despite melee not being my first exposure to billboards in videogames, it was the first time i realized textures were indeed done like that once i rotated and zoomed in on the food items
was about to comment something similar. never really thought of it during the n64 days despite how common it was, but the food in melee really opened my eyes to it
When I was a kid, I thought the smash ball in Super Smash Bros. Brawl was a 3D sphere that somehow looked the same no matter which direction you looked at it. It blew my mind as a kid, but growing up and learning about game development made me realize that it was just a 2d billboard.
When I was a kid I thought the karts in mario kart 64 were just really high detail models, as it wasn't unusual for player models to be higher detail in games, and the TVs of the day did a lot to hide a lot of details, but later on i learned they're also billboards.
I intuitively understood how billboards worked from playing Mario 64 as a kid, especially because of the trees. It was more obvious which objects were 2D on the N64 though, with its low resolution images.
Something I found cool in Kid Icarus Uprising is that the 2D billboards have some type of normal map applied to them when the 3D slider is turned on. It gives them the appearance of depth even though they are flat objects. I don't know of any other games that used that technique.
Some sprite-styled indie games will have a normal map so they can use realtime lighting in the level to illuminate characters. You get nice dynamic lighting effects without having to do them the hard way like in the past.
Billboards are also a very smart way to show detailed objects from very far away withiut using much processing power, check out how very far away trees look like in zelda botw or totk (or even the botw stage in smash!) they're all billboards if you look closely
Yeah it's pretty intelligent to switch to 3D-models if needed, e.g. objects getting close-range. Using billboards for far-away objects saves a lot of processing.
Elden Ring also does this (as do many games, of course). Its most noticeable in Liurnia when you are looking down on the lakes. Its easy to tell that the distant trees look rather flat.
It's even more convincing if you use billboards with normal/parallax maps as those keep the illusion of it having more detail when it's still a simple texture.
sm64's boulders achieve a pretty decent effect by using screen shake to give the otherwise flat boulders some real presense. if u imagine it without the screen shake, they are are just sliding across the ground lol. reminds me of all those little horror games where you get chased by a jpeg
It's often forgotten that billboarding is also possible for 3D meshes. For example, in Pikmin 2 the berries you collect from burgeoning spiderworts are only modeled to be hemispheres which always face the camera.
A _ton_ of things in SM64 are billboards like this. The trees are one of the most striking examples - if you manage to move the camera above you while grabbing the top of a tree, it can look strange because it's not lined up with Mario's position anymore.
When I was a kid, I was actually able to tell that it was a 2D metal ball but it's really funny to me that even many years later, after beating bob-omb king multiple times, that "2D metal ball wearing a disguise" fooled me into thinking the whole thing was 3D lol
The grass in Xenoblade Chronicles 1 was done with this technique. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days also used billboard planes in many interesting places, such as large pillars in Beast's Castle, which only rotated in certain ways.
I first learned about billboards when exploring Makna Forest. Frontier Village and the whole forest canopy are basically billboard central lol. Very effective technology and would easily blend for most... Tho once you realize it kinda sticks out lol. I noticed it instantly in Maktha Wildwood when playing XC3.
If I remember correctly XBC1 also had trees near the end that had it too. It was really obvious when it followed the camera, but I had no idea what it was called
Kid Icarus was the first game when I **REALLY** noticed those billboard effects. Because a lot of the the trophies (yes I call idols that) are billboards and it's extremely noticeable when you're able to examine them that closely.
billboards are also _EXTREMELY_ important for optimizations too. i was taught by my professor who also happened to be a game dev and they said it's to keep the total game files as low as possible
@@ckorp666Game companies also need to be very careful about making the best first impression possible by not releasing games in half-finished states where everything is completely broken (except, strangely, the in-game microtransaction shop). They also make it a top priority to allow their single player games to not need an outside account and a constant internet connection to even work.
One of the best uses of Billboards is the Spawn bosses in Metroid Primes Hunters. They look like huge 3-d monsters attacking you but they're actually just 2-d sprites and you can't notice because there's no way of getting above/below them while fighting them. At least that's what I've heard.
Billboards are an extremely potent optimisation tool as well. I learned about Billboards when I had to really optimise a game intended for PC for Switch. It was a lifesaver since I was able to apply it to background trees that were duplicated hundreds of times throughout the map, and the isometric top-down camera angle made it possible to see lots and lots of trees in certain maps.
Note that billboards were often used to depict round objects in Super Mario 64 because to replicate the same shape in full 3D would take a lot more polygons and would still show straight edges.
