The only reason I recognized that teapot was because of some video I watched a long time ago, showing a game that had that teapot in it as an easter egg.
Did some research, and in Japan in the 90s, a law was passed that employers are required to make designated smoking areas, so maybe this had something to do with that?
3:43 That is indeed Japanese, and it says "Tarou". It's a name, either by itself or a nickname as a part of another name like "Kentarou". Probably the name of the programmer responsible for the art.
For some reason the text during the "voice" demo glitched out 😅 the top text translated to: "Voice Recognition Test Program". But yeah check out tetrabitgaming.com I guess!
@@toastermccoaster9793 Not a joke. Donkey Kong Country 2 is a SNES game, and in the game there is a level called "Krem Quay". This image is used on the stage select screen for Krem Quay.
i have a feeling that somewhere in Nintendo's archives there are the remains of Ura Zelda, or at least the framework, I think MQ is just 50% of Ura's original planned content. Hopefully one day it'll get leaked and romhackers can recompile it into a playable mod for OOT.
"I think MQ is just 50% of Ura's original planned content." Nope, OOT has 64dd loading code in there; obviously this was never used, but it's how the game would've loaded content from the disks. Without any modifications, OOT can only load new dungeon maps from disk; so the idea of new abilities or a new overworld would've simply been impossible without a new and updated cartridge. For rom hackers this is no issue, hence why Dawn & Dusk can exist as a 64dd disk; but for Nintendo, it's a different story.
2:25 threadmonkey is more useful if you have the source code in front of you. It explains how to use the thread profiler. The N64 had an entire OS, as small as it was, that allowed programmers to create and schedule threads manually and that demo, paired with the dev kit toolset, could be used to learn the fundamentals of those tools.
So the text in 3:48 seems to read 'Tarou', which is a japanese name. Maybe one of the developers was called Tarou? Or it is a reference to the Animal Crossing Villager called Tarou, but that is more unlikely [EDIT] No, it's not a reference to the villager, since Tarou is only in Dobutsu no Mori E+ which was on Gamecube! But it could also be a reference to the game 'Fune Tarou' for the SNES which seems to have been some fishing game, but it actually had a kind of similar mountain in the background
That lightning graphic from 17:17 to 18:57 is actually utilized in a separate program for the n64. It was a program I believe called LeoUlx or something else and it was made to test dd disks, format them, and other stuff. This was shown off in several videos by Hard4Games and Luigiblood
I'm honestly loving these leaks. My life would be complete if the Earthbound 64 beta was leaked, my heart would stop from excitement if that happened. I would literally trade my soul to see that ROM get leaked.
@@John-bn7ux Depends on the computers. Pretty sure some old server computers from that era could hold a Terabyte. Since Tron was mentioned in the video it reminded me of something from Tron 2.0. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find any of the references I was looking for but in Tron 2.0 (released 2003 and sadly no longer cannon since Tron Legacy came out) they end up traveling into the original mainframe computer where the first movie took place and I'm pretty sure they say it holds a Terabyte (there's an NPC there that talks about how great the computer is and list off it's specs).
I could've been wrong on that, I figured out the magic search terms and the NPCs name is I-NO, according to the wiki he said it had 128 Megabytes of local storage. Not sure how I could remember it so differently and as much as I love the game getting it to work on my PC would be a bit of a pain due to it's DRM. I also have a backlog miles long that I'll probably never get through.
I thought I was the only one who thought that. Such nice quality, the curves are perfect and runs at a quite good fps, it doesn't even seem to be from a Nintendo 64 ROM.
Great Video, at 14:35 the Nintendo 64 Logo that is used is wrong it has all top and bottom diagonal faces being red when the top faces should alternate between red and green and the bottom faces should alternate between red and blue.
16:42 The 64DD wasn't cancelled. It was just a huge commercial failure, was never released outside of Japan, and had very few games and LOTS of cancelled ones.
2:30 i think threadmonkey is the same but threaded. but performance is soo the same as blockmonkey and it does not change visuals. it changes performance
The one with word "near" flying away from camera was testing near and far clipping planes, which are used to "cut off" stuff that is far away or too close to camera. These planes are used in 3d graphics everywhere You didn't control how close or how far animation started, you controlled distance of planes from camera
12:45 these controllers look great, specially with those effects, if the n64 had a cd periferal having models like these to play around in loading screens it would be great
Well yes and no the brick used is actually a shared texture (public domain) used to show of graphic and Minecraft used it so no. It didn't originate here sorry😅
8:10 the pikachu sign text there is 24時間 喫煙中 that translates to 24 hours smoking. Thank god for high res but I can't seem to see the rest of the bottom text. Guess it's some smoking area but it wouldn't make much sense since it's indoors.
