For my first project in Virtual Environments II, we were given the creative freedom to create any environment in any style using Unreal Engine 5.1. As a result, I wanted to challenge myself to recreate a realistic scene from a found image. I chose to recreate part of the R-za Dokushokan Reading Café found in Koenji, Tokyo because I liked how the color palette and foliage created a peaceful atmosphere and I found the architecture of the building to be highly interesting. I also wanted to practice hand creating foliage and this environment gave me the perfect opportunity to do so in an indoor setting. However, my reference picture did not provide a very good lighting reference, as parts of the image were too bright and blown out, and it also had a very strong blue filter that oversaturated the shadows. Therefore, I did take artistic liberties in creating a more pleasing lighting set up with an improved color balance between its warm and cool tones. All assets were modeled using Maya and textured using Substance Painter.
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