NT_Shibuya_ctg

[PaulH]

So this map has been around for a little while now on my portfolio, it was originally intended to be included with one of the releases of the Neotokyo mod but that hasn't really happened, so i'm releasing it separately as a community map rather than having it go to waste.

The map could probably do with public testing and i'm open to any feedback resulting from that.

Screenshots are below, download link is here: http://neotokyo-league.com/internal/bet ... ya_ctg.rar

or

http://www.filefactory.com/file/b286cc1 ... ya_ctg.rar

Also one semi interesting note - this is actually the first full map i've ever released on Interlopers, go me

[ErikKiller]

It's nice but it has a slightly more American vibe than a Japanese one...

[PaulH]

How so? I was careful not to include a McDonalds in there The city itself is based on research imagery of different areas of Japan, and all the props are Japanese...i think you'd be surprised how American some parts of Japan look...

[ErikKiller]

Sure there are the textures and the models but it's SOMETHING. Can't put my finger on it what it is...
I mean, looking at your reference picture gives off the Japanese vibe for obvious reasons but the map...
I'm a real bitch for details so it might just be some of the buildings in the skybox or even the litter on the ground.
Bah just ignore me, I'm sure everyone else finds the map very Japanese
But could I ask for the reference image you used to build the subway?

[PaulH]

The subway was just from my head as far as i remember and some of it was based on the subway in another neotokyo map which i was able to look around early on in this project. That's probably where the inconsitencies you are thinking of come from to be honest, having never been to japan/tokyo or even similar parts of america a lot of this was from my head and from reference, trying to imagine what it would look like in the future and doing the best i could with the props i had at my disposal (hence the skybox buildings, that's all there was )

[MNM]

I think it's because the ground lacks 4375376734 people walking around
Very nice though First pic reminded me of The World Ends With You

[ErikKiller]

The subway was just from my head as far as i remember and some of it was based on the subway in another neotokyo map which i was able to look around early on in this project. That's probably where the inconsitencies you are thinking of come from to be honest, having never been to japan/tokyo or even similar parts of america a lot of this was from my head and from reference, trying to imagine what it would look like in the future and doing the best i could with the props i had at my disposal (hence the skybox buildings, that's all there was )

Well that might be it
Japan is awesome, you should visit it

[PaulH]

Download link added to top post, hopefully it all works, feel free to give it a go and let me know what you think, cheers guys

[YokaI]

Cool, I'll give it a go around a bit later.

I will say the initial impressions I have though! I feel you did capture Tokyo's atmosphere. While it feels american, Tokyo was founded and constructed to be the western modernized city while areas outside and around or even small districts within tokyo were preserved to be traditional Japanese in flavor. Seeing as the Map is named "Shibuya" though, I think the decour and the flavor is just right. To be honest, it's probably missing a mcdonalds or two. (P.S. That's one fun intersection to be stuck in.)

There are two or three big things that stand out to me in the current screens. I have a few issues with the street sizes (something about it just doesn't feel right to me, the streets of shibuya, when there are streets, are generally large) and there are a few instances in the map where the kanji / katakana / hiragana is either facing the wrong way or are incorrect depictions of the areas they are representing or even both. Case in point, Screenshot # 5 says パチスロ, however each character is rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise, as if the texture was formated, and probably was, for Vertical reading rather than horizontal. Also, Pachisuro are pachinko machines, which in that screenshot doesn't seem to look as though that was what you were going for (seeing as there are no pachinko machines in sight.)

While small things like those aren't really that important, in some ways for portfolio pieces it can be a flag insinuating a lack of research (which I don't think was the case here) or just a sign of ignorance (which I also don't think is the problem), which is something to be a little cautious over. I think the instances that I've seen thus far are probably just you using the content you already had imported, and you were reusing content to save space and development time, but it's something to keep in mind. Granted, you have work already and are ahead of me so who am I to talk, and in the long run your employers probably won't know enough Japanese to even notice these mistakes, and I'll be honest I've seen maps with worse cases of this! (I.E. a map that is based in china but has japanese and korean characters mixed in, those are always fun for me. Or a map titled to be a "Japanese Temple" but it has a few chinese characters, which fit right in, but they overlook that they used one korean character! D:<)

Just a few things I noticed, I'll give it a run through when I get back from my art classes.

Edit: And yeah, the subways aren't exactly accurate, but they get the job done. Especially when dealing with a scifi mod, you can kind of get away with liberties such as "oh this is what it looks like in the games time period!"

[PaulH]

Hah, i appreciate the points YokaI thanks - with regard to the wrongly rotated Japanese characters or the pachinko machines i will actually claim ignorance I don't admittedly know a thing about Japanese culture or the language so thats how the errors came about.

I think what i was relying on was the people behind Neotokyo playing the map for themselves and pointing out this stuff to me so i could change it, seeing as they made all the props/textures on display, though the level never made it into the testing phase (probably due to it being out after the main release of the mod) and so I was kinda left with it on my own.

What i can do however is always re-release this, and if people deem it important enough to change such things I would gladly do it, i just need them all explaining to me I am quite a stickler for details though I think it would have been a bit 'too' in depth to learn that much about Japan for this project, no doubt if it was something i had been asked to produce for work i would've gone the extra mile.

[F0xHunter]

Is it a pain in the arse to map for NT?

PS. Looks awesome. Everybody, we now have a reason to play NeoTokyo in The Gentleman's Club!

PPS. I'd like to see some more colour in the skybox.

[ErikKiller]

What i can do however is always re-release this, and if people deem it important enough to change such things I would gladly do it, i just need them all explaining to me

Now THAT is dedication

[PaulH]

Is it a pain in the arse to map for NT?

I don't think it's any more difficult than mapping for anything else nope

PPS. I'd like to see some more colour in the skybox.

Tough I went through a few iterations of skybox and time of day for the map and settled on the one in the scene. It is modified to be more moody and i needed that for the city backdrop and the rain so it all blended together

[Sentura]

i hope that's not an underground metro station, because shibuya is one of the few metro stations that is actually above ground...

[YokaI]

i hope that's not an underground metro station, because shibuya is one of the few metro stations that is actually above ground...

Japans a rather elevated land mass, so the train system switches between above and below ground.

While I know from experience that shibuya has above ground stations, if my recollection serves correctly there's also subways style systems (which are below ground). The Shibuya station is huge, there's many different railway lines that connect to shibuya, some privately owned and some Toei.

Regardless, many of those types of things could be written into the story pretty easily if need be...