Mario Artist: Polygon Studio

Mario Artist: Polygon Studio is the fourth title of the Mario Artist suite, featuring a 3D model editor, a full open-world mode, and a minigame consisting of a number of "microgames" that increase in difficulty and speed over time.

While the 64DD was a flop, taking a number of planned games down with it (Mario Artist: Sound Maker had been announced, but was cancelled when Randnet announced a new "Maker Series" with Sound Maker, Game Maker, Graphical Message Maker, and Video Jockey Maker) and resulting in Polygon Studio being the last release for the ill-fated add-on, a certain greedy mustachioed man would later steal the aforementioned minigame wholesale and make bank.

To do: Cut content, hidden graphics, unused stage background import info...

Build Date#

GameShark code: 800B3451 0001

Ver.0818.a

Unused Graphics#

Found at 0xAB5120 alongside roads, the 64DD logo, and the Nintendo logo.

Found at 0xAB6D20 is a tiny version of the old Polygon Studio logo. Mario Artist: Paint Studio once used a similar logo.

Prerelease Super Mario 64 Assets#

The models sampled from Super Mario 64 strangely all seem to be based on earlier versions of the character models from said game.

Mario#

SM64 Mario	SM64 Medium-Poly Mario	Polygon Studio Mario

The Mario model interestingly appears to be based on Mario's medium-poly model from SM64, which features less polygons in the body than the main model. While the topology of the body is basically identical, the head looks to have been heavily modified for the Polygon Studio version.

Early SM64 Medium-Poly Luigi From Leak	Polygon Studio Mario

Another explanation is that the model is based on an earlier version of Mario's medium-poly model, as the head has very similar topology with that of an early version of Luigi's medium-poly model (found in the July 2020 Nintendo leaks). The extra geometry for the mustache may have been added for this version.

Yoshi#

SM64 Yoshi	Early SM64 Yoshi From Leak	Polygon Studio Yoshi

The Yoshi model is almost identical to the one found in the July 2020 Gigaleak. The most notable difference compared to the final SM64 model are the fully modeled soles on the shoes. For the Polygon Studio version, it appears they added a few more polygons to better define the spikes on the back of his head.

Koopa#

SM64 Koopa	Early SM64 Koopa	Polygon Studio Koopa

The Koopa model appears to be using the early model parts of the SM64 Koopa, which can be found in the final data of that game. The most notable difference to the final SM64 model is the slightly taller shell.