Smoking areas indoors was definitely still very common in the 90s, especially in Japan. Hell, I feel old now knowing that people could smoke indoors in pubs and restaurants in the 2000s. Seems incredibly bizarre looking back now.
At 3:35 the Japanese is 「たろう」which directly translates as "Tarou". Tarou (太郎) is a Japanese given name (First name from English's perspective. NOT a surname!). At 3:50 the image is a bunch of textured brush strokes. It's just a bunch of scribble with textures. I do the same thing when testing out my brush settings on programs like Clip Studio Paint or Adobe Photoshop. It just seems like they saved that test image and used it as a quick background to test textured background rendering, or some kind of semblance of a skybox.
3:40 Beautiful PS5-style graphics. That image has been rendered with raytracing, I'm sure! It says "chirou" at the right (ちろう) but no idea what that's supposed to mean.
Well this is incredible... Anyone who uses 3D modeling, has dabbled in game dev(either using an online engine or trying to make their own) will REALLY appreciate how far we've come, but at the same time, how similar things are to this day :)
Looks like it's the regular n64 version. The version of the program you're talking about is titled ddspgame. It tests the 64dd functionality/checks for errors
I gotta say I was feeling really bad about making a bunch of worthless stuff on Blender for practice but seeing the pros do the same makes me feel a lot better.
If they didnt make this demos they wouldn't know what they were capable of doing in the N64. So a lot of games wouldn't be as good as they are or even exist.
3:53 is obviously an electronic finger-paint styled rendition of Sonic the Hedgehog riding a green jet ski over the water with the sun and sky in the background on a slightly overcast day. Sonic's head starts in the too right corner and he's riding towards the left, from our perspective. The sun is peaking out of the clouds in the background to the left, and below that is the green and brown jet ski Sonic is riding over the waves of a lake or beach or something. Are you telling me I'm the only one who can see this? Edit: Holy CRAP, I feel dyslexic right now0.0 I seriously saw n64 the WHOLE time the graphic at 8:50 was spinning around, until you actually pointed out that it said u64 instead. Woah0.o
the japanese at 3:45 says "Tarou", which is probably the signature of the guy who drew it. Also, that mountain is probably Mt. Fuji, which is Japan's tallest mountain.
18:39 This calls for another music video! *Super Mario Run Remix 10 music playing* Pauline: Show me my love! *Koopa Kid screams and the Hyness song plays*
There's a good chance that that brick texture actually *is* the one from the Windows 95 maze screensaver. That brick texture is a stock texture that was used in a surprising amount of software back then, as was discovered by the Render 96 project.
4:58 my mind got blown after hearing that. I would have never thought that unless someone told me. Who would have thought. My mind is completely blown away right now lol 😂
8:17 wait I recognize that field...omg that's the Ohio state football field I would know I've been there a bunch of times even tho I'm planning to go to sleep ysu. The thing is, how did they get that texture? was it sent to them from someone who went to a game?
The first block monkey sequence seems to be normal mapping! Normal mapping shows generally where shadows would fall to help emulate depth on an object, which is why if you notice in the light mapping, the red gets replaced with a light.
The picture at 20:07 appears to be a now-defunct restaurant called Caffe Verona in Palo Alto, California. It's commonly used in 3D graphics, such as early editions of the OpenGL Programming Guide.
![Super Smash Bros. Unused Content REDUX | LOST BITS [TetraBitGaming]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/CrxySkP8JQo/mqdefault.jpg)
![Super Smash Bros. Unused Content REDUX | LOST BITS [TetraBitGaming]](/img/tr.png)
![Sonic R LOST BITS | Prototypes & Unused Content [TetraBitGaming]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rEaJTJf7auY/mqdefault.jpg)
![Mario Kart DS (PROTOTYPE) LOST BITS | Altered & Unused Content [TetraBitGaming]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kSRZqk_zfeE/mqdefault.jpg)
3:42 it says "Taro" (can be written as Tarou too) and I think it's the name of the ms paint artist
Huh. thought it was was "chirou" but turns out the first kana wasnt badly drawn
He's very talented.