Billboards are always an intriguing case to me, as when they're done right, you almost never realize it (or stop to think about it) until you put the objects under scrutiny.
The "billboard effects" pretty much explains why the racing rosters in _Mario Kart 64_ feels like a 2D sprite that happened to be pre-rendered 3D models, which _Donkey Kong Country_ achieved that effect.
Diddy Kong Racing had billboard wheels that changed its sprite acording to the camera position, It was a pretty smart idea because, while low poly cars can look pretty good, low poly wheels would'nt look very good. Crash Team Racing "copied" that and they did it so well you can barelly notice the wheels are sprites.
One billboard that will always impress me are the wheels in "Crash Team Racing." They have different sprites for nearly every angle and they each have two or three frames of animation, so it looks like a 3D model the PS1 couldn't possibly render, let alone render 32 of them at the same time.
Id say for years, not ALL my life, but some odd years Ive noticed this billboard effect in games, and I always figured it was done for the reason we were given today, rendering speed and such, I always figured it was because it took less data and lessen the time needed to make the objects pop up and such. I'm glad this was finally Acknowledged. Thank you Mr. Sakurai-san!
Billboards are also a very interesting and cost effective way to draw NPCs in indie 3D games to avoid real 3D polygon bodies, specially if your game looks cartoony. You can even use different 2D sprites looking on different angles to avoid the weird effect of having everyone always looking at you
The trees, and pretty much every single spherical object part (Iron balls, King Bob-Omb + Thwomp King + Wiggler etc body segments, Mr I's sclera, Scuttlebug body, and so on, use billboards so they can have perfectly spherical objects in a time where they didn't have polygons to spare. The main exception to the rule is the chain chomp, where the mouth makes it a concave shape that wouldn't have worked as well with a billboard. Putting billboards aside, you don't tend to see the kind of style of early CG where characters are assembled with primitives like that anymore, it has a unique and fun look.
It helps that there are a lot of sprites for the enemies at different angles, so the billboards can always be perfectly parallel to the plane of the screen. At lot of recent indie boomer shooters miss this step (understandably, its a lot more work to make those additional sprites). They also often do the Y-axis rotation billboard Sakurai mentiones towards the end, rather than the "true" billboards that Doom and Wolfenstein did. (E.g. historically accurate would be to have the billboards parallel to the camera plane while inaccurate is to have the billboards rotate to face the camera. Even the secrete Wolfenstein retro levels in the new wolfenstein games make this mistake).
@@mitchtellers2547 "Technically, ALL video games are 2D. The final image displayed on your screen is always flat" "Technically, ALL images are 3D. Screens take up 3D space in reality" I consider both of my above statements nonsensical because while they are true to some degree, they aren't useful distinctions to make. (Or maybe I'm misconstruing what you're saying, I'm not an expert in how Doom renders things.)
I like the food in smash has a 2D billboard effect. That combined with the extreme realism It honestly just feels kinda goofy and very retro but like in the best way possible
It really is awesome how well the illusion of a 3D object is conveyed in these games. I can imagine now that it's been pointed out some weird "game design experts" are gonna freak out and be like "they aren't even real 3D objects, dude!!!!"
I knew that from Mario 64 from boundary break :D and I noticed that with the food a long time ago.... reminds me of golden sun and octopath travller in a way.
My sisters and I used to call this "The Toontown Effect," in reference to Disney's 2003 MMO, "Toontown Online," where billboard effects were heavily used for a majority of the game's assets. As I grew older and delved into game development, I did eventually learn the proper term, but to this day whenever I see one I always think of Toontown!
I knew about billboards being used for particle effects, stuff like grass, and far-away objects, but I never realized they were used to fake models themselves in older games!
Fun to know that billboards actually have a specific name for when they always face the camera, I always just referred to them as planes. Thinking more about them, I think they're neat and should be used more in general as a fun stylistic choice, I've played some recent games where even the player character is a billboard that swaps sprites as the camera is rotated, giving a mario kart 64 kind of look. I've even seen one currently in development that has each limb as a billboard so every pose doesn't have to be another separately drawn sprite! It's animated closer to how a 3d model would, but still retaining the distinct 16-bit pixel art style with its own spin... so neat!
I think a lot of people didn't notice billboards in the N64 era either because lower resolutions and CRT blur helped them blend in. Billboarded collectables in Banjo-Kazooie, for instance, stand out a lot more in HD than they did back in the '90s. Mario Kart 64 stands out the most in my memory as having pushed(/crossed) the limit of what you could get away with billboarding at that time.
