wtf is wolf3d-path-traced?

This project takes the original 1992 game Wolfenstein 3D and adds real time ray traced graphics on top of it, purely for the fun and novelty of doing so. The original Wolfenstein 3D used a technique called raycasting to fake a 3D look on hardware from the early 1990s. This project keeps that entire original game, its movement, combat, enemies, doors, secrets, scoring, and save system, completely untouched and authoritative. What changes is how it is drawn: alongside the classic flat renderer, a modern Vulkan based path tracer draws the exact same game state with real light, real shadows, and reflective floors. It is built as a fork of an existing C++ modernization of Wolfenstein 3D called Chocolate Wolfenstein 3D, with the original game logic files kept recognizable. A modern SDL2 layer replaces the old DOS video, input, timing, and audio systems, and a hardware accelerated ray tracing path tracer is added next to the classic renderer using a graphics feature called ray query. The result is things like a flat 1992 sprite casting a genuine shadow, walls and doors reflecting in a polished floor, ambient occlusion, and filmic tone mapping, while the underlying game simulation never changes. You can freely switch between the original raycaster and the new path traced renderer with a single key press, or view them side by side in a split screen comparison mode. The freely distributable shareware episode of Wolfenstein 3D is bundled with the project, so it runs out of the box with nothing extra to download, though you can point it at your own copy of the full game or Spear of Destiny if you own that data. Cheats like invulnerability, infinite ammo, all weapons, or jumping straight to a level are available as command line flags. Building it requires a C++17 compiler, CMake, SDL2, the Vulkan loader and headers, and a shader compiler, with instructions given for Fedora and Ubuntu based systems. The path traced renderer itself needs a GPU that supports hardware ray tracing, such as a recent AMD, NVIDIA, or Intel graphics card, though the game still runs fine in classic mode without one. The project also ships a small scripted autopilot system for automated testing and demo recording without a display.