The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Prerendered Images

This is a sub-page of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

To do: Nearly every in-game screenshot, except for the prerelease ones, is the wrong resolution and should be retaken rendered with the Angrylion RDP plugin.

Because the prerendered backgrounds of Ocarina of Time were created before all the details of the game were finalized, they frequently contain oddities that reflect an earlier stage of development.

Map Subscreen

Upon close inspection, it is apparent that the map which appears on the map subscreen of the pause menu is missing several features that were later edited into the version of the map that appears in the game's manual.

Pause Screen Map	Instruction Manual Map

• Kokiri Forest:
  • There are no stepping stones in the pond.
• Lost Woods:
  • The Forest Temple is a slightly different shape.
• Hyrule Field:
  • The raised point of land between the entrances to Kakariko and Zora's River is missing.
  • There is no skinny fence extending from Lon Lon Ranch.
  • The entrance to Lake Hylia lacks a fence.
  • The ground texture of the area leading to Gerudo Valley is grass instead of red earth, and there is no rounded cliff sticking out.
• Hyrule Castle:
  • The castle is flatter, with a smaller entrance.
  • The path to the castle resembles the layout of Ganon's Castle Exterior and the early version of the map found in the Overdump more closely than the path that appears in the Child era.
• Kakariko Village:
  • The purple-roofed building housing Granny's Potion Shop is missing.
• Zora's River:
  • The layout of the bottom half of the river is slightly different.
• Zora's Domain:
  • The home of the Zora people is a cavern centered around a pillar of stone surrounded by water, rather than one connected to the cave wall, matching old screenshots.
• Zora's Fountain:
  • Jabu-Jabu is missing from his spot.
• Lake Hylia:
  • The Fishing Pond entrance is absent.
  • The island on which Link obtains the Fire Arrows is missing.
• Gerudo Valley:
  • The ground texture is darker than the final game.
  • The bridge is missing.
• Haunted Wasteland:
  • The flags and Poe structure in the Haunted Wasteland aren't present.
• Desert Colossus:
  • The entrance to the Great Fairy's Fountain is missing.

Details visible in the Manual Map:

• Market:
  • The grounds of the Temple of Time lack pools of water, like the earlier versions of the prerenders in the iQue leaks.
  • The Happy Mask Shop is just a regular building without a fancy façade.
• Kakariko Village:
  • The houses in Kakariko Village are placed slightly differently. Impa's house is shorter and the potion shop is placed more to the right.
  • The well is not in front of the windmill but instead closer to Granny's Potion Shop.
  • The area near the gate to Death Mountain is grassy.

Link's House

There are inconsistencies between the exterior shots seen from inside Link's house and the corresponding areas of the Kokiri Forest map model. Link's view outside his doorway shows three pillars instead of the two that form a bridge near the shop. Similarly, the rear of Link's house contains a plateau and some trees, yet in the prerender, the window above his bed shows an open space and several more pillars.

The prerendered pillars seen outside the front of the house resemble the three pillars found in the bridge map of the Lost Woods. This could suggest that Link's home was originally going to be located outside the village, in keeping with his status as an outsider amongst the Kokiri, or at least that there were a different set of pillars outside his home. This positioning for the house was later incorporated into Twilight Princess, in which Link lives in a treehouse just outside Ordon Village, next to the bridge that leads to Faron Woods.

Prerender

Hyrule Field

Guard House Preview

Though hard to notice, the guard house located at the entrance of the Market has windows which look onto a prerendered version of Hyrule Field. The skybox is lighter than usual, and the terrain is missing the fenced hillock beside Zora's River. The shape of the path differs slightly, and there is no sign pointing the way to Lon Lon Ranch.

Guard House Preview
In-Game

Market

Hyrule Castle Preview

A prerender that depicts the town's interior is visible at the Hyrule Castle entrance to the Market. However, the picture appears to show the line of buildings as viewed from the Market, rather than from Hyrule Castle; and even within this perspective, instead of showing the Happy Mask Shop it depicts the building that once stood in its place in Nov. 1997 previews and inserts additional buildings that do not otherwise exist between this proto-Mask Shop and the Temple of Time.

