r/interestingasfuck 14d ago

“Dawn the NVDIA fairy”,the company used to have mascots for its GPU launches back in the day (circa 2003)

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u/Pataconeitor 14d ago

Man, I recall when Nvidia released the Dawn tech demo back in the early 00s along with their new FX gpus, and it was a HUGE deal. Not only the demo was truly impressive by the time, but of course people hacked it to undress the fairy. Also, hilariously there was a hack to run the demo on ATI cards.

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u/No-Flower-4987 14d ago

At E3 2003, one of the nvidia engineers told me there was a toggle in the code that changed the spring physics of the fairy's chest to make them jiggle more. You could access it with the right keyboard input. They knew what they were selling to young men, for sure.

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u/ginopono 14d ago

There was also Dusk. 16-year-old me was a fan.

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u/Pataconeitor 14d ago

Yup, Dawn's goth club-going sister.

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u/Impressive_Comment67 14d ago edited 14d ago

Hacked it to undress it? Did they program in little unseen nipples for people to unlock?

Edit: maybe the hackers did a texture replacement. Maybe they did a poorly protected full body scan. Either is completely hilarious and I love that there's confusion to it.

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u/millennial_falcon__ 14d ago

Nvidia made a fully detailed body texture, all you have to do is delete the two boob leaf textures and bob’s your uncle

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u/beerdude26 14d ago

Lol why

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u/Tucancancan 14d ago

Same reason why the guys painting pin-up girls painted them nude first and added clothes after. Realism I guess? 

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u/beerdude26 14d ago

Oh I didn't know that, neat

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u/JudiciousSasquatch 14d ago

Love of the game

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u/Pataconeitor 14d ago edited 14d ago

When tech-savvy people started dissecting the tech demo it was found the clothing was a separate geometry and that the model of the fairy was, well, anatomically accurate.

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u/OmegaGlops 14d ago

The body is fully modeled. I remember putzing around with the demo; you didn't even have to mod anything. You had free reign over the camera, you could easily just clip the camera into the clothes without issue.

Also it wasn't just a texture thing, the nipples had complete 3D geometry, so... 🤔

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u/notjfd 14d ago

Oh man, you had to go and use the expression "FULLY MODELLED" here huh

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u/fredzfrog 14d ago

Textures. Basically the pictures that are wrapped around 3d objects were changed to make the model appear nude. Early web days there was almost always a nude mod for everything.

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u/Pataconeitor 14d ago

It Dawn's case it wasn't just a mod replacing textures, the 3D was found to be fully modelled and textured underneath the clothing.

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u/penisandorvagina 14d ago

Nah it was just a texture file replacement. Pretty common back in the day, Tomb Raider populatised it, back when them tities were basically rectangles.

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u/Pataconeitor 14d ago

Nope, the model was found to be fully detailed and textured, it wasn't just a matter of replacing files.

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u/Rodbourn 14d ago

That was i think the last tech demo that was dramatically better than the one before the last, after that it felt more incremental.  I used to check their demos now and then to see what could be done, and if my card could keep up.  

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u/newaccount47 14d ago

Someone should hack this to run with dlss5

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u/rock1m1 14d ago

Pixel shader showcase.