RELEASE: Wolfenstein 3D TC Version 3.1

[Gamerwarrior117]

there are issues though, my keys get stuck during the game, so im assuming thats part of gzdoom engine problem.

the keys get stuck like when you move forward on the wsad or up, down, left and right.they get stuck. same when you press e to open doors or space open doors.

can you fix those?

[AFADoomer]

That sounds like a hardware problem... No one else has reported this as an issue.

[D2 Mod Player]

when are you going to release your version of wolfenstein 3d hd?

You got me thinking about actually releasing something, which is so awesome! I'll post a link here if I get enough work done to seriously consider starting my own thread. I hope your PC issues get resolved....

It's funny being asked about this so soon, as I've only worked on it two days. But I've made a huge amount of progress very quickly, since this is something I've done in the past and have practiced on and off for years. Now that I have a 1440p monitor I realized that certain things in the remastering department really improves when I jump to 4x the pixel density to 2048x2048. I hadn't anticipated this but it has alot to do with the filters I'm using. I should have guessed this in the past, because I have alot of experience finding ways to remaster videos and it ALWAYS renders more efficiently and smoothly when using the HIGHEST resolution possible.

I tried to upload a PNG but it says it's too large. The enemies, the hardest for me to do back in the day, actually only took 5 minutes to complete with macros, all 50 frames. Now it's super easy for me, but am thinking of ways to possibly improve them further. At the higher resolution you can shoot an enemy and run past it. As the helmet is dropping there is NO BLUR due to such a high pixel density, and what you are seeing is actually decent! Even at close range it is a fully realized object with good consistency. ID art upscales very well in some cases. In others, like the Mutant and the SS (Blue guy), their improvements are quite modest but still acceptable. You can only remaster well the really good art assets, but the key for me is to keep all the original art and make it feel 100% wolf 3D with the exception of a few added textures to update the game to our modern world (floor/ceiling, generic to fit everything).

AFADOOMER, I installed a new version of GZDOOM and have also tried different renderers and such. The behavior is the same and I currently had plenty of space for caching on my drive (it so easily fills up, currently at least 25GB free). Keeping the file sizes rather small, I've managed to stabilize the Mutant, a super ugly texture set no matter what is done anyway, and my project continues unabated.....

[Luktom101]

Do you think it would be possible, to get rid of the lives system? Its kinda reduntant and it breaks the game in Multiplayer mode for Zandronum. 1-ups could just add some more points to you're score. I know, that developers wanted to go for the Arcade type of feel when relasing Wolf3d, but the lives system felt kinda dumb and pointless even back in the days for me and as i said, it breaks the game for Multiplayer.

[AFADoomer]

Do you think it would be possible, to get rid of the lives system? Its kinda reduntant and it breaks the game in Multiplayer mode for Zandronum. 1-ups could just add some more points to you're score. I know, that developers wanted to go for the Arcade type of feel when relasing Wolf3d, but the lives system felt kinda dumb and pointless even back in the days for me and as i said, it breaks the game for Multiplayer.

The whole point is to replicate Wolfenstein 3D... So, no, I won't remove it. I should add some kind of multiplayer handling, though. It's not a priority, though, because I'm 99% sure that the current version won't work in Zandronum at all anyway, since it's all written in ZScript now, not Decorate.

[Gamerwarrior117]

That sounds like a hardware problem... No one else has reported this as an issue.

oh really, i suspected it was keyboard. sound slike, cool good to know.

thanks.

[Gamerwarrior117]

when are you going to release your version of wolfenstein 3d hd?

You got me thinking about actually releasing something, which is so awesome! I'll post a link here if I get enough work done to seriously consider starting my own thread. I hope your PC issues get resolved....

