Eurogamer recently conducted an interview with Giles Goddard, one of the few foreign programmers who worked at Nintendo HQ in Kyoto in the 1990s, the man who also happened to create the famous interactive face that introduced the world to Super Mario 64. You know, that major turning point in gaming history.
Goddard, who also worked with the late Satoru Iwata when he was still a programmer, reveals the early days of working with Nintendo 64 was a time for fun experimentation:
"When we got the Indys, they came with a camera. I put ping pong balls on my face and I thought it'd be cool to use the camera to control the face. And the justification was to test out the skinning - at that point, if you had two joints they'd be two separate objects. There was no smoothing. That's what I was experimenting in - how to do skinning. And a good demonstration of that was the Mario face. If you have a boss there that's seen this iteration of skinning, of facial animation - it's dicking around with a purpose, it's progressive and it's new stuff."
It wasn't made for publication, either. Goddard didn't expect the game to make it into the final game, even when Miyamoto requested he add an elasticity to Mario's skin.
"Miyamoto just saw it as he walked past. It didn't really change, either - the only thing was the elasticity. They wanted you to pull the face, but after that what happens? That's where you got the springy stuff."
Tell us your memories of playing Super Mario 64 back in the '90s and how it influenced your love of gaming...
[source eurogamer.net]
Comments 31
This stretching little face was nice to stretched. Would like Nintendo to put it again in a future Mario game. Ahhhh, good memories.
Loved playing with this but I never realised you could zoom out
Nintendolife really are stretching the news content today!
That Mario face still looks really good and cool today. The rest of the game doesn't hold up so well visually, and that's me being kind. I would love to see Nintendo do a modern remake of this classic in much the same vain as we've seen with the likes of the recent Crash and Spyro remakes, with that same love and attention to detail while staying true to the originals.
It kind of blew my mind when I first realized I could interact with his head. I’ll admit that I spent an embarrassing amount of time just plucking around on Mario’s face with Master Hand.
@impurekind I'd love to see a remake of this as well, for sure! Although if you have the right CRT and an RGB connection, the game can still look pretty good. The gourard shading technique used to make the game helps with this, giving it a cleaner look than many N64 games.
@impurekind
No. No more Nintendo 64 remakes, reboots, or remasters.
No more '90s. Move on.
I remember loving that a lot back in the day. Sometime before I'd even start to play I would just do that for 5 or 10 minutes, trying to do different things, ha ha.
I just love that they were finally able to include this elasticity in gameplay with Super Mario Odyssey
@10-zx well aren't you a ray of sunshine.
@10-zx No no no - we need more 90's remakes!
@Yosheel
I could say the same for your profile picture.
@Mips
No, we don't.
@10-zx it can see into your soul.
@impurekind well, I guess everything is down to personal opinion! 🙃
@10-zx We really do
@Mips just use the NO AA codes on a real N64. I use the aps patches with an Everdrive, even though I'm using S video (Spook cable - the best) - the sharpness of the N64 output is dramatically increased in games with really aggressive AA on LCD, texture details once completely smoothed over are also returned. Another side effect is any games getting a 6-10+ FPS speed boost.
@Yosheel
I can feel it eating my soul with each passing second.
Those eyes are knives.
@andykara2003
We really don't.
@10-zx This is fun D:
@liveswired Nice one I've tried NO AA but didn't like it. It's funny, but I own every mod out there (I'm a somewhat obsessive N64 fan), but I still prefer the original RGB output on a good. low use consumer CRT. It's just a personal thing I guess. I have RGB modded PAL & N64s hooked up to a Sony BVM, a Loewe high end CRT and a consumer Trinition, both consoles with the new (Borti) RGB deblur mods & also the UltraHDMI & the NTSC funtastic with the 'superior' s-video - but as long as the consumer CRT has low hours (say under 1000), I can see why Nintendo went with that graphical output style. Any further softening from a more well used tube just takes that blur one step too far. The N64 looks weird (to me) on a professional CRT like the BVM, looks awful directly connected directly to an HDTV and even the UltraHDMI can't quite match the consumer Trinitron. Horses for courses I suppose - any which way is valid to enjoy this wonderful console.
"Tell us your memories of playing Super Mario 64 back in the '90s and how it influenced your love of gaming..."
You think we've got all day?!
@andykara2003
The GameCube is wondefuler.
@10-zx A new word is born!
@10-zx I have an even more obsessive setup for my PAL & NTSC Gamecubes - RGB, official component on a NEC XV29+, HDMI mod etc. Absolutely love that console too
@andykara2003
But the Wii U is wonderfulest.
@10-zx If done as well as the recent PS1 Crash and Spyro remakes, I have would have no problem at all with a bunch of N64 remakes in that vain.
@10-zx It sure is pretty wonderful 👍
It was fun to stretch that face in the 90s.
Still visit this game once a year. Those that claim it hasn’t aged well are playing this on a hd flat tv. This game looks great on a tube crt hooked with rgb
Interesting.
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