Just started my new project. Its going to be a gritty back street with a brothel etc.
Here’s what I just made.
The neons look like they’ve been done it paint ATM (does anyone know a good tutorial?) and I’m not happy about the windows, but its just to show the basic style of it. I’ll do a sketch of the whole thing on paper soon.
BTW, those grey lines around the neons are meant to be wires.
Is that the entire scene, or just a closeup of what youve done so far? Will there be a sidewalk and a door and such?
Yes, the neon on the sign needs alot of work to look more realistic. Try to actually make it, rather than paint it on. The wires are too thin, and real neon is connected with much thicker ones, its just that you dont see them since only the desirable portions emit light.
Heres an example of what i mean, and it took longer to render than to make it, so dont waste your time critiquing it (like the fact that the back loops shouldn’t be pink) 
It’s just a realization of my idea.
For the finished scene, it would be cool to actually have some girls in the windows…but don’t make it too “xxx”. lol.
I’m gonna try a different method for the neons instead of halos.
Probably emit and radiosity. I’ll try it and see.
As for the scene. Its gonna be a whole street, that was just a test really. I might put some women in it, but as I’ve only just started with Blender they may not be too good.
Thanks for the help Aristotle.
Aristotle,
I just wanted to say that that render is superb. I love the attention to detail (how each letter connects to one another like real neon lighting). Did you use a text to do that? Or did you box model it? Let me know.Hey Krims,
Yep, that render was just text converted to a mesh, and then extruded for depth. Then i modeled the back loops by extruding a cube a few times, and just positioning it right. The materials were just a color, with high emit and raytracing on for reflections and transparency. Cranked up the subsurf to 3 on everything, and viola youve got neon in 5 minutes.
Of course, If you want truly realistic looking neon, you’ll need to make it yourself, since the text-meshes are really not optimized for a subsurfing, and the poles it has create ugly ripples up close; you just can’t notice it that well in the screeny… 8)
If they’re neon lights then the text should be round like wormy not blocky.