CreamDream Wonder if he takes commissions
@@shk_ I thought the same thing and looked up "chirou" on jisho.org. It... did not disappoint. Turns out it means "delayed ejaculation"
I thought it was saruu
19:08 That isn’t just any teapot, that figure is what is known as the Utah Teapot, which is common for 3D modeling tests.
like in super monkey ball
The original.
I know that teapot from dodge the teapots of doom
The only reason I recognized that teapot was because of some video I watched a long time ago, showing a game that had that teapot in it as an easter egg.
Im getting Tom Scott vibes
I tried translating the sign in front of the Pikachu, it looks like it says something along the lines of “smoking for 24 hours. Please do not erase.”
Did some research, and in Japan in the 90s, a law was passed that employers are required to make designated smoking areas, so maybe this had something to do with that?
@@chasezly Could also be a "smoke-test"
3:43 That is indeed Japanese, and it says "Tarou". It's a name, either by itself or a nickname as a part of another name like "Kentarou". Probably the name of the programmer responsible for the art.
Do you speak Japanese just asking
He felt so satisfied with his masterpiece that he decided to sign his name on it
@Peblo 246 wooosh is a term used by redditors as to say you don't get the joke.
@@mememelt-2ksubscriberswith452 I do, although I'm out of practice.
@@toxictincan in pretty sure they know, they were saying why did they decide to try to whoosh someone
For some reason the text during the "voice" demo glitched out 😅 the top text translated to: "Voice Recognition Test Program".
But yeah check out tetrabitgaming.com I guess!
Munch
Why didn't you add in N64 Sounds on your intro?
F
I have a ds xl for the Mario 64 remastered
Ok 👌
That Shipwreck at 18:52 is the background for the stage select in Krem Quay, for Donkey Kong Country 2! :)
Oh cool! Haven't played that one haha
I thought it looked familiar.
Is this some old joke I'm too young to understand?
@@toastermccoaster9793 Not a joke. Donkey Kong Country 2 is a SNES game, and in the game there is a level called "Krem Quay". This image is used on the stage select screen for Krem Quay.
The teapot is called the Utah Teapot, and was commonly used in early 3D modeling. It's also in the Pipe Screensaver, as well as the Toy Story.
Rukoshii maybe it was made in Utah
I think it was also used in Super Monkey Ball 2 as well for Advanced Extra 10.
@@Rukoshii The foundation of basically all of 3D computer graphics/CGI was developed at the University of Utah.
This is cool and all but when are we getting the Nintendo 65?
Korporal K. Reep dude didn’t even show us ANYTHING from the Nintendo 63, don’t get your hopes up :/
You mean the Nintendo 128
RadRolla nah bro, he means the nintendo 720.
wait-
Year 2401 should get L then too
Never
i have a feeling that somewhere in Nintendo's archives there are the remains of Ura Zelda, or at least the framework, I think MQ is just 50% of Ura's original planned content. Hopefully one day it'll get leaked and romhackers can recompile it into a playable mod for OOT.
Ura u mean ure..... URE TARDED
jk
MultiTarded that made no sense
Please dont get your hopes up
"I think MQ is just 50% of Ura's original planned content."
Nope, OOT has 64dd loading code in there; obviously this was never used, but it's how the game would've loaded content from the disks. Without any modifications, OOT can only load new dungeon maps from disk; so the idea of new abilities or a new overworld would've simply been impossible without a new and updated cartridge. For rom hackers this is no issue, hence why Dawn & Dusk can exist as a 64dd disk; but for Nintendo, it's a different story.
@MultiTarded And Metroid Dread
2:25 threadmonkey is more useful if you have the source code in front of you. It explains how to use the thread profiler. The N64 had an entire OS, as small as it was, that allowed programmers to create and schedule threads manually and that demo, paired with the dev kit toolset, could be used to learn the fundamentals of those tools.
Nice, I didn't know the N64 had it.
Thanks for the technical info.
Again, I love the moments in Tetra's vids where stuff gets
D e e p f r I e d.
