[WIP] Wolfenstein 3D HQ Sprites

[Captain J]

Oh, now that's some excellent edit, looks more faithful now! Also glad to see your recent work there.

[CeeJay]

I think it's a clear improvement and still just as faithful to the source if not more so, so I'd say go for it.

[Gamma64]

I extracted the Jaguar sprites once, and as it turns out, all enemies except the SS and Dogs only had 2 walking frames; they mirrored them for the other 2. Presumably they did this to save memory, so that may explain why they used Trans, the Deathknight a & the Ubermutant instead of the non-symmetrical Giftmacher & Fatface. It still doesn't accout for Gretel, but maaaaybe they just wanted to be able to use the same sound for the Grosses.

[Captain J]

Hmm, that sounds reasonable. Re-polishing the sprites in full animations in such fancy graphic, especially for other bosses would've been a chore. But still, it's kinda disappointing.

Thankfully, they were all remade by some thankful japanese wolf3d fan before. I also polished them and they're ready to go.

[CeeJay]

Macplay (Interplay) added the missing walking frames for the Macintosh port of Wolfenstein 3D, but that was about the only addition they did. I always felt that the Mac and 3DO ports were lazy cash-grabs. I read somewhere that even the engine was sloppy. A considerable amount of time had passed since the release of the original, so you think they could spend a little more time improving and adding the missing assets.

[Gamma64]

As I recall, Giftmacher, Fatface, Barnacle Wilhelm, and Quarkblitz were done by Clubey, the Japanese Wolf3D fan you Captain J mentioned.

The engines of the later versions may have been rushed, but one cool feature of the Mac version of Wolf3d was that it could be modded in a way similar to DOOM, with something like a more primitive wad file. There were a few unused features also, that implied they were planning to do more with it. (You could remove quarter-segments from wall blocks, the doors could be tagged as flush to the walls, etc)

[CeeJay]

There were a few unused features also, that implied they were planning to do more with it. (You could remove quarter-segments from wall blocks, the doors could be tagged as flush to the walls, etc)

That, I did not know. Still, the levels were the old recycled stripped-down and simplified SNES ones, made so to conserve memory on the limited hardware (ever wondered why there is such an over abundance of doors?). For the SNES there was an excuse for this practise however there was really none to re-use these under the beefier hardware such as the 3DO and Macintosh which could easilly handle the originals. Of course, they did eventually get around to releasing the so-called "Third Encounter", all original 60 levels (in a modified fashion) but it was much too late. To expect people to pay for this at this point would have been a little insulting. Both Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM had fallen in popularity in favour of Quake and the whole rise of 3D shooters. Had the ports of Wolf3D followed more closley in the heels of DOOM (1993/94), I believe they would have fared much better.

[Gamma64]

Oh, I was aware of the lack of maps, and the redesign in levels to conserve memeory & performance. The Mac version had all the flaws/laziness of the other non-DOS ports, but it had some real potential for modding. It was probably just so that they could sell you the same level 3 times, but I really like being able to pack all the sprites/menu graphics/maps into one file. The sounds/music, on the other hand, were hard-coded into the app, so there was still considerable room for improvement.

[DenisBelmondo]

Apologies for the eyesore-inducing colors I chose for the infographic above.

Anyway, I've been working on the guard some more (bottom right set). It's moving in a different direction than Ringman's so I may consider my sprites more like a fork when they're complete rather than a replacement for the existing sprites. Of course I would have been able to make these sprites in the first place if it wasn't for Ringman and Alex238 for giving me that profile-view helmet and the boots. Speaking of, I think I'll make them longer in the profile-view sprite.

[Enjay]

The boots on the original sprites have always looked a bit funky to me. Assuming that they are meant to be standard jack boots, they are probably too short in some views and they look almost as if they have a pirate-boot-like turn down at the top (probably just a function of 1 pixel width being a lot compared to the size of the sprite). Length-wise, I think they should come something like 2/3 - 3/4 or the way up the calf to the knee.






