Early Footage
Unused Content
demo video
Packaged with Fine Artist and Creative Writer (also from the Microsoft Kids line), what's advertised as a demo is basically a promotional video showing the gist of the program, but uses an outdated version that has various changes from the final release. Prepare for some outrageously nitpicky details!
The demo features curved columns, but the final replaces them with more sensible straight ones. Aside from his animation being a lot choppier, McZee is unchanged between the two versions.
This camera angle of the laboratory isn't used in the final! A shame - it's a pretty good angle, and it shows just how small and cramped the laboratory is. There's no record of it left in the graphics or game data.
The video then moves onto the actors, and the models are entirely different from the final. Their animations are relatively similar, though Crash has some unique sneaking animations that aren't seen in the final. It's hard to tell if the models are actually higher-quality in the demo or if that's just mid-90s video compression hiding the detail.
For the unenlightened, the big guy is Billy, the woman is Bella, and the robot is Crash.
Here, Billy is wearing a red and white striped beanie, a pink shirt, light blue shorts, white socks, and white shoes with a pink stripe on them.
In the final, Billy can't wear any kind of hat; has a pink shirt that is only vaguely like the demo version; is incapable of wearing shorts; has no white socks, nor any white shoes for that matter.
Bella is wearing a white dress with some unidentifiable shapes on it, and brown shoes.
The final Bella can't wear any white dresses, and is permanently stuck with turquoise shoes with no shading.
Crash here is identical to the final, save for his final costume having trousers rather than shorts, and his boots appear to be a little shorter than in the demo.
Billy is wearing a light blue shirt, something around his stomach (a girdle? a bare midriff?), red trousers, blue socks and blue shoes with white fronts.
In Billy's final wardrobe, the closest thing to the blue shirt is his police uniform, and has a pair of red trousers albeit with an odd texture. The rest of that stuff just isn't available for him.
Bella's outfit remains in the final with a more stylised belt and speckled texture to the dress, though she still can't change her boots.
Crash is freakin' naked. No difference from the final!
Billy's police uniform exists in the final in a darker shade of blue and more detailed textures (and even retains the heart tattoo), but he's incapable of wearing hats.
Bella's grey dress does not exist in the final, and again with the boots.
And finally, Crash displays his police uniform, which also exists in the final minus the hat and with a shade closer to navy.
It's worth noting that Billy there has blonde hair and a grey moustache. In the final product, his hair and moustache must be the same colour.
The cafe at the far side is hazy and lacks colour - I'm not sure if that's just because it's not finished or if the video's compression just tortured it. The angle is raised a little in the final, showing a little more of the street and losing sight of the bottom of the bin.
The angle is lowered for this one in the final, allowing you to see the closer pavement but not so much the skyscrapers in the distance. That big white thing near the vases has two extra black lines added to it in the demo.
The final pushes the camera far to the right, exposing the alleyway, while the demo favours seeing more of the street.
The font is like a billion times nicer and smoother than the final. There's no option to make it italics in the final, outside of simply pausing it in its Side To Side animation.
The cinema background is a lot different, where instead of a cinema appearance, it’s just a blue mechanical-looking background with shadows of people watching. Overall, one gets the impression the actors, scenery and features had been made, but the interface was still in development and thus hidden as much as possible throughout.
And that's all the different stuff from the video. The video ends with a screen about purchasing the program, and in the corner is a message "Demo by HyperDyne". Googling doesn't reveal much about them, as it finds several companies and sites named HyperDyne.
Talent Book
The Talent Book pages serve as exposition on each of the actors and their ambitions, but let's face it, they're only interesting because they have costumes you can't use in the actual game.
Alexander’s hat is different. Here, it’s darker brown and has a red line around it, while the game has a lighter, almost orange, brown, and a peach line.
Billy's face is more detailed. It’s the same way on his Actor portrait.
Left: Uniform seems rather different, and is wearing unused hat.
Right: Wearing unused hat.
No cross on Bino's necklace.
Bongo is either wearing an altered police hat (with black and white bits instead of all blue), or has a small quiff of blonde hair. Either way, it’s different.
Has black hair and no sunglasses. In the final, Charlie can only have both sunglasses and black hair.
Christina is wearing black sunglasses, but only blue ones are available in the final.
Frank's hair size is different. Here, the black hair is smaller, while the brown hair is larger, but it’s vice versa in the game.
Left: Eyepatch is black, but it’s greenish/black in the game.
Right: Gabriel's Sunglasses are entirely different in game.
Unused hat for Gregory. In the final, instead of an orange and red hat, it’s replaced with a completely yellow hat.
In game, Gustave's hat is purple instead of orange.
Jerzy's moustache is very noticeable, while in game it’s hardly there, if at all. That orange hat is purple in game instead of orange.
Josephine has a jewel in her headscarf that isn’t there in game.
Although you can highlight Maribella's hat with the hat and costume changer, it won't do anything. Clearly it was meant to come in green and red flavours too!
It could just be the compression or something, but Martha's lighter coloured stripes are tinted purple there, while they’re grey in game.
Randolph's hat is yellow in the game, not grey.
Roxanne's mouth is open slightly and smiling, but in the game it’s closed and a smirk. It’s the same in her Actor portrait. Her collar is red in the game, not black.
Sebastian's hat is limited only to blue.
Patrick's rimmed glasses aren't in the game.
Timothy cannot wear hats.
Valentine is missing the cross on his necklace there.
Venie's shirt becomes darker orange in game.
Wanda has a much shiner texture in the Talent Book, but in-game is a lot duller looking. That costume in-game has a necklace.
Willy's skin is darker and more vivid in-game.
Middle: Jacket is a pale green-yellow in game, and fish skeleton tie should be white.
Right: Jacket is more white and less yellow in-game.
other images
Just images from other sources, y'know.
Thanks to
Andrés Sanhueza for providing these images from the Spanish version of Microsoft Kids Catalogue! I've cropped all of them for easier comparison, though you can click the image to view the full version.
This image gives us the only look at the prototype interface, as well as a better look at proto-Billy. The prototype strangely has less primary features like costumes and rotating/rescaling at the start of the action list, while the final shoves those under the More Tools banner.
Beta Billy lacks noticeable textures and has a frighteningly bright skin tone, and his mugshot has a more Wallace & Gromit vibe about his facial structure, in contrast to the final's almost fish-like features. Their animations appear similar; both Running Scared frames are nigh-identical. There's also a big red untextured chicken as an actor, which certainly is not in the final release.
The rest of the images from the catalogue. The first is a still from the promotional video.
unused materials
Cheers to the members of the 3DMM.com community who were responsible for developing 3DMM Pencil, a handy little tool that lets you snoop around in all of the program's internal files with relative ease.
The HELP.CHK file contains the descriptions from the Help Machine, but also includes features that aren't seen in-game! (double cheers to Travis Wells for mentioning this on 3DMM.com years and years ago)
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Wait For Click
Pause the movie action until you click the screen. You can use this if you've added words to your movie and want more time to read them.
To pause the movie until you click
1.If necessary, click Scenes.
2.Go to the place in your movie where you want to pause the action.
3.Click Wait for Click...
Removing a pause...
Don't Wait
Remove any pauses at the current frame.
To remove a pause
1.If necessary, click Scenes.
2.Go to the place in your movie where you want to remove a pause.
3.Click Don't Wait...
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The only "wait for" option in the game is "Wait For Sound To End." Notably, Scene Organizer is the only extra tool hidden under the "more tools" banner in the Scenes tab, while all others have at least two. Finicky details like that might mean something to you if you've ever played the game.
