel of a texture (ie: AO = R, Roughness = G, Metallic = B), then just double click the texture in UE4 and find the sRGB checkbox, make sure it's unchecked. if it is packed, then under compression settings, make sure the packed texture is set to: Masks - no sRGB.
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    @almighty_gir Thanks man, that worked! Really appreciate that!
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    I changed up the flooring as per @Auldbenkenobi 's suggestion. Created an old dark wood flooring instead. I kept the tiles for the bathroom, which provide a nice contrast. Whatcha guys think? I'm digging the old tile flooring because it makes it look more cheesy and retro.

    I've increased the size of the front doors as well, because they look a bit too small. Did so after taking this screenshot though.

  • Anngelica
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    Anngelica polycounter lvl 10
    Hey! This is really coming along! The floor looks much better! One thing that just stands out to me is the tiling on the walls. The patches of exposed brick all feel similar in size/shape which makes it a little more obvious that it's repeating. It would be neat to see some of that decay placed intentionally, like along the bottom of the wall against the floor. It would break that part up a little. 

    I think you've gone in the right direction by darkening it but now it might be just a little too dark in the corners. You could bring in a skylight to lift that up just a little. If you haven't already, it might be worth exploring the new 4.18 release for UE4. (Just make sure to save it as a copy, just in case something breaks and you want to go back lol.) They made some upgrades to skylights so they support multiple bounces now. 

    Anyway, just my two cents! Keep going!
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Thanks @Anngelica ! I've received a bit of critique on the walls, so I'm going to redo some of it. I might actually switch the floors back to the tiles, I really dig the retro feel they bring; gotta make up my mind about it though.
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Made a box for some clutter around the bar. I love doing the little things.

  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Due to repeating textures, someone suggested making two materials and vertex painting. Here's my bricks, which look tons better than the bricks on my old texture. Will make plaster texture now.

  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Created some round tables for by the stage. Threw in the boxes to add some clutter. Added some fog to give the bar that smokey feeling. I brought back the tile floors because the bar is gross :P I need to actually replace the decals with actual planes because they're conforming to the brick wall normals and it's really messing stuff up.

    Going to add another neon sign as per Auldbenkenobi's suggestion. Trying to think of a lame neon sign a bar would have, like a crappy beer mug or something.

  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    I created a vodka bottle and a cheesy beer mug neon sign. Still gotta work on the new bottles. I wanted to make frosted glass but they turned out just looking white and super bright.

    I'm having an issue where all these bottles I'm creating, made of glass, are showing red when I view the scene with shader complexity on. Should I be drastically reducing the amount of glass I use in a scene?

    Anyways, one more bottle after fixing the new bottle's textures. Fill up the shelves a bit more with the new bottle, then I'll be posting this to my portfolio. If anybody has any more suggestions or tips as to what could really push this I'd be more than happy to hear from you!

    ... Just realized there is no cash register. Might spend some extra time making that, which should be pretty fun actually.




  • RustySpannerz
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    RustySpannerz polycounter lvl 13
    I was going to say that's normal for a transparent material, but I've just noticed your glass isn't even transparent. Why is the material so complex? Also, your skylight or cubemap or something has a red tint I think and it's making everything shiny look a little red. But this scene is coming on nicely! It's definitely heading in the right direction! 
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    @RustySpannerz Thanks so much man! I don't know why the glass is so complex. For the pint glasses, I just used the default UE4 glass material. I think for the rum bottles I used an opacity mask and then the usual textures. The lamps above the booths and the spotlight for the mic are a slight red, so I that's why shiny things are looking a bit red.
  • hmm_rock
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    hmm_rock polycounter lvl 10
    New lighting is giving nice atmosphere. One small thing I think could help a lot is trim. The vent system is great because it breaks up the transition and hides the abrupt seam between wall and ceiling. I'd add trim along the floor and ceiling, maybe some decals around the base boards of things (the stage, the bar) to ground them. Bar mirrors would be a nice touch too :) Keep it up!
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    @hmm_rock I think you're 100% right. 1 set of trim, coming up!
  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Pretty proud of my cash register! Started it last night, finished it today.

  • Ashervisalis
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    Ashervisalis grand marshal polycounter
    Added trim as per hmm_rock's suggestion, looks way nicer now!



    Register has been put in!

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