NFS World Safehouse
Last Updated: 2025-06-28T20:00:00Z
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Photos
📜 Credits
- @bitteneite (Porting, lighting, polishing)
- EA Black Box (Source model & textures)
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Finally, something I’ve wanted to do for ages!
I’ve always had a soft spot for this garage.
There’s something about it that just feels right. The grunge. The tarped up cars. The mess of boxes shoved around the place. The place just feels lived in, like life was here before you arrived.
Moreover, porting over NFS maps has always been on my bucket list. I just didn’t know where to begin or what to look for, but when I’ve learned about an upcoming Kino feature being “Kino Garages”, I just knew that now would be the perfect time to get into it.
I’ve spent a whole week doing everything from start to finish, but it wasn’t a simple affair! This post should hopefully give you guys some context over the lengths I’ve went just to port over this seemingly random safehouse.
1. A History Lesson
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2006-07-01T20:00:00Z or earlier
Source: “Need For Speed Carbon: Beta Safehouses”
- The so-called “NFS World Safehouse” was actually first seen in NFS Carbon’s beta. The video above is so barren, it’s almost uncanny.
- It was also used as the main menu rather than a safehouse, but this was confirmed to only be a placeholder all along.
Source: “Need For Speed Carbon: Beta Main Menu + More”
- You can clearly see what later came of it. Props to whoever it was at Black Box for crafting this banger of a safehouse!
2006-10-30T20:00:00Z
Source: @bitteneite
- The safehouse later made it onto the final game as the Kempton safehouse.
- The lighting is different, but this depended on the platform. It’s otherwise identical to the demo.
- I’ve played a ton of NFS Carbon as a kid, so this safehouse brings back a familiar smell!
2010-05-13T20:00:00Z
Source: “Need for Speed World Safe House”
NFS World had a different safehouse in its earlier betas, but this was our first time seeing the safehouse from NFS Carbon in its renovated form!
And that brings us to today! Interestingly, the lighting and colorgrading does change a bit between the graphics settings, here they are in increasing order:
2. Previous Ports
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I was able to track down a few ports of this garage, all of them being released around the mid-2010s. NFS had a pretty active modding scene and a loyal fanbase back then (including a vocal crowd begging for Underground 3 along the way), and the influence really shows! Here are the ones I spotted:
Need For Speed World Garage
6Four9
2016-02-21T20:00:00Z
SLRR By Vlad v4 Unlimited
Vlad
2015-03-13T20:00:00Z
A repost can be found here with a working download link as of today.
I spent quite a bit of time here. It felt like home back then, and it still does today.
Big_Shop_showroom_for_Assetto_Corsa
ToyaHSW(?)
2015-11-03T20:00:00Z
Sources: Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3
A rather forgotten showroom for AC. I remember seeing a few mods using this showroom for the preview pic.
グレッド CAR WORKS garage
@gred_cz
2014-12-04T20:00:00Z
Unfinished BeamNG Port
defib
2015-10-20T20:00:00Z
It’s a shame that it didn’t get to see the light of day, but with BeamNG’s new garage features, porting it nowadays might actually make a lot more sense.
NFS:Multi Theft Auto
Valianity
2019-03-30T20:00:00Z
NFS World Safehouse
SkullShapedMug
2022-05-12T20:00:00Z
As can be seen, there was absolutely no shortage of people porting this safehouse, but personally, I wasn’t quite satisfied with them. They either had missing objects, different textures, or messed up UVmaps. Sometimes, the props would be moved around too!
In the photo above, you can just tell how empty the whole place looks.
If my goal was to have an accurate recreation of the original NFS World garage, then I had no choice but to port it all over again myself.
I also remember spotting more ports back then in other games, but I unfortunately can’t seem to dig them up today. Perhaps the websites went offline?
Right, isn’t it funny how we’re looking back at a wave that’s 10 years old by now?
3. Doing it all over again… properly
Click to expand
Love makes us take all sorts of stupid decisions… which is exactly why I learned how to port NFS maps! I’ve tried a bunch of techniques and tools, but I ended up on manually stitching up 5 separate rips of the safehouse, each rip from a different camera angle.