The first time I noticed this technique was in the original Super Smash Bros, pausing the game and moving the camera on stages were it's very noticeable like the bushes of Dreamland. It's such a good technique to lower the usage of resources that even the most advanced games still use it when rendering background elements that are very far.
That is definitely something I have never heard of before. It makes me want to try making a 3D game more now. I wonder how many games have been focused around billboarding of low-res/pixel art. I guess games like Doom are the most notable example.
Another fantastic video from Sakurai! I love getting to see all these secret techniques. I never knew that about King Bob-omb, though I always thought that the food items just being pictures of real food was funny.
Mickey's ears are an animation cheat, because Disney demands they have a distinct placement on his forehead. You have to do a ton of nonsense to make it look on brand without sliding his ears around his head. Epic Mickey's animators had a ton of issues with this, since you can freely rotate the camera.
billboards or no, they looked great and I can’t tell the difference when playing the game. Knowing this gave me confidence that the switch wasn’t super taxed to display 60fps.
I remember when I was playing with the camera in Smash Bros. Melee, I noticed the food items never rotated: they always face towards the camera. Unless I'm mistaken, I think the snowmen in Frappe Snowland (Mario Kart 64) are like that, too, even though they're animated.
The first time I noticed billboard effects was in Mario 64 when Mario could climb the trees, but up close they looked flat and always seemed to face the camera!
Thanks for the info Mr Sakurai! I've noticed this effect when playing Wolfenstein years ago but never thought that it's useful for some effects. I could use this for my games.
The original Super Smash Bros. was the first time I ever noticed the effect, since all items (and Pokémon), most projectiles, and several stage elements are billboarded. And what projectiles don't billboard are still 2D sprites (e.g. Link's boomerang).
The first thing that popped into my mind with this subject was Duke Nukem 3D. I remember as a kid finding it weird how things would continue to face me as I strafed circles around them.
While it's somewhat hard to notice, all the "volumetric" clouds in tears of the kingdom are billboards. It was a really smart way to add depth to the world without pushing the Switch past its limits
I have always loved the food items in smash bros. But the bob-omb rolling balls and King Bob-omb being made up of billboards blew my mind. Along with the liberal use of billboards in smash effects, i'm starting to see how cleverly nintendo has made the switch look this good with how limited the hardware is. This channel is such a blessing!!
I'd say, one of the most impressive use of billboards would be Kirby 64. All the enemies use unshaded billboards angled in different ways to create the oval feet and limbs you expect from Kirby games. At the time, I could'nt believe a 64 game could produce such round models, I understood games like Mario 64 and Bomberman 64 were using alot of 2d tricks to add round things, but oval things blew my mind.
The Smash Ball trophy in 4 (maybe Brawl as well) is like half-billboard, half-model, since when you rotate it, the colors move, but the Smash symbol doesn’t.
Even characters can use billboards. Just look at the Alloys in Brawl. The purple stomach cores on the three humanoids, and the white 'balls' on all four of their faces and in their hands/feet are billboards. Edit: I don't know if any other character uses them, but the 'cage' that surrounds the core on the humanoid Alloys also uses a weird type of geometry that only generates lines, but somehow with a UV map on them.
The Mario 64 example is a fun one because I wonder if hardware of that generation could even display a perfectly round polygonal sphere during live gameplay
Valorant is an example of an FPS game that saves a ton on performance using billboards heavily for pretty much every particle effect seen in game. If it’s not a player, weapon, or map, it’s a billboard.
Mario Kart DS has a LOT of billboards, shells, bananas, fire balls, smoke, trees, the Sun. the animated parts on the track are also using a scrolling texture which is really cheap, every boost pannels, animated arrows, the Waluigi Pinball tube uses heavily this technique, the Wario Stadium animated advertisements too. I really liked how good MKDS looks, especially how much geometry and detail there is, knowing there mostly isn't.
You can even find some in Super Mario Odyssey, a much more recent game that still utilizes them. Lots of the clouds and other effects in the game use billboards.
