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I guess it’s a week for Nintendo patents! Earlier this week, we caught with of a Nintendo patent for in-game mini-maps, and today yet another patent from the Big N has surfaced.

Nintendo’s latest patent is related to how characters and their clothing interact with one another. We’ve all seen games where some element of a character’s clothing cuts through their body, such as a cape, jacket, or so on. Nintendo’s new patent aims to make that issue a thing of the past.

Nintendo’s patent, which uses a tech called ‘Deformation,’ makes a character model slightly smaller underneath certain pieces of clothing, and clothing is given an extra layer as a buffer. Previously, developers had to make entirely new character models to make sure clothing fit properly, and there were still issues. Hopefully this solution means the problem will go away permanently.

This patent was filed by Zelda: Breath of the Wild technology supervisor Takuhiro Dohta, which certainly makes you think it’ll apply to Breath of the Wild 2 in some way. There’s no doubt Link will be wearing a variety of outfits in the sequel, just as he did in the original. I guess we’ll have to wait until more of Breath of the Wild 2 is shown to see if this tech has been implemented.

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Comments (6)

lanquin

2y ago

As silly as it may seem to some, clipping is one of the fastest ways to ruin immersion in a game for me. It can be hilarious sometimes, but I'm not sure the game developers want that.
The only bad thing is I'm not a fan of some of the more vague patents that limits others from implementing great new ideas.


gybones

2y ago

@lanquin

I feel you, this is actually a big thing. It’s be nice to lessen clipping more and more


hawk

2y ago

It worries me to see patents for concepts that would help any game developer... it could mean that developers couldn't use this method to prevent clipping in their own games, or methods that are similar.


socar

2y ago

@hawk

Not necessarily. Nintendo filed the patent for the D-Pad and despite that, many third parties still have the D-Pad Nintendo uses.


hawk

2y ago

@socar

The D-Pad was a great example of what I'm talking about. For years after Nintendo patented the D-pad, other companies were making terrible D-pads. They were fully connected like the Xbox or fully separated like the Playstation. Even D-pads that looked like Nintendo's had to have differing mechanics underneath them.

Nintendo's patent for the D-pad ran out in 2005, and since then controllers from other companies have been a LOT better.


socar

2y ago

@hawk

Yeah, I know and that's the point I'm making. Right now Nintendo files this and eventually, the patent will run out and thus others get to use it.