How to make a Japanese city

[cromabianca 158]

Hi guys!

 

I've been always fascinated by Japan and it's culture, art, style... so I was wondering: how do you make a japanese city? Especially suburbs. Do you have asset suggestions and stuff? Have you made one and you're willing to share some screenies/advices?

 

Tanks!

[boformer 3,169]

With my Tree Replacer mod, you can replace all road trees and trees in backyards with cherry trees:

[Roadman20 601]

I currently live on the western outskirts of Tokyo, I had a unique opportunity to fly over the city once and take photographs.  While Tokyo proper looks like a classic city, the suburbs are something else.  It might be hard to replicate a true Japanese city in C:S since the feeling of crowded narrows is the way to conceive a Japanese city.

[cromabianca 158]

With my Tree Replacer mod, you can replace all road trees and trees in backyards with cherry trees:

 

Thank you! I will definitely check your mod out: it look really nice!

I currently live on the western outskirts of Tokyo, I had a unique opportunity to fly over the city once and take photographs.  While Tokyo proper looks like a classic city, the suburbs are something else.  It might be hard to replicate a true Japanese city in C:S since the feeling of crowded narrows is the way to conceive a Japanese city.

 

Thank you for the beautiful pictures! Yeah: I think the game makes the feel of "narrowness" even harder, for there are no narrow roads... Question though: I seem to notice that colored roofs are part of the "japanese fell", am I right? So if I was to create a theme, would I preferably choose colored roof homes? Thank you!

(I mean: sure enough, colored roof homes are a thing the game sure doesn't lack of, right? )

  Edited November 17, 2015 by cromabianca  

[CityOfTokyo 3]

This is Japanese asset collection.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=482056487

[xonedl 342]

Necro-ing... 

4 years has passed. Anyone have any luck in replicating japanese residential feel?
Seen a couple videos and post about "project japan" but those are urban business "downtown" area hmm...

[boformer 3,169]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1632902807

Take a look at that theme maybe.

 

 

[ARTFX 53]

I'm currently getting started with a Japanese style city build, coming soon on YouTube as well. I've started with the most central piece of the map, a traditional Japanese castle on a hill overlooking what will be the urban area of the city. I will start with more suburban areas around the castle, with more urban downtown areas further away closer to the coastline. I've already posted some screenshots in the Showcase part of the forum, but I can show what I'm working on so far. I haven't started on the suburban area just yet, but I have a good idea for what I want to do with them.

Here we have the castle itself, tried adding some nice sky to it with Photoshop haha, think it turned out pretty good.

And here some more screenshots of the garden surrounding the castle:

I find for the most part the suburban areas are just a matter of using a lot of MoveIt! after placing down the assets, you have to move them much closer to the road than how the game places them by itself to make it look realistic. Also there are some JP Road assets on the workshop with a much narrower sidewalk, perfect for Japanese neighborhoods. The asset creator also has versions of the Japanese train tracks.

Here you go, no collection unfortunately: https://steamcommunity.com/id/konnoplant/myworkshopfiles/

[xonedl 342]

If there are somekind of general guideline of Japanese city planning... their characteristic, rules of infrastructure, etc.
Been looking at Google Map / Earth for days, still can't quite figure it out (guess I'm dumb).
Still, knowing those still DOESN'T mean able to translate into C:S smoothly...
Observation of suburban area:

Spoiler

 

- general main road aren't that much difference with other countries:
a, there are however, a lot of specific road marking : turning lane & boxes, slow down, hazard, road priority, vehicle limitation...
c, mostly 4 lanes 24 meters avenue, connects directly with service roads via typical traffic light junctions
d, this should be straight & smooth
e, various other roadways may cross below / above it due to elevation differences / traffic flow consideration
d, no roundabout / traffic circle
e, low density supermarket, services, condo may appear along these roads

- expressway
a, often have toll booth on entry road
b, "express" for a reason - they don't just exit willy-nilly - they can skip a whole section of suburban through elevated roadway, tunnels, etc
c, interchange should be kept at minimum, one every 4~5 kilometers, more importantly - keep it practical

- residential & others
a, road leading into residential are typical 2 lanes small road & sidewalk often marked with yellow & white centerline to signify different overtake rules
b, road marking are typical, including speed limit, junction T or + marking...
c, these road should shows clear district partition, mostly smooth flowing layout
d, street are 4 meters, no sidewalk - THIS is the biggest hurdle
e, typical residential layouts are still grid-like, with sizes such as 4 x 10 squares, rarely exceed 4 square width unless the land permits
f, many of suburban areas are actually reclaimed farm lands, those under the process of transformation can see farm and houses all sits together side by side
d, public transport, especially rail, is essential - but still, keep it practical, they aren't exactly "all over the place".
e, residential divide into several types : detached houses (no semi-D / terraced), shared row house, apartment, condominium
f, there are some new spacious apartment complex area with parking (multi building lot)
g, generally suburban do not have a lot of high buildings
h, there are often a lot of tiny parks integrated in residential area, big parks are sparse
i, retaining walls are all over the place due to elevation differences, this is also a huge hurdle in this game due to how the land reacts "poorly"
j, but that doesn't mean they build at extreme elevation area, large majority of them are still pretty flat, as mentioned before they are reclaimed farm land
k, some unoccupied house lot may be used for parking purpose
l, Japanese roads are NOT named. Instead areas are divided by subsections with numbers... 

These are just observation, they may not be correct at all.
Wish there Japanese player came out to explain how their city works... 

One rule I really need to figure out is - what elevation is where I should stop?
The last few days I'd been trying to build a small town but struggle really hard, think I just played at an area way too steep & small...
Or I'm just dumb, my skill in city building is crap.