There are plenty of games uses billboard on smaller and interesting details, majority are for particle effects like falling leaves and such. Most N64 titles also use billboards to save power too like Mario 64 (trees, all ball shaped objects you can find except for the bolders, the Bob-ombs, water splashes, snow particles, bubbles, lava bubbles, even the bombs in Bowser's boss stages). Smash 64 also uses Billboard too, highly noticable on stage background (even today in Ultimate), plenty of items as well (shells, bombs, star rod, food, even the proximity mine), background objects (bumpers, trees, signs, debris, Wispy Woods, King Dedede, Gordo, and Ridley), and of course, particle effects (both fighter effects or stage effects like Master Hand's intro cutscene)
It's important to note that there are two different ways to approach billboard effects, and the method you use depends on the artistic needs of the project. I often see people get these methods mixed up so I'll try to explain them here. First there is the method seen here, where the billboards *match the rotation of the camera*. This makes it so the billboards appear totally flat at all times, almost as if they're 2D sprites rendered on top of the image, rather than a 3D object being rotated. This method is usually the way to go when billboards are being used for optimization purposes, or when you're trying to achieve an authentically retro look. The other method is to *rotate the billboards so that they look at the camera* at all times. This results in a billboard that is more obviously a rotating flat object, as you will see it rotate as you walk by and it will not appear as a 2D sprite on screen. This method is good in certain cases for artistic reasons, but it's not an "authentic" billboarding method.
So THAT'S what they're called! I always referred to them as "cardboard"! Ha ha! Like the little snowmen in Frappe Snowland in Mario Kart 64! I always loved that effect!
I remember being a kid, pausing and looking around with the camera wondering why the shield orbs always looked the same as the camera panned. Full circle
I just attributed this effect as being "sprites" in 3D games, but maybe that's because my first exposure to a 3D editor was Duke Nukem 3D's Build Editor, and that's how it referred to them as well.
![The Shoryuken Command [Game Essence]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zswiCPS5CSM/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Shoryuken Command [Game Essence]](/img/tr.png)
![Odds and Ends of Supervising [Graphics]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wKQ2v9kno9I/mqdefault.jpg)
![Super Smash Bros. [Game Concepts]](/img/n.gif)
despite melee not being my first exposure to billboards in videogames, it was the first time i realized textures were indeed done like that once i rotated and zoomed in on the food items
was about to comment something similar. never really thought of it during the n64 days despite how common it was, but the food in melee really opened my eyes to it
Smash 4 was the first time realizarion for me, similarly because of the camera controls.
I noticed since smash 64 Mario 64 trees use it as well
although melee also has some 2d effects projected onto 3d like fox & captain falcon's fire attacks!
When I was a kid, I thought the smash ball in Super Smash Bros. Brawl was a 3D sphere that somehow looked the same no matter which direction you looked at it. It blew my mind as a kid, but growing up and learning about game development made me realize that it was just a 2d billboard.
When I was a kid I thought the karts in mario kart 64 were just really high detail models, as it wasn't unusual for player models to be higher detail in games, and the TVs of the day did a lot to hide a lot of details, but later on i learned they're also billboards.
I intuitively understood how billboards worked from playing Mario 64 as a kid, especially because of the trees. It was more obvious which objects were 2D on the N64 though, with its low resolution images.
Something I found cool in Kid Icarus Uprising is that the 2D billboards have some type of normal map applied to them when the 3D slider is turned on. It gives them the appearance of depth even though they are flat objects. I don't know of any other games that used that technique.
Zelda BOTW also had normal map for faraway trees giving it accurate shade
Some sprite-styled indie games will have a normal map so they can use realtime lighting in the level to illuminate characters. You get nice dynamic lighting effects without having to do them the hard way like in the past.
@@d3v1lsummoner the only game i know that uses that is cosmoteer
I usually notice when the effect is used, but I never knew they were called "Billboards". You always learn something new.
I don’t notice it all the time, but I knew the effect existed and had no idea what it was called
Billboards are also a very smart way to show detailed objects from very far away withiut using much processing power, check out how very far away trees look like in zelda botw or totk (or even the botw stage in smash!) they're all billboards if you look closely
Yeah it's pretty intelligent to switch to 3D-models if needed, e.g. objects getting close-range. Using billboards for far-away objects saves a lot of processing.
Wanted to say the same thing. Beat me to it :P
Elden Ring also does this (as do many games, of course).
Its most noticeable in Liurnia when you are looking down on the lakes. Its easy to tell that the distant trees look rather flat.
This type of LODs is known as... an imposter... quite sus...
It's even more convincing if you use billboards with normal/parallax maps as those keep the illusion of it having more detail when it's still a simple texture.
sm64's boulders achieve a pretty decent effect by using screen shake to give the otherwise flat boulders some real presense. if u imagine it without the screen shake, they are are just sliding across the ground lol. reminds me of all those little horror games where you get chased by a jpeg
It's often forgotten that billboarding is also possible for 3D meshes. For example, in Pikmin 2 the berries you collect from burgeoning spiderworts are only modeled to be hemispheres which always face the camera.
