This week was about focusing on the personality of my shop and how to make the building tell a story. One of the key ways I did this was through the texturing of my shop front, curating the shop’s brand and how that reflects the shop’s intention.
First of all, I needed to come up with a name. I felt as though something related to the Harry Potter Franchise would be appropriate, therefore I did some research into various wizarding spells I could name the tearoom after. I mainly utilised 2 websites/articles for this information (Jean-Philippe, 2023)(Pojo.com, 2022)where I filed down the list to these 3:
· Episkey – Heals minor injuries (Jean-Philippe, 2023)
· Reparifors - Heals magical ailments like poisoning or paralysis (Jean-Philippe, 2023)
· Salvio Hexia – Protection against hexes (Pojo.com, 2022)
I chose these 3 as they all related to healing, which I related to the rejuvenating aspect of tea – in the wizarding world, the tearoom could have some real healing benefits, performing these actions in a ‘tea-potion’ hybrid. I decided to go for ‘Reparifors’ as the word is like ‘repair’ therefore the meaning is less hidden than the other two. I felt as though the action of this spell was more relevant too; healing magical ailments with tea sounds very magical and plausible.
For my shop front I used a font from Dafont.com named “Milans” by Penatic_studio (Penatic_studio, 2023), which felt quite whimsical and wizard-like, especially with it’s use of serifs. I played around with the kerning and letter width in Photoshop to create an alpha for use in Substance Painter, complete with two diamonds either side of the text, the name ‘REPARIFORS TEA ROOM’ emblazoned on the front. At this time, I decided I wanted the text and diamonds in a pale gold since it added another layer of glitz and magic to the sign.
I imported the alpha into Substance Painter and created the front of my shop with the aide of masks, grunge maps and a subtle wood texture underneath the green of the sign. I also adjusted the height map of the text so it stands out slightly from the background which makes the sign look more 3D.
I then went on to the creating the texture for all the windowpanes in my shop. I used this YouTube tutorial (FastTrack Tutorials, 2021) which showed me how to create a convincing, realistic fake glass texture which doesn’t show the inside of a building. Once I had the base materials set up and painted for each mesh, I had to reimport each new windowpane mesh (dormer panes, shop window panes etc.) as the scuff around where the window frame and pane meet is painted on dependant on the edges of the pane. This worked well and I ended up with some slightly grungy windows for my shop. See my dormer and shop windowpanes below:
I then worked on creating a new texture in Photoshop for my ivy leaves. This was a pretty simple task and it was a welcome break from all the 3D work I’d been doing.
This was then all ready as a .png to import as a texture to unreal.
My hero asset for my shop is my teacup and teapot sign, therefore they play a key part in the storytelling of the shop. This meant I had to be very thoughtful in how I approached texturing since it has the power to define the shop. I wanted my sign to resemble the classic blue and white china seen in tearooms, radiating elegance. Therefore I got to designing my teapot and teacup in Photoshop, utilising the transform warp tool to wrap designs around the teapot. I went for a slightly off white background colour for the china as it looks more realistic than pure white.
I then imported these images as textures into Substance Painter with the help of this video (Sunderland NextGen, 2019) which allowed me to apply the image textures directly ontop of the UVs. This is the outcome in Painter with a wood texture applied underneath the base colour:
Now I just have to import all the textures into Unreal and apply them to my model.
References:
FastTrack Tutorials (2021) Creating fake glass in substance 3D painter, YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2Yzfh_AKtY&t=637s (Accessed: 8 March 2023).
Jean-Philippe, M. (2023) A complete list of essential Harry Potter spells every muggle should know, Oprah Daily. Available at: https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/a32598018/harry-potter-spells-list/ (Accessed: 7 March 2023).
Penatic_studio (2023) Milans Font. Available at: https://www.dafont.com/milans.font?text=REPARIFORS%2BTEA%2BROOMS (Accessed: 7 March 2023).
Pojo.com (2022) Harry Potter Spell list - all spells on one page!, Pojo.com. Available at: https://www.pojo.com/harry-potter-spell-list/ (Accessed: 7 March 2023).
Sunderland NextGen (2019) Substance painter - importing images, YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCOVbBTgSH8&t=70s (Accessed: 10 March 2023).
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