Dining Scene

Week 4: Finalization and Presentation

This was the final week for the project, and the goal was to finish the scene.  A presentation including various renders, references, and included elements was to be made to cap it all off.

Week 3: Texturing and Lighting

For the third week, the focus was to be on lighting the scene, and further UV'ing and texturing.  My scene's lighting is still fairly basic, but I plan to have more detailed and specific shading later on.  As for texturing, this is another section where there is not much to go off of from the reference.  To compensate, I mainly went off of objects that the reference includes, and found a real-world equivalent to base texture on.  For example: the booths and chairs were definitely eligible for some wood texturing.  On the other hand, things like the counter and tables needed to be smooth, so no real help there.  In addition, I also started to UV and texture the walls and floor, the ceiling to come soon after.

The lighting so far has been tough to get a hold of.  For the first few renders, I was mainly working with directional lights.  Now that there's an area light to partially illuminate the majority of the scene, the main challenge now is to create the little lights here and there to fully fill the scene.

For the next and final week of the project, I will definitely have to dial it in and get to work on the extra specifics.  That means the aforementioned lighting, better UVs, and more of the smaller objects to fill the space.

Week 2: Modeling and UV'ing

In the second week of the project, the more specific modeling and UV texturing took place.  For my scene, I focused on accuracy and consistency in the modeling.  The objects that were most time consuming were the seating arrangements, which had a lot of components alone.  Otherwise, altering sections here and there and, getting as close to the reference as necessary, was fairly easy.  The next step which was finding, arranging/fitting and applying UV textures was pretty straightforward, but definitely time-consuming.  I mainly focused on making sure the UV's fit, and that the pictures I used to map out looked alright.  Getting as many of those specific UV's over with first was my plan.  As for the parts that will probably only use simple shaders, those I will come back to.

Week 1: Blocking Out
For the first week of the project, the required amount of progress was to block out the scene.  Using polygon primitives and simple manipulation, the main components of the scene needed to be represented in some capacity, with realistic measurements.  Specific details were not the top priority, instead there needed to be some form of indication an object exists and sits within the environment.
For my scene, I feel like I covered most of the elements well.  More individual objects will come later, but the bulkiest parts are present.  My reference location is a LEGO cartoon scenario, which depicts a restaurant.  The scene consists of plenty of chairs, tables, and booths.  It also includes many banners, a counter, hanging lights, and wall decorations.  I chose this because while the scene is fairly simple, I think that will allow me to take a few liberties with texturing and UVing.  I think I can manage a mix of generic and referenced images for texture.