Pikachu's final form @7:49
He has no weakness
He has came to reality
I love him
This comment has 69 likes, nice
So the text in 3:48 seems to read 'Tarou', which is a japanese name. Maybe one of the developers was called Tarou? Or it is a reference to the Animal Crossing Villager called Tarou, but that is more unlikely
[EDIT]
No, it's not a reference to the villager, since Tarou is only in Dobutsu no Mori E+ which was on Gamecube! But it could also be a reference to the game 'Fune Tarou' for the SNES which seems to have been some fishing game, but it actually had a kind of similar mountain in the background
15:55 TetraBitGaming: -started playing a pretty slappin tune
Also TetraBitGaming: completely skips over BassDrive.mid
Super Mario Kart R: hold my kart
Technically, all bits on the N64 were lost, now we have polygons instead
-I'm not sorry for this-
God dammit
@@Imirui Hi
hahahahahevhsrhejebeksne
Christopher Moon why do we have polygons
The n64 is, as the name suggests, a 64 bit console. So actually, there are more bits than ever before!
That "u" looks like the one from unreal engine
Or Unreal tournament, or Unreal
that's where unreal got their inspiration from
@Macey Mingori 8:28
8:24 That’s the Ohio Stadium! I wonder why they used a picture of that🤔
The lightning storm image was also used for a 64dd test disk
That lightning graphic from 17:17 to 18:57 is actually utilized in a separate program for the n64. It was a program I believe called LeoUlx or something else and it was made to test dd disks, format them, and other stuff. This was shown off in several videos by Hard4Games and Luigiblood
It’s amazing that people are still committed enough to the N64 to get as much info as possible even nowadays
I'm honestly loving these leaks. My life would be complete if the Earthbound 64 beta was leaked, my heart would stop from excitement if that happened. I would literally trade my soul to see that ROM get leaked.
Yeah fr Mario 64 betas and Earbound 64 are holy grail for us
this is only the first few hundred mb of data leaked, there is a total of 2 tb in total soon to come!
thumbs up so ppl know :^)
I didnt
If there's no Zelda 64 prototypes then I don't care.
How many 90’s computers would it take for 2tb
@@John-bn7ux Depends on the computers. Pretty sure some old server computers from that era could hold a Terabyte. Since Tron was mentioned in the video it reminded me of something from Tron 2.0. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find any of the references I was looking for but in Tron 2.0 (released 2003 and sadly no longer cannon since Tron Legacy came out) they end up traveling into the original mainframe computer where the first movie took place and I'm pretty sure they say it holds a Terabyte (there's an NPC there that talks about how great the computer is and list off it's specs).
I could've been wrong on that, I figured out the magic search terms and the NPCs name is I-NO, according to the wiki he said it had 128 Megabytes of local storage. Not sure how I could remember it so differently and as much as I love the game getting it to work on my PC would be a bit of a pain due to it's DRM. I also have a backlog miles long that I'll probably never get through.
19:13 That is a very good 3D model for a N64
Ikr
You know that a teapot was the first 3d figure ever created doesn't you?
I thought I was the only one who thought that. Such nice quality, the curves are perfect and runs at a quite good fps, it doesn't even seem to be from a Nintendo 64 ROM.
mixaelcris5 No, it was the first to cast shadows on itself + have negative curvature
It is the only model being rendered so it can handle alot more polygons than if there were 15 teapots at once.
13:28 So a whole tech demo development tool thingy just to play around with the Mario Kart 64 item box?
17:37 looks like a game made in scratch.
Lol it does
Ye
True subbed too
Yes
Fun fact:
The teapot is called the Utah teapot and is used for testing lighting for 3d environments. It can be seen in things like toy story
Great Video, at 14:35 the Nintendo 64 Logo that is used is wrong it has all top and bottom diagonal faces being red when the top faces should alternate between red and green and the bottom faces should alternate between red and blue.
You would know that wouldn't you? :P
This is the most aestethic episode. I love it, you make great content! Ive watched since 2018!
Great video, been keeping up with these leeks, but this was the best video showcasing them all that I've found so far :) great work!
16:42 The 64DD wasn't cancelled. It was just a huge commercial failure, was never released outside of Japan, and had very few games and LOTS of cancelled ones.
