The Project | Classic Cafe

The image shown here is exactly the image I saw in the preview of the video and although I'm not a fan of AI-generated images and when looking closely at the image, it has many flaws, but I liked the overall impression. First of all, I would like to show you how I got this image onto my hard drive, in case anyone is interested. I don't know if this is legal or in a gray area, but since I have no economic advantage from this and don't seek any, it shouldn't be a problem. 

You can download thumbnails of YouTube videos via this link: https://youtube-thumbnail-grabber.com.

I use the “Topaz Photo AI Plug-in” for Photoshop, which I mainly use to scale up images and which works surprisingly well with a very good quality. I used it to scale this image to over 4K to use it as a possible reference later on. 

Once that was done, I went to one of my favorites when it comes to reference images. Pinterest is my first choice when I'm looking for various references, whether it's furniture, accessories or various components. Once you start searching on Pinterest, it's hard to stop, because the selection seems almost endless and you discover more and more from picture to picture, and you have to force yourself to make a cut at a certain point. When I start a project and look for references, I always do it in conjunction with “PureRef”. PureRef is a tool that I have been using since it was introduced in 2013 and I really recommend it to anyone who creates digital art and doesn't know it yet. First, I drag and drop all the images I find interesting into PureRef, then I divide the respective images into different areas and name them as details, lighting mood, colors, textures, etc. In most cases, this looks something like this or similar.

As you can see, I have already collected a few pictures and since this project is still in its infancy, the PureRef file is not yet very detailed or extensive, but this will increase significantly as the project progresses. I already have two larger projects of a similar size in the pipeline, but it makes no sense to show one of them here, as they are already too far advanced. So now you can really follow the individual steps of my third and larger project live and in color. 

The following four images are currently my top favorites in terms of exterior facade, style, colors and surroundings. As mentioned earlier, I have scaled and adjusted them all using the “Topaz Photo AI Plug-in”. I want to try to realize this project in this style with a high level of realism and attention to detail. I also want to proceed in a very manufacturing-like manner and try to incorporate all my knowledge and skills as best I can. Of course, I will certainly have my problems in some places and have to learn a lot of additional things, but I will face the challenge. As with my other two larger and started projects, I also want to model everything myself and, if possible, avoid using foreign 3D models as much as possible. 

THE TOOLS

Blender

I thought long and hard about which 3D program I wanted to use to realize this project, and although I really like and value 3ds Max with VRay and Corona, I ultimately decided to use Blender for this project. On the one hand, because it allows me to delve even deeper into the Blender structure, and on the other hand, because it will also help me to find out the possible limitations of Blender. I have only been working intensively with Blender for about two years, although I have been using it since the legendary 2.8 version, but until two years ago it was more of a game and sporadic.

I will therefore be modeling all the assets for the entire environment and all the furnishings in Blender. This means that all the furniture, lamps and other accessories will be my own creations. Although I want to model everything myself, I will probably use the Graswald assets for the vegetation. But I will model and design everything else myself.

Game Engine

I haven't really created or published anything big in the Unreal Engine yet, but I can still say that I have significantly expanded my knowledge of the engine and that I would definitely describe myself as a semi-professional user when it comes to the Unreal Engine. Nevertheless, I am still undecided as to which engine I will ultimately work with or which one I will use. 

I downloaded and looked at the Godot engine for the first time about 4 or 5 months ago. As far as the Godot engine is concerned, I am a complete beginner and newcomer. I watched a few introductory videos on YouTube and played around a bit, but I haven't had the chance to get to know the Godot engine in more detail. This would of course be the so-called forced opportunity to get to know the engine better, if it weren't for my “realism problem”. When it comes to realism, the Unreal Engine is unchallenged at the top, even though I don't think it's 100% realistic when it comes to textures. But it's far more realistic than most other engines. On the other hand, the cost-benefit ratio of the Unreal Engine is another point that cannot be easily dismissed. Since the Unreal Engine has a very deeply nested structure, this means that the effort required to port all the textures into the engine later on is not really worth it. And we haven't even talked about the setup and settings that also have to be taken into account. Many people think that when a new Unreal video is shown on YouTube, where realism is the top priority, “Wow, that's cool, I'll try that too!” They don't really know what they're getting themselves into. Such videos only look good if you have explored the Unreal Engine Deep Dive and its structure. 

At the moment, I can't say which engine I will ultimately choose, especially at the beginning. My big wish would be that, after putting so much work into the project, I would be able to enter this cafe virtually, walk around in it and manage to capture that certain flair. 

But we're not there yet, and I can put this topic on the back burner for the time being and deal with it when the time is right.

InstaMat Studio

I will be using "InstaMat Studio" to create textures and to edit and add various imperfections. I also want to learn how to use this great product because I only recently got to know it. Unlike Adobe's Substance Painter, InstaMat-Studio offers a whole range of innovative features that I definitely want to take a closer look at to see what possibilities they open up.