About the Zelda 64/Mario 64 graphical style

[Kargaroc]

Okay, so why am I posting this?

 

I'm in the middle of writing my Alpha Dungeon Design document, and this is one of the sections of that.  It's not done yet, but early on I talk about the graphical style of the old Zelda 64 screenshots, which also shares lots of elements with Mario 64 due to lots of factors.

I've actually already completed the section about this, and since I don't know when I'll complete the document, I've decided to post that part here, for reference.

 

Update: The first version of the final document is here!

 

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First, go play Mario 64 a bit, preferably with cheats.  Study the way the game's graphics look meticulusly.  -Why Mario 64?My hypothesis for this is that in the early days of Ocarina of Time's development, since there wasn't a concrete art style chosen, the modellers were free to do things the way they were used to at the time, which was Mario 64.

Also, the early engines were heavily based on Mario 64.  -About the Mario 64/Zelda 64 style:Most objects are made of few polygons, and as such have a peculiar "chunky" look to them.  Straight lines and geometric shapes abound in this style.There isn't much textures - Objects usually only have one or two textures for them.  The textures themselves are blurry and simple looking, lacking much detail and usually being different shades of the same color.The colors there are however is quite vibrant, and not much objects lack some sort of color.  -Differences between Mario 64 and Zelda 64 graphics:One difference between Zelda 64 and Mario 64 is that lots of objects in Mario 64 are simply sprites that always face the player.In Zelda 64, that is not the case.  Most larger objects are modeled out, though they may have semi-transparent textures applied to fake more detailed objects, for instance the Alpha Stalfos.This is most relevant to actor modeling, though there are some exceptions, for instance the torches on the wall in early versions of Ganon's Castle use the same principle.Smaller objects may use the sprites that follow the player principle though, as there's no point to using models for small objects that can barely be seen at 320x240.Another difference is that in Mario 64, most polygons lack any kind of shading, and as such look faceted.  Gouraud shading could be applied on occasion but this was not very common.  In Zelda 64 however, most objects that weren't geometric shapes had shading applied. 

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[BullockDS]

I've always been interested in the beta Zelda 64 iterations, especially in the aesthetics; they do indeed evoke a sort of SM64 feel (for me, however, Z64's slightly more reminiscent of SM64's own beta).Also, that document's a very fascinating read! It's surprisingly in-depth about how to achieve that "alpha/beta" feel, and if I knew diddly dick about modeling, I'd actually love to take a crack at making an "Alpha"-style dungeon.

[DarthDub]

Quest 64 seems like the kind of game that Ocarina of Time would've looked like with Super Mario 64 graphics, but that's just me.