'Ichiraku Ramen' WIP

Tom Ellis

Hey all,

So it's been a while since I posted anything up here and I thought it's about time I started up a new WIP thread.

In between other projects I'm working (slowly) on a new environment scene.

The theme is loosely based on the Ichiraku Ramen shop from Naruto. I say loosely based since I want to add a bunch of my own props but keep with the kind of 'Ramen Bar' feel.

In terms of style, Naruto has been tackled in 3D in various ways before, in my opinion most successfully in the 360 game 'Rise of a Ninja'. I wanna go fully hand painted but including normal maps so kinda one step ahead in realism than say WoW style, but still not photo real.

As I said, progress will be slow and I'm working on one or two assets at a time and I wanna get each one right!

I'm trying to keep the time on each asset limited as one problem with doing a scene this way is that I could end up spending forever on an asset that in the end is only a tiny object barely visible in the final scene. Of course the benefits of doing it this way are that I can reuse assets and place them around wherever.

Ok so here's progress so far, as I mentioned, I wanna get this looking good so any crits on any of it would be much appreciated!

These are Max with Xoliuls awesome shader shots for now but I plan to setup the scene in UE3 ultimately. The plant pot is a Marmoset shot as I was having issues with the alpha culling in Max.

And obviously the lantern isn't textured, it's just normal/grey base.

Shogun3d

I already like where this is going with the style.

Mistry10

kaburan wrote: »

I already like where this is going with the style.

+1

Ben Apuna

Looks good so far.

The plant looks like it's triangle count is a bit high, though if you're not planning to have 100s of them in the scene it's probably Ok.

Minor critique/suggestion for the chair:



I look forward to watching this scene progress, keep it up

Tom Ellis

Thanks for the replies everyone! I'm glad the style is liked, I gotta say it's been an enjoyable project so far.

With regards to your suggestions Ben, I'll definitely take a loop or two out of the chair section, the base was intentionally left lower res though so those little planks looked like they have straight edges rather than rounded. I'll round it off some though and see how it looks.

Updates soon!

Thanks again.

Ben Apuna

No worries about the base if it's supposed to be planks then by all means leave em straight, my bad for not paying attention to the texture :poly136:

Tom Ellis

Ok VERY minor update!

Got some pictures/posters done.

The photograph is just a lame touch that I may or may not include in the final scene, just an idea.

The posters are gonna be stuck on the outside of the building, I cannot read or write Japanese and the lettering is literally just random characters typed in with my international settings set to Katakana/Hiragana

As I said, minor update but may as well post the progress!

Eclipse

This is really great, very nice style to it. I have a question about the potted plant. Why are you using an alpha on the leaves? with the shape you have of them couldn't you just make the same shape from scaling the verts together?

pestibug

Cool stuff, only crit is the crate, looks too satured to be wood. Lighten it up and add a bit more variety in the woograin. (Oh, and don't go all black in the dark parts, not every shadow is pitch black )

Tom Ellis

Thanks Eclipse.

Erm, heh good question about the plant alpha.

I guess I just assumed the leaf shape would be easier to paint out in an alpha than to make them from shaped polys, but in the end I could have done it just as well either way. Lets call it a planning mishap!

Also, looking at that picture frame again, the texture could use a little more love I think.

Pestibug-

Thanks, appreciate the comment. I agree the wood on the crate could do with a change in hue/saturation. I'll change it up as you suggested. I did the chair / crate / barrel first and wanted a little variation in the wood on each but ended up going a bit crazy with the crate

roosterMAP

great work!

hawken

for some inexplicable reason your cardboard box has the logo for recyclable plastic on the side.

Rojo

I like it, nice color palette.

The plant alpha looks a bit nasty with the aliasing.

hawken

here's some examples of real ramen shops:

http://blog.livedoor.jp/somenman/
http://minkara.carview.co.jp/userid/355364/car/402877/1811527/photo.aspx
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/maro_koto_101

When you come to do the sign: ラメン 一楽
http://www.b-shoku.jp/modules/wordpress/attach/u690/FI16676_0E.jpg

free font in that style:
http://www.i-love-epson.co.jp/download2/printer/driver/win/page/ttf30.htm

Tom Ellis

Awesome Hawken thanks for the ref/links. The shots of the kitchens will be very useful since I was lacking any pics of that part.

