I did a lot of housekeeping tasks today, mostly focusing on reducing the amount of online storage the Krystal Archive uses. We pay for every GB of downloads. With four copies of Star Fox: Event Horizon, that's quite a bit. After my changes, the Krystal Archive managed to save a little over 4GB! That's a reduction of about 20 percent.

Speaking of Star Fox: Event Horizon, UndyingNephalim released a 6th and 7th demo of his Star Fox: Event Horizon fangame, the latest being released back in June. I spoke to him, and he said he's still working on the game and will be working towards a beta version next. In the meantime, I removed all previous downloads for the first, second, third, and fourth demos. Instead, I will only be mirroring the most recent version here on the Krystal Archive (Demo 7 for now). To keep track of download changes, and because it deserves it, there is now a Star Fox: Event Horizon Fangame Page.

Warfaremachine sent in some small updates to his Krystal 2018 Rig. The updated versions were added to the page, and the compression was switched to 7Zip.

On the Krystal 64 page, I added links to The Regressor's posts on his Sketchfab and Tumblr.

I pulled the same trick I did on the second Half-Life 2 Alyx Mod to get a much smaller download for Falemirous' Half-Life 2 Alyx Mod Version 1, combinding both the blaster and gatling gun versions into one download.

I also applied the multiple version trick with GreyFireFox's 1.2 Krystal Maya rigs. Then I converted it and the 1.4 version to use 7Zip. I also updated GreyFireFox's Page to explain the disappearance and later reappearance as CakeInferno.

Lastly, I converted Rhyfe2002's Rig, Nanogrrr's Assault Models, Nanogrrr's Original Model, and the_randomizer's Krystal Brawl Mod to also use 7Zip compression.

Sorry for the late post, but these things take time to get right and make sure you didn't miss anything.

A fanart of Krystal appeared on national television in Japan last week. I heard about it thanks to this tweet that Ayano Harumaki retweeted, since it has Krystal in it. Asking around, we managed to figure out that the show was the most recent episode of "YOUは何しに日本へ？" (Why Did You Come to Japan?) where they approach foreigners at the airport and ask them the purpose of their visit to Japan.

You can check out the video on DailyMotion or YouTube and skip to around the 18 minute mark if you just want to see the Krystal parts. Before I get into it, I wanted to talk about the segment.

Show Segment

On January 22nd, 2018, TV Tokyo broadcast this episode of Why Did You Come to Japan? The show focuses on trying to find interesting stories about different people, from famous athletes to everyday travelers. For some interviewees, they just ask a few questions, or perhaps ask for a demonstration of their skills. For others, they follow the visitor around to their destination, to get a more in-depth look at their interesting reasons for coming to Japan.

This time, one of the people they interviewed was "Kai" from Australia. He is an illustrator for whom manga meant a lot to him as a kid and now he seeks to learn how to be a great manga artist. Two years ago, he happened to attend a lecture by Fukaya-sensei at a Manga Café called Manga Kūkan (Manga Space). This café served drinks, provided computer services, and, less commonly, hosted lectures and classes to learn how to draw manga (more about the café).

With permission, the TV crew followed him as he went to the café again. There was a minor hiccup what with the café going out of business, but his teacher was willing to meet with him at his other teaching studio. At the new location, he met with his teacher to learn how he had improved over the last two years and where he could continue improving. It was at this point that he showed off his Krystal artwork to the cameras, as well as some other artwork featuring Sonic and Samus.

Overall, Fukaya-sensei thought he was doing well, and should continue practicing to improve. Kai asked for a tutorial on making dynamic angles and action often found in Japanese manga. He was given an assignment to make a five panel comic about a character being punched in the face to show what he had learned about dynamism.

There is a whole page about the trip on TV Tokyo's website. A lot of information about the trip above comes from a Google Translation of that page, so it miiiiight not be entirely accurate.

Finding the Artist

With only a handful of details to go by, I set to work trying to figure out who this Kai from Australia was. Searches for Kai and Kay from Australia were no help. I even considered emailing Fukaya-sensei about it. But before that, I tried another option.

