by Update []: It's been three months since Reonu publicly announced ' OoT unJPEG', a project to recreate Ocarina of Time's 2D backgrounds in 3D, and they've just published what looks to be the first in a planned series of development updates, giving players an insight into what's been happening behind the scenes since the initial reveal.
In the video, which was uploaded to Reonu's YouTube Channel over the weekend, they revealed that they have now joined forces with a pair of texture artists called Robert Rose and Lii on the project (following their call for help back in August) and also shared a look at the game's opening (more specifically, the interior of Link's house).
As shown in this scene, players can still view the interior of the house with the two "vanilla" camera angles from the original game, while cutscenes for the most part will largely play out the same (as the collision remains unchanged), but the hack will introduce a new freecam option (activated with the L-button), which will let you switch to a Mario 64-like third-person camera. This is perfect for admiring some of the new texture work, or looking at areas you were never supposed to, like the exterior outside Link's rear window.
Perhaps the coolest update of all, for me, though, is the work Lii and Reonu are doing updating some of Castle Town Market's NPCs, shown at the tail end of the video.
Not only has the woman outside the Potion shop now had a facelift, but they've also redone the villagers at the market stall, who previously looked a bit cursed up close (thanks to their facial expressions never being visible in the original game).
This all shows a remarkable attention to detail and has us confident that the finished result will blend seamlessly with the game as fans remember it, acting as a perfect counterpart to the upcoming remake.
Original Story []: As much as I loved exploring the world of Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, there was one thing that always bothered me - the inability to view certain areas in first person.
Don't get me wrong: it was never a deal breaker, and I felt the 2D, pre-rendered backgrounds did a more-than-adequate job of creating the impression of a larger, more detailed world.
But, inevitably, being told as a child I could only view Hyrule Castle Town from a series of heavily controlled camera angles made me want to swing the camera around wildly and take a closer look at all the other areas hidden from view.
Luckily for me, though, there appears to be a new ROM hack that's currently in development that will not only allow me to do just that, but also eliminate the loading screens inside Hyrule Market in the process, turning what was once a childhood dream into a reality.
OoT unJPEG, as the project is called, is a work-in-progress ROM hack from Reonu, a Spanish 3D artist and modder, who has spent the last year recreating The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's pre-rendered 2D backgrounds in 3D. It was announced on BlueSky over the weekend, with the developer revealing that the finished project will be playable on real N64 hardware and as a mod for the PC port Zelda 64 Recompiled.
"I'm recreating all the prerenders using Blender and Fast64, wrote Reonu on Bluesky. "For the market, I combined all of it into a single scene, which eliminates all the load screens and makes it seamless. Making this work on N64 hardware with ok performance was very hard and required me to write custom CPU culling code.
"The N64 version also has LODs for all the buildings in the market to help with performance. These LODs won't be there in the recomp version. This probably won't be necessary for the interiors (shops, etc)."
They continued that because they aren't "great at making textures," the textures used in the mod are mostly "vanilla OoT textures, textures from other games, or photos of walls or floors I took IRL," and have appealed for some help from a 2D texture artist, if there's anybody out there with the time and skills. They also state that "No GenAI was used for any part of this project."
No timeline has been given for when the project will be released yet, but I know I'll be keeping a close eye on the project in the future.