Nintendo started making the game with the creation of the characters and camera system. Miyamoto and the other designers were initially unsure of which direction the game should take; months were spent selecting a camera view and layout that would be appropriate. The original concept involved the game having fixed path much like an isometric type game (similar to ""), before the choice was made to settle on a free-roaming 3D design. Although the majority of "Super Mario 64" would end up featuring the free-roaming design, elements of the original fixed path concept would remain in certain parts of the game, particularly in the three Bowser encounters. One of the programmers of "Super Mario 64", Giles Goddard, explained that these few linear elements survived to force players into Bowser's lair rather than to encourage exploration. The development team placed a great amount of attention, time, and effort on getting Mario's movements right. Before levels were created, the team was testing and perfecting Mario's animations on a simple grid. The first test scenario used to try out controls and physics involved Mario and a golden rabbit named "MIPS" by the developers (named for the MIPS-type CPU used by the Nintendo 64), the latter of which was included in the final release of the game as a way to find two of the Power Stars. At first, the developers tried to make the game split screen co-op using both Mario and Luigi. Initially, the two characters would start at separate points in the castle and work their way through the game together. However, developers were unable to make the gameplay work.
Shigeru Miyamoto's guiding design philosophy behind "Super Mario 64" was to "include more details" than found in games prior to the Nintendo 64. Some details were inspired by real life. For example, the Boos are based on assistant director Takashi Tezuka's wife, who, as Miyamoto explained, "is very quiet normally, but one day she exploded, maddened by all the time Tezuka spent at work. In the game, there is now a character which shrinks when Mario looks at it, but when Mario turns away, it will grow large and menacing." "Super Mario 64" is also known for having more puzzles than earlier "Mario" games. It was developed at the same time as "", but as "Ocarina of Time" was released more than two years later, some puzzles were taken from that game for "Super Mario 64".
Information about "Super Mario 64" first leaked out in November 1995, and a playable version of the game was presented days later as part of the world premiere for the Nintendo 64 (then known as Nintendo's "Ultra 64") at Nintendo Space World. The basic controls had at this point been set in place, and the game was reportedly 50% finished, although most of the course design remained. Thirty-two courses were made for the game. Miyamoto thought he would create more, up to 40 courses, not including bonus levels. The actual number turned out much lower in the final game, though, as only 15 courses could fit.
In the original "Super Smash Bros." for the Nintendo 64 console, Princess Toadstool's castle is a playable stage in which the fighters fight on top of the roof.
In "Mario Party", Peach's stage is a large birthday cake which the player can travel through.
In 1999, a sequel, titled Super Mario 64 2, was planned to be released for the Nintendo 64DD (N64 Disk Drive), but it was cancelled, due to the commercial failure of the Nintendo 64DD and unlike its predecessor, Luigi was going to be playable and there would be a multiplayer mode. "Super Mario 64 DS" is a 2004 enhanced remake made for the Nintendo DS console. In this game Mario, Luigi, and Wario all get a letter saying Peach baked a cake for them. Bowser has kidnapped Princess Peach, Mario, Luigi, and Wario and has jailed them in Princess Peach's castle, by Gomboss, King Boo, and Chief Chilly. Yoshi is told that he must save them. Yoshi finds a rabbit and unlocks the door to the castle. When the player finds keys, they save a character, and can play as them. "Super Mario 64 DS" also has a multiplayer wireless versus mode where up to four players can play and minigames which are unlocked by getting keys from rabbits. Here, there are 150 stars, 30 more than the original game.
MP3
MPEG-1 and/or MPEG-2 Audio Layer 3 (MP3) is a lossy data compression format for audio. Using it makes smaller computer files containing digitized music and other sounds.
The format is a lossy compression format. This means that each time something is compressed with it, some information is lost. This information can not be recovered. When encoding to MP3 converting some audio data to it), the encoder is smart. The human ear can not hear certain sounds if they are masked by other sounds. This means that when encoding certain sound samples, some sounds can be left out as they will not be heard. This makes it possible to compress audio by a factor of about 5, without noticeable change to the sound of the music. With slight audible changes to the sound, compression factors of about 10 are possible.
Many people like to use MP3 files to copy music so they can listen to it on their computer. Record companies do not like it when people use the Internet to share these MP3 files with each other. They think it is a violation of their copyright. The record industries have a trade group called the RIAA that has taken people to court for sharing music. An Internet website called Napster was shut down because of this. Napster has since re-opened, but does not let people share MP3 files anymore.
Other formats for audio compression are Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC. Ogg Vorbis is very similar to MP3, although it has many improvements. FLAC is a lossless compression meaning no information is lost, and gets compression rates of 2-3.
In the 1980s, Dieter Seitzer started the development of a code for audio format of high-quality. Together with his team at the "German Fraunhofer Institut" situated in Erlangen, the professor had the idea to create code with a low bit-rate. The German institute received the patent for MP3 in 1989. MP3 was then passed to the International Organisation for Standardisation. In the same year the MP3 was included into MPEG-1 specification. (MPEG means Moving Picture Experts Group).
The first player to be able to read the MP3 format was designed by the same Fraunhofer Institute in 1990's. A Croatian student named "Tomislav Uzelac" developed "AMP MP3 Playback Engine" in 1997. It represented the first device that could be called MP3 player. After the player appeared on the Internet, two students named "Justin Frankel" and "Dmitry Boldyrev" transformed it into Winamp. They took the engine of the original player and added the interface of the famous Windows.
When Winamp was launched into the net for free use it became successful at once. This way began the era of free music download. Soon various programmers started creating additional features for the MP3 player. Very often they created new encoders, rippers (software for transforming audio tracks into MP3 files) and players.
Because there is no need to pay licensing fees in order to build the player, today many software MP3 players are free. Some companies claim to have patents covering the MP3 format, but the validity of these patents is questionable because the format specification was published more than 20 years ago, meaning that any relevant patents would have expired. The most famous MP3 players are "Winamp", "Sonique", "iTunes" and "MusicMatch". The main feature of an MP3 player is to turn the MP3 files into standard audio form and then send them to the soundcard of the computer. The soundcard then outputs the files into speaker so the user can hear them. Every MP3 player interprets music differently, though each one of them uses the same code for playing the MP3 files. There are also stand-alone (without a computer) MP3 players. These may be portable, or they may be built-into a stereo system or car stereo.