I had no idea those boulders that rolled down were 2-D
i can't unsee that now
A _ton_ of things in SM64 are billboards like this. The trees are one of the most striking examples - if you manage to move the camera above you while grabbing the top of a tree, it can look strange because it's not lined up with Mario's position anymore.
@@SSM24_ Love how Mario Odyssey kept the billboard trees in the Mario 64 room!
When I was a kid, I was actually able to tell that it was a 2D metal ball but it's really funny to me that even many years later, after beating bob-omb king multiple times, that "2D metal ball wearing a disguise" fooled me into thinking the whole thing was 3D lol
I feel like the camera shake helps hide it.
I recently played Banjo-Kazooie, it had some pretty good use of "billboard" effects with many of the collectable objects in that game.
The grass in Xenoblade Chronicles 1 was done with this technique.
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days also used billboard planes in many interesting places, such as large pillars in Beast's Castle, which only rotated in certain ways.
I first learned about billboards when exploring Makna Forest. Frontier Village and the whole forest canopy are basically billboard central lol.
Very effective technology and would easily blend for most... Tho once you realize it kinda sticks out lol. I noticed it instantly in Maktha Wildwood when playing XC3.
I think the grass in that game overall came out very well too, especially since you can't see it pop-in like later games in the series.
If I remember correctly XBC1 also had trees near the end that had it too. It was really obvious when it followed the camera, but I had no idea what it was called
many many games do grass that way yo ^^
358/2 is a unique example of billboarding using 3d models rather than 2d image planes
The trees in Okami were my first experience where I noticed, seeing the same size no matter how I ran around them. Works well for the games art style
Solid video, straight to the point. Billboards are a useful tool in any good designer's arsenal
Kid Icarus was the first game when I **REALLY** noticed those billboard effects.
Because a lot of the the trophies (yes I call idols that) are billboards and it's extremely noticeable when you're able to examine them that closely.
I always loved how pretty and lifelike the food in Smash looked
I wonder if they took real life photos of foods to create them...?
billboards are also _EXTREMELY_ important for optimizations too. i was taught by my professor who also happened to be a game dev and they said it's to keep the total game files as low as possible
>keep the total game files as low as possible
every AAA game released in the last decade: "lmao"
@@imcoral >performance issues, long loading times, or reduced compatibility
every AAA game released in the last decade: "lmao"
@@ckorp666Game companies also need to be very careful about making the best first impression possible by not releasing games in half-finished states where everything is completely broken (except, strangely, the in-game microtransaction shop). They also make it a top priority to allow their single player games to not need an outside account and a constant internet connection to even work.
Definitely observed this effect several times and Smash is a really easy example of it. Didn't know "billboard" was the name for it, though.
One of the best uses of Billboards is the Spawn bosses in Metroid Primes Hunters. They look like huge 3-d monsters attacking you but they're actually just 2-d sprites and you can't notice because there's no way of getting above/below them while fighting them. At least that's what I've heard.
I love the way the food item looks in SSB. Billboards are so cool.
Having played Xenoblade Chronicles 3D, once you reach Makna Forest you become VERY acquainted with billboarding.
Billboards are an extremely potent optimisation tool as well. I learned about Billboards when I had to really optimise a game intended for PC for Switch. It was a lifesaver since I was able to apply it to background trees that were duplicated hundreds of times throughout the map, and the isometric top-down camera angle made it possible to see lots and lots of trees in certain maps.
Note that billboards were often used to depict round objects in Super Mario 64 because to replicate the same shape in full 3D would take a lot more polygons and would still show straight edges.
Billboards are always an intriguing case to me, as when they're done right, you almost never realize it (or stop to think about it) until you put the objects under scrutiny.
This is one thing that always stuck out to me in 3D games of old. Glad to finally understand the meaning of it.
The "billboard effects" pretty much explains why the racing rosters in _Mario Kart 64_ feels like a 2D sprite that happened to be pre-rendered 3D models, which _Donkey Kong Country_ achieved that effect.
Diddy Kong Racing had billboard wheels that changed its sprite acording to the camera position, It was a pretty smart idea because, while low poly cars can look pretty good, low poly wheels would'nt look very good.
Crash Team Racing "copied" that and they did it so well you can barelly notice the wheels are sprites.
ahhh billboards 😌
One billboard that will always impress me are the wheels in "Crash Team Racing." They have different sprites for nearly every angle and they each have two or three frames of animation, so it looks like a 3D model the PS1 couldn't possibly render, let alone render 32 of them at the same time.
Id say for years, not ALL my life, but some odd years Ive noticed this billboard effect in games, and I always figured it was done for the reason we were given today, rendering speed and such, I always figured it was because it took less data and lessen the time needed to make the objects pop up and such.
