Diablo 2 remaster reuses Tyrael's wings from the original 3D model from wangrui's blog
Even though Diablo Immortal Gold is not hoping to precisely duplicate the original's appearance, the newly-announced remaster is making an impressive attempt to coincide with a few parts. Seeing a panel at BlizzCon today, I was thrilled to hear about how they dug up early Blizzard resources to recreate and even reuse from the remaster. My favorite titbit: the new Tyrael reuses the angelic wings from the actual 3D version used to create his 2D sprite in the original game.
While the original Diablo 2 is 2D using sprites (made from 3D models), Resurrected is rebuilding the whole game in 3D. During the board, Blizzardeers explained they made an attempt to assemble original concept art, 3D models, code, leaves, and these to understand the original intent behind artwork and better inform the artwork teams' creative choices since they remade parts. I am a sucker for good archive work.
This resulted in a fine discoveries like locating the source files for mural textures in the Act II tombs, which they could then reuse for the remade tombs. I respect that procedure in remasters - it's part of why the Resident Evil 4 HD Project mod is so impressive, searching down the buildings that Capcom had photographed as foundations for textures.
They also followed some of the techniques Blizzard utilized in the very first game. By way of example, because the original Succubus enemies swallowed the entire body net of the Assassin (a sensibly efficient match dev practice using a frustratingly contentious public image, thanks to Internet loudmouths)they too reused their new Assassin's body mesh to get their new Succubus.
And with dear old archangel Tyrael, they are straight reusing parts of the original version. "We actually took the Tyrael tails out of the old [3DS] Max document and then just repurposed that for Buy Diablo 2 Items ours. We did very little work, hardly any modernisation of this, we simply made it work."
While the original Diablo 2 is 2D using sprites (made from 3D models), Resurrected is rebuilding the whole game in 3D. During the board, Blizzardeers explained they made an attempt to assemble original concept art, 3D models, code, leaves, and these to understand the original intent behind artwork and better inform the artwork teams' creative choices since they remade parts. I am a sucker for good archive work.
This resulted in a fine discoveries like locating the source files for mural textures in the Act II tombs, which they could then reuse for the remade tombs. I respect that procedure in remasters - it's part of why the Resident Evil 4 HD Project mod is so impressive, searching down the buildings that Capcom had photographed as foundations for textures.
They also followed some of the techniques Blizzard utilized in the very first game. By way of example, because the original Succubus enemies swallowed the entire body net of the Assassin (a sensibly efficient match dev practice using a frustratingly contentious public image, thanks to Internet loudmouths)they too reused their new Assassin's body mesh to get their new Succubus.
And with dear old archangel Tyrael, they are straight reusing parts of the original version. "We actually took the Tyrael tails out of the old [3DS] Max document and then just repurposed that for Buy Diablo 2 Items ours. We did very little work, hardly any modernisation of this, we simply made it work."
The Wall