Paint Studio .
Mario Artist: Paint Studio, released on December 11, 1999, is a Mario-themed
paint program. The user has a variety of brush sizes, textures, and stamps, with which to paint, draw, spray, sketch, and animate. The stock Nintendo-themed graphics include all
151 Red- and Blue-era Pokémon,
Banjo-Kazooie, and
Diddy Kong Racing characters.
Paint Studio has been described as the "direct follow-up" as demonstrated at Nintendo's
Space World 1997 trade show in November 1997, By 2000, development reportedly included music producer
Tetsuya Komuro. It was canceled. Using the
Nintendo 64 Capture Cassette cartridge (released later in a bundle with
Talent Studio), the user can import images and movies from any
NTSC video source such as
video tape or a video camera. The Japanese version of the
Game Boy Camera can import grayscale photographs via the
Transfer Pak. The studio features a unique four player drawing mode.
Minigames include a fly swatting game reminiscent of that in
Mario Paint, and a game reminiscent of
Pokémon Snap where a player can also take photos and change creatures' textures. as demonstrated at Nintendo's
Space World 1997 trade show in November 1997. Paintings can be imported into the completely separate 64DD game,
SimCity 64. Nintendo designer Yamashita Takayuki attributes his work on
Talent Studio as having been foundational to his eventual work on the Mii. According to
Shigeru Miyamoto,
Talent Studios direct descendant is a GameCube prototype called
Stage Debut, using the
Game Boy Advance's GameEye camera peripheral and linking to the
GameCube via
a cable, to map self-portraits of players onto their character models. It was publicly demonstrated with models of Miyamoto and eventual Nintendo president
Satoru Iwata. Never having been released, its character design features became the
Mii, the
Mii Channel, and features of games such as
Wii Tennis.
Communication Kit Mario Artist: Communication Kit, released on June 29, 2000, is a utility application which allowed users to connect to the Net Studio of the now-defunct
Randnet dialup service and online community for 64DD users. In Net Studio, it was possible to share creations made with
Paint Studio,
Talent Studio, or
Polygon Studio, with other Randnet members. Other features included contests, and
printing services available by online mail order for making custom 3D
papercraft and postcards. The Randnet network service was launched and discontinued alongside the
64DD, running from December 1, 1999, to February 28, 2001. The disk has content that may be unlocked and used in other games in the series such as
Paint Studio.
Polygon Studio Mario Artist: Polygon Studio, released on August 29, 2000, is a
3D computer graphics editor that lets the user design and render 3D polygon images with a simple level of detail. It has been described as a consumer version of the professional 3D graphics suite
N-World, also by Nichimen Graphics. It was scheduled as the final game in the original Starter Kit's mail order delivery of 64DD games, but it did not arrive on time, leading
IGN to assume it was canceled until it was later released. The
Expansion Pak and the Nintendo 64 Mouse are supported peripherals. The idea of
minigames was popularized generally during the Nintendo 64's
fifth generation of video game consoles, and some early minigames appear in
Polygon Studio in the style that were later used in the
WarioWare series. Certain minigames originated in
Polygon Studio, as explained by Goro Abe of
Nintendo R&D1's so-called
WarioWare All-Star Team: "In
Polygon Studio you could create 3D models and animate them in the game, but there was also a side game included inside. In this game you would have to play short games that came one after another. This is where the idea for
WarioWare came from." The art form of
papercraft was implemented by modeling the characters in
Polygon Studio and then using
Communication Kit to upload the data to Randnet's online printing service. The user finally cuts, folds, and pastes the resulting colored paper into a 3D physical figure. ==Reception==