Using my amazing image editing skills, I managed to undo the perspective projection of two different screenshots from the video, digitally combined them, and then digitally reconstructed missing portions. This was the result:

Not my best work, but with some hints, it was just enough to get Google's reverse image search system to identify the original!

It would only occur to me later that the artist was actually wearing a shirt with his own logo on it during the show. I could have just looked him up. But we here at the Krystal Archive believe firmly that "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing!"

The Artist is ShadowFenrir

He created the Krystal artwork in a Sketch Request, and the requestor begged him to color it. The colored sketch was posted on May 23, 2016 via Patreon. Later, he would post the finished version with a painterly background on his Tumblr. As far as I know, he hasn't posted the art anywhere else, but he does occasionally offer it for sale at conventions he attends. I do not think he has ever posted the original sketch anywhere. This is the only Krystal artwork he has done to my knowledge. Perhaps one day I'll run into him at a convention and be able to purchase this fanart. It looks great!

This artist does a lot of NSFW art, so I urge caution if you decide to go through his galleries. I did manage to get into contact with him, and he wanted me to let you guys know that he is starting work on a new comic endeavor and a live competitive art duel series soon called Quick Draw (detail video). One last thing, my best guess places his visit to Japan sometime in July 2017, meaning his story wasn't broadcast for 6 months after filming!

Wreckingcanon decided to figure out what Krystal might have looked like if she had appeared in Star Fox 64. He worked with concept artist Alain J. and found The Regressor, a 3D modeler and rigger who specializes in making low-poly, N64-style rigs. With this information in hand, the Krystal Archive funded the development of this rig, affectionately called "Krystal 64". After complete, we also got some assistance from King-Jion to make a Blender-compatible version.

This rig features a blaster and holster, as well as a sleeveless jacket to show off Krystal's tattoos. Krystal looks pretty good in purple, I think!

As with Warfaremachine's rig, this is a completely free rig available for download, use, and remixing, just check the README for requirements. Thanks to everyone involved!

Check out the Krystal 64 page for more details, concept art, renders, animations, and the download. The rig is available in Blender, Maya, FBX, Wavefront OBJ, and COLLADA formats.

Krystal 64 Rig by The Regressor

Using the just released Warfaremachine Krystal Rig, Falemirous made numerous upgrades to his previous Half-Life 2 Alyx Mod. As before, the mod replaces Alyx, the secondary companion character, with Krystal. But there's so much more:

• The model and rig are updated to the new, much higher quality version of Warfaremachine's Krystal Rig Version 2, including a fix so the feet don't clip through the floor in-game
• There are 4 variants: Adventures with Gatling Gun, Adventures with Blaster, Assault with Gatling Gun, and Assault with Blaster
• The EMP tool is replaced with Krystal's Staff, now with improved Mikiel2171-based model (with more accurate textures), glowing effects for the crystals, and open/close animations
• Enhanced textures, and new normal maps, for both the Gatling Gun and the Blaster
• Gatling Gun has proper animations and is held more naturally
• In-game TVs showing animations of Alyx have been replaced with Krystal animations, both for Adventures and Assault outfits
• Krystal now holds the Gravity Gun correctly
• Tons of other little fixes and adjustments to the rig
• And just as in the last one, this mod has facial animations, tail physics, and various jiggle bones

You can find more details, a lot of screenshots, a tutorial video, and downloads on the mod's official page.

User ALM5252 made a custom build of Project M called Project M EX. Project M is a huge Brawl mod that runs on actual Wii hardware featuring tons of new characters, stages, and dramatically rebalanced gameplay, with his variant including lots of other mods preloaded. It can even work without jailbreaking your Wii, apparently.

Not content with all that, ALM5252 has been working on a custom stage using the distinctive version of the Great Fox from Star Fox Adventures, going for that rusty, out-of-work look. The stages has characters fighting on the back and sides of the Great Fox before transferring to Arwings in a dynamic stage inspired by Smash 4's Orbital Gate stage. He's even working on a custom theme song for the stage to be composed by TroyAnthony. The Arwings are clearly Star Fox 64 versions, though I'm not sure if they are placeholders or the final intended models.

Cool to see the Adventures models getting some love.

