The Dining Scene

The Dining Project Part 3: UVing, Lighting, and some more Modeling

For this part of the project, I was tasked with adding in some lighting into my scene, as well as finishing up some models and UVs so I could then get started on the textures.

In terms of lighting, I was able to put in a few different types of lighting, and one of those was the hanging lights that you see here. Since this is a requirement for this project, this was my first priority. What I did is used simple cones and cylinders to represent the light shade and the cable, and a sphere with certain statistics to make a "glowing" light bulb. I used spot lights to achieve the light that it shines down onto the bar and tables.

I also made some small little lights to go on some parts of the shelving behind the bar as another accent and light fixture in the scene. As seen in the first picture, they came out quite well and don't take away from the scene.

Finally, I was able to get windows put into the right wall of my scene, allowing for natural light to enter my scene as well. I put in a sort of skybox as well to add a more natural look for the outside. I ended up using the glass preset for my windows and then messing with those settings for a bit after many failed attempts of recreating a glass texture.

Overall, I feel the progress is going steadily, but I will be starting to pick up my pace since the due date is right around the corner. I did have a few different problems, with things such as lighting not showing up to lights not duplicating to mesh lights not working right. There were many times I had to take breaks due to the program being super finicky and glitchy at times, but hopefully things start to settle in fine again.

The Dining Project Part 2: Modeling and UVing

For this part, I was tasked with modeling and UVing the objects within my scene, and so far, there have been some good parts and some not so good parts. Overall, I feel like I've been getting some decent progress in.

I was able to get my bar all UV'ed (I didn't change it really from the blocking version since it still seemed to fit my scene well, so I only did minor touches to it). I simply used planar UVs and unfolded them by cutting a few corners on the sides.

I kept my shelving the same too as it fit well with my scene, but I do still have plans to add either a mirror or some form of beer dispenser in the middle in the big open part. The UVs went down normally as usual, with the process being the same as the bar UVs.

I managed to do the floors and walls of the cube and get them UV'ed, as well as the ceiling (not pictured) using the same process as my other UVs. I do have plans to go back in and work with them a little bit more if I do happen to add anything like windows or pillars and such.

I got my chairs modeled (it actually was quite simple to do) and now have the UVs to do on it. I experimented a little bit on different ways of UVing it, but I haven't been able to find a way yet.

Finally, I was able to make a stool (with a curved back rest to boot, using just a few edge loops). However, I have run into a problem that I've tried to address and that deals with the UVs. Since I used the extrude tool to make the actual seat part of the stool, the UVs come out very distorted and glitchy, so I may go back in and redo the model itself or find a way to UV it correctly.

The Dining Project Part 1: Blocking

For this project, we are tasked with making a full diner scene with different types of stools, chairs, tables, shelves, and other things that may be present in a diner scene. I'm going to base my scene off of a pizza place since I like the look and design of pizza places, and it seems like an easier scene to me personally. I plan on detailing the stools and chairs to look much more fitting and realistic instead of the block versions present in my scene now, as well as tweaking different aspects of the shelving and posters on the back wall.

Objects will include, but aren't limited to:

• Tables
• Chairs
• Bar
• Shelves
• Stools
• Napkin Holders?
• Possibly a few Pizza Trays at different tables
• Bottles of Wine and other alcoholic beverages
• Possibly Parmesan Cheese Jars
• other items TBD

I'm looking forward to how this project will turn out by the end of the month.

The Grocery Shelf: Something Pretty Fun

For this assignment, we were tasked with making a shelf for holding a different selection of groceries. We were required to model at least three different jars and at least six different boxes (however we were allowed to use a pudding box that we modeled beforehand). This project was loosely based off of a few mini projects that we did leading up to this project, which included modeling a wine bottle, a glass jar with spaghetti sauce in it, and the pudding box that I mentioned before.

I started by modeling the boxes first as they were much easier to model over the glass jars. UVing and texturing a box is probably one of the easiest things to do, and it did end up going quite well. After getting one box done, I was able to pick it up like second nature and model a box every 10-15 minutes instead of every hour. All of my boxes came out pretty well for the most part, which I was glad about because of how easy it actually turned out to be. One problem I did run into on each UV though was the fact that it would not unfold correctly. I tried both Unfold3D and Legacy, but both of them were giving me trouble. I ended up having to not pin the UVs down, which did result in it unfolding correctly. It was a little weird trying to straighten them, but I was able to get it figured out.

After the boxes, I moved onto the jars, and the jars were a much longer process to complete, but when I finally finished them, I was very happy with the results. To model one of the jars is a much longer process than the boxes, dealing with multiple UVs and CV Curves. However, like the boxes, once I got one done, it became almost second nature to me, remembering the process and having it take much less time. Now I wasn't making jars in 10 minute intervals (if I could that would be amazing), but it was much faster than following the tutorials piece-by-piece. I did run into a few problems when it came to UVing the jars, particularly the labels on them. Most of them unfolded fine, but on my jelly jar, I had a bit of a problem. Because the label was large enough to take up more than one row of faces, the UV came out straight like the others, but had some weird curved lines towards the sides, making the checkers and texture look a bit warped towards the edges. However, this wasn't much of a problem since I was able to solve it by making the sides a solid purple color.

Finally, I modeled the shelf last, which was pretty straightforward. I followed the width, depth, and height of a shelf from Ikea, and it came out surprisingly well. I had to make some of my own measurements and just eyeball them since Ikea didn't give out measurements for each individual shelf and side. However, I do feel it came out quite well. I liked the slight shine that came off of it as well.

Overall, I felt this project was actually pretty average. Once I was able to get the hang of the modeling tools and what to do for the boxes and jars, it went quite smoothly other than the occasional hiccup in the UV toolkit or the occasional brain fart, requiring a quick glance back at the tutorials. I did like this project despite the long time it took, and it felt amazing to come out with a great looking final product.