Wall Hitboxes 

i was wondering why some walls in this game have such weird "invisible walls" around them for all those years. finaly it all makes sense!

"now that we're wall experts" Yeah I'm a wallintoligist. I've been studying how walls work for 24 years

I like how even the most basic, simplest thing in the game still makes your mind turn inside out.

Probably the most amazing wall video I've seen in at least two days.

So mario 64 walls are more complicated than real life walls

This is surprisingly interesting. I always wondered why the distance kept to some walls was so big, while that of others was practically nonexistant, and why you could sometimes walk closer then usual just before getting pushed out. Great job on the illustrations, that made it very easy to understand.

Yay, now we are all wall-experts. ^.^ Did you prepare certificates? A lot of these things sound like workarounds/small errors where the developers probably thought "nobody will ever notice or care". But they surely didn't expect a pannenkoek to exist.

Dude. I do not understand how you did this. I played Super Mario 64 years ago, got 94 stars, beat bowser, and then never really thought about it much after that. Then I saw your video about killing the Mystery Goomba in my recommendations, and I was like, "ok, I have to know what that's about." And now I'm learning all kinds of stuff about SM64 that I never even thought of before. Your videos are hypnotically informative, and I love them.

what the heck happened at 4:25 when mario went sideways?

3:58 I'm a wall expert, mom!

this is cool

Question: Do the actual hitboxes (where Mario has to punch or kick to, say, break a cork block) correspond to the collision detection/bounding boxes you've described, or are they separate? I know in most modern games bounding and hit boxes are usually separate but given Mario 64's early release in the N64's lifecycle and that it's one of the first 3D games Nintendo ever worked on I'm not so sure.

Could we theoretically use the slanted walls to warp through a thin wall?

i wonder why the cork box's hitbox isn't aligned the way it should be, could it be because it's not a perfect square?

As a programmer for games, i can't even work out why the hitboxes extend in that weird cardinal direction skew fashion. They already calculate the distance along the normal to extend it by, so its not even aligned to some easy grid or anything. Nor is it easier to test for collisions with, as the easiest to test are boxes aligned to the world axis (AAB, axis-aligned box) followed by a slightly tougher arbituary rotation of a cube (OOB, object-aligned box) followed by the tough arbitrary polygon shapes. Also, as a bonus topic: the way OOBs do hit tests with a point normally is that you just rotate the entire world matrix by the inverse of the box rotation. Ie reverse the rotation so that it's an AAB again. If you try to do a OOB hit test with any other polygon shape the same applies since it's easier to test against an AAB. However, if you're trying to do a hit test between an OOB and an AAB, rotating everything gives you... an AAB and an OOB! so no benefit at all

I just want to say, your videos are amazing. I've linked them to a few of my friends who are like minded and decided to either go back to school for game development or started programming games from their general programming knowledge. And your videos do an excellent job explaining concepts that might not make a lot of sense to people intuitively, like hit detecting (collision), memory management (which isn't nearly as much of a big deal as it was on the n64, but still a fundamental you need to know), etc. And plus, sm64 is a game they've all played so it's even easier to understand. I've taught them how to use the sm64 decomp repo to modify code and then run it, and this is a quick way of reminding them why they want to be a game dev if they ever feel overwhelmed.

this video seems to apply to OoT and MM as well, except the push distance is 15 units in those games.

join us next episode where we talk about floor hitboxes.

I can't believe I'm watching an SM64 science video and enjoying it as much as I am.

I clicked on this by accident, but then I was already invested. What am I doing with my life right now, I have a paper to write.

tbh this is the only channel that I actually pay full attention to for educational purposes

Damn, I didn't think it was that complicated. Interesting observation.

4:25 Mario defies the laws of physics.

This is so super interesting, I've always wondered about the weird ways the objects pushes Mario around in this game. I'm not a very technical person, but you explain things very well, thank you for making these!

I love these videos. Incredibly informative. I'm super interested in the little intricacies of design like this.

6:18 "Inner Hibox"

So much information, damn!

These videos are the kind of resource who's value doesn't become apparent until some SM64 speedrunner in 2044 uses this hitbox behavior in a strat

as a game developer this is actually really interesting! I love reading about how older videogames handle problems like this

Wow. That was surprisingly interesting!

I think those snapping effects that occur when you enter a hitbox from the side could be very useful in speedruns. They could probably be used as small boosts to save a few frames. Also, have you checked if there is no 1 unit wide gap between the hitboxes on the x axis of a 45 degree angled box? A single unit would allow you to walk straight through.

These videos are the best! I love pretending to understand stuff!!!

the legend is back

Now I know why I hated the orange blocks so much.

Was actually glued (snapped?) to this video. Incredibly interesting, somehow.

One of the best RU-vidrs out there right now. :'3c

2:32 Goodness me. Is this an explanation for at least some of the "invisible walls" I encounter when I longjump?

I didn't know I wanted to know this, but now I know it, and I'm glad I do.

... Why did I just watch a 7 minute video about the wall hitboxes in SM64? I haven't played this game in 10 years and I probably never will again

i don't know why I'm watching this, but it's intriguing no less.

Love the explaining music

Why is this so interesting its literally talking about wall hitboxes in mario 64 what has my life come to

6:13 Hiboxes, those are cool!

