How to Create Japanese Street Under Fog Using 3D Software

Introduction 

Hi everyone, I’m Malek Mansour, a 25-year-old 3D environment artist from Tunisia. I started out studying programming, but ever since I was a kid, my true passion has been 3D art. I’ve always been drawn to environment art, the challenge of building immersive and believable worlds. Even though programming was my first path, becoming an artist has always been my goal, and that’s what I’ve been pursuing ever since.

My journey hasn’t been a straight line. Most of what I’ve learned came from teaching myself, diving into tutorials, and experimenting with different tools and techniques. I love combining creativity with technical skills, and that balance has helped me grow as an environment artist. Every project is an opportunity to push my limits and bring new worlds to life.

Foggy Japanese Street

I’ve always been a big fan of Japanese culture and themes, and over time I’ve worked on several projects focused mostly on nature and rural Japan places with lush vegetation and traditional landscapes. With this project, I wanted to try something different: an urban environment.

From the very beginning, I knew I wanted to create a Japan-themed scene, but this time focusing on the narrow, lively alleys and streets you often see in Japanese cities. I’ve always loved those tight spaces packed with storefronts, tall utility poles, messy wiring, and atmospheric lighting. It’s such a unique combination of organized chaos that gives those places a lot of character and mood.

This project was a way for me to practice urban modeling while capturing that distinct Japanese vibe that I’m really passionate about.

My first step was creating a mood board and collecting a bunch of references. I spent time researching to understand the architectural styles, street layouts, lighting scenarios, and typical details I wanted to include. This helped me form a clearer idea of how to start and what atmosphere I wanted to capture.

Blockout & Modeling

I started with a very simple blockout just to get a basic idea of the layout and overall feel I was going for. This was mainly about figuring out the street’s width and the positioning of the buildings.

Once I was happy with that, I moved on to rough modeling the buildings. At this stage, it wasn’t about adding detail yet, just getting the main shapes and proportions right so I could see how everything fit together before refining the assets later.

I also like to create a very simple lighting pass right at the beginning. It’s nothing final, but it helps me get an early sense of the mood and atmosphere I’m aiming for, which in turn guides many of the decisions I make as I move forward with the scene.

The modeling was done solely in Autodesk Maya. I began with a modular workflow, creating a set of reusable building assets for efficiency and consistency. Alongside these, I developed several unique building shells to capture the distinct character of Japanese architecture.

I really wanted the scene to feel very dense and somewhat complex, so I created a wide variety of props to fill up the street. From small details like signs, crates, and storefront decorations, each piece was designed to contribute to that crowded, lived-in atmosphere. My goal was to avoid any empty or barren spaces, making sure the environment felt rich and full of character.

Here are a few examples of the modular assets, props, and additional elements I created earlier in the process, before assembling everything into the full scene.

And here’s the final result after putting everything together:

Wires

One of the most distinctive features of Japanese streets is the hectic and dense network of utility poles and wires. I knew early on that capturing this element would be crucial to making the scene feel authentic and packed with detail.

It turned out to be the most challenging part, mainly because there are many ways to approach it. At first, I chose to export all of the utility poles to Maya and used the nHair system to simulate the wires. Even though it is a great tool, unfortunately, it wasn’t suitable for this project or my specific needs. This method wasn’t ideal; it was limiting, time-consuming, and somewhat unconventional for this kind of work.

After doing some research, I quickly switched to using the Tether plugin in Unreal Engine. It turned out to be a great fit for the job, perfect for what I needed, and it offers a lot of control over how the cables behave and look.

What I ended up doing was creating a few modular wire assets and then using custom meshes to cover the splines generated by the plugin. This workflow saved me a huge amount of time while still allowing me to achieve the dense, tangled look that’s so characteristic of Japanese utility wires.

Rain

I focused a lot on the rain effects and how water interacts with the environment to bring more realism to the scene. Harry “deBug” Emelianov’s breakdown was a huge help in understanding how to create realistic animated raindrop shaders. It provided clear, step-by-step guidance that made it easier for me to apply similar techniques to my project.

For the raindrops on props and the glass, I followed his methods closely to achieve that realistic wet look. Then, for the puddles on the roads, I adapted his raindrop shader function along with Ben Cloward’s approach from his tutorial. Using this setup, combined with layered noise maps aligned in world space, I was able to simulate realistic puddle variations across the asphalt surface.

Composition

I believe having a strong composition is one of the most important skills to have as an artist, so I really wanted to focus on that with this project. Just recently, I discovered the YouTube channel ArtofSoulburn, which helped me understand the discipline of composition much better.

While I was assembling this scene at the beginning, I focused on creating a composition that naturally guides the viewer’s eye down the alley and towards the background. I used leading lines from the storefronts and street edges to pull you into the depth of the scene, while the tall buildings and utility poles frame the path and focus attention towards the center.

I specifically wanted to guide the viewer’s eye first to the taxi and then further back towards the mountain in the distance, using lighting to highlight both areas. I made sure there was a clear focal point, using subtle lighting and fog to draw attention to these spots and create atmosphere. Throughout the process, I balanced detail and simplicity to keep the scene immersive without overwhelming the viewer.

To make the scene feel real and lived-in, I carefully placed details all over, following the references I gathered closely to keep things natural and believable.

• Telling a Story: Each little thing added helps tell the story of the street, like old signs and worn-down storefronts that show it’s been around for a while, or bits of trash and small plants growing in cracks that add a sense of everyday life and wear.
  
  
• Careful Placement: I put the details where they felt right for the mood and look I wanted, making sure not to overcrowd the scene.
  
  
• Focus and Scale: Bigger details, like signs and plants, are placed where they catch your eye first. They’re deliberately well-lit to draw attention and show their importance in the scene. While smaller elements fill in gaps and add texture without distracting from the main focus.

I think this way, the environment feels full and real but still balanced and easy to take in, matching the vibe of a typical Japanese street.

Lighting & Atmosphere

The lighting setup was pretty straightforward. I went with fully dynamic lighting using Lumen, which gave me nice, realistic global illumination and reflections without too much tweaking.

Lighting played a crucial role in shaping the mood of the scene. Setting up the fog was especially important it really helped create the dense, atmospheric feel I wanted for the environment. To enhance that, I also used some EasyFog cards from William Faucher, which added nice layers of depth and atmosphere.

In addition, I added some very subtle point lights and spotlights to highlight areas that felt too dark.

Rendering

The sequencer setup in the project was fairly basic. I applied a few console variables that I typically use for rendering, along with some adjustments to anti-aliasing and warm-up frames, just to be safe and have a stable final output.

Conclusion

This project originally began about seven months ago, with periods of intense work followed by breaks of a few weeks or even months before picking it back up again. Throughout the process, I learned a huge amount from Maya and Substance 3D Painter to Substance 3D Designer and picked up valuable skills in both technical and artistic understanding.

At the start, it was hard to fully picture what the final result would look like, but watching it slowly come together was incredibly rewarding.

This project has been a great experience that pushed me to explore new techniques and improve my workflow, and I’m truly grateful to have the opportunity to share my journey.

Malek Mansour, Environment Artist

Interview conducted by Amber Rutherford