I'm glad this was finally Acknowledged. Thank you Mr. Sakurai-san!
Always liked the billboard food because it made them easy to identify when sitting among a sea of other items.
Basically everything in Danganronpa is like this and I love it! It gives it such a weird and unique look that feels strange and eerie.
Billboards are also a very interesting and cost effective way to draw NPCs in indie 3D games to avoid real 3D polygon bodies, specially if your game looks cartoony. You can even use different 2D sprites looking on different angles to avoid the weird effect of having everyone always looking at you
Th hyperrealistic stick images as food is rly funny. Loved it as a kid, love it still today.
TIL the rolling iron balls in SM64 are billboards. I won't be able to unsee that they aren't rolling now, lol.
also the trees
The trees, and pretty much every single spherical object part (Iron balls, King Bob-Omb + Thwomp King + Wiggler etc body segments, Mr I's sclera, Scuttlebug body, and so on, use billboards so they can have perfectly spherical objects in a time where they didn't have polygons to spare. The main exception to the rule is the chain chomp, where the mouth makes it a concave shape that wouldn't have worked as well with a billboard.
Putting billboards aside, you don't tend to see the kind of style of early CG where characters are assembled with primitives like that anymore, it has a unique and fun look.
I love billboards!!! They've been a key part of Super Smash Bros since the very beginning!!
I learned about this in college! Great to see it actually being talked about!!
I think that basically every renderable sprite in the original doom was made using billboards
It helps that there are a lot of sprites for the enemies at different angles, so the billboards can always be perfectly parallel to the plane of the screen.
At lot of recent indie boomer shooters miss this step (understandably, its a lot more work to make those additional
sprites). They also often do the Y-axis rotation billboard Sakurai mentiones towards the end, rather than the "true" billboards that Doom and Wolfenstein did. (E.g. historically accurate would be to have the billboards parallel to the camera plane while inaccurate is to have the billboards rotate to face the camera. Even the secrete Wolfenstein retro levels in the new wolfenstein games make this mistake).
Technically, ALL of Doom is 2D.
The engine creates a first-person 2D image that is designed to appear 3D.
@@mitchtellers2547 "Technically, ALL video games are 2D. The final image displayed on your screen is always flat"
"Technically, ALL images are 3D. Screens take up 3D space in reality"
I consider both of my above statements nonsensical because while they are true to some degree, they aren't useful distinctions to make.
(Or maybe I'm misconstruing what you're saying, I'm not an expert in how Doom renders things.)
@xerveeon Yeah, you should probably study up on Id's Doom engine.
Then it would make sense.
I like the food in smash has a 2D billboard effect. That combined with the extreme realism It honestly just feels kinda goofy and very retro but like in the best way possible
It really is awesome how well the illusion of a 3D object is conveyed in these games. I can imagine now that it's been pointed out some weird "game design experts" are gonna freak out and be like "they aren't even real 3D objects, dude!!!!"
I didn't know it had a term!
The trees in Ocarina of Time are billboards, as well!
I thought they were just sprites made to face the camera.
I never knew that those Iron Balls from Mario 64 were two-dimensional!
It never occurred to me that billboards were so common in modern games. I love using them to create an "old 3D" retro look!
The pívot of the billboard geometry is also very important for the look of how it rotates towards the camera : D
I knew that from Mario 64 from boundary break :D and I noticed that with the food a long time ago.... reminds me of golden sun and octopath travller in a way.
Billboarding is used so much in the original Super Smash Bros. that special moves use it
most games use billboards for particles even today
My sisters and I used to call this "The Toontown Effect," in reference to Disney's 2003 MMO, "Toontown Online," where billboard effects were heavily used for a majority of the game's assets. As I grew older and delved into game development, I did eventually learn the proper term, but to this day whenever I see one I always think of Toontown!
I always loved the detail of the Food being just a PNG.
I knew about billboards being used for particle effects, stuff like grass, and far-away objects, but I never realized they were used to fake models themselves in older games!
Fun to know that billboards actually have a specific name for when they always face the camera, I always just referred to them as planes.
Thinking more about them, I think they're neat and should be used more in general as a fun stylistic choice, I've played some recent games where even the player character is a billboard that swaps sprites as the camera is rotated, giving a mario kart 64 kind of look. I've even seen one currently in development that has each limb as a billboard so every pose doesn't have to be another separately drawn sprite! It's animated closer to how a 3d model would, but still retaining the distinct 16-bit pixel art style with its own spin... so neat!