I *think* the previous ones are the standard marhing jack boot. The ones below look as if they might be longer dress uniform boots or something. Or maybe they're officer's boots which I believe were a slightly different style (don't know enough about the uniforms to say for certain if these guys were officers, but the officers uniforms I've seen have fancier epaulettes and these look quite plain, so maybe not):



None of them appear to be blue.

[Captain J]

Heh. The Kriegsmarine folks in Lost Levels are worse. They have a lot of taste with blue for some reason. Even their guns are all painted in blue!

[CeeJay]

The inaccuracies of original Wolf3D don't really stop there. The Heer uniforms weren't brown, the SS wore black not blue (hell, S.S. is even short for Black Shirts in German) and officers didn't look like that (though to be fair, it never explicityly stated what type of officer it is meant to represent). Not to mention the use of cyan as a substitute for light gray. But the makes of the Lost Missions sure did appear to have had a hard on for the colour blue.

But all these quirks just add to the charm of the game and it wouldn't be the same without them.

[DenisBelmondo]

I think the closest Wolf3D has ever gotten to proper boot length was the sprites from Spear of Destiny's lost episodes. Hopefully we'll be able to see a proper 128x128 rework of them. The troop sprites in WolfenDoom: BoA are undoubtedly based on the Lost Episodes', more specifically WSJ's edits, but the uniforms are still not completely detailed in such a way that takes advantage of the double resolution. No fault of the artist of course, because that's a huge undertaking given the amount of different uniforms and troops. There were also DoomJedi's sprites, though those didn't have rotations. Anyway, once all of the delightfully (I say that without a hint of irony) historically inaccurate vanilla Wolfenstein 3D sprites are reconstructed in double resolution, I'd also like to see a proper Lost Episodes counterpart, for which you can make more true-to-life uniforms, as WSJ did, since their boot size is generally more accommodating for such.

Also another interesting thing about the color choice: along with the doors and some walls being colored turquoise to express some sort of iridescent metal texture, I also always liked to interpret Wolf3D's SS troops to actually be wearing black but since they didn't have enough grey->black ranges, they shaded him blue. Not unlike how some comics did it, e.g. Wolverine's mask. Though I'm sure some people might argue that if that's the approach they were going for, then the SS, along with the blue stone walls, would be mostly black and dark grey with only the spots being hit with the most light be highlighted with a blue trim. Though in the end, it doesn't explain the choices they made for the non-blue uniforms and it also fits Wolfenstein 3D's harlequin art direction to just see the SS as simply wearing a blue one.

[Enjay]

The inaccuracies of original Wolf3D don't really stop there. The Heer uniforms weren't brown, the SS wore black not blue (hell, S.S. is even short for Black Shirts in German) and officers didn't look like that (though to be fair, it never explicityly stated what type of officer it is meant to represent). Not to mention the use of cyan as a substitute for light gray. But the makes of the Lost Missions sure did appear to have had a hard on for the colour blue.

But all these quirks just add to the charm of the game and it wouldn't be the same without them.

Absolutely. Other than conveying the general feel of "these are WWII German soldiers" by their basic shape and impression, there are very few correct details. I assume the colour oddities are a result of palette limitations and aesthetic choices, the cartoony style and trying to make the enemies distinct in low-res. The blue = black thing is seen in many places in the game and is probably much as DenisBelmondo says. I think the doberman dogs (from Spear?) were also blue where you would expect them to be black.

SS does not mean "black shirts" though. SS is short for Schutzstaffel with translates to protection squadron (according to both Wikipedia and google translate).

[Captain J]

SS does not mean "black shirts" though. SS is short for Schutzstaffel with translates to protection squadron (according to both Wikipedia and google translate).

Well! That's first! For all those years i thought Schutzstaffel meant Assault Troopers.

Anyway maybe they went silly over non-traditional nazi colors for some reason, i guess that was reasonable because of the limitations of the colors/palette on MS-DOS... I think. Or perhaps they prefer to use some colors closer to EGA ones.