Project 2 Research

I began my research by thinking of some of my favourite video games, and what I really liked about them, after completing project 1, and with monkeys still on the brain the first to come to mind was Donkey Kong Country (1994 SNES) (and its sequel Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong's Quest (1995 SNES) which I loved even more!) This graphics of this game really blew my mind, it was the first time I had seen such fluid and convincing computer animation. Somehow the game designers had managed to create what appeared to be a flowing 3 Dimensional landscape and characters, on a system that was nowhere near capable of doing so. This was done through a revolutionary technique at the time, what Nintendo referred to as ACM, or Advanced Computer Modelling.

Using the latest Silicon Graphics workstations, the designers created full 3dimensional characters and landscapes, and then converted the 3D renderings into 2D backgrounds and sprite animations. Although by today's standards the 3D is very primitive, at the time it was a window to the future.

I really like the idea of using 3D rendered images in a 2D scrolling game to create a really simple faux 3D game, I think using this technique and 3ds Max I can create a really impressive looking world for my character to explore. I have begun playing around in Max creating a 3d version of my character (As I feel using the very flat looking vector character will look quite out of place in front of rendered backgrounds) I will post some progress shots of this up shortly.

Here are some Donkey Kong Country images

And heres a video of gameplay, as well an interesting a "Behind the scenes" video (Beware, its very 90s..)