Mel’s Drive In

Founded in 1947 by Mel Weiss, Mel’s Drive In is the iconic 50s diner that most well known from the 1973 film, American Graffiti. While the original restaurant at 140 South Van Ness Ave. in San Francisco is long gone and replaced by apartments, it lives on forever as a piece of historic Americana on the silver screen. Just like in the movie, Mel’s Drive In is perfect for showing off your Vue car collection as there’s plenty of parking, lots of neon to reflect and it’s pre-lit for night scenes. While primarily an exterior model, there is a low-poly interior, complete with a set of billboard people to add a little extra life to the background of your renders. Out front there’s a 400’ stretch of four lane South Van Ness Ave. to allow ample room to get the perfect camera angle, including drive ups and road shots.

This model features 79 custom materials, many featuring high-resolution, hand painted textures and clocks in at right around 140k polys leaving ample room for additional models to flesh out your scene. In additionally, the model is pre-lit and includes 32 preset lights, so load up a nighttime atmosphere and watch the lighting come to life. Most textures are tiling in nature, so modifying them or replacing them with your own is pretty easy. The model is supplied as a single textured .vob file that is compatible with Vue 10 and up. All previews are rendered in Vue 10 Infinite. Different versions of Vue may need to make slight adjustments to some materials as each version translates them slightly differently. Additional figures and accessories in artistic previews not included.