This is quite fascinating. I wonder why they were set up this way. Responding to the cardinal directions sounds somewhat reasonable, because the math can be computed much faster. But they compute the exact angle anyway to push Mario back, so why not just check it against that angle to begin with?

6:16 Hiboxes are great, aren't they?

I've been playing through Super Mario Sunshine recently and I noticed some similar behaviors when colliding with walls and platforms. I assumed that Sunshine took the 2D Mario style of collisions (invisible lines on Mario's left, right, top and bottom) and adapted them to 3D somehow but this makes more sense.

so is mario's position for wall collision a 2 byte short as well? I keep thinking that for mario to be "exactly" 6:30 at an intersection, it'd need to be in terms of integers (as opposed to floating point)

Thanks, now I know how to get inside your walls

So what's with the weird hitbox on the star statue in the back of the castle?

LOVE the music

4:25 he is on the pipe sideways. How does that work?

At 0:51. That box on the left is one heck of an optic illusion.

are the hitboxes the same in a parallel universe? and can you do half an a press?

4:25 why does he go sideways for a couple of frames

Wow, that's... awkward, but surprisingly simple for 3D. But seems like if you have a box at *almost* 45°, you'd have some funky angles. And what about slopes?

really interesting stuff :o

geweldige naam man!

So if you pick up an object like a cork box and rotate it around, does that mean that the hitboxes will transform to remain along the cardinal directions, creating a different topology of edges and lips? If so, can you think of any ways this could be taken advantage of during runs?

This seems like a VERY convoluted way of doing hit boxes. I can only assume this is because it was one of Nintendo's early 3D games. As it's often been quoted that Starfox2 was one of the main inspirations for Mario64, I wonder what the hitboxes on that title look like..

What is the pole in BitFS? Is that treated like an octagon you showed here? Could you orientate yourself on the pole so that you have the maximum displacement possible? Even if it still doesn't allow you to reach the platform, it's still minimising the distance between Mario and the platform?

what about in WF? there are these pillars by the In The Blue star or whatever which seem to have displaced hitboxes

Thats why Mario can sleep when he stands in front of the corner of a box!

I'm gonna play the panpipes whenever I need to go into detail.

4:24 how the hell did you slide there for a few frames?

what should i do with this information?

This is very interesting. Collision and hitboxes aren't really an issue with Source, at least not at this level of architectural detail, but this is very reminiscent of the visleaf system in Valve's (in)famous engine.

theories and guides about Mario 64? Mommy, where am I!

It's amazing seeing how programmers did stuff like this in the early days of 3D, when there was no tried-and-true standard way of doing things. Everyone was just fumbling around in the dark, building patchwork solutions, until middleware like Havok came along and offered a holistic, standardised method.

Huh, a good content creator, who doesn't speak or make meme/TTS videos. *Amazing*

6:13 the Hi-Box! :D :))

Walls, Walls & Walls

I think the hitbox extends 50 units as marios hitbox is 50 units from the actual position so that he wouldn't appear inside it?

Walls are weird in this game. I guess, this early into the advent of 3D gaming, they were still trying to figure things out.

Why'd Mario go sideways for a few frames at 4:25?

only panenkoek could make a video about walls and make it complicated.

when its showing gameplay, which level/song is playing? thx

And it's these gaps, misalignments and overlapping regions that produce the effect commonly known as "jank."

2:34 Sure... windmills...

What was music for when you were explaining?

RU-vid just sent me here from Vsauce's "Why do we kiss". I have no idea why. But this video I liked and informative I found it!

4:25 3 frames of weird Mario placement

I like how your videos ends just end

4:25 magic mario, walking sideways

Why are the cork box's hitboxes different from the other boxes?

How are square hitboxes different from something like a square object rotated 45 degrees? Could a box technically become a 45 degree rotated square if Mario moves into the correct position or moves it in the correct position somehow, or is it based on the box's position on the map?

that's great and all but can you science how to cannonless please?

we need to build a wall

I wonder why they went for such a complex solution to something you'd expect to be so simple? Perhaps there were some limitations on the N64.

is there anything in mario 64 that's as straightforward as you'd expect haha

For the cork boxes is the one side not at a 45º angle or is the hitbox just strange. If it were slightly angled, wouldn't that make the inner hitbox of the other wall actually extend past the edge of the outer hitbox ever so slightly?

These videos can help game development, huehue

Do games still function like this to this day? Or have newer better tehcniques arisen as the technology improves?

This is one of the weirdest way of collision detection I've ever seen.

I am skeptical that walls actually have hitboxes around them. Aren't they just detected by sphere and ray casts, giving you the *impression* there's a hitbox around them? Also this collision system very much looks like something that was only used for movable objects, like that crate. Am I wrong?

3:57: Patrick Star: DON'T TELL ME, 9001x

Well, for my game i am using the same testing method.. Using plane/sphere intersection.. For the corner problem i combine plane/sphere testing with sphere/edge testing.. Which will test a points distance against a line segment (a triangles edge) This way, your corners will turn into sphere segments which will repell you back, the flat walls stay as boxes.

Congraturation; this story is happy end. Challenge again? Go ahead dauntlessly! Make rapid progress!

Nintendo made this game beautifully complicated

Is this just how they work in SM64, or how they work in every game/most games?

What is the song that starts at 0:09?