Zelda 64 Space World 1995 Tech Demo
The Legend of Zelda "Space World 1995 Tech Demo" was a 3D demo created by programmer Giles Goddard on the Nintendo 64 hardware. It was meant to showcase what a Legend of Zelda game on the Nintendo 64 could potentially look like.
Overview
In describing the intent of the tech demo, Goddard stated:
"When they were just first developing the prototypes for [Ocarina of Time], I think they just wanted to show something. Because they announced the game and they wanted to show that they actually had a game there, even though they had nothing. So we knocked up a game with [Yoshiaki] Koizumi-san. We knocked up a little demo of him fighting a metallic character with all these effects going on to show off. All these demos were always showing off some bit of new tech and I think at that point it was floating realtime lights. We had three lights that were swinging around, particle effects, and environment mapping."[1]
The tech demo's character models and animation were provided by Yoshiaki Koizumi, with Takao Shimizu, who had co-directed the Game Boy Donkey Kong directing the footage.[2][3][4] After completing work on the tech demo, Shimizu went on to direct the next Star Fox game, Star Fox 64, while Goddard went on to create the Nintendo 64 Portal Tech Demo as part of the R&D process for Ocarina of Time.[5]
See Also
References
- ↑ "When they were just first developing the prototypes for Zelda, I think they just wanted to show something. Because they announced the game and they wanted to show that they actually had a game there, even though they had nothing. So we knocked up a game with [Yoshiaki] Koizumi-san. We knocked up a little demo of him fighting a metallic character with all these effects going on to show off. All these demos were always showing off some bit of new tech and I think at that point it was floating realtime lights. We had three lights that were swinging around, particle effects, and environment mapping." —Giles Goddard (Exclusive: Early Zelda 64 Prototype Featured Portals.)
- ↑ "Yeah.. I programmed it :) Koizumi san did the models/animation." — @giles on Twitter, August 27, 2019 (Archive)
- ↑ "on the demo? I honestly can't remember.. maybe he "directed" it, it was literally only a few seconds though.." — @giles on Twitter, August 29, 2019 (Archive)
- ↑ "Since I was working at Nintendo, The Legend of Zelda was a title I wanted to work on at least once. Luckily, that opportunity had come along, so I put my hand right up. But before we became involved, (Takao) Shimizu-san made a chanbara (sword fighting) demo video." —Toru Osawa (The Legend of Zelda with Chanbara-style Action.)
- ↑ "Osawa: But Shimizu-san became involved with other work, so he said, "The rest is up to you!" Iwata: Was that other work Star Fox 64? Osawa: Yeah. So I took it over, and Shimizu-san told me some things he wanted me to do. He wanted me to make a Zelda game with chanbara-style action." —Toru Osawa (The Legend of Zelda with Chanbara-style Action.)