Next Station: a night street in Shinjuku, rebuilt with Blender and Three.js
Weekend build 03Next StationScroll to ride
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The next station is
新宿しんじゅくShinjuku · JY 17
Wet streetReflections are path-traced, then baked in
Far towersPath-traced in Blender; hazed in the browser
Back rowOffice slabs, fluorescent floor by floor
Middle rowSign towers, generated: blades, panels, roof boards
Front rowThe posters are my travel photos
Vision buildingIts screens play my travel reels, live
TrainRendered cars; motion blur follows your scroll speed
Bridge, gantry, cablesEverything standing in front of the tracks
Crowd6 walkers × 8-frame cycle, simulated in the browser
Street trees24,000 leaf cards, silhouetted by the signs
Three seconds of Shinjuku, rebuilt to see how it was made.
- Study the clipA locked-off telephoto shot: a sign wall, a train crossing the bridge, a crowd on the zebra, a station announcement. I broke it into what moves and what doesn't.
- Build the still world in BlenderEvery building, sign and tree is scripted with Python and path-traced in Cycles, so light from the signs really falls on the wet road. The shops are invented; the posters are my own travel photos.
- Render it as depth platesEach band of depth renders alone with transparency, while the rest of the city still lights it. The browser then gets real parallax without real-time path tracing.
- Bring back the motion in Three.jsThe train, the walkers, the screens and the bloom run live. Scroll is the timeline, and how fast you scroll sets the train's motion blur.