Things you didn't notice before in Mario games

[Xiahou Ba]

mario kart wii's models are shit

they still use 0's and 1's for weights to animate.

 

[ThatGuy62]

mario kart wii's models are *bleep*

they still use 0's and 1's for weights to animate.

I think I read somewhere that they're the Double Dash models, maybe a bit touched up.
Wouldn't be too surprising. Up until Battle Revolution, the console Pokemon games reused models as far back as Stadium for the mons that apply.

 

[Xiahou Ba]

they are the double dash models, because baby mario in mario kart wii has the exact same bad texture uvs on his legs as he had in double dash

 

[J-Yoshi64]

Their CSS poses are also the same in MKDD and MKW

 

[Starlight24]

But he is right about the touched up part.

Some models have been tweaked a bit like Birdo and DK.

 

[J-Yoshi64]

Yup. Birdo's bow is a bit on the small side in Double Dash. Really looks off when you're used to the full-size bow.

 

[Smiley The Hun]

the clouds and bushes were the same spites in super mario bros.

 

[Mister Wu]

three fingers is easier to animate than four

fingers are a huge pain to animate.

Naturally that's the case. In fact, I can see why the newer Pokemon have fewer digits than the old days. Putting Pokemon in 3D means the designers have to take into consideration the modelling and animating challenges that goes with the graphical evolution. For example, compare Alolan Geodude family with the original. I won't post the images here, but the original versions have visible individual fingers while the Alolan versions look like the fingers are joined, so you essentially have two digits per limb for each member.

Thank you for reading.

Daily remainder that my favorite Pokémon, who already had quite underdeveloped hands:

was given a supposedly "empowered" form in which the hands were even less developed...

Spoiler

Really, only when I checked an actual skeleton of a Pteranodon a few days ago I finally realized that this design is actually meant to be a Pteranodon version of Charizard...

Anyway, as for the number of fingers, I guess this indeed stems from the characters being non-human, as actually most of these characters (Birdo, Yoshi, Koopalings, a good part of the Koopa Troop) came in the 2D era, where animating fingers wasn't a reason of concern. Wart too has four fingers, by the way, so it even goes beyond reptiles. In this sense, it's really interesting to see Toads having five fingers.

 

[The Pink Cat In The Hat]

So, in the Wario Land games, Wario is a treasure hunter, so of course the main one getting in the way is someone else who hunts for treasure, say ... a pirate.
So, there you go, I finally got the pirate theme down.

 

[Koops]

Indigo Underground's theme from Paper Mario Color Splash actually plays half the notes on each earphone, if you got some.

Once TG and I shared a pair and the music seemed to smoothly cut off at some places.