
Deconstructing the Water Effect in Super Mario Sunshine - petercooper
http://blog.mecheye.net/2018/03/deconstructing-the-water-effect-in-super-mario-sunshine/
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CaliforniaKarl
The author references this in his post, but I think it's worth calling out:
[https://magcius.github.io/model-viewer/](https://magcius.github.io/model-
viewer/) has models from various scenes in various games, and lets you travel
through them.

I think it's pretty cool, as it reminds me how much work goes into making a
scene in a video game.

Oh, and if you want to give your browser a real workout, load up Splatoon's
Inkopolis Plaza!

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bringtheaction
Doesn’t work on iOS. Almost surprising given how many 3D things work on mobile
when I try them. Oh well.

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untog
iOS doesn't support WebGL2 (yet?)

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Gaelan
Safari Technology Preview has a WGL2 flag (doesn’t seem to work well enough
for this thing yet), so probably yet.

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bittermang
Very excellent write up, Jasper. Thank you.

Your closing paragraphs are spot on. I remember a magazine review of Metroid
Prime 3 said "Wii games aren't supposed to look this good." Supposed to? Said
who? Nintendo's technique, process, and approach to design and development
shows a lot of passion for the medium. It shines through in how beautiful each
and every Nintendo made game performs on such small hardware.

Nintendo games capture your wonder and imagination. Technical bits like this
are why, and how, they are able to do it.

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crowbahr
I was actually just reflecting last week on Nintendo's approach to the console
wars and how good of an idea it was for them to _not_ chase higher power and
graphics.

These tricks they've used are truly awesome and the way they construct their
games less for realism and more for the joy of the game has meant they've
always stayed more mainstream than an Xbox or Playstation ever has, starting
in particular with the Wii.

I've gotta say these tricks are super cool. Makes me wonder how tricks like
this could be brought over into mobile phones with their similarly limited
power (though differently capable architecture).

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muterad_murilax
> and how good of an idea it was for them to not chase higher power and
> graphics.

The GameCube (the console that Super Mario Sunshine was released for) was
actually quite comparable to the competition at the time (Playstation 2 and
the original Xbox). It was during the following console generations (starting
with the Wii) that Nintendo no longer aimed to match the others' raw
horsepower.

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phire
Yeah, the GameCube was more graphically impressive than the PS2 and very
competitive with the Xbox.

Sadly, it often got shit cross-platform ports that didn't take advantage of
the GameCube's capacities.

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3asdfh
Here's a similar write-up about the water effect in Wind Waker:
[https://medium.com/@gordonnl/wind-waker-graphics-
analysis-a0...](https://medium.com/@gordonnl/wind-waker-graphics-
analysis-a0b575a31127)

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smcl
This is excellent. I originally saw just the water effect (probably mentioned
on HN) but after reading through it again it seems he also described much more
- fire animation, link's facial expression. The tricks used by the developers
are (to me) very neat and the overall effect is impressive given the console
was out in _2001_

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psyc
[Ab]using mipmaps to do stylized distance-dependent texture blending is a neat
trick!

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CaliforniaKarl
Wow, I didn't realize that I can click and drag in the examples. That's pretty
cool!

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designcode
The webgl examples don't seem to be working :(

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comex
They appear to be using WebGL 2, which works in Firefox and Chrome but not
Safari or Edge.

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Jasper_
Ah, I didn't realize that WebGL 2 had such rocky support. I'll look into
porting back into WebGL 1, but I would require OES_vertex_array_object and
searching online it seems to have as spurious support as WebGL 2, so I'm not
sure it would be a huge improvement.

For now, I'll look into adding error messages for people that cannot
initialize WebGL 2.

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aecorredor
This freaking game was in my top 3 gamecube games for sure. Memories...

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daodedickinson
That effect was so beautiful when I first saw it in the summer.

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orionblastar
I have to say my son played that game. It taught him how to clean things even
if he was not the one who messed them up. Plus he had fun flying with the
water hose in the game.