Having all the raw rips also felt oddly calming. Every model and texture was preserved straight from the source, so I was able to study every little detail there was… even the silly mistakes left behind by NFS World devs (Which I’ll discuss below)
As per usual when ripping, it’s all just a matter of cleaning up a mess. Not much fun to be had here, but I managed to automate alot of the boring work with some Blender scripts.
And with the boring stuff out of the way, here is where we get less sciencey and a lot more artsy!
Lighting
The first and biggest challenge by far was nailing down the lighting setup.
A good lighting setup was something I’ve yet to see from a public port, which is why I wanted to spend some time on this.
I had to do a lot of guessing without a freecam mod in NFS World, but here it is…
I’ve made an exception for the lights pointing at the center. They were made white for gameplay purposes. They can be adjusted through Kino if you wish to tint the lights.
Godrays
Another detail that took me a while to replicate was the dramatic godrays.
They were animated in NFS World, and it simply elevated the vibe of the garage.
I had to learn about the Animator in Unity, but it was well worth the afternoon I spent!
Podium Cars
In Kino garages, you can add these so-called “Podium Cars”.
These are optional spawn points for other cars in your CarX garage.
Due to popular demand, I added 4 extra spots on the ground. Personally, I didn’t like making this change, but podium cars are optional… so they can be disabled.
Cubemaps
I had no idea how big of a difference cubemaps would make.
These little things give your car some much nicer reflections at no performance cost.
For anyone making garages, definitely give them a shot! They’re called “Reflection Probes” in Unity.
Ceiling fans!
And of course, what kinda maniac would I be if I didn’t animate the ceiling fans?
Overall, I did my best to preserve the original state of the safehouse. No textures or models were altered. It’s just the original safehouse carefully recreated in Unity with a few Kino features added in.
4. Silly mistakes left behind by the devs
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Ironically, in my endless chase for perfection… I realized just how imperfect the original safehouses were.
Here are some of the quirks I spotted:
Bluetooth lift yo!
So uhh, what’s this room for? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I actually have no clue what it’s supposed to be. Kinda looks like a makeshift paint booth? It doesn’t matter though, since you wouldn’t see the insides anyways.
Mfs had wireless charging in 2010
Also, who tf UVmapped the cable?
This lamp’s got that magic carpet technology.
Safety Hazard! Why aren’t these Exit signs lit up?
They were actually lit up correctly in the betas, as shown in the videos above.
That is one bright calendar!
5. An alternate universe
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Beta Safehouse
How could I talk about the NFS World Safehouse without talking about the odd one we got in the beta?
2009-10-13T20:00:00Z
Source: “NFS WORLD Asian Beta Gameplay [1/4][RE-MASTERED]”
Source: Closed Beta 1 | NFS World Wiki | Fandom
Source: “NFS World: The Beta Safehouse”
There were countless betas prior to its launch, the first one being a Taiwan-exclusive closed beta. The safehouse included had a completely different atmosphere. Overall, I think it’s an odd place… maybe even generic?
I don’t think it ever had an official name, but most people seem to refer to it as just the “Beta Safehouse”.
Lakeside Safehouse
Much, much, MUCH lesser known is the “Lakeside” safehouse. This one barely has any info online. Just two (1) (2) mentions of it on the internet and one youtube video with “Lake House Safehouse” in the title.
I’ve tried accessing this area through Soapbox Race World but to no avail. It seems to have only been available on very specific versions of NFS World.
Source: “NFS World: Lake House Safehouse”
Anyone got a clue if this came from yet another NFS game? There’s 1 comment under the video mentioning NFSUG2, and 3 other comments mentioning TDU2. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any similar safehouse in either of these games.
Oh well, perhaps the mystery will be solved someday… just not today.
And that brings us here! Hopefully this little write-up gives you an insight on the lengths I’ve went just to port this safehouse, along with the history behind it.
I also do realize that most kids nowadays haven’t been around for NFS World, but thankfully y’all got Soapbox Race World today. Highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t already! (It’s NFS World revived, but without the pesky P2W mechanics)
Anyways, this project was mostly fueled by nostalgia, but if you can still enjoy this garage for what it is today… then my job here is done!