Haha I didn't realise the symbol on the box was for plastic! I assumed it was just a recycling symbol. Here's my ref image for it, I just used it to make a mask. It's clearly printed on cardboard but I'm guessing it refers to whatever is inside the box in this case:

Rick_D

weeaboo.



j/k, really wicked style

EMC3D

Naruto ftw, are you gonna model the ramen too! :O

roosterMAP

you should make high poly models wth subdivision. that way, you wouldnt get such harsh edges.

Tom Ellis

Thanks for the comments.

Rooster -

I did bake some of the assets with a SubD mesh, the lantern was done that way and I do intend to do that on some of the larger assets for sure.

Updates!

Finished the lantern texture and started on some bowls/ramen.

pangarang

I'm really loving the hand painted look of the props! I can't wait to see it assembled into a scene!

I'm not sure, and in the end it might not really matter at all - but the text on the signage doesn't make sense to me. Also I think the kanji on the red lantern (love the glow) are backwards.

Tom Ellis

hehe thanks Pangarang,

The text is indeed a load of nonsense, as I mentioned earlier I just literally switched my input method to Katakana/Hiragana and just typed in a bunch of random letters. In all honesty I suppose it may add to the authenticity if I had genuine words / phrases on the posters, but I suppose what I was thinking was that in the final scene, they may be barely visible, even less so with texture compression once in UE3.

The PSD's for the textures have all the text on an individual layer so if it turns out that they are well legible in the final scene then I can do some research and make sure they say something correct and informative!

divi

crap, now i want some gyoza

good stuff!

EMC3D

HE MODELLED THE RAMEN, LEGEND!

iansmithartist

Hey creationtwentytwo these assets are looking great. The hand painted look of your colour maps looks terrific, only crit would be that the colours of the plant look a little desaturated and not as vibrant as some of your other props. But that's only nit-picking and probably just the screenshot. Subscribed and looking forward to seeing more .

Shogun3d

Mr Bear wrote: »

HE MODELLED THE RAMEN, LEGEND!

+1

Tom Ellis

Mr Bear wrote: »

HE MODELLED THE RAMEN, LEGEND!

I tried both painting it and modelling (somewhat primitively) and decided it definitely looks better modelled. It's gonna be a small asset in the final scene for sure so I didn't want to spend too much time.

Next up is the hanging sheets outside the door with the lettering on. I'm just playing with reactor cloth and it's giving some pretty good results. I'll probly just crunch them and bake, maybe sculpt a little if necessary but reactor is looking pretty nice already.

Thanks for all the comments!

G3L

oh yea naruto! glad to see someone else do something anime in 3D, it's nice to see how people approach it and stuff. this is looking good man, keep goin! will be watching!

hawken

You needn't resort to nonsense on the lantern, as all ramen shops have lanterns that either say "ラメン" or the name of the store. And in this case, you can just use "ラメン 一楽"



The card ref you have there, the top logo means PU RA (which is short for plastic) and the logo underneath means soyink.

If you put nonsense on the Noren (curtains) I will lock this thread

here is an actual ichiraku ramen store!

Tom Ellis

Thanks Hawken, you're certainly helping a lot with this project, and it's much appreciated!

I definitely want to get the lantern / curtains correct as they will be prominent in the final shot and clearly legible. Just a couple of questions if you don't mind.

The ref I'm using has a slightly different word/phrase on the Noren and Lantern, is it still correct? If so, how do I type that using an English keyboard? I know you need to type like sylables ie 'no' 'sa' etc but I have no idea what the Japanese characters are that I need!

REF:

EDIT:

Ah after looking at the picture, the lantern has the Kanji for 'Ichiraku' right? Which as you say is the name of the shop. Which is also the Kanji on the curtains.

So if Ichiraku is Kanji, how on earth do I input that into Photoshop?!



Thanks again.

hawken

does the Japanese text come up for you in my posts?

copy and paste

Tom Ellis

Aha awesome, that works great!

I'll post the Noren WIP in a minute and you can see if I'm heading in the right direction with it.

Thanks!

Tom Ellis

Ok quickly put this together, is this correct?

Tom Ellis

Ok sorted the lantern (I hope!) and worked some more on the curtain texture.

Ben Apuna

Looking good, I like the lantern and ramen bowl.

Not too sure about those cloth folds on the ramen sign though... especially the one on the right, also all the bottoms look curved as if they are resting on something except that they are hanging freely so that doesn't make much sense.

Keep at it you are making great progress.

hawken

Japanese text is looking authentic.

the curtains are actually one bit of cloth that has been segmented not separate sheets. these are held in place along a pole by three loops per segment, much like a curtain.

Tom Ellis

Thanks for the replies.

