Mario Kart Wii/Unused Course Elements

This is a sub-page of Mario Kart Wii.

To do: Explain the unused routes in more detail, and maybe get footage of them.

This page documents early versions of the elements (models, textures, parameters, etc.) found within the final version of the courses.

General Resources refers to the elements found across most (if not all) courses in the game, while any track specific resource will be documented in its own section. In the same way, if a resource is shared along a few tracks (like the Geissers and Lava Pillars from the Bowser's Castle tracks for example), it will be documented once in one of the tracks in which said resource appears, with an indication on which other tracks it is also present.

About the Disabled Objects: The course.kmp file (which stores many of the course's specific parameters, such as object placement) has a presence value defined for every object to determine in which instances it should load (for example, should it load in every mode, only on single player and not multiplayer, etc). Certain objects have this value set to 0x00, which disables the object, preventing it to appear in-game and thus going unused.

You can use the following code to re-enable those objects:

	PAL	NTSC-U	NTSC-J	NTSC-K
Gecko Code	04826F20 38000001	0481340C 38000001	0482658C 38000001	048152E0 38000001

(Source: MarioKartWii.com)

General Resources

Item Box

Found in itembox.brres

Textures

Unused Item Box Color Pattern

To do: Maybe upload a model comparison.

Early	Final

An unused texture, named ef_itemBoxMipLow.tex0, is present within the textures for the item boxes. Judging by its filename and similarities, this might be an early version of itemBoxMipColor6.tex0, which depicts the coloring pattern used for the low poly versions of the item boxes.

Course Selection Screen cameras

All of the game's courses contain two additional cameras that were used in development to record the small video clips that you see when selecting a track. The CAME (camera) section of the course.kmp file contains a byte (CAME's section offset + 0x07) that points to the first camera used in this sequence, with each track containing two of this kind of cameras defined.

It is possible to see these cameras in-game by, for example, "replacing" the course's intro cameras with these ones. This can be done by changing the byte at CAME's section offset + 0x06 to be the same as the byte that is right after it.

(Source: KMP Format)

Unused Battle Mode Coins

Chain Chomp Wheel	SNES Battle Course 4	GBA Battle Course 3

N64 Skyscraper	GCN Cookie Land	DS Twilight House

In Battle mode, each arena has a maximum limit of how many coins will appear at the start of a Coin Runners round. A starting coin refer to those coins that have their second setting set to a value equal or higher than 0 and not equal to 0xFFFF.

At the start of a round, the game will only place those starting coins whose second setting value is lower than the maximum limit defined for the arena. However, there are coins that set this value to an equal or higher number. These are ignored by the game and won't load, so they go unused.

The unused coins are highlighted above in red. When viewing the unused coins alongside the rest of the starting coins, we can see that the distribution of starting coins was originally much more symmetrical.

(Source: Custom Mario Kart Wiiki)

Luigi Circuit

Parameters

Other

• Route 8 is unused.

Moo Moo Meadows

Animations

Unused Running Animation

The cows have an unused running animation named run.chr0. This could be seen all the way back in the E3 2007 footage.

Parameters

Other

• Route 10 is unused.

Mushroom Gorge

Parameters

Disabled Item Boxes

Unused	Prerelease

True Ending Credits Video	Prima Guide

These five item boxes are disabled. This is present in some prerelease footage, and also in the true ending credits video. They are also mentioned in the official Prima guide for the game.

Unused Bouncy Mushrooms Parameters

Each of the two variants of the bouncy mushrooms used in the track (named kinoko_bend and kinoko_ud) have a set of parameters that can manipulate their position and rotation in several ways, but in the final game, these values are always set to 0, so their effects aren't seen and thus both kinds of mushrooms will behave identically to each other.

kinoko_ud (the two mushrooms that make the shortcut at the beginning of the course) is able to move up and down, while kinoko_bend (the rest of the bouncy mushrooms) can rotate left and right. These behaviours explain the names of these objects: "bend" in kinoko_bend refers to its ability to rotate, while "ud" in kinoko_ud could stand for "up-down".

