Summary of Why Did Link's Cel Shading Disappear?

00:00:00 - 00:35:00

The video discusses the reasons why Link's cel shading has disappeared in newer games, specifically citing the use of deferred lighting in Breath of the Wild. It also discusses how some graphical glitches can occur during game development, and how they can be fixed.

• 00:00:00 In July of 2017, Reddit user Rangers of the north noticed that Link's cell shading disappeared on the Southern edge of the bridge of Hylia. This bizarre bug quickly spread throughout the internet, with various people testing different pieces of clothing to see what they would look like raw. While there is no definitive answer as to why this glitch happened, it has a concrete explanation that reveals a lot about the complexities of building a large open world game.
• 00:05:00 The video discusses how lighting can be important to the look of an old game, and cites Half-Life 2 as an example of a game that did a good job with lighting. The video also discusses how fog can help to create a sense of depth.
• 00:10:00 The video discusses why cell shading has gradually disappeared in recent video games, specifically citing the Zelda game "Breath of the Wild". The video explains that deferred lighting is a more efficient way to render lighting, and that this is why it is used in Breath of the Wild.
• 00:15:00 The video discusses how, in some cases, Link's cel shading disappeared after 10 years. This disappearance occurs because the game no longer has access to data that would have told it more about the three-dimensional world from which the pixels were taken. A workaround is to save information about the facing directions of each pixel into three grayscale images, one for left and right, one for up and down, and one for front and back. This information is all that is needed to generate basic lighting for the scene.
• 00:20:00 In this video, the graphics designer for Breath of the Wild explains the process of cell shading, which is used to create the realistic look of the game's world. Deferred lighting is used to create the realistic shadows on the world's objects.
• 00:25:00 During development of the game, Nintendo discovered that some objects, specifically decals, were corrupting the material mask buffer and were causing objects to not glow. Nintendo reworked their development processes to support the needs of an open world game, and speedrunners and glitch hunters have since found several more instances of the glitch.
• 00:30:00 The video discusses graphical glitches that can occur during game development, and how they can be fixed. It points out that some glitches may go unnoticed, and that they are often the result of trade-offs made in the development process. The video also discusses how modern game engines are complex and require a lot of technical skill and dedication to use correctly.
• 00:35:00 Link's cel shading disappeared in newer games, likely due to time going towards making "noclip.website." This website allows users to view various video game worlds right in their browsers, taking away the need for cel shading.