It's funny being asked about this so soon, as I've only worked on it two days. But I've made a huge amount of progress very quickly, since this is something I've done in the past and have practiced on and off for years. Now that I have a 1440p monitor I realized that certain things in the remastering department really improves when I jump to 4x the pixel density to 2048x2048. I hadn't anticipated this but it has alot to do with the filters I'm using. I should have guessed this in the past, because I have alot of experience finding ways to remaster videos and it ALWAYS renders more efficiently and smoothly when using the HIGHEST resolution possible.

I tried to upload a PNG but it says it's too large. The enemies, the hardest for me to do back in the day, actually only took 5 minutes to complete with macros, all 50 frames. Now it's super easy for me, but am thinking of ways to possibly improve them further. At the higher resolution you can shoot an enemy and run past it. As the helmet is dropping there is NO BLUR due to such a high pixel density, and what you are seeing is actually decent! Even at close range it is a fully realized object with good consistency. ID art upscales very well in some cases. In others, like the Mutant and the SS (Blue guy), their improvements are quite modest but still acceptable. You can only remaster well the really good art assets, but the key for me is to keep all the original art and make it feel 100% wolf 3D with the exception of a few added textures to update the game to our modern world (floor/ceiling, generic to fit everything).

AFADOOMER, I installed a new version of GZDOOM and have also tried different renderers and such. The behavior is the same and I currently had plenty of space for caching on my drive (it so easily fills up, currently at least 25GB free). Keeping the file sizes rather small, I've managed to stabilize the Mutant, a super ugly texture set no matter what is done anyway, and my project continues unabated.....

yeah now im thinking the pc issues has something to do with my keyboard.

monitors always have something to do with filters. monitors have different filters rates and such. im sure afadoomer can explain you about them since he knows about them probably.

yeah for games like wolf3D, Doom and monster bash and such, you defiantly want to keep the original elements of the game so it stays memorable and playable and fresh oldschool.

you still need to fix the old issues, better textures, widescreen solutions, framrates, bugs, glitches, increase map size if needed, more controls if needed, probably mod support? and etc.

[D2 Mod Player]

Not at all. I'm using what AFA Doomer made and just putting in art assets, not creating my own mod.

Here's a jpeg that's somewhat lower quality than what it appears ingame (not even remotely close to the quality of in game, the jpeg limit is 250KB). Almost everything here, or everything, is changing except most of the HUD. I had some major setbacks and engine limitations just loading textures, so I'm redoing alot of it. Found out GZDoom/ZDoom can't handle alot of textures even though it claims it can. And a 4k resolution image that's 60KB inflates in the memory and uses it all up. But I believe I can still do it, just use filters that keep the file size small. Already found an alternative.

I figured out how the engine uses textures from the Mutant bug. 48KB doesn't work if it's high res. But something at 512x512 always works if it isn't too complex.

Yes, all monitors do things differently. GZDoom has filters too, and they are awesome, but not as good as prerendered filters, which is all I'm mostly doing.

Right now I'm making a 700KB frame size for enemies, tops, instead of 10MB. We'll see if that works since I don't know how the engine sees the files inflated (not compressed).

[Kinsie]

Those sprites look like the old Super Eagle graphics filter in emulators, and the floor texture doesn't fit with the comparatively less-detailed walls and sprites at all. You could probably get much the same effect for considerably less effort by just turning on the HQ3x filter in GZDoom and then applying your floor/ceiling textures.

Finally, you probably shouldn't use attachments for image hosting. Use Imgur or something.

[Gamerwarrior117]

Not at all. I'm using what AFA Doomer made and just putting in art assets, not creating my own mod.

Here's a jpeg that's somewhat lower quality than what it appears ingame (not even remotely close to the quality of in game, the jpeg limit is 250KB). Almost everything here, or everything, is changing except most of the HUD. I had some major setbacks and engine limitations just loading textures, so I'm redoing alot of it. Found out GZDoom/ZDoom can't handle alot of textures even though it claims it can. And a 4k resolution image that's 60KB inflates in the memory and uses it all up. But I believe I can still do it, just use filters that keep the file size small. Already found an alternative.