The unused parameters (a.k.a. settings) are described below:

• kinoko_ud (ID 0x1F5)

2nd	3rd	4th	5th
Amplitude of the up-down movement	Time in 1/60s for a full up-down cycle	Cycle shift (controls where in the cycle to start)	Time in 1/60s to pause at the lowest point in the cycle

• kinoko_bend (ID 0x1F6)

2nd	3rd	4th
Maximum angle	Time in 1/60s for a full cycle	Cycle shift (controls where in the cycle to start)

(Discovery: kHacker35000vr)

(Source: Custom Mario Kart Wiiki)

Other

Unused Routes

Route 9

Judging by its location, point number and shape, it may have been either an early path for one of the Goombas, or perhaps an additional Goomba was meant to be present here at some point.

• Routes 0, 1, 8, 14, 25 are unused.

Toad's Factory

Unused Steam Effect Designs

The file rk_steam.breff, stored in /Race/Course/factory_course.szs/./effect/Steam, contains the design for the steam effect used by the object Steam (ID 0x183), seen in the tunnel with the red lights. The file stores 5 unique designs, but only one of them is used (rk_steam). The rest of them appear to be unused copies and backups:

• rk_steamBAK: The shape of the steam is different, being thinner on the back.
• rk_steam0: The effect overall looks more opaque.
• rk_steam_Copy_1: This design looks similar to rk_steamBAK, albeit with a thinner shape. In addition, the design is not centered properly.
• rk_steam0_Copy: This design looks similar to rk_steam0, albeit looking even more opaque.

Parameters

Unused Routes

Route 8

Image	Video

Judging by its location, point number and shape, it appears to be an early version of the first introduction camera. The camera travels faster and its path is a bit longer.
In the image above, the route in red is the used one, whereas the yellow one is the unused route.

Mario Circuit

Textures

Main Course

Early "M" Flag

Full Texture	Early	Final	Prerelease

An early version of the flags seen on top of Peach's Castle can be found in the texture for the finish line's "MARIO KART" logo and the castle's main front window, named p_unionE17.tex0. While the texture itself is not unused, the part that has a red texture with an "M" (located in front of the star graphic, which is also used but from another graphic instead) is not assigned anywhere in the model's geometry. Additionally, besides being larger than the used texture, the "M" is stylized differently (the final version looks more like the "M" on Mario's cap), which can be seen in a prerelease screenshot from the Fall Press Conference 2007. This is in fact the same flag design seen on top of Peach's Castle in Mario Circuit from Double Dash!!.

draw_demo/loser_demo still uses this early texture.

Parameters

Other

• Routes 7 and 23 are unused.

Coconut Mall

Parameters

Disabled Decorative Benches

There are some extra decorative picnic benches on Coconut Mall that have been disabled. One of these can be seen in a prerelease screenshot.

These later appeared in the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe version of the track.

Disabled Piantas

Before the bifurcation that leads to the exit of the building, there are various stands to the right hand side. Normally, there's only one Pianta sitting behind in the stand on the center. However, there are actually two extra Piantas defined, sitting in the left and rightmost stands. They never appear in-game however, as they have been disabled.

These later appeared in the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe version of the track.

DK Summit

Parameters

Inaccesible Item Boxes

Highlighted above in red, there are three item boxes located under the map. They are a bit after the S curve, but very far away in the bottom of the level.

Wario's Gold Mine

Textures

Main Course

Dummy Mii icon

NOTE: This graphic also appears in the following tracks: Koopa Cape.

A dummy faceless Mii icon, named MiiDummy.tex0. Normally this image is completely transparent, due to it being encoded in the IA4 format (the preview above was converted to the I4 format so that it could be seen).

Unused Wario Banner

Unused	Used

TR_kanbanALL.tex0 contains many of the billboards and signs used in the course, one of which is a banner of Wario looking down. This graphic, however, is actually loaded from a separate object file (MiiSignWario.brres), so the one in the aforementioned texture goes unused.

The early texture, besides being much darker, has very slightly longer fingertips.

Parameters

Other

• Routes 4, 17 are unused.

Daisy Circuit

Textures

Skybox

Unused Skybox Texture

Early	Final

An unused skybox texture, named senior_VR.tex0 (the final version is called senior_VR2.tex0). They both have similar designs, but the final version uses vertex colors to paint the skybox, instead of the colors being in the texture itself. The design of the clouds is less cartoon-ish as well.

Koopa Cape

Parameters

Disabled Flag Objects

There are 3 disabled flags on top of the green giant Koopa shell. These flags can be seen in the course selection screen video for this track, and oddly enough, they appear in the Gates on Koopa Cape competition/tournament.

Other

• Routes 0(?), 1(?), 4, 28, 31 are unused.

