Inari Train Station

Other Lighting that I wanted to try because it’s fun :)

This project was made for an homework and the subject was free. I wanted to create an environnement so at first, I searched what I wanted to make for the next 2 months in my reference folder. I've found multiples photos that I've saved of photograph I love on tweeter. One catched my attention : this photo of 井上哲志 (Satoshi Inoue) his account is @metaphor_472. https://twitter.com/metaphor_472

The post where I founded it https://twitter.com/metaphor_472/status/1346758413036883971

Then, I started compiling as much referecences as I could. I studied the image how could I work, how much assets, wich one can be dupplicated. I also tried that each object in the scene would have a reference. As they exist in real life, it was quite easy to find some good photos.

Next tep was the blocking, I modeled everything on blender.

I used the mirror modifier for many objects, we can almost cut the main buidling in half. 

The wireframe. If the floor has many polygons, I wanted at first add a displacement for the asphalt. It didn't add much so I ended up not using it. I instantiated as many assets as I could and deleted as much useless polygons possible. The fence is quite high poly, but it is all an instantiate element with an array modifier. 

I modeled the letterbox with attention even if we can't see it very well in the final render because I want to transform this model in a personnal project.

I tried working with the lighting as soon as possible because it influences the rendering a lot.

As you can see above, I started texturing by adding a roof slate material and working on the sign. For the roofslate, I tried by doing my own material with Substance Designer. Since we only had a small workshop last year to discover the software, I tried my best by watching tutorials, remembering some part from the workshop and asking my teacher for some advices. It is not a very cool material however it works seen from far like my project and it was a great practice, I've learned so many things !

I modeled the front of the tiles to compense the missing border of the displacement.

I work with around 26 materials in total. It may seem to be a lot however as I wanted to have a realistic result, I thaught it would be better to have too much materials than less. Each color correspond (approximativly) to a material. I tried to pack as much as I could). 

Here are some UVs sets. I tried to pack the best I could. If I had some free spaces, I added some objects that could fill the room. Sometimes I left some place if I had to add another object to the scene/or objects. I used the addon UV square for blender wich is really helpful. I like unwrapping UVs, I don't know. I feel calm and I can watch youtube videos or documentaries.

For the text in japanese. I used closer photos of some objects and gave them to google lens so I could get the exact same kanjis. I tried to find a font that match the most with the photo and I worked on Illustrator.

For the smaller texts, I used a japanese lorem ipsum generator to have the same consistency and variations of the text seen from far. For 80% of the text and screen display, I created an atlas with all the small papers/displays that I projected on Substance Painter.

Main ads have real text and some papers sheets on the side have lorem ipsum

For the train line map, the Information panel, I projected the texture directly from photos I've found on this website https://www.homemate-research-station.com/dtl/46000000000000005271/album/ thanks to the curators ! I've found it mid project and it is really helpful ! I could have way more photos and point of view than with google street view and the photo from Satoshi Inoue.

For texturing the assets, I used some base material created by the fantastic people of Polyhaven and Ambient CG (thanks to them). Here’s how I worked with Substance Painter. There were many iterations in the texturing process.

As seen above, there is a tactile pavement. I’ve made it myself with Substance Designer and I’m very proud of it ! This is my first material made on this software that looks great :D

For the lighting, I worked on it during the whole process. I tried to be close to the reference. I enjoyed working on it because the building on itself have so much artificial lights in it and around it. One of the main objects of the image is the sign indicating which train station it is. I struggled a lot trying to have that plastic surface with neon behind it. At first, I tried with SSS and cylinder emitting lights without success, then Transmission, at the end a specific emission map and the base color in the emission input.

The post-production is one of the most complicated parts for me. I wasn’t really satisfied of my render. It was good but not THAT GOOD. One of my teachers showed me his workflow and it helped me a lot! With that, I could achieve a photo style rendering and at this moment I was happy of my work! I enjoyed tweaking and modifying on photoshop my renders.

For the fun, I’ve made other lighting inspired of games or photos. I again, had a lot of fun editing the renders on Photoshop.

In conclusion, I'm proud of the result! This is one of the biggest projects I worked on so far. I’ve learned so many things by experimentation, making mistakes, watching tutorials, struggling, help from my teachers and finally succeeding! It was not that easy because after the first week I restarted, with my group, we have a graduation project and I participated to Pwnisher’s latest 3D challenge (come check it out ;) )

If your reading, thank you for reading all of this, I hope you like the render as much as I loved working and on it. Bye :D