LogInYou're always one Google search away from preserving history.
Render96, a team specializing in preserving textures from retro Nintendo and SEGA games, continues leveraging the power of OSINT and observation skills to safeguard the history of game development, unearthing the source of one of the textures from the legendary Super Mario 64 platformer.
In case you haven't heard of them, Render96 is easily one of the most prominent keepers of game development history. Proving with their example that you're always just one Google search away from a fascinating discovery, the team is aiming to gather as much information on the texture and sound libraries used by Nintendo to create Super Mario 64's assets as possible. Additionally, Render96 often uncovers the sources of textures and audio files from other classic video games, relying heavily on old texture CDs – collections of images that developers used to create texture maps back when online asset stores weren't a thing.
The recent discovery is credited to one of the team's most notable Texture Archaeologists, Roovahlees, who found out that the stone wall texture in Super Mario 64's Jolly Roger Bay course came from a cropped section of an image on the VisualDisk – Walls CD, released in 1994 in Japan. The only question that remains is – what is the source of the source image? Maybe someone should contact Rainbolt to figure that out.
And here are some more mind-blowing discoveries the team has made in recent months:
We highly encourage you to visit Render96's Twitter and Wiki pages to see more of their fascinating findings. Don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Reddit, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.