5 ms·

Perhaps it would satisfy the pedants who have come out in force if the headline read “The in-game model for the coins in Super Mario Odyssey has a mesh that is

Perhaps it would satisfy the pedants who have come out in force if the headline read “The in-game model for the coins in Super Mario Odyssey has a mesh that is 65% simpler than in SM Galaxy.” Does that pass muster? Are we now free to appreciate how the clever use of normal maps allowed Nintendo’s artists to counterintuitively decrease poly count across generations of Mario titles?

Aeolun 4y ago
In the current state of game development I’m not sure if we can call using normal maps very ‘clever’ any more. It’s just par for the course. It’s fun anecdata though, that’s for sure.
cnity 4y ago
I also find terminology games boring and pointless, but there's something quite interesting that lies at (I think) the heart of the debate: people tend to view a mesh as something like the underlying concrete object, and the textures as a mere skin pasted onto the outside. This is evidenced in the way people seem to consider fragment shaders to be a kind of "illusion" or falsehood. But of course, a spoiler: it's "illusions" all the way down. This is not a pipe. A value in a normal map is just as "real" as a face in a mesh (that is, not at all, or entirely so, depending on your perspective).
- ShamelessC 4y ago
  Right but this is entirely clarified from reading the image posted. Instead people are reacting based on the title here. Not to imply people don’t read the articles here. I would never imply that…
- mortenjorck 4y ago
  > people tend to view a mesh as something like the underlying concrete object, and the textures as a mere skin pasted onto the outside This is interesting to consider, as it never occurred to me that anyone would think otherwise. I wonder if it's generational. Those who grew up with games whose triangle (or quad, in the case of a certain Sega system) budgets were constrained to the point of clearly distinct mesh faces probably have a different mental model from those for whom baked normals and LOD meshes have always been a continuum.
- rideontime 4y ago
  Good insight. My intro to 3D gaming was the N64. For those of us of a certain age, polygons are "real" and anything newer is "fake."
make3 4y ago
It's funny that something that is now a super basic approach that has been used literally everywhere for 20 years is presented as some fancy Nintendo performance hack
- chc 4y ago
  Mario Galaxy was not even 20 years ago, and that was the point of comparison, so I think you're stating your case a bit more strongly than is fair.
humanistbot 4y ago
> the pedants who have come out in force The only reason this made the top of the front page is because this was written in a way that seems intentionally deceptive in order to make you click. I'd argue the author is being a pedant even more, and did it first. Had they used a more honest title, people wouldn't be upset. But then it wouldn't have made the front page. I hate this trend in journalism that can be summed up as: "I'm going to frame something in a confusing, counterintuitive way, then explain it in a straightforward way, in order to make you think I'm smart and make you think you've learned something really complex." I see everywhere else on the Internet. HN is supposed to filter this out.
- nr2x 4y ago
  It’s not journalism, it’s a tweet. From a Mario fan account. Maybe take the rest of the day off? Work through the anger?
  - joemi 4y ago
    Aren't tweets viewed as journalism these days? Or perhaps better phrased: Can't tweets be considered journalism? As much as I am loathe to admit it, I don't think that something being on Twitter excludes it from being journalism. That said, I don't know that this tweet counts as journalism. But I also don't know that it doesn't count.
    - nr2x 4y ago
      Tweets by a professional journalist with employer name in bio are a grey zone, but tweets from a super Mario fan account are firmly not journalism.
      - joemi 4y ago
        That sure sounds like it's discrediting citizen journalism or amateur journalism.
  - humanistbot 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Jiro 4y ago
That headline would pass the pedants, but it would have another problem: It's not sensationalized, so nobody would care about it. The whole point of saying that it's "simpler" is for the wow factor of "obviously this is a more complicated, more detailed, game. Isn't it weird that the model for the coin is simpler despite all of that?" It's the sort of thing that would be clickbait if it were in a news article. The point of being "pedantic" is to point out that the clickbaity implication is inaccurate. Of course it's simpler, if the complexity is moved to the other parts of the model.

Aeolun 4y ago

In the current state of game development I’m not sure if we can call using normal maps very ‘clever’ any more. It’s just par for the course. It’s fun anecdata though, that’s for sure.

cnity 4y ago

I also find terminology games boring and pointless, but there's something quite interesting that lies at (I think) the heart of the debate: people tend to view a mesh as something like the underlying concrete object, and the textures as a mere skin pasted onto the outside. This is evidenced in the way people seem to consider fragment shaders to be a kind of "illusion" or falsehood. But of course, a spoiler: it's "illusions" all the way down. This is not a pipe. A value in a normal map is just as "real" as a face in a mesh (that is, not at all, or entirely so, depending on your perspective).

ShamelessC 4y ago
Right but this is entirely clarified from reading the image posted. Instead people are reacting based on the title here. Not to imply people don’t read the articles here. I would never imply that…
mortenjorck 4y ago
> people tend to view a mesh as something like the underlying concrete object, and the textures as a mere skin pasted onto the outside This is interesting to consider, as it never occurred to me that anyone would think otherwise. I wonder if it's generational. Those who grew up with games whose triangle (or quad, in the case of a certain Sega system) budgets were constrained to the point of clearly distinct mesh faces probably have a different mental model from those for whom baked normals and LOD meshes have always been a continuum.
rideontime 4y ago
Good insight. My intro to 3D gaming was the N64. For those of us of a certain age, polygons are "real" and anything newer is "fake."

make3 4y ago

It's funny that something that is now a super basic approach that has been used literally everywhere for 20 years is presented as some fancy Nintendo performance hack

chc 4y ago
Mario Galaxy was not even 20 years ago, and that was the point of comparison, so I think you're stating your case a bit more strongly than is fair.

humanistbot 4y ago

> the pedants who have come out in force The only reason this made the top of the front page is because this was written in a way that seems intentionally deceptive in order to make you click. I'd argue the author is being a pedant even more, and did it first. Had they used a more honest title, people wouldn't be upset. But then it wouldn't have made the front page. I hate this trend in journalism that can be summed up as: "I'm going to frame something in a confusing, counterintuitive way, then explain it in a straightforward way, in order to make you think I'm smart and make you think you've learned something really complex." I see everywhere else on the Internet. HN is supposed to filter this out.

nr2x 4y ago
It’s not journalism, it’s a tweet. From a Mario fan account. Maybe take the rest of the day off? Work through the anger?
- joemi 4y ago
  Aren't tweets viewed as journalism these days? Or perhaps better phrased: Can't tweets be considered journalism? As much as I am loathe to admit it, I don't think that something being on Twitter excludes it from being journalism. That said, I don't know that this tweet counts as journalism. But I also don't know that it doesn't count.
  - nr2x 4y ago
    Tweets by a professional journalist with employer name in bio are a grey zone, but tweets from a super Mario fan account are firmly not journalism.
    - joemi 4y ago
      That sure sounds like it's discrediting citizen journalism or amateur journalism.
- humanistbot 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Jiro 4y ago

That headline would pass the pedants, but it would have another problem: It's not sensationalized, so nobody would care about it. The whole point of saying that it's "simpler" is for the wow factor of "obviously this is a more complicated, more detailed, game. Isn't it weird that the model for the coin is simpler despite all of that?" It's the sort of thing that would be clickbait if it were in a news article. The point of being "pedantic" is to point out that the clickbaity implication is inaccurate. Of course it's simpler, if the complexity is moved to the other parts of the model.