Maple Treeway

Parameters

Other

• Respawn 0 is unused.

Grumble Volcano

Parameters

Other

• Route 6 is unused.

Dry Dry Ruins

Parameters

Other

Unused Routes

Routes 7 and 8

Image	Video

Judging by their location, point number and shape, they may have been either early paths for the first two Pokeys that appear in the track, or perhaps additional Pokeys were meant to be present here at some point.

• Routes 6, 18, 20 are unused.

Bowser's Castle

Textures

Geysers and Lava Pillars

NOTE: The lava pillars themselves are also present in the following tracks: GBA Bowser Castle 3 and N64 Bowser's Castle.

Dirt

Early	Final

Present in the model for the lava pillars (FlamePole_v.brres) is an unused texture (named FlamePole.tex0) for the dirt part of the geyser's models, those seen near the finish line. It comes from Double Dash!!, where it was used as the road texture for Bowser's Castle. It seems to have been rotated 90 degrees to the right in comparison.

Given how the final texture is based on the regular ground texture found in the course, it is possible that the early texture represents an early rendition of the ground texture as well.

Other

• firePoleGrad.tex0 is present alongside the lava pillars textures. Although it is unused by this model, it is used by the geyser one (FlamePole.brres), which implies that the standalone lava pillar model was taken from the geyser model.

Parameters

Other

• Route 15 is unused.

Rainbow Road

To do: Is cloud03.tex0 unused? (course_model.brres) Upload textures comparison once this is figured out.

Textures

Cannon's Star Ring

Unused Cloud Texture

To do: Is cloud02.tex0 from this particular model also unused?

An unused cloud texture, named cloud02_d.tex0, that consists of an opaque, smaller version of cloud02.tex0. A blurrier version of it is present in the textures for the main course model, named cloud03.tex0 there.

Parameters

Other

• Routes 0, 1, 15 are unused.

GCN Peach Beach

Blue Cataquacks

A blue cataquack appeared in the original version from Double Dash!!. In the Wii version, it's not present in the regular course nor any of its competitions / tournaments. However, it still exist in the final game, and can be enabled by assigning its first setting to 0.

Parameters

Other

• Route 10 is unused.

DS Yoshi Falls

Parameters

Other

• Routes 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17 are unused.

SNES Ghost Valley 2

Parameters

Other

• Route 11 is unused.

N64 Sherbet Land

Textures

Penguins

To do: Document the shading texture nom_spe.tex0, it seems to be an early version of the lm_1 textures. Does it appear elsewhere?

penguin_eye.1.tex0	penguin_eye.2.tex0	penguin_eye.3.tex0

Alongside the textures for the large and medium sized penguins (found in penguin_l.brres and penguin_m.brres respectively) are three unused textures named penguin_eye.1.tex0, penguin_eye.2.tex0 and penguin_eye.3.tex0. The first two appear to be for blinking, while the last one features an angry eye expression. In the final game, the penguins don't change their expression at all, which leaves these textures unused.

These extra textures seem to be leftover from Super Mario 64 DS, as the penguin model in Mario Kart Wii uses the same textures as in said game.

Unused	Used

The small penguin (found in penguin_s.brres) features an early version of his eye, named p_child_eye.tex0 (the used version is called p_child_eye.0.tex0). The early version has a bit more detailed shading.

The unused texture is actually the same eye texture the baby penguins use in Super Mario 64 DS.

Parameters

Other

• Respawn 0 is unused.

GBA Shy Guy Beach

Textures

Palm Trees

Early	Final

An early version of the palm tree's shadow texture, named hey_kage.tex0 (found in HeyhoTreeGBA.brres). In the final version, the shadow texture is present and used only as part of the main course model.

The early version lacks one leaf, and also looks less blurry. In addition, the unused version features 4 additional mipmaps, and it is saved in the CMPR format (the final version uses IA8).

DS Delfino Square

Parameters

Other

• Routes 11, 12, 13 are unused.

GCN Waluigi Stadium

Parameters

Cameras

A total of 5 cameras are unused within this course:

Early	Final

Cameras 0x0C, 0x07, 0x12 and 0x11 were meant to be replay / result cameras.

While camera 0x1A is an unused opening camera (the first camera shown in the video above). It's actually one of the opening cameras from the original version from Double Dash!!, and it's properly coded to transition into the rest of the opening cameras as well.

