With every release of a new graphics architecture NVIDIA releases new demos to show off the power of the graphics hardware. NVIDIA has so far released three demos out of the four launch demos for the new architecture, the Adrienne demo, the Froggy demo and a Smoke demo.
Adrianne Curry is the star of My Fair Brady and is the spouse of Christopher Knight the ex-Brady Peter. She is the model for NVIDIA's “virtual Adrianne” demo. The skin shader that the demo uses is composed of over 1400 instructions alone per pixel, 15 render passes, and five separate bump maps. To put the number of instructions into perspective, Shader Model 2.0 hardware minimum from just 4 years ago was 96 instructions in a pass. Her movements were done with a skelatal animation system that is amazing to see in motion.
Adrianne demo
The Froggy demo uses a modified version of the Adrianne skin shader with modified scattering properties derived from photos of real frog skin. The shader has high-detail bump and detail maps and a complex, physically based lighting model that simulates sub-surface scattering. You can use the mouse to stretch the skin of Froggy, slap him, and irritate him to no end. It's a fun demo.
Froggy demo
The last demo NVIDIA released was the Box of Smoke demo. This demo uses Navier-Stokes equations calculated on the 8800 card itself. The Navier-Stokes equations are equations that describe the motion of fluid substances such as liquids and gases. This demo allows you to move the smoke around the box and is really interesting from a physics point of view.
Smoke Demo
