For this project we were supposed to create a western scene with ambient occlusion renders. In this post I'll show the final product of my assignment.
This week I built the walls, ceiling, floor, and some new props to decorate the scene. I built some lighting fixtures as well. I made a new shelf for the back where the store can hold it's stock, I also made some alcohol to fill the glasses. The poured bottle of bourbon is half full while the ones on the shelf are completely full. I added some used old fashioned cigarettes to an ash tray and an empty glass of whiskey. In my mind the person who runs this store would be waiting for customers with these items. The lantern is also taken off it's hook on the wall and placed on the counter. I also made some new containers for the store owner to use for other bits of inventory.

I also finished the showing case for the revolver, which can be seen better here:

The biggest problems I ran into with this scene was setting up the lighting, it was hard to find a setup that both looked good and also made sense. I settled with these 3 lamps because it was a 3 point lighting system. Two of them were raised up and one was sat on the counter. I think it illuminates the room quite well.
We also made AO renders of each render and composited them in photoshop to help improve some of the lighting effects. While there I adjusted some levels.
Another issue was some items were not cooperating with unwraps. The display case was hard to unwrap for example. I had to make more cuts than I predicted in order to avoid any warping on the texture. This may have been from the curve of the metal but this also happened on other items without this such as the cabinet behind or the door. It was annoying to work around but with some time I was able to flatten out most of the warping.
I had to redo some of my older models too. I added alcohol to the bourbon bottles and added some variance between the cigarette cases. This was to help the scene seem more realistic. Since the lanterns would be the main sources I made a new material for their light bulbs inside, not only did they give off light but I added an additional point light that would help illuminate the room. The yellow tint helps making this look old fashioned.
I worked on various torches but settled with the hook one because I think it fit the store's look much more. I don't want this store to look too nice, as the ceiling and floor are made of boards, so I figured this owner could save money by just using portable lanterns on hooks as torches. That's why one of them is taken off their hook and the other two on hung up.
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