I like the Billboard trees in Okami.
Polygon efficient aside, it matches very well with the aesthetics of Japanese paintings!
I think a lot of people didn't notice billboards in the N64 era either because lower resolutions and CRT blur helped them blend in. Billboarded collectables in Banjo-Kazooie, for instance, stand out a lot more in HD than they did back in the '90s. Mario Kart 64 stands out the most in my memory as having pushed(/crossed) the limit of what you could get away with billboarding at that time.
The first time I noticed this technique was in the original Super Smash Bros, pausing the game and moving the camera on stages were it's very noticeable like the bushes of Dreamland.
It's such a good technique to lower the usage of resources that even the most advanced games still use it when rendering background elements that are very far.
That is definitely something I have never heard of before. It makes me want to try making a 3D game more now. I wonder how many games have been focused around billboarding of low-res/pixel art. I guess games like Doom are the most notable example.
Yeah I noticed the clouds in Tears of the Kingdom were billboards when I first played it. Pretty neat trick to maintain performance on Switch.
Another fantastic video from Sakurai! I love getting to see all these secret techniques. I never knew that about King Bob-omb, though I always thought that the food items just being pictures of real food was funny.
There's a lot of billboards in Mario 64, and they absolutely nailed the effect on the first try. Even now, it still looks impressive.
Elden ring tree leaves use billboards and it's so hard to notice unless you really pay attention. They really did a good job with those.
Melee and Air Ride was my introduction to billboards!
So that's how Mickey Mouse's ears work
Mickey's ears are an animation cheat, because Disney demands they have a distinct placement on his forehead. You have to do a ton of nonsense to make it look on brand without sliding his ears around his head. Epic Mickey's animators had a ton of issues with this, since you can freely rotate the camera.
@@Chadius that was the joke, yeah
You mean the same one of astro boy when no matter where you look at their hair or ears respectively you , see them on the same position
Kinda like how folks imagined Sonics quills back in the day
@@waypastcoolkid got it
That King Bob-omb was made using billboards really blew me away!
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(*cough*)
Seriously, I would have never realized it without being told...
I always loved looking at the food in Melee.
billboards are my favorite game development technique
thanks for the lesson, sakurai! i've seen these before, but it's nice to hear about them from you, sakurai!
I remember as a kid walking around and around the trees in Super Mario 64 because I found their billboards to be funny to see rotate in place
I always knew them as giant sprites, never knew they were called billboards. I've been noticing these since 90s computer games.
billboards or no, they looked great and I can’t tell the difference when playing the game. Knowing this gave me confidence that the switch wasn’t super taxed to display 60fps.
I remember when I was playing with the camera in Smash Bros. Melee, I noticed the food items never rotated: they always face towards the camera.
Unless I'm mistaken, I think the snowmen in Frappe Snowland (Mario Kart 64) are like that, too, even though they're animated.
Yes, the snowmen are also billboarded sprites!
The first time I noticed billboard effects was in Mario 64 when Mario could climb the trees, but up close they looked flat and always seemed to face the camera!
Thanks for the info Mr Sakurai! I've noticed this effect when playing Wolfenstein years ago but never thought that it's useful for some effects. I could use this for my games.
I didn't know about Mario 64, Sakurai just killed my childhood with that information!
The original Super Smash Bros. was the first time I ever noticed the effect, since all items (and Pokémon), most projectiles, and several stage elements are billboarded. And what projectiles don't billboard are still 2D sprites (e.g. Link's boomerang).
😮 thats actually really cool though. Neat Details like this make the games i grew up on even cooler to me!
The first thing that popped into my mind with this subject was Duke Nukem 3D. I remember as a kid finding it weird how things would continue to face me as I strafed circles around them.
Such a smart way to do it if you do it well enough, then you can't tell during gameplay.
I had no idea the cannonballs in Super Mario 64 were billboards. The screenshake really sold the illusion
While it's somewhat hard to notice, all the "volumetric" clouds in tears of the kingdom are billboards. It was a really smart way to add depth to the world without pushing the Switch past its limits
I have always loved the food items in smash bros. But the bob-omb rolling balls and King Bob-omb being made up of billboards blew my mind. Along with the liberal use of billboards in smash effects, i'm starting to see how cleverly nintendo has made the switch look this good with how limited the hardware is. This channel is such a blessing!!
I had never considered that there was a specific term for this.
So, this is the word I can use to describe both Doom and Paper Mario's graphics.
I'd say, one of the most impressive use of billboards would be Kirby 64.
All the enemies use unshaded billboards angled in different ways to create the oval feet and limbs you expect from Kirby games.