KingJion, with help from several other members of the Krystal Archive Discord Server, has been working for the last two weeks on Star Fox Adventures versions of Fox McCloud and Krystal rigs to make them suitable for use in VRChat, the online world experience that's exploding in popularity and where people often go to find out about "da wey." Thanks to his hard work, and the help of several others in the server, you can join this worldwide silliness simulator as your favorite Star Fox character, or Fox McCloud if you don't want to play as Krystal today.

The Krystal VRChat Rig was based off of the MMD rig by Schattenkitsune666. KingJion even added in Krystal's staff, which is held in place with her bra strap, as you can see below.

The Fox McCloud VRChat Rig was based off of some Star Fox Adventures Rigs by dionn12345678910 that have sense disappeared from the internet.

With KingJion's permission, I will be hosting these VRChat rigs here on the Krystal Archive, but not yet. There is a small technical issue with the mod downloads that I'm working with KingJion to get corrected. Once that's done, I'll put up a page, gallery, and download links. For now, you can get the original downloads below:

• Krystal VRChat Rig Download
• Fox McCloud VRChat Rig Download
• How-To Tutorial - You will also need Unity version 5.6.3p1 installed, the SDK package from the VRChat website, and an account on VRChat to use this.

As you'll see from the video above by Hard4Games, Hugo Peters has been working hard to find ways of getting new model files off of the Star Fox Adventures in-store kiosk disc. Of note this time are several near-complete in-game locations, a model for Krystal's companion Kyte, a beta Fox McCloud model, Krystal's first-person hands, and the log that Krystal rides on in one screenshot from Dinosaur Planet.

Check out the original forum post where Hugo Peters first started talking about this, as well has Hugo Peters' Twitter announcement.

2Tie (who apparently has been working side by side with Hugo Peters) created an open source project that purports to be a Dinosaur Planet Model Viewer. Not sure if it actually works, but it was posted about here. Hugo Peters appears to have integrated the Dinosaur Planet viewing tools he made into his Warlock Engine, which doesn't appear to be available for public download at this time. However, if you're interested in tools for Dinosaur Planet (and other games), Hugo Peters made several of his older tools available on a project page for Dinosaur Planet Leftovers.

For even more Dinosaur Planet research, check out Heck Yeah, Dinosaur Planet!, this massive forum post about extracting the script (where 2Tie's Dinosaur Planet Model Viewer project appeared), The Cutting Room Floor's Star Fox Adventures entry, and a huge info dump by user Gilgamesh. Lastly, our very own site reader, kokorogensou, has both Story of Sauria, a blog dedicated to recreating the story and gameplay of Dinosaur Planet, and an organized Dinosaur Planet script using text found in the demo disk.

Thanks to Rozurabu and FoxTrot for some info found in this post.

That was fast! Schattenkitsune666 was able to quickly adjust the new Warfaremachine Rig to work in MikuMikuDance. He said it was under a day to make the changes. So check out his brand new video featuring both the Assault and Adventures variations of Krystal dancing to "Glide" by Cillia.

Sound warning! This video is from CommanderD. The Star Fox team gets in on the Nintendo cardboard madness. If you were living under a rock for the last few days, this is Nintendo Labo.

Artwork by ユッカ.

Sorry for the lack of updates this week. I have a lot to post, but all of it will take a bit of time to research, and I haven't had time to do it. And by not have time, I mean I've been playing through Super Mario Odyssey. I hope to get that settled next week (I beat the game two days ago).

1PupSuits sent me an email back in December about a glitch they had found in Star Fox Assault. If you used the sniper rifles in multiplayer mode with multiple characters, and stood at the right spot, the low-poly version of your character would appear instead. I did some tests and it worked! I also found that it had less to do with the sniper rifles and more to do with where your camera was and certain angles. This is a glitch with the level of detail (LOD) system in Star Fox Assault. Normally, LOD is used to make small objects in the distance use less resources. Star Fox Assault does this, however it looks like you can trick the system sometimes.

I made this video to demonstrate. I played the game at ludicrous resolution on the emulator so that after I cropped the fourth of the screen from the four-player split screen, you could still see a lot of detail. Hope you enjoy!