This is the result of an assignment I gave to a Masters Student class in the fall semester of 2016 at The Academey of Art University. I called it A Slice of Embarcadero. The intent was to encourage the students to use the real world for inspiration and as a resource for their 3D assets. I dedicated a full class to a walk down San Francisco’s Embarcadero to teach them how to gather reference. Not only did we take reference and texture photos; I taught them how to scan for photogramerty captures and how to shoot an HDRI sky dome.
With all of this great reference I gathered I decided to take on the assignment myself after the semester was complete. I loved this little coffee house I photographed just south of the Bay Bridge. It remains unchanged for decades like time stood still for it. My idea was to do a period piece in the early 1970s. Something very loosely based on the film Bullit which portions of where filmed on the Embardcadero.
With my workload being very full for the last year I’ve only been able to work on this in small bits at a time but with the class coming up again this fall I made a big push to complete at least a look development render before the new semester starts.
For the technically aware; this is modeled in Maya, painted in Sudstance Painter and rendered in Modo. The post production was done in Lightroom and Photoshop with a fog pass in Unreal. The models are a combination of scratch build, model bashing and photogramery scans.