Behind the Build | Sector-15 by Koshiro Inoue
Sector-15: An immersive, interactive experience
By Koshiro Inoue
About Me
Hello! I’m Koshiro Inoue, a hobbyist 3D Environmental Artist with a sharp eye for aesthetics and understanding the subtle beauty hidden in the world around us.
What started as an ambitious goal to become a game creator at the age of 15 evolved into a passion for telling “silent stories” through meticulously crafted environments in a 3D medium. In my works, every individual asset sings its own unique tune, combining together into a symphony of emotionally evoking landscapes and environments, littered with tiny stories tucked away in their own little cubbyholes.
The Journey
The original name for this project was “Neo-Tokyo”, but after some consideration, I concluded that I didn’t want the player to envision a real location, but something vaguer and more mysterious. Thus, the final working name, Sector-15, was conceived.
Set in a cyberpunk brutalist environment, Sector-15 (FREE to play!) is a district of tight alleyways and decrepit stores from a bygone era, surrounded by concrete walls of multi-hundred-story, neon-lit buildings that scrape the skies; a harsh contrast between the sleekness of “the future” and the reality of the present. Sector-15 emerged as a homage to my love for this aesthetic and the strong resonance it holds with me on a personal level.
Built using Blender for asset creation, Substance 3D Painter for texturing, and built in PlayCanvas for the VIVERSE ecosystem, Sector-15 urges the player to explore, experience, and interact with the virtual world, offering over seven different unique areas of interest linked together in a free-flowing manner, opting for an unconstrained user experience. Each section has its own unique feel, dictated by the colored neon lights and background music (BGM). Amongst them all, interactive vending machines and throwable rubber ducks litter the world, along with seats that the players can take.
The environment itself appears, at first glance, to be devoid of life. Still, soon enough, the background hum of vending machines and the low rumbles of air conditioner fans begin to merge with the slow trickle of water flowing through the ubiquitous pipes, serving as veins that connect the looming concrete masses. The environment is living and breathing, and the player is simply a visitor.
The Technical Challenge
One challenge that became apparent shortly after starting development was the management of hi-res textures and VRAM usage budgets on a web-based platform. Modern games are built to run on consoles with high computational capabilities. This principle flies directly in the face of VIVERSE, which aims to provide experiences across devices of all capabilities. Due to my comfort and expertise in PBR material workflow using Substance 3D Painter, I naively applied my texturing pipeline, which features expensive 2K, 4K, and occasionally 8K textures, to PlayCanvas, hoping to achieve crisp, high-resolution textures in VIVERSE with no compression.
This, however, quickly inflated to upwards of 5GB of VRAM with just the road and border buildings. If I wanted to texture a large-scale environment, this method would be unsustainable.
The solution consisted of 2 parts:
- Utilizing PlayCanvas BASIS compression
- Knowing where to omit certain maps
Luckily, PlayCanvas offers a built-in algorithm for compressing hi-res texture maps called BASIS. From the large-scale buildings to the empty sake bottles on the streets, BASIS compression is used extensively in Sector-15 to ensure each texture map doesn’t take up too many graphical resources. However, BASIS compression has a negative tendency to “pixelate” large swatches of color. Due to this, assets which are closer to the player, such as vending machines and arcade machines, have Albedo Maps with minimal compression or none at all.
Another technique was to omit certain maps based on the context of the asset. A traditional PBR-textured asset has four texture maps, each of which is coordinated with the corresponding UV map. Those being: Albedo (Base color), Metallic, Roughness, and Normal maps. Due to this, every asset will have four texture images attached to it, slowly eating up resources as more assets are added. To minimize this growth, certain assets that will never be viewed up close by the player have a simpler PBR setup, opting to leave some maps blank. This frees up resources that can be used on assets with a greater presence in the player’s view.
With these two techniques, I was able to reduce the total VRAM to just over 1GB, 4GB less than the original amount, despite adding a multitude of additional assets.
I will admit that the second solution was more of a band-aid solution, and not something that should be replicated for large-scale projects. I have since learned more practical techniques, such as using:
- Trim sheets for thin assets
- Packing grayscale maps into RGB channels
- Using decal “sticker packs” to break up repetitive textures
Moving forward, I will undoubtedly apply these techniques in my future projects.
The Inspiration
The Full Reference Board includes many inspirations of classic cyberpunk aesthetics, as well as brutalist architecture on the left. Moving to the middle, concept art of futuristic industrial props and greebles can be seen. On the far right, color palettes and patterns commonly found in traditional Japanese clothing are featured. Images are broken up loosely into groups based on areas in Sector-15.
As mentioned earlier, Sector-15 includes seven distinct areas, all seamlessly interwoven into a freely interactive experience. Catwalks bridge over and connect certain areas, serving as a vantage point in the city. At the same time, hidden alleyways uncover secret areas not seen by the usual traveller, withholding their beauty from only those adventurous enough to discover it.
The sound design in Sector-15 is something I am quite proud of. It helps piece together each asset in any given area on a separate auditory spectrum, allowing the player to immerse themselves more deeply in the world. Each area has its own distinct identity, defined by the colors of the lights that give it a cooler or warmer feel, but more so, its unique background music track playing in surround sound. Even in transitional areas with no music, a low, subtle ambient humming sound or trickling of water can be heard as you walk past vending machines or pipes, serving as something for the player to latch onto.
Interactivity plays a crucial role in enabling the player to immerse themselves fully in an environment. Without it, the player will be nothing more than a walking camera. In Sector-15, there are several activities in which the player can interact with the world.
You can:
- Order drinks from vending machines
- Toss around dozens of rubber ducks
- Play a retro-style arcade shooter (ASTRO DEFENDER)
- Take on a full parkour course to reach the rooftops
A singular operable arcade machine stands under a large neon sign advertising the Arcade. The arcade machine offers a retro shooter game called “ASTRODEFENDER”. It appears to have been tampered with…
Another piece of the Sector-15 puzzle is the bullet trains whizzing between the skyscrapers, which can be seen from the outlook, found to the west of the city. In creating this area, I wanted the player to experience the feeling of watching the world whizz by before their eyes. The feeling of being small and insignificant, standing before a giant glowing city so close, yet out of reach. It is these moments of transience that we take a step back and take pride in our accomplishments, or muddle through our darkest thoughts. Where the greatest ideas are created and reconciliations are made. These are the emotions I had in mind when crafting this location.
There are many more locations in Sector-15, just waiting for your arrival. Be not afraid to wander, let your thoughts rummage, and be excited by the ever-present stimulation coursing through this foreign environment.
Closing Remarks
Working with VIVERSE was a truly one-of-a-kind experience, and I am eternally grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in it. VIVERSE is not just a simple showcase of 3D experiences but rather the start of something far greater. It is the foundation of a portal into a future where 3D content flows around us, just as images and videos do on the World Wide Web. VIVERSE enables us to express human creativity with no limitations and gain insight into the intelligence of like-minded creators who exist in large numbers around the world.
I look forward to seeing what you, dear readers, create on VIVERSE.