At the time, I could'nt believe a 64 game could produce such round models, I understood games like Mario 64 and Bomberman 64 were using alot of 2d tricks to add round things, but oval things blew my mind.
The Smash Ball trophy in 4 (maybe Brawl as well) is like half-billboard, half-model, since when you rotate it, the colors move, but the Smash symbol doesn’t.
Even characters can use billboards. Just look at the Alloys in Brawl. The purple stomach cores on the three humanoids, and the white 'balls' on all four of their faces and in their hands/feet are billboards.
Edit: I don't know if any other character uses them, but the 'cage' that surrounds the core on the humanoid Alloys also uses a weird type of geometry that only generates lines, but somehow with a UV map on them.
This was something I’ve recognized but never had the word for it
I love that the food uses billboards, its really cute
The Mario 64 example is a fun one because I wonder if hardware of that generation could even display a perfectly round polygonal sphere during live gameplay
Valorant is an example of an FPS game that saves a ton on performance using billboards heavily for pretty much every particle effect seen in game. If it’s not a player, weapon, or map, it’s a billboard.
Mario Kart DS has a LOT of billboards, shells, bananas, fire balls, smoke, trees, the Sun.
the animated parts on the track are also using a scrolling texture which is really cheap, every boost pannels, animated arrows, the Waluigi Pinball tube uses heavily this technique, the Wario Stadium animated advertisements too.
I really liked how good MKDS looks, especially how much geometry and detail there is, knowing there mostly isn't.
You can even find some in Super Mario Odyssey, a much more recent game that still utilizes them. Lots of the clouds and other effects in the game use billboards.
There are plenty of games uses billboard on smaller and interesting details, majority are for particle effects like falling leaves and such.
Most N64 titles also use billboards to save power too like Mario 64 (trees, all ball shaped objects you can find except for the bolders, the Bob-ombs, water splashes, snow particles, bubbles, lava bubbles, even the bombs in Bowser's boss stages). Smash 64 also uses Billboard too, highly noticable on stage background (even today in Ultimate), plenty of items as well (shells, bombs, star rod, food, even the proximity mine), background objects (bumpers, trees, signs, debris, Wispy Woods, King Dedede, Gordo, and Ridley), and of course, particle effects (both fighter effects or stage effects like Master Hand's intro cutscene)
You thought you were playing 3D games but its all 2D! Kono 2Dio da!
I just call it Doom sprites lol
Even Wolfenstein 3D was the first one to used it alot.
I can't believe I never noticed the SM64 boulders and parts of King Bobomb were flat. I could have sworn they were 3D models!
That's interesting, never knew the food on smash bros were billboards :0
Billboard effects are nostalgic 🙂
It's important to note that there are two different ways to approach billboard effects, and the method you use depends on the artistic needs of the project. I often see people get these methods mixed up so I'll try to explain them here.
First there is the method seen here, where the billboards *match the rotation of the camera*. This makes it so the billboards appear totally flat at all times, almost as if they're 2D sprites rendered on top of the image, rather than a 3D object being rotated. This method is usually the way to go when billboards are being used for optimization purposes, or when you're trying to achieve an authentically retro look.
The other method is to *rotate the billboards so that they look at the camera* at all times. This results in a billboard that is more obviously a rotating flat object, as you will see it rotate as you walk by and it will not appear as a 2D sprite on screen. This method is good in certain cases for artistic reasons, but it's not an "authentic" billboarding method.
I can't believe all the Smash characters have been eating billboards the whole time.
2D anime characters on top of 3D backgrounds in video games are fascinating.
So THAT'S what they're called! I always referred to them as "cardboard"! Ha ha! Like the little snowmen in Frappe Snowland in Mario Kart 64! I always loved that effect!
I remember being a kid, pausing and looking around with the camera wondering why the shield orbs always looked the same as the camera panned. Full circle
I remember when I used to Minecraft mod I actually added a billboard rendering thing, which I actually used for my own Duke Nukem 3D mod.
I just attributed this effect as being "sprites" in 3D games, but maybe that's because my first exposure to a 3D editor was Duke Nukem 3D's Build Editor, and that's how it referred to them as well.
Huh... I've always noticed this but never had a name for it. Now I have a name for it. Cool
The first game I played with billboards was Super Mario 64... DS, in that game these are very* low-res, so it's easy to notice the effect up close.
What I learned today is that this little phenomenon actually has a name and isn't just the game glitching out whenever you try to rotate a sprite
This used to creep me out while playing Mario 64 as a kid. (and other games as well)