Beancity (3D made with cinema4d and unreal engine)

The Inspiration
The idea for "Beancity" came from a watercolor painting that I really liked. I was drawn to its charm and decided to try and recreate it in 3D. The main feature of this scene is the Coffee Maker House, and everything else in the city was built around it.
Challenges and Learning
The Coffee Maker House was the first big challenge, especially when it came to the curtains. I had never worked with cloth materials before, so I spent a lot of time experimenting with simulation tags to get the look I wanted. It was fun figuring it out, and I learned a lot along the way.
After the Coffee Maker House, I moved on to the books. While making a basic book shape was easy, getting them to look like actual books with details and character was much harder. I enjoyed adding different windows and features to the books, but I struggled with the roofs. In the painting, the roofs looked cool, but translating that into 3D wasn't as straightforward. I spent days just observing buildings in real life, trying to find inspiration for the roof designs. Another tricky part was the roof tiles. Creating a single tile was simple enough, but assembling them in a way that looked right was more challenging than I expected.
Exploring Textures with Substance Designer
A big part of this project was learning how to use Substance Designer. I had heard a lot about it before, and this was my first time using it. It wasn’t easy, but I’m happy with how the textures for the books and coffee beans turned out. It was also the first time I made my own textures and materials, which felt like a big step forward.
Bringing Beancity to Life
Next, I worked on the wall. I used boolean objects to create holes in the wall, and I had fun playing around with different lighting settings to make the scene feel cozy. I wanted Beancity to be a place where comfort and fantasy meet, like a perfect coffee spot where you can escape into your imagination.
To add a bit of life and whimsy to the scene, I came up with the idea of a bicycling coffee bean. This little detail helped give the city a dreamy vibe. I chose to set the scene at night because I felt the night lights would better capture the mood I was going for.
Lessons Learned
Interestingly, the most complex part of the scene turned out to be the smallest-a flower I decided to create from scratch. I followed a great tutorial and was proud of the result, but the model’s complexity made it hard to use in the scene. It was too heavy for rendering, and difficult to bring into Unreal Engine due to its procedural construction. This experience taught me a lot about balancing detail with usability.
Wrapping Up
Working on Beancity was a great learning experience. From figuring out cloth simulations to exploring Substance Designer, I picked up many new skills. I also decided to use simple camera movements, like those in video games, to introduce different parts of the scene. I think this approach worked well for the final project.
In the end, Beancity became more than just a 3D project-it was a way for me to grow as an artist and try out new techniques. It’s a small, dreamy world that I’m proud to have created.
#3dart #cinema4d #unrealengine5 #substancedesigner #3dartist #selfeducation