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Mario Artist: Talent Studio

If you're a long-time IGN64 reader, then you probably remember their coverage of Nintendo's odd lineup of 64DD creativity apps more than three years ago. Back then, celebrity game designer Shigeru Miyamoto let it slip that he was becoming increasingly interested in changing people's ideas of what electronic entertainment is all about. In order to turn Miyamoto's ideas into reality, Nintendo's internal software and hardware development teams teamed up with British tools and game developer Software Creations and 3D specialist Nichimen. The outcome was a lineup of creativity applications much in the vein of Nintendo's extremely popular Mario Paint, all to be published under the new franchise title: Mario Artist.

History in the Making
The original plan was to release four such "un-games" for the (now) Japan-only 64DD disk drive add-on:

Picture Maker: Now redubbed Mario Artist & Camera (Paint Studio in Japan), this Creations/Nintendo title is essentially Mario Paint 64. Players paint with a variety of brushes and utilize tons of image processing tools and filters, just like in professional paint programs like Adobe Photoshop. The game also incorporates a texture painting portion where N64 owners can redesign the look of 3D creatures.
Polygon Maker: Poly Maker was first shown in working form at Spaceworld '96. The title lets gamers design their own 3D models, ranging from spaceships to human characters, then texture them and pose them in 3D scenes. There were also plans to let players export their creations for use in other games. Polygon Maker resurfaced as Polygon Studio at Spaceworld '99.
Sound Maker: Sound Maker is the only one of the four apps that was never shown to the public. Presumably utilizing Creations' now terribly outdated sound tools, Sound Maker was supposed to be a virtual recording studio that enabled music composing, arrangement, sequencing and perhaps even sampling.
Talent Maker: Talent Maker was first shown alongside Poly and Picture Maker. Although it may be the most obscure app in the "Maker" series, it's also the most well-known thanks mostly to its appearance at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, CA. Before his speech in front of hundreds of members of the game development community, Miyamoto demoed a slightly disturbing virtual version of himself, strutting his stuff on screen accompanied by disco music. Since then, Talent Maker has been renamed to Talent Studio

What's a Talent?
Sure you know what "talent" means - but the Japanese have borrowed the word and given it a somewhat new meaning. Pronounced "tarento", a Japanese talent is a celebrity performer who appears on TV in long-running and insanely popular drama shows, tries to answer trivia questions on bizarre quiz shows that are designed to make rich people richer, and usually produces between two or three J-Pop hit singles a year. Ironically, a huge number of talents possess neither acting nor singing ability and are often only talented at looking and acting either cute and/or obnoxious on TV. In comes Nintendo's Talent Studio, the first truly interactive 3D video show that lets you decide who appears on stage to show off their talents - or lack thereof.

Is this really a game?
No. Talent Studio can best be described as a virtual video production studio. Instead of playing a game with a true goal and actual game mechanics, Talent Studio owners put together their own videos with polygonal 3D characters and props. Here is how it works:

1. Select your character of choice. You can pick from a variety of different pre-made models with their own face textures or start over from scratch.
2. Don't like face texture? No problem. How about putting your own mug into the game? First unveiled by Miyamoto at GDC, Talent Maker is the first title to show off the N64-Game Boy Camera link. Plug the Game Boy Camera into the optional Transfer Pak (aka 64GB Pak), then plug the Transfer Pak into your N64 controller. Snap a picture of your face (please guys, resist the urge to photograph other parts of your anatomy!) and import the black and white texture directly into Talent Maker. Using simple menus, you can now adjust the coloring of the photo and stretch it over the polygonal head of your character of choice. The process is so effective, the Perfect Dark team over at Rare decided to use the same concept for the multiplayer character faces in the upcoming first-person shooter. Additionally, Talent Studio also supports the optional Capture Cart that enables the capture of more detailed images and even video footage. After applying the face texture, you can edit it by giving it new eyebrows, a mustache, change the hair style and color and so on.
3. You have full control over the body of your creation. Fat, skinny, tall, green-skinned... You decide. Imagine total freedom of creation - kind of like WWF Attitude's player creation mode on steroids.
4. Now it's time to pick the right wardrobe for your alter ego. Choices include everything from sexy women's dresses to '70s duds with flare pants and plenty of glitter. Want to map a capture image onto a virtual t-shirt? No problem.
5. Select props. You can give your character a backpack, an umbrella, a turtle shell or even Link's shield and master sword.
6. What do you want your character to do? Pick from scenarios that have your talent jumping around in a 3D fashion show or whip out a guitar and lay down some funky riffs.
7. Hit play and watch in amazement as your hideous creation is given life. Thanks to some of the best motion-capturing around, the outcome is eerily lifelike and shockingly surreal at the same time.

Talent Studio supports the Nintendo Mouse.

Outlook
Yep, it sounds pretty dumb, doesn't it? Oddly, Talent Maker is an addictive little game that will hook you with its amazingly simple controls and hilarious character animation. Seeing a polygonal character with your (or your worst enemy's) face doing strange stuff on TV is definitely a guilty pleasure. It remains to be seen if Talent Studio can also deliver long-term play value once the sense of novelty wears off, but we'd certainly love to see Nintendo bring original apps like Talent Studio to the US as well.

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