Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 24 (Patreon)

Welcome, everyone, to the 24th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.  

Today, I will edit the models of Mario characters that wear opaque glasses to show what they would look like without them.

Take Off Those Glasses

Over the years, the Mario franchise has amassed an extremely large number of characters. As eyeglasses or spectacles, goggles, shades and other eyewear are a common accessory in character design, characters wearing glasses has also become a numerous group. While many glasses-wearing characters have clear or semi-transparent lenses (e.g. Lakitu, Toadsworth, Penny Crygor), many also have entirely opaque lenses that do not allow a look at their eyes (e.g. all Magikoopas, Funky Kong, Jimmy T. and his family).

Of course, many of these characters exist only as sprites in 2D space. For example, Kent C. Koopa from Paper Mario is a sprite:

As none of his animations include him taking off his glasses, there is no way for us to extract this information from the game's data, as it simply does not exist. To find out how he and other 2D characters would look without glasses, the only option is to ask the character designers responsible. 

However, things are different when considering 3D models. Unlike a drawing, where it is possible to simply draw a pair of glasses without ever designing the eyes underneath,  creating a character in 3D involves building the entirety of their body from the ground up. As usually, especially in more recent games, glasses are a 3D object, the usual process is to model the character's head without the glasses, and then put the glasses into place. Thus, it is possible to reverse this process by editing the model and removing the glasses, allowing us a look at the part of the head normally covered by them.

For this article, I have taken all available 3D models extracted by the community members at models-resource.com of Mario franchise characters with opaque eyewear. Note that due to model extraction being a complex process, very few games have had the entirety of their models extracted, and as such, many characters, and many additional appearances by the characters that are present, are missing here. Still, I believe the models on display here can offer some insight into how the matter of opaque glasses on characters is handled.

The screenshots are taken with the Noesis model viewer and the glasses are removed using Blender. The link to each model on models-resource.com will be given in the description of that model. Note that some models have slight rendering issues which will be pointed out for clarity.

One of the most prominent examples of a character with opaque glasses in the franchise is Roy Koopa. In all of his game appearances, Roy has never taken off his sunglasses, and the only times he was shown without them is in one-off gag manga:

Here is what Roy looks like in Mario Kart 8 with his glasses on (model source):

The sunglasses are, in the case of this model, their own object, making them easily removable:

Roy's head is fully modeled underneath, but there are no eye textures (of course, there are no hidden eye textures in the vast majority of the models showcased here; however, some models have other features of interest beneath the glasses that are not otherwise visible).

Of note is the prominent eyebrow ridge that is normally obscured by the glasses. 

Next is Iggy Koopa. While Iggy's irises are visible through his glasses, the frames are aligned perfectly with the edges of the eyes, making it unclear how his eyes would appear without them. Here is his appearance in Mario Kart 8 (model source):

Unfortunately, Iggy is one of the characters whose head is simply not modeled at all behind the glasses:

A large rectangular hole takes up the space where his eyes would be.

The hole from the side. Note the slight round shadow on the skin left over from the glasses.

Professor E. Gadd is another prominent character with opaque glasses - or at least glasses that are opaque at first glance. In several of his appearances, including the first one in Luigi's Mansion, the glasses are very slightly translucent (about 90% opacity), which has led the developers to add an eye texture to the model that is barely visible in-game. The eyes have remained throughout most of his other appearances, even those where the glasses are entirely opaque. Here is the original Luigi's Mansion model (model source):

Unfortunately, the model format used by the exporter did not include the opacity information for the glasses. However, this is an approximation of how the model would appear during normal gameplay, without looking too closely.

Here it is without the glasses:

E. Gadd's eyes are very small and very close to his nose, making them even harder to see in-game due to amounting to small dots on the edge of the glasses. 

Let us take a look at E. Gadd's eyes in a few other games. Here is Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (model source): 

Here is his model from Mario Party 6 without glasses (model source):

Despite being released later than Luigi's Mansion on the same system, the model is much lower in polygon count; although this may be simply due to the large expected amount of detail on screen in the board segments, compared to Luigi's Mansion, where E. Gadd appears only in small confined spaces.

Finally, there is a different model of E. Gadd that was created entirely from scratch for a decoration in Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 (model source):

Instead of eyes, removing the glasses reveals shadows that are included in the texture to simulate lighting (this is referred to in 3D modeling terminology as "baked-in" shadows):

Funky Kong is a character who is never seen without his sunglasses. He has lifted them briefly in his first appearance in Donkey Kong Country, confirming that he has regular eyes underneath, similar to Donkey Kong's:

In addition, his unique glasses in Donkey Kong 64 are not opaque, showing his eyes clearly:

However, his models do not include these eyes. Instead, the area under his sunglasses is fully modeled with a Donkey Kong-like eyebrow ridge and darkened eye skin area, but no actual eyes, giving him a more menacing appearance. The earliest instance of his current design of which a model is available is Mario Kart Wii (model source):

Here it is without the glasses:

This design is unique in that the area under the glasses, which is never visible due to them always staying perfectly in place on Funky Kong's head, is fully modeled and textured, but does not include any eyes. As we will see with his other models, this seems to be a design that is stipulated in some design guideline by Nintendo, as it is present in different models that are not imports/edits of each other, but made from scratch.

