Just a few hours ago, NCL and NOA released the first new footage of the highly anticipated “Zelda Wii U” since E³ earlier this year.
And like the E³ footage, the new imagery first off tries to impress with an expansive landscape view. Taking notes from the Xenoblade series, apparently, a (re-newed) emphasis on a convincing depiction of vast, expanding landscapes seems to be one of the game's main features.
Indeed, the drawing distance and landscape detail is impressive. Yet, it's hardly new. In fact, it doesn't need a current gen console or even a last gen console to facilitate a drawing distance that's virtually endless.
In fact, one early example that already utilizes such a feature to great extent is… Super Mario 64! Take a look:
And like the E³ footage, the new imagery first off tries to impress with an expansive landscape view. Taking notes from the Xenoblade series, apparently, a (re-newed) emphasis on a convincing depiction of vast, expanding landscapes seems to be one of the game's main features.
Indeed, the drawing distance and landscape detail is impressive. Yet, it's hardly new. In fact, it doesn't need a current gen console or even a last gen console to facilitate a drawing distance that's virtually endless.
In fact, one early example that already utilizes such a feature to great extent is… Super Mario 64! Take a look:
“Objection!”, you exclaim with furor.
“That's just the background image! A mere 2d painting of some dunes and pyramids in the far-off background! That doesn't count! That's got NOTHING to do with the kind of drawing distance exhibited in 'Zelda Wii U' or the Xenoblade series!”
Or does it?
Yes, that's a 2d background image in Super Mario 64. But it's more than that. It's a special kind of texture map called spherical environment map, because it encompasses the polygonal game world like a giant sphere, thus creating a seamless, 360°³ outer landscape periphery. This way, another “dimension” can be added to the virtual game environment that extends well beyond the actual drawing distance available (which, in the N64's case, is about 8ft. into the distance, really).
Of course, the obvious limitation with this is: One cannot actually fly to those pyramids and explore them, right? They always remain in the far-off distance!
“But then… how does 'Zelda Wii U' do it?” For game creators, the general approach is to first create everything as full-fledged, accessible polygonal models. Then load it all into the 3d game engine and set the drawing distance in such a fashion that only objects in the far-off distance are rendered. Then, take a virtual 360°³ photo of the environment, once for, say, every quarter of a square mile. Thus, one attains a GRID of environment maps that can be UPDATED according to the player's position on the game map.
In the complete game, when the pyramids are far away, they only appear as 2d backdrops on the environment map. Once they are close enough, they are not included in the environment map any more and instead are inserted into the scenery as full-fledged 3d models the player may explore. The further away from the player the swap is performed, the harder to notice it is.
Simple, yet highly effective!
The reason why this technique has become a thing again only more recently, is that it had been neglected as a supposed “anachronism” as game systems kept offering ever-growing polygonal drawing distances. This negligence, however, has resulted in quite a number of 3d polygonal games – by Nintendo et al., no less – suffering from depressingly empty backdrops and oddly angular and cut-off horizontal lines. Toad's Treasure Tracker being one of the most recent culprits.
So here's hope this new “Zelda” will set a precedent to re-introduce this criminally neglected “lost art” of proper environment detailing to other future Nintendo games, too!