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Jack Mathews

@jackmathews.bsky.social

Metroid Prime 1 and 2 Technical Lead Engineer, MP3 Principal Technology Engineer, formerly Founder and Technical Director Armature Studio, Principal Engineer at Bluepoint Games.

Posts Replies Media

Jack Mathews @jackmathews.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

AI is really coming along

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Jack Mathews @jackmathews.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Bonus visor: Morph Ball Camera! This is pretty much a visor - instead of gun and particles, we have world shadows projected on the ball surface (RIP Andy O'Neal), a projected shadow under the ball, and a constant dynamic light. 7/7

Morph Ball in Metroid Prime, inside rocky cavern

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Jack Mathews @jackmathews.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

X-Ray Visor (done by Ted Chauviere) also has combat and lets you see through things. Sort of. Only enemies and your gun are see-through. Everything else is pretty much the same, and "invisible" objects are just models turned on and off. 5/7

Omega Pirate viewed through the X-Ray Visor in Metroid Prime

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Jack Mathews @jackmathews.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

The thermal visor does have combat and particles. Where do we get perf? No static lightmaps. We turn off all world lighting, and the post-process filters are just a palette lookup. 4/7

Thermal Visor in Metroid Prime, looking at several Space Pirates

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Jack Mathews @jackmathews.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Then we have the scan visor. It has the baseline, plus more UI, markers, a zoom window, etc. But it doesn't have the gun, projectiles, and their lights. All that perf goes to the visor. 3/7

A beetle in Chozo Ruins being scanned in Metroid Prime

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Jack Mathews @jackmathews.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

The baseline, of course, is the default visor. This is an unmolested view of the world, it has the gun, lightmaps, and allows for plenty of combat. It has to be the most beautiful, because it's the one you see the most. 2/7

Phendrana Drifts in the Metroid Prime combat visor

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Jack Mathews @jackmathews.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Prime 2 Visor Post Incoming, bringing this from Twitter for MP1: #MetroidPrime Dev - 60fps Visors. I get asked a lot how we held 60fps with four visors. The short answer is to make one visor the "baseline," and make sure the others perform as well or better, with tech or design. 1/7

A composite of four screenshots from Metroid Prime 1, each showing a different visor view.

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