Piss Alley
polycounter lvl 10
Hey guys 
. Haven't posted in some time, but I haven't worked on much at home in ages... I wanted to do something in Unreal, as I don't have much experience with the engine.
Anyway, I decided to do a scene from somewhere I visited with I was in Tokyo. It's called Piss Alley. It's basically a bunch of really narrow alleys, with sushi dives and bars. It got it's name because up until a few years ago, there was no plumbing in the area
. Supposedly it inspired parts of Blade Runner.
Here's some shots of the place:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samwilkins/239412226/sizes/l/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gunga_galunga/320088343/sizes/o/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/janiscula/2556500402/sizes/o/ (Used this one a lot for inspiration, as it really describes the locale well).
Originally I thought I'd do the whole alley... but yeah, that'd take forever.
And here's what I have so far:
It's a fairly dark scene, and normally would be well lit from outside, but since it's a one off scene, I chose to focus it more inside than out. I'm probably going to crack up a few of the wall boards a bit here and there, and maybe add a couple more things on the wall in the kitchen. I'd also like to do a few more spots of storytelling here and there. Nothing too over the top, just real world cases.
Any thoughts or ideas?
. Haven't posted in some time, but I haven't worked on much at home in ages... I wanted to do something in Unreal, as I don't have much experience with the engine.Anyway, I decided to do a scene from somewhere I visited with I was in Tokyo. It's called Piss Alley. It's basically a bunch of really narrow alleys, with sushi dives and bars. It got it's name because up until a few years ago, there was no plumbing in the area
. Supposedly it inspired parts of Blade Runner.Here's some shots of the place:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samwilkins/239412226/sizes/l/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gunga_galunga/320088343/sizes/o/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/janiscula/2556500402/sizes/o/ (Used this one a lot for inspiration, as it really describes the locale well).
Originally I thought I'd do the whole alley... but yeah, that'd take forever.
And here's what I have so far:
It's a fairly dark scene, and normally would be well lit from outside, but since it's a one off scene, I chose to focus it more inside than out. I'm probably going to crack up a few of the wall boards a bit here and there, and maybe add a couple more things on the wall in the kitchen. I'd also like to do a few more spots of storytelling here and there. Nothing too over the top, just real world cases.
Any thoughts or ideas?
Replies
The only thing I might say is that compositionally the bright lantern is where my eyes are drawn to but the kitchen part is much more interesting to look at. Maybe you might want to try and find a way to lead my eye there rather than the lantern.
Looking at the ref photos you've linked to you've really captured the feeling of the place, the only thing missing from the scene are people lol :P
Carlo_c: Yeah, I see your point. I guess I wanted a contrast of the soft lighting where people would sit, and the functional more sterile kitchen. I'm not the greatest lighter, so hard for me to nail it perfectly. As for the people in the scene, the most you'll get out of me is cardboard cutouts
Duxun: If this was a full scene, with the whole alley, I'd totally be lighting up a lot of the front area. There's actually usually more light on the outside than inside from the reference. But since you can't see the outside, I figured I'd just leave it darker. I thought it might be too busy if everything is lit.
Frozan: Possibly, I'll have to ask how that's normally done. It's a portfolio piece, so I wouldn't want pieces of it used elsewhere.
but overall, the lighting has really great contrast and im loving all the detail you've put into the walls and floors. looks very real. mm. very inspiring.
how long did this take you to do? actual work hours.
Judging by when I dloaded my first reference image, I started on February 18th or so. I'd work on it for a few hours most nights of the week, and a bit longer on the weekends. So about a month, give or take, of that seems right.
Nothing negative to say besides what others have said about the exterior lighting.
I can see that the broom is floating slightly, and that I could probably try to tone down that shadow coming from the handle. Its hard to see in the dark regardless.
Anyway, here's the shader with the explination after:
So, this is basically a masked Fresnel shader. Starting off at the bottom left, I used a Fresnel shader with a 2.0 value, and added that into a multiply node. I didn't end up using the multiply, so this fresnel could have gone right into the Add node. That's the outer glow. I did this as I figured there'd be some bounced light, and that helps simulate that.
Above that is the Inner glow. It has a fresnel value of 0.5, which is put into a 1-x node. 1-x inverts the effect. So instead of having an outer glow like the one below it, there's an inner glow. The normal map is plugged into the fresnel so it follows the grooves of the lantern a bit. I didn't do that on the other one, as the two were fighting each other.
These both get added together. So now if this was on a sphere, you'd have sphere with a consistent glow at any angle which simulates something being on the inside of the model.
Above that I have a multiply node which controls the brightness of the lantern. After that, the color is input.
Finally, I masked the result with the alpha in my diffuse. The lerp is using a constant of zero for A for the dark areas, the glow for B, and the alpha mask. I darkened the top and bottom in the mask to further localize the glow a bit.
Anyway, again, I'm not an Unreal expert or anything, but this is just how I did it.
I should also note I had a co-worker, Herod Giliani, do an overpaint which helped me with some of the lighting. While I'm good at replicating and expanding on a lighting concept, I'm not the best at doing it from scratch. It's definitely something I want to get better at. Credit where credit is due
One little thing that could add just a bit more to the piece (nit picking now) is maybe have some random moths or flies flying around the main light? Looks like a pretty junky place... so why not eh :P
Awesome work man!
Hey, awesome idea, I may just do that
Ya thats right. Put some shit in this piece. Shit alley.
...
I was referring to anal sex.
Annnyway... here's a pic with my light placement as requested:
In general I just used a lot of point lights. There's some spotlights in the kitchen coming from the neon lights, as well as one spotlight coming from above outside casting the shadows inside.
For the soft lighting areas people were asking about, I think the key there is to use a light with a lot of falloff. I had to play with the blending a lot to make it look more like one seamless source as best as I could.
There's a bunch of small lights placed in key spots to get a better rim light off of things like the chairs, and the beer bottle.
Umm, other than that, I'd just make very low intense lights for bounce lighting where areas where too dark.
Hope that helps!
I'll photoshop your face into the scene. How's that sucka?
Scene is cool thou I like it alot, just not a fan of the amount of lights your using.
Everything is baked into lightmaps in my scene...? I have zero dynamic lights in that. While I'm not 100% sure on the lighting limitation of Unreal, I'd figure if it's all getting baked, one light affecting the lightmap texture is the same as 10? It might take longer to bake, but this scene maybe took 15 mins or so.
Would you mind posting a lighting only view of the scene?
Cheers,
Tyler
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