12 votes

How scrolling textures gave Super Mario Galaxy 2 its charm

3 comments

  1. [2]
    Thunder-ten-tronckh
    Link
    I'll have to check this out when I'm not at a coffee shop without headphones. But I've always been super impressed with Nintendo's creativity in maximizing their "subpar" hardware with excellent...

    I'll have to check this out when I'm not at a coffee shop without headphones. But I've always been super impressed with Nintendo's creativity in maximizing their "subpar" hardware with excellent art direction. I want to say they used a toned-down version of the scrolling texture effect in Breath of the Wild for wet surfaces in the rain (I could rant all day about how beautiful that game is, despite its low-poly textures).

    And also, TIL about noclip.website. What an awesome resource.

    5 votes
    1. nothis
      Link Parent
      Resolution aside, I've long felt like art direction (actually, I'd call it a split between art direction and clever graphics programming) trumps hardware in making the look of modern games. A good...

      Resolution aside, I've long felt like art direction (actually, I'd call it a split between art direction and clever graphics programming) trumps hardware in making the look of modern games.

      A good animation is so much more important in making a character feel alive than its polygon count, for example. Spreading detail smartly in an environment is more important than having it rendered with a gazillion pixels.

      There's some AAA devs who are really good at this and Nintendo is one of them (Rare also used to be in the N64 days). Naughty Dog is another and, together with actually powerful hardware, what they create is mind-blowing. I also always thought that Infinity Ward nailed the particle effects in the CoD games, which is just one of these details nobody ever brings up but that "make" a game's look, IMO.

      3 votes
  2. nothis
    Link
    I've never heard of this before, at 8:30 he basically says by using distortion you can get a much "higher res" look than the original textures as the distortions create sharp lines as a side...

    I've never heard of this before, at 8:30 he basically says by using distortion you can get a much "higher res" look than the original textures as the distortions create sharp lines as a side effect! Rather interesting.

    1 vote