Remember the backgrounds of video games you watched as a child? Didn't you think those rock faces and wall patterns were hand-drawn?

In reality, they're often just photographs taken somewhere in the real world, simply scaled down and pasted onto the screen.

And there are people overseas who have spent 30 years trying to pinpoint where and what each of those photographs represents.

Their only clues are patterns of a few dozen pixels. Yet, they've painstakingly collected out-of-print stock image libraries, comparing each image one by one.

The backgrounds of those stages you ran around in so casually might actually be landscapes from somewhere in Japan.

This time, we follow the 30 years of these "texture archaeologists" who continue to unearth real-world photographs embedded in video games, and where their obsession has led them.

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▼ References/Sources
Render96 VGTP (Official account of the team searching for original texture images)
https://x.com/Render96VGTP

Render96 Wiki "cobble_stone (Your Childhood Texture)"
https://github.com/Render96/Render96W...)

Render96 Wiki "List of Material CDs Used in Super Mario 64"
https://github.com/Render96/Render96W...

Render96 Wiki "Correspondence Table for the Material Dictionary Series"
https://github.com/Render96/Render96W...

Render96 HD Texture Pack
https://github.com/pokeheadroom/RENDE...

Material Dictionary (Data Craft) Official Website
http://www.sozaijiten.com/cdrom/lineu...

Image Navi (Distributor of Material Dictionary)
https://imagenavi.jp/

AUTOMATON: "Texture enthusiasts unearth the source material for textures in 'Super Smash Bros.' and 'Mario 64' one after another. The background of Pirate's Cove is a mountain in Toyama."
https://automaton-media.com/articles/... 20210204-151146/

AUTOMATON: "Food Textures in 'Kirby's Air Rider' Already Identified in Just 2 Days"
https://automaton-media.com/articles/...

80.lv (Article reporting the source of the Pirate's Cove stone wall textures - October 2024)
https://80.lv/articles/this-team-of-e...

Supper Mario Broth (Original photo of Metal Mario's reflection)
https://www.suppermariobroth.com/post...

Website where the discoverer has recorded the discovery with dates
https://giganticpingu.neocities.org/t...

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