I figured out how the engine uses textures from the Mutant bug. 48KB doesn't work if it's high res. But something at 512x512 always works if it isn't too complex.

Yes, all monitors do things differently. GZDoom has filters too, and they are awesome, but not as good as prerendered filters, which is all I'm mostly doing.

Right now I'm making a 700KB frame size for enemies, tops, instead of 10MB. We'll see if that works since I don't know how the engine sees the files inflated (not compressed).

thats a very good screenshot. impressed.

sounds like textures can be complicated. But, im sure you figured it out on what to use.

oh cool. prerendered is defiantly different.

hopefully the frame size worksout for you. im sure it be a challenge to get it working.

[D2 Mod Player]

@GamerWarrior: Thanks, I appreciate the encouragement. So far I found out tonight that the best is to render the graphics at the resolution I need for proper filter usage, then downscale them for the game engine. It's not perfect, but it works!

@Kinsie: I think you are referring to things like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuT7cF3VG2w

That's very poor quality. There may have been a source port that did this in the past but I don't remember where. I did this in the past, it's great for Wolf 3D TC's using the Wolf 3D engine specifically, because that's the only option for enhancement besides using the source port with 1024x768 texture support.

The GzDoom filters are good but very very poor compared to doing them prerendered. No matter which filter you select, there's deep pixelization when near objects and it appears there is no filter whatsoever, it is no substitute. Additionally, even at optimal distances, there's a great deal of sprite distortion and inconsistency at best. I extensively tested them recently to be sure, after I bought a new graphics card and my rig could actually handle them. Even my worst filtering effort is better than realtime texture filters. I prefer to leave these off.

Thanks for your advice, maybe I'll make an account if I make my own thread for screenshots.

Floor texture, could be replaced, best I could find 6 months ago. Finding a good cobblestone texture is rough. The focus on the mod is to enhance what's there, not to re-engineer everything like I used to do when I was learning graphics and how to do them at all.

[Kinsie]

The GzDoom filters are good but very very poor compared to doing them prerendered. No matter which filter you select, there's deep pixelization when near objects and it appears there is no filter whatsoever, it is no substitute. Additionally, even at optimal distances, there's a great deal of sprite distortion and inconsistency at best. I extensively tested them recently to be sure, after I bought a new graphics card and my rig could actually handle them. Even my worst filtering effort is better than realtime texture filters. I prefer to leave these off.

Whether or not it's done real-time or offline doesn't change the fact that it doesn't actually add or change the amount of detail in the original image asset, it just smears everything and makes it all look like a blobbier, messier version of what already existed (that's apparently murdering your VRAM).

The film grain filter thrown on a bunch of things also seems to be causing problems - there's a massive difference in colour between the borders of the HUD and the window-fill-in colour that shouldn't be there, and the grey areas surrounding BJ's head are considerably darker than the rest of the grey box he resides in.

A HD mod for Wolf3D could be potentially interesting - working in the Mac textures, Mac-style sprites and some map-side alterations like WolfenDoom or Cosmetic Upgrade - but with the intensely simple level geometry of the original Wolfenstein 3D, trying to make it "HD" and not look like butts is going to be an uphill battle that mere filters or AI deep-networks aren't going to solve by themselves, as every asset made more complex will merely highlight the simplicity of the rest of the package.

Thanks for your advice, maybe I'll make an account if I make my own thread for screenshots.

You don't need an account. Heck, you don't even need to visit Imgur. Just use ShareX and upload directly to Imgur from Windows Explorer.

Floor texture, could be replaced, best I could find 6 months ago. Finding a good cobblestone texture is rough. The focus on the mod is to enhance what's there, not to re-engineer everything like I used to do when I was learning graphics and how to do them at all.

The cobblestone is endlessly more complicated and "noisy" than the lack of texture that was previously there, and (again) serves to highlight how everything else is relatively simple. If I was going down the same path, I'd probably take a photo of a piece of sidewalk and Photoshop it to tile seamlessly without much in the way of noise to draw attention.