I think one important point is that, when we starts to say "hei, that sounds exactly like my city at xxx country!" -
is when we miss / underestimate the elements makes makes Japan, feels Japanese.

As usual I'd ask Mr. Peter Barakan for anything Japan :

 

[TowerDude 2,187]

At a glance Japanese cities seem to mix both organic and pragmatic city design, Kyoto and Tokyo are very different, the key might be to decipher it's core structure before even considering Assets or mods. ..sorry if it's a long text

To me there seems to be two phases with contrasting concepts

 Originally as most Japanese culture had been imported from China and Korea the city plans followed the Chinese quadrangular design, breaking the rules once you left the walled city. This seems to have remained true until the Empire and the war. The second phase is much harder, but extremely interesting Japan post World War II was a time of lost cultural identity. The strength and certainty of the Japanese culture and citizens during the war was now in ruins, as were the cities and towns ravaged by fighting and the atomic bomb. Leading to the question many citizens were asking, ‘what is it to be Japanese?’.

The most evident and massive changes in the Japanese urban system and townscape occurred in the period between 1955, which saw the official end of the postwar phase of reconstruction of the social and economic fabrics, and the early 1960s. This was the period which has been generally known as the "Japanese Economic Miracle" or "Great Economic Growth", with an average national GDP of 9% per year for the entire decade until the early 1970s.

However, even though the main outcome of economic advancement resulted in the development of modern infrastructures, an improvement of living standard, better alimentation and a general increase in the national wealth and technological progress, new serious problems arose as direct consequences of that fast growth, posing a severe threat to the social life of the citizens of the Japanese metropolises.

A lack of governmental pollution standards and urban regulations, what made the levels of pollution more acute and dangerous to the health of citizens, was the presence of a high concentration of factories and industrial plants in urban areas, with the high density of population placed in the big industrial cities, caused both by the rapid urbanization of the previous years driven by economic growth, and by the fact that in Japan the industrial complexes tended to be located in small geographic areas as integrated clusters of interrelated industries close to each other and to the worker's residential areas (kombinatos).

Furthermore, the pace of accelerated urban growth and the fast urbanization of large rural lands generated a massive extension of disordered areas and uncontrolled urban sprawls on the outskirts of all the industrial cities. This caused two main problems: the chronic shortage of many public services and facilities faced by the growing number of their residents (such as the lack of parks and libraries, inadequate roads, sewers and water supply systems), and the awareness that the inefficient land use in the vast extensions of congested and undeveloped/unplanned urban areas created serious obstacles for any attempt at further improvement and urbanization according to rational plans, because of the higher costs to be paid for the construction of the infrastructures and lack of space for effective improvement works.

The consequences of this tremendous mix of ineffective building standard laws, inconsistent city planning and political unwillingness, caused the fast, chaotic and largely unplanned development of vast low quality urban areas in the main industrial districts of Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, creating a set of specific and less specific issues concerned with expansion of the urban model of an industrial metropolis, which called for a response equally rapid and effective.

The Japanese city is still a project we are waiting to see finish, and the same goes for Korean and Chinese cities..

So how do you that in a video game ? I believe it would be to simulate this scenario on your city :

-First making sure you understand how the real cities developed : I usually make a diagram of how they work (what are Tokyo's focal points? how are they connected? why are they like that?)

-Then designing your city scenario on paper, to then build in game, this way your city will have an authentic Japanese structure and finally getting the assets, mods etc.. will make it look the part!

It's a bit of an intellectual response.. but I sure hope it helps!

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

[xonedl 342]

Interesting read, thanks. 

Inevitably talk about Japan we think about metropolis like Tokyo, but tbh that's not what I have in mind. I personally more interested in other smaller cities.
It is also due to the sheer complexity of the metropolis, don't think I can handle it. Also be mindful of the metropolis' scale, it's insanely huge.
Scale - is always a challenge... ; "hei it's just a game!", well at least I don't see it that way, you call your 100 meter interchange realistic?

In term of assets, the ancient link above don't really cover the stuff it should cover.
Been looking around at several Japanese author for high quality sutff:
- KOMA3 : https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198367388905/myworkshopfiles/?appid=255710
- TOKACHI269 : https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198063450045/myworkshopfiles/?appid=255710
- RYUICHI KAMINOGI : https://steamcommunity.com/id/kaminogi_works/myworkshopfiles/?appid=255710
- SHIBAKATA : https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198311158502/myworkshopfiles/?appid=255710
- YODOH : https://steamcommunity.com/id/YODOH_Gaming/myworkshopfiles/
- AKO AKO : https://steamcommunity.com/id/ako_ako/myworkshopfiles/
- YT140 紺野 つかさ : https://steamcommunity.com/id/konnoplant/myworkshopfiles/
- KONFOX0527 : https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198186539810/myworkshopfiles/

Add anymore later if found out any.

Spoiler

 

 

[ARTFX 53]

Yes those are some great asset creators that I use the assets from in my current build, I'm actually making a city inspired by Japan, but since the scale of the game doesn't allow it to make the entire Tokyo metropolitan area and the suburbs and rural areas around it, I have to make a compromise. So I decided to let me be inspired by Tokyo for the downtown district and the more urban areas, but then let me be inspired by smaller Japanese cities for the areas on the outskirts of the city. I'm not sure if I will also include rural areas, but I might slide in a small part of that somewhere along the outskirts of the map. Currently working on this little area I started yesterday, it's a small highway exit and entrance inspired by one near Odawara, Japan. Haven't done any detailing to the neighborhood yet, plus I need to work on the area around it, mostly trying to hide glitchy roads at the moment.

[Paynteck 0]

I did one with minimal assets, try to focus on details.

[RipRap 4,400]

Since I've been on Japan twice now and experienced suburban life in Atsugi, here's some reference photos for you: