Isometric Video Rental Store

Latest isometric scene project, this time a retro video rental store created in Blender 3D.

This one started from a pretty unexpected bit of inspiration. I was watching a video from Daz Games on YouTube where he was playing a retro video store game. That instantly clicked and I knew I wanted to build a full scene around that idea.

It ended up becoming a much bigger project than I originally planned. The goal was to make the store feel properly stocked and lived in, but it quickly escalated. I placed 524 individual VHS cases across the scene, including fully packed shelves, returned tapes piled up in the bin, and a few scattered across the counter ready to be rented.

For the VHS artwork, I used around 300 individually sourced covers, organised into genre based atlas sheets. These were then used to texture and vary each tape so nothing felt repetitive and the shelves could hold up visually at close range.

Once the main layout was done, I added smaller environmental storytelling details. One wall is decorated with a selection of my handwritten movie script posters, along with a few other props to reinforce the theme of the space.

To finish it off, I added a couple of Mixamo characters to bring a bit of life and movement into the scene.

A simple idea that turned into a much more involved build than expected, but that’s usually where the best ones end up.