2:30 i think threadmonkey is the same but threaded.
but performance is soo the same as blockmonkey
and it does not change visuals. it changes performance
The one with word "near" flying away from camera was testing near and far clipping planes, which are used to "cut off" stuff that is far away or too close to camera. These planes are used in 3d graphics everywhere
You didn't control how close or how far animation started, you controlled distance of planes from camera
12:45 these controllers look great, specially with those effects, if the n64 had a cd periferal having models like these to play around in loading screens it would be great
0:54 wow I didn't know the minecraft brick block originated in an N64 tech demo.
I know right
Well yes and no the brick used is actually a shared texture (public domain) used to show of graphic and Minecraft used it so no. It didn't originate here sorry😅
7:25, I Still Have That Screensaver Installed Lol
I think they used the word "monkey" as an alternative to "dummy"
Yeah
8:10 the pikachu sign text there is 24時間 喫煙中 that translates to 24 hours smoking. Thank god for high res but I can't seem to see the rest of the bottom text.
Guess it's some smoking area but it wouldn't make much sense since it's indoors.
Smoking areas indoors was definitely still very common in the 90s, especially in Japan. Hell, I feel old now knowing that people could smoke indoors in pubs and restaurants in the 2000s. Seems incredibly bizarre looking back now.
At 3:35 the Japanese is 「たろう」which directly translates as "Tarou". Tarou (太郎) is a Japanese given name (First name from English's perspective. NOT a surname!).
At 3:50 the image is a bunch of textured brush strokes. It's just a bunch of scribble with textures. I do the same thing when testing out my brush settings on programs like Clip Studio Paint or Adobe Photoshop. It just seems like they saved that test image and used it as a quick background to test textured background rendering, or some kind of semblance of a skybox.
Are you gonna be going through more of the info from that giant leak?
6:49 that was actually cool! Could you extend that at 75% speed? It’s even better with that.
Song: HOME - Pyxis
2:50 Obiwan: That's no moon!
When I saw n64 in the title I screamed with happiness
17:57 It do be slappin
Tetra, at around 18:28 or so you said there was some bronze circles... those are textures of Mars
3:53
The color blue i guess.
hey demoman!
@@skullnoober Oy!
DemoPanMan Hello there!
2:13 Mario’s wondering why he’s on a cube spinning
3:52 Tetra: Name one thing in this image, i dare you. Me: Ok, a Mario Party Map.
3:40 Beautiful PS5-style graphics. That image has been rendered with raytracing, I'm sure! It says "chirou" at the right (ちろう) but no idea what that's supposed to mean.
0:05 WAAALUIGI-LAUNCHER!
Wait wait dude, the 64DD wasn't canceled, it came out in Japan really late
In the west, i guess.
19:11 That Looks High Quality For A N64 Entity
Well this is incredible...
Anyone who uses 3D modeling, has dabbled in game dev(either using an online engine or trying to make their own) will REALLY appreciate how far we've come, but at the same time, how similar things are to this day :)
18:39 Pauline: His name is Donkey K! He loves to eat bananananas!
3:22 "an interlocked pair of tauruses, tauri? not sure what the plural form is"
Me, an intellectual: *R i n g s*
"an image of a shipwreck"
Bruh. That's Krem Quay. A weirdly chunky and discolored Krem Quay, but definitely Krem Quay.
13:33 this looks like the item box from Mario kart 64
Congratulations on 300k subs!!!!
3:56 It's link trying to crab walk
But he has a red face
8:16
I can swear i gave seen that exact backdrop with a rotating "ultra 64" in the same text in an old trailer for IT.
18:12 was actually on a blue n64dd test disc.
Looks like it's the regular n64 version. The version of the program you're talking about is titled ddspgame. It tests the 64dd functionality/checks for errors
19:07 fun fact!! This specific teapot is called the “Utah Teapot” and it is used frequently in 3D engines to test modeling.
17:50 new kanye album intro music
I gotta say I was feeling really bad about making a bunch of worthless stuff on Blender for practice but seeing the pros do the same makes me feel a lot better.
If they didnt make this demos they wouldn't know what they were capable of doing in the N64. So a lot of games wouldn't be as good as they are or even exist.
03:28 I know why it's your favorite
Why?
@@Luigi_bros4321 guess
@@Skypatroller_BenCD ok, guessed it
tetrahydracannibinol?
