Recreating the Interior of a Cafe in Hong Kong Using UE5 & ZBrush

Introduction

Hello, I'm 3D Environment Artist Soyun Kang. I became interested in 3D while taking a motion graphics class at university. To fill in the gaps, I attended an academy.

Mido Cafe

While looking for an indoor scene I could work on over a long period, Mido Cafe caught my eye. I also thought it would be helpful for practicing various props and textures. First, I tried to create an actual cafe and completed the scene by adding additional elements to make it more interesting.

References

First, I used actual photos as references to create dummy models of the walls, ceiling, windows, and floor. Then, to match the scale, I brought an 180 cm tall human model and compared prop scales to fit the actual size. After that, I precisely adjusted the ceiling height and the size of doors and windows. After finishing the prop placement, I made a poster with plane mesh and decorated the walls.

Also, wires, bulbs, and pipes were used for additional details. Metal windows were finished with a single tile texture to save texturing time. Also, tiles that looked similar were not newly made; instead, I used Substance 3D Designer to change only the colors and reused them, and the same applied to the props as well.

For the hard-surface prop, I applied edges to the low-poly model, used TurboSmooth step 1, and then erased unnecessary polygon lines. This is how I make low-poly models.

For the organic prop, I used Topogun or ZBrush's decimate function on the high-poly mesh.

When unwrapping UVs, I used 3ds Max's unwrap function for hard surfaces and RizomUV for organic props.

Texturing

For texturing, I used Substance 3D Painter. I observe the reference closely and think about what material would be used to make the prop. Let's look at this vintage fridge as an example. The base material will be metal, so a good choice is to apply a metal texture as the base.

Since the colors of the metal won't be even, use a grunge map (I mainly use the galvanic large map when giving color variations to metals) for color variation. Then use a rust material to create a rusted look.  

Once the base material work is done, I apply the paint color. Again, I add color variations using grunge maps and the curvature generator to make the edge color a bit darker. The bottom of this refrigerator would get dirty more easily because it is closer to the floor. So I use a gradient map to make the color at the bottom a bit darker. Because of water droplets, the surface color becomes slightly more intense.

Also, I create some sticker removal marks. When you stick and then remove a sticker or paper from a surface, it creates the remaining border marks.

Then I group all these layers into a single folder and peel off some parts, exposing the underlying metal material. I add a slight height to the peeled edges to enhance realism. Finish by adding stickers (I used the projection for the stickers, or I simply imported the entire base color map as a layer). Lastly, I use the dirt generator to add an overall dirt effect.

Lighting

I used the light coming through the window to set the composition and make the scene more dramatic. For scenes without natural light, I aimed for an extremely realistic look. I used decals to depict leakage, cracks, and floor trash.

Directional light serves as the main light; spotlights are placed under the lamp.

The light coming through the windows is represented by a rectangular light.

By adjusting the options in the color grading category of the post-process volume, the atmosphere of the scene was created. Path tracing was used for rendering. Plus, I adjusted the Samples Per Pixel value for rendering quality, which is very important.

Conclusion

This project took about a year and a half. There was difficulty learning some new tools, so it took longer than I thought. When deciding on the subject, I think it's important to choose a theme you are confident in. The better you immerse yourself in the project, the better the result will be. So choose a subject that you can enjoy. You can find the rest of my work on my ArtStation.

Soyun Kang, 3D Environment Artist

Interview conducted by Emma Collins