[D2 Mod Player]

I just did the BJ HUD face a day ago or so, I just barely noticed that. I'd have to find that asset. Good catch on the border, I hadn't noticed that since I made it, my eye was focused on the creation itself. I'd have to find that asset and fix it.

I'd say my vram is just fine. I just did a test and the game is using 1% of my GPU. The game is only using 250MB of RAM tops and that's the main issue, the engine doesn't seem to scale with the texture sizes, and that's what's limiting my ability. I found the film grain you mentioned is the chief culprit in inflating texture size so I need to not use it except for things like the HUD. I've always used it with gzdoom in the past and it worked with smaller texture sizes on my older GPU. If you are aware of any way to make the game engine actually use my RAM, I'm all for it.

As far as I can tell the latest version of GzDoom doesn't have those old texture filters anymore, I just tried enabling them without my HD pack.

My filters do not in any way "blur" the original wolf 3D assets so I disagree. And yes, it does enhance them considerably. If it did not, I'd not bother doing it or just stick with the real time filters.

I had this argument not long ago with my longtime friend Onyx who made Back to Hellfire. He's spent too much time on 256 color assets in Diablo. I would guess if I were to prerender the entire game all at once with a macro, it'd take an hour on my 4 core A10 4.1ghz processor. It would be interesting to see real time filters do the same....

Mac sprites, those are terrible actually. I prefer the PC version despite the lower resolution. Any work done with Mac sprites merely disables many PC features. The Mac sprites are a poor way to enhance the game, in my opinion, except as a quick fix. I will use Mac assets if I ever enhance Wolfendoom, since they are included and part of the Wolfendoom experience. I also don't use Doom textures or former HD packs so prominent on the scene. I used to. They have had their day. If I enhance Doom, they will be there, not in Wolfenstein.....

The boss sprites for Mac are actually pretty good but their animations are simplified. Even with treasure graphics, it doesn't feel the same if I use Mac sprites.

[Kinsie]

Mac sprites, those are terrible actually. I prefer the PC version despite the lower resolution. Any work done with Mac sprites merely disables many PC features.

The thread I linked was a project to create all the missing frames from the PC version.

[D2 Mod Player]

Mac sprites, those are terrible actually. I prefer the PC version despite the lower resolution. Any work done with Mac sprites merely disables many PC features.

The thread I linked was a project to create all the missing frames from the PC version.

Both of those projects are pretty awesome. I'd consider the cosmetic texture project to be an alternative texture set as opposed to a recreation of the original. It's much more detailed despite the low resolution. My personal preference is to not use Doom assets unless it's a classic like Wolfendoom and it was intended. Wolfendoom is a hybrid of gameplay from Wolf 3D and Doom.

I am VERY impressed by the mac textures! I've myself recreated the mac textures and redid the frames to fully fit the PC version years back (bosses only), but he obviously did a better job not counting the poor resolution. If I got to the point of release I'd not be offended in any way if someone chose to use different assets than the ones I created. I prefer original graphics.

I could make the mac textures of the original enemies much better from what he's done, with his as a base, but I lack desire to do so when it comes to this project of mine currently. Anyway, it only takes about 5 minutes (if I know the right settings), I am not trying to redraw stuff. I just redid ALL the normal enemies between my last post and my current one and talked to friends as well (chiefly for performance improvement, but found I actually like this less complex version more).

Naturally, since you showed me these assets, particularly the ones for the texture project, I'd at least try them out personally without releasing them, just for the fun of it. Soup them up with a few things of my own....

If I complete my project as currently envisioned, I may ask the authors if they want to see their textures with my own work combined as an alternate set for those who prefer it. Despite the great efforts to the mac graphics, much of them I've never liked in the past. I really like the SS (Blue Guy) in particular, but it is very very different.

My older remaster of the Hitler painting on the walls is higher resolution and finer detail from the original textures than the one on the cosmetics texture project by far, and it is well, original.