Tetra
15:33 Looks like the Sony logo from the ps1 era XD
3:25 mizo = groove
3:46 たろう (Tarō, Japanese nickname)
8:11 smoking 24 hours a day please don’t delete
Lol the last one
This was 2 years ago?!?! Jeez this feels recent
9:56 *almost the minecraft texture in the top left*
Oh yeah
y
3:53 is obviously an electronic finger-paint styled rendition of Sonic the Hedgehog riding a green jet ski over the water with the sun and sky in the background on a slightly overcast day. Sonic's head starts in the too right corner and he's riding towards the left, from our perspective. The sun is peaking out of the clouds in the background to the left, and below that is the green and brown jet ski Sonic is riding over the waves of a lake or beach or something.
Are you telling me I'm the only one who can see this?
Edit: Holy CRAP, I feel dyslexic right now0.0 I seriously saw n64 the WHOLE time the graphic at 8:50 was spinning around, until you actually pointed out that it said u64 instead. Woah0.o
This is definitely more creative than what I saw...
Lol
I would love to play the first demo someday and mess around with it.
I must say I'm pleasantly surprised by your use of the letter "zed" @ 2:06.
It's awfully nice to hear it! :)
Imagine if Nintendo leaked them themselves for publicity
7:50
that's
one
*E P I C P I K A N I N T E N D O 6 4 H A S*
0:05: WALUIGI Launcher
19:41 this remembers me a lot to wetrix, awesome video! 😎
4:00 ちろう Chirou. Also that's definitely Mt. Fuji
the japanese at 3:45 says "Tarou", which is probably the signature of the guy who drew it. Also, that mountain is probably Mt. Fuji, which is Japan's tallest mountain.
"Next we got CI8FB, what a name."
Elon Musk's son: Finally, a worthy opponent.
18:39 This calls for another music video!
*Super Mario Run Remix 10 music playing* Pauline: Show me my love! *Koopa Kid screams and the Hyness song plays*
12:59 woah stop it now kids are watching u lol
I thought Kids Like me Like to Hear people Swear!
That's why there censored
13:38 needs to be a song i can listen to
@404TVfrsend me a link to the song olese
The u from the letters demo reminds me of unreal engine
I thought the same. Like it was a demo of an unreal engine for the 64
Unreal engine 1?
@@ggkproductions1632 Unreal engine 64
You do realize there are tons of those so thanks for not giving timestamp
They hired this man.
i had no clue the n64 even supported bump mapping! neat.
I see, you’ve been seeing these too
What
1k Subscribers with videos challenge idk these have just been popping up in everyone’s recommendation lately
ironic for a company that literally has a plumber as its mascot
What is ironic about this?
@@MARUTITOXDAnimaciones that they're getting so many leaks, when the job of a plumber is to fix pipes, including pipe leaks
At 10:05 in the bottom right corner there is a 8bit jumping mario
I don’t see it can you help me
I think you mean 11:03
Morphfaces might've been used to test things like peach going to Bowser on the painting in the 8 star door hall
So lost bits has expanded to consoles themselves??? NEAT!!!
16:37 its called top gun (u.s. navy) he says is a u.s.air force (usaf) jet, its an AV-8B used by the usmc...
19:25 So it's the Unity terrain editor
“name one thing in this image i dare you”
a castle
green
02:55 so you can't do things like Eggman does
There's a good chance that that brick texture actually *is* the one from the Windows 95 maze screensaver. That brick texture is a stock texture that was used in a surprising amount of software back then, as was discovered by the Render 96 project.
0:12 Parents arent in home
4:58 my mind got blown after hearing that. I would have never thought that unless someone told me. Who would have thought. My mind is completely blown away right now lol 😂
8:17 wait I recognize that field...omg that's the Ohio state football field I would know I've been there a bunch of times even tho I'm planning to go to sleep ysu. The thing is, how did they get that texture? was it sent to them from someone who went to a game?
Ohio
@@johnnyjohnson4084 humor today is broken
All these tech demos are extremely eerie for some reason.
2:00 opengl fragment shader flashbacks
7:24 Well yeah,it's the cobble_stone texture that was used in basically every video game in the 90s(usually in a different color)
The first block monkey sequence seems to be normal mapping! Normal mapping shows generally where shadows would fall to help emulate depth on an object, which is why if you notice in the light mapping, the red gets replaced with a light.
The picture at 20:07 appears to be a now-defunct restaurant called Caffe Verona in Palo Alto, California. It's commonly used in 3D graphics, such as early editions of the OpenGL Programming Guide.