liminal-space-style

Liminal Space / Backrooms

Familiar architecture without people. Repetition. Wrong lighting. Endless continuation.

Subplaces

Backrooms, empty mall, empty school, poolrooms, hotels, offices

Tenets

1. Repetitive modular kits
2. Fluorescent hum lighting
3. Stained carpet / yellowed walls (variant-dependent)
4. No narrative clutter — emptiness is the story
5. Soft wrongness over jump scares

Recipe

Target: an empty yellowed office/Backrooms hall: wallpaper base about [0.55, 0.5, 0.25], flat even overhead light, wide 24 mm camera at eye height (1.6 m), no clutter, one vanishing point.

1. Corridor with blockout.py room: 2.6 m wide, 2.7 m tall, 20+ m long, open ends, fixtures every 2.4 m (emissive 0.6 x 1.2 m panels plus matching area lights). Assign MAT_Wallpaper to the shell afterwards.
2. pbr_material MAT_Wallpaper: base_color [0.55, 0.5, 0.25], roughness 0.85 (stained carpet: [0.35, 0.3, 0.15], roughness 1.0).
3. Repetition is the unease: keep the corridor long (20+ m) and the fixture spacing exactly regular; for modular walls tile one 2.4 m module with an Array modifier (count 12).
4. light_rig overcast as flat fluorescent fill on top of the corridor's own fixture lights.
5. camera_rig lens_mm 24, elevation_deg 0, fill 0.6; centre the frame on the vanishing point.
6. comp_grade clean with warmth 0.1 and vignette 0.3 for a subtle, non-jarring grade.

import runpy
skills = "<skills_dir>"  # parent folder of this skill (the plugin's skills/ directory)
target = "SM_Asset"      # object to style / dress
r = {}
r["hall"] = runpy.run_path(f"{skills}/environment-artist/scripts/blockout.py", init_globals={"ARGS": {"group": "Backrooms", "room": {"size": [2.6, 24.0, 2.7], "at": [40, -12], "color": [0.55, 0.5, 0.25], "fixtures": {"spacing": 2.4}}}})["result"]
r["material"] = runpy.run_path(f"{skills}/materials/scripts/pbr_material.py", init_globals={"ARGS": {"name": "MAT_Wallpaper", "base_color": [0.55, 0.5, 0.25], "roughness": 0.85, "objects": ["BLK_Backrooms_room_01"]}})["result"]
r["light"] = runpy.run_path(f"{skills}/lighting/scripts/light_rig.py", init_globals={"ARGS": {"preset": "overcast", "target": target}})["result"]
r["camera"] = runpy.run_path(f"{skills}/camera-cinematography/scripts/camera_rig.py", init_globals={"ARGS": {"name": "CAM_Liminal_01", "target": "BLK_Backrooms_room_01", "lens_mm": 24, "elevation_deg": 0, "fill": 0.6}})["result"]
r["grade"] = runpy.run_path(f"{skills}/compositing/scripts/comp_grade.py", init_globals={"ARGS": {"preset": "clean", "warmth": 0.1, "vignette": 0.3}})["result"]
result = r

Module scale numbers:

Element	Size
Corridor width	2.4 to 3.0 m
Ceiling height	2.4 to 2.7 m
Ceiling tile	0.6 x 0.6 m
Light panel spacing	2.4 m
Door	0.9 x 2.1 m
Camera height	1.6 m