With regard to the curtains, I agree the folds look a bit over the top. They are just a retopo'd reactor simulation and I was trying to find a good balance between too subtle, which just looked like flat planes, and lots of folds. I'll revisit them I think once the building part is done and see how they work then. I've got a list of bits and pieces to do and now probably wasn't the best time to do them.

Thanks again.

Fieldscarecrow

I like what you have so far, seems like an exciting environment to make

Tom Ellis

Thanks Fieldscarecrow, it is enjoyable, and working on it bit by bit like this is definitely making it more manageable.

Ok huuuuuge update, these took ages :



I think that's more or less it for the smaller 'accessory' assets. Updates may slow down a bit now!

swampbug

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW5UQxqDwTU[/ame]


Hooooooooooo

(the video is for reference only)

Tom Ellis

Appreciate the ref link Swampbug but I might stick with the pics I've already got

Will Faucher

Digging the style! Keep up the good work! What resolution are your textures at? Seems pretty low, 512?

Tom Ellis

Thanks Prophecies.

Prophecies wrote: »

What resolution are your textures at? Seems pretty low, 512?

Yeah all the assets so far have been 512x512. I've baked/painted them at 1024 though and scaled them down so depending on how they look once in UE3, I may or may not use the higher res versions. To be honest though, 512 should be fine and it seems a bit excessive to go bigger for such minor assets. The very small pieces could almost pull off a 256 I think.

Will Faucher

If you've textured them in 1024, I'm not sure how well it will compress down to 256. 512 seems alright for small assets like that. You can try compressing down to 256, but it may lead to unwanted results. You surely know this already though. Keep it up!

Tom Ellis

Ok update, progress has had to slow down a bit over the last couple days due to other projects at work.

I'm still not on the main structure yet, although that's gonna be real soon. Also I went back and played the Naruto game on 360 and refreshed my memory a bit.

So here's a fridge and also a gas cylinder, two of which sit outside the shop. A couple of comments, firstly the fridge was originally going to be a more 'vintage' looking fridge as I assumed that's what it would be in this Ramen shop, however, after going back and playing the game, it is in fact a more modern example. Secondly, the obvious looking seam at the top of the gas cylinder where it starts to curve is intentional to illustrate the join that is often found in gas cylinders at that point. I might change it. There isn't actually a seam there, it just looks a bit too much like it I think.

Excuse the nasty lack of Max AA, they will be in UE3 soon!

Tom Ellis

EDIT: Double Post

Tom Ellis

Ok, update.

Just finished modeling the building. I've tried to stay fairly faithful to the concept. Still in Max, I prefer to keep it in Max while texturing just because it's quicker to preview changes than having to reimport textures in UE3. I've got a couple assets in UDK already and they are looking awesome so can't wait to get the rest in!

Crits and comments welcome as always.

Tom Ellis

Ok texture update, not entirely happy with the wood texture on the wall cladding, so if anyone could crit that in particular that'd be awesome!

I've included a shot of the game this was inspired by in case you're wondering why the roof is blue.

Tom Ellis

Ok, I think I'm done!

There are still bits and pieces that could be improved I guess but I've already spent sooo long on this and I could probably keep adjusting things forever.

I'm real happy with it, seeing it in UDK at the end is always such a nice reward!

vofff

The texture is looking ok. But I dont like the shape of the building, it is too perfect. You should tweak some vertex and move them a bit so they dont look perfect.

Sandro

Come on dude. You've modeled and textured all those assets so carefully that it would be a waste of effort to call it finished now. Spice up interior a bit more with more ramen bowls and maybe lightbulb or two to introduce some lighting variation.

I would also model/texture portion of street in front of shop and add rough building or two in the background to cover default udk texture and nasty horizon line. For the sake of proper presentation

Lamont

If you're gonna toss in the recycle bin, do the correct one: Pastic/Can and combustibles. I haven't seen that recycle logo here before. Either that, or I haven't really been paying attention.



Your "drapes" should be one piece with a wooden dowel holding them up. Classy places use rope :P. I chose Naruto since it speaks to you.





Put up a shop banner or something as well. Usually shop name and their specialty dish, or what kind of shop it is. This one is an udon shop:



Where are your light sources coming from inside?

Post boxes usually look like these:





But I live in an old town, so I sometimes have to just give my letters to a baba-chan and she takes it to where it needs to go.

Make the street, make a backdrop, even if it's simple geometry. Don't stop where you are. And add a vending machine:



And if you make the machine, make sure to have Tommy Lee Jones and Boss Coffee:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut2QXQc7Fac[/ame]