Here is his model from Mario Super Sluggers (model source):

Despite releasing only months after Mario Kart Wii, this model has been remade completely, seen in the small details all around the body. Here it is without the glasses:

Here is Funky Kong's trophy from Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, which appears to use the same model, but touched up slightly (model source):

Here it is without the glasses:

Finally, a third complete remake of the model is found in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (model source):

This one also contains a slight redesign of the area under the glasses:

A nose bridge was added to the middle of the hidden area, finally differentiating it fundamentally from Donkey Kong's. I believe that if we are to ever see Funky Kong take off his sunglasses again, this most recent design is going to be the base for what we see, meaning that he will officially be revealed to have this nose bridge feature.

As WarioWare is a series that has been traditionally 2D, with even the most recent entry, WarioWare Gold, containing fully animated 2D cutscenes, it contains very few 3D models of the main characters. However, one such model is of Jimmy T. in the Ski minigame in Game & Wario (model source):

Unfortunately, the model seems to be optimized to such a point that there is absolutely nothing in the area covered by his glasses:

The skin simply ends on the boundary to the glasses.

While normally, all Lakitus have completely clear goggles, the Lakithunder boss in New Super Mario Bros. has a sunglasses variant (model source):

Removing them shows modeled skin without eyes:

I was not certain if the lightning bolt design was part of the glasses or attached to Lakithunder's head, so I left it in. The skin is modeled behind it, as well.

The only other instance of hidden eye textures that I was able to find comes from Yoshi's New Island. Here is what Bobsled Yoshi, one of Yoshi's transformations, looks like normally (model source):

Especially due to the model's very low polygon count, it is a reasonable assumption that in order to save polygons, no area outside of the ones visible would be fully modeled; however, removing the opaque goggles shows us Yoshi's eyes being completely intact underneath:

Here are additional angles:

Note that this is not simply a case of importing Yoshi's head and adding accessories to it, as the shape of Bobsled Yoshi is much more elongated than that of regular Yoshi's head.

A rare example of a Mario RPG series character appearing outside of their own series is the Star Spirits from Paper Mario returning in Mario Party 5. One of them, Skolar, has opaque glasses (model source):

Unfortunately, nothing is behind them:

Before we get to the Magikoopas, here is another Iggy Koopa-type situation with the dolphins in Mario Party 9 (model source):

While the eyes are visible through the goggles, the white background in the goggles implies that the black dots are not the entire eyes, but are rather pupils on much larger sclera with boundaries that end somewhere behind the edges of the goggles.

However, removing the goggles shows that there is smooth skin modeled behind them.

Finally, it is time for what is the most prominent example of opaque glasses in the Mario franchise: the Magikoopa species, including their most prominent member, Kamek.

Here is Magikoopa's appearance in Mario Power Tennis, one of the few examples of the old blue-brimmed hat design being used in a 3D game before being supplanted both for the species and for Kamek by the white-brimmed hat (model source):

Removing the glasses shows what we will see again and again with Magikoopa models: a fully modeled skin area without eyes.

Going forward one generation, here is Kamek/Magikoopa in Mario Party 9 (note that the playable Magikoopa is generic in the North American version, but is specifically named as "Kamek" in the European version) (model source):

Here it is without the glasses:

In the image on the right, I have removed the shading on the model to show that the skin behind the glasses is darker than the normally visible skin. Interestingly, this addition is again removed in following games.

Here is Kamek yet another generation later, in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (model source):

Note that he has three arms due to the model for his right arm (viewer's left) being swapped out between his broom-riding and magic-casting poses, instead of moving organically between the two positions. This is hidden in-game by Kamek turning in such a way that the arm that is swapped out is turned away from the camera, obscured by his body. Model exports usually overlay every single segment into a single scene, leading to the model in its initial state appearing to have three arms.

Here it is without glasses. The skin in the hidden area is again the same color as the rest.

As previously with E. Gadd, there is a unique, much more stylized Magikoopa model in Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 (model source):

This one has a very unique way of handling the area behind the glasses:

The hat is pushed down so far as the completely cover the area where the eyes would be. This is inventive enough that I personally can see it being used in a mainline Mario game for a sort of joking "reveal" of Kamek's eyes: he may take off his glasses only for the brim of his hat to slide down in the manner of this model, preventing us from seeing his eyes.

There are also variations of Magikoopas using different models. One of them is the boss Kamella, seen in Super Mario Galaxy (model source):

Removing Kamella's glasses shows a similar situation to Kamek:

I have removed the shading to show that the texture of the eye area has a gradient, which is different from both the flat same-color and the flat darker-color variations seen above.

Finally, there are the Toady enemies, which are a subspecies of Magikoopas. While they mostly appear as 2D sprites, a 3D model was used in Mario Party 5 (model source): 

Removing the glasses shows it was handled the same way as the others:

I hope this showcase was able to be informative on the techniques Nintendo developers use for areas of models that are not otherwise visible.

This concludes today's issue. Thank you very much for reading.