In the final game, however, only 3 opening cameras are used (cameras 0x19, 0x1B and 0x1C), leaving camera 0x1A unused.

Other

• Routes 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 are unused.

DS Desert Hills

Parameters

Other

• Routes 0, 1 are unused.
• Respawn 5 is unused.

GBA Bowser Castle 3

Parameters

Other

• Respawn 0 is unused.
• Camera 21 links to non-existent route 251 (but this cameras type doesn't use a route)

N64 DK's Jungle Parkway

Parameters

Other

• Route 1 is unused.

SNES Mario Circuit 3

Textures

Main Course

Unused Road Texture

An unused road texture named D_road5_00.tex0, with a size of 16x16, and using the RGB565 format (the used textures use CMPR).

Parameters

Other

• Route 4 is unused.

N64 Bowser's Castle

Textures

Main Course

Red and White arrows

While the texture lc_kabe2b.tex0 is used in many of the course's walls, the part with the red and white arrows is not mapped anywhere in the model. These arrows actually come from Double Dash!!, where it was used in many courses, such as Luigi Circuit.

The original version from Mario Kart 64 had similar looking arrows printed in the wall in the last curve before the finish line. Perhaps this was originally in the version from Mario Kart Wii as well.

Curiously, the material that references this texture is called a_yajirusi (yajirusi means arrow).

Yellow Stripe

Much like above, the texture s64_kanban.tex0 is used for some of the walls as well as the "MARIOKART" logo. However, the yellow stripe under said logo is not mapped in the model, and thus goes unused.

Parameters

Other

• Routes 15, 16, 17 are unused.

Delfino Pier

Parameters

Other

• Routes 0, 1, 2 are unused.

Funky Stadium

Models

Skybox

While technically not unused, this track actually has a skybox that can only be seen by using hacking tools, as the track takes place in an interior. This skybox is in fact the same one that is used in DK Summit.

Chain Chomp Roulette

Parameters

Disabled Item Boxes

There are 4 disabled item boxes in the star ring. These item boxes have the same settings as the used ones.

Other

• Route 6 is unused.

DS Twilight House

Textures

Skybox

Unused Trees

yh_ki.tex0 features four realistic tree textures, two of which previously appeared in some Golf courses from Wii Sports.

Luigi Circuit (Ending)

Parameters

Inaccesible Item Box

Highlighted above in red, there is a single item box located far away under the map.

Galaxy Colosseum / Galaxy Arena

Unused Parameters

Much like every other track in the game, the course file for Galaxy Colosseum / Galaxy Arena (/Race/Course/ring_mission.szs) contains a parameters file (course.kmp). However, it is actually unused.

This level only appeared in 3 online competition / tournaments. However, in each appearence, the parameters file that is loaded actually comes from the competition file (RKCT) that was sent by Nintendo, which gets stored in the save data, leaving the one from the course's own archive unused.

Starting and Respawn Points

The starting and respawn positions are different to the ones seen in the competitions / tournaments.

Objects

Item Boxes

There are 4 static item boxes that contain Single Mushrooms. There's also one itembox that moves in the center, which contains Triple Mushrooms. For all of these itemboxes, the player doesn't get the item almost instantly, instead it takes a little bit of time, just like with most other item boxes found in the game.

The route that describes the moving item box is also a bit different: it doesn't loop, so when it gets to the end of the route, it goes backwards, and so on (due to its second setting = 01). It also moves clockwise instead of counterclockwise. Besides, at one point, the item box will go up and down a little.

Spiky Topman

There is only a single attacking Spiky Topman. All competitions / tournaments had at least 3 of them.

Rings

The 3 outer rings are actually meant to fall after 9999 (0x270F) frames have passed (~3 min). They're also meant to fall at the same time, instead of one after the other. However, in-game, they don't actually fall, even after this time has passed.

Another interesting detail is how all of these rings are actually "meant" to move in the same route that moves one of the item boxes (as their route setting is set to 0000). However, the rings aren't actually programmed to move through a route in the first place.

Cameras

No cameras are present, so the course introduction cutscene will abruptly end.

Ending Point

The position where the player is put when finishing the competition / tournament is not present, which will make the game crash when the mission is completed.

Stage Info

Much like with some of the battle courses, the unused byte that dictates the number of laps is set to 3, despite not being intended do laps. In addition, another byte that tells if the track has a lens flare effect is set. However, this goes unused, since the object entity that enables the lens flare is not present.

(Source: B_squo)