Nov. 1997	Prerender	Final Game

Missing Doors

The Market's pre-rendered backgrounds have doors modelled into the buildings which aren't normally visible, as they are covered up by interactive door objects during gameplay.

Removing the interactive doors reveals that there are no doors in the buildings housing the Bombchu Bowling Alley and Happy Mask Shop, suggesting these locations were later additions. This is further supported by the fact that these two areas do not appear in pre-release screenshots until two months before the game's release.

Meanwhile, the door to the Treasure Chest Shop has a large X painted over it. The reason for this is unclear, but we all know that "X" marks the spot...

Market (Child - Day)
Market (Child - Night)

Back Alley

Left Side

The prerendered background of the left side of the Back Alley is missing the door to the Dog Lady's House. This is because the house interior was originally intended to be used for Impa's home in Kakariko, a fact evident from the map's filename, impa_scene. All alternate scene setups of Kakariko Village contain an exit to the Dog Lady's House, accessible by entering the Bottom of the Well.

(To further complicate matters, the map file for Impa's House is known as labo_scene, suggesting it was originally the interior of the Lakeside Laboratory. The actual Laboratory map is hylia_labo_scene.)

A screenshot from early in the final year of the game's development shows a lamp post standing where the door would normally be.

Feb. 1998	Prerender	In-Game

Right Side

The prerendered background of the right side of the Back Alley does have a door modelled in. In the final game, the door here leads to a house belonging to a green-clad NPC who expresses bemusement at the packs of dogs who roam the streets at night. However, as the filename of the house's map is kakariko3_scene, it evidently once belonged with the other houses in Kakariko. Accordingly, all alternate scene setups of Kakariko Village contain an exit to it, accessible via Granny's Potion Shop.

Feb. 1998	Prerender	In-Game

Bombchu Shop

The background of the Bombchu Shop suggests that this location was originally designed as a restaurant. Indeed, the resemblance is even more apparent in Ocarina of Time 3D - peering carefully at the remake's textures reveals a menu written on the wall in Hylian.

In addition, the model of the Bombchu Shop's owner is referred to by the game as object_rs. In keeping with other abbreviated shopkeeper object names, such as "mask seller" and "Deku seller", this may be shorthand for "restaurant seller".

Prerender	Ocarina of Time 3D

Kakariko Village

Death Mountain Trail Preview

Looking down from the heights of Death Mountain Trail will treat the player to a view of Kakariko Village nestled far below. Much of the grass is colored differently from the final game. The grass is light green at the well level of Kakariko, darker green leading up to the windmill, light green grass behind it, and light green grass on the hillside to the west of the entrance. The ground at the Death Mountain Trail gate is beige, rather than a shade that matches the stony walls of the canyon. Finally, the building at the center of Kakariko is not the Shooting Gallery, though it has red walls, as there is white on its roof.

Another building was depicted in pre-release screenshots from Feb. 1998.

Feb. 1998	Prerender	In-Game

Ruined Market

Like the prerendered previews of the Market that can be seen in Hyrule Castle and Hyrule Field, the Ruined Market showcases the building that existed prior to the Happy Mask Shop's installation in the square. However, unlike the Child-era Market renders, it lacks a doorway for the Treasure Chest Shop but contains one for the Bombchu Bowling Alley.

Market (Child - Day)
Market (Ruined)

Nov. 1997	Happy Mask Shop

Fire Temple

Death Mountain Crater Preview

When entering the Fire Temple via Death Mountain Crater, a prerendered background is displayed at the end of the tunnel, offering the player a preview of the temple's first room. However, the room's appearance in the prerender differs from the final version of the game: The statue faces have a different design, and their flames are all out. In addition, the doors, unlocked, are identical to those found in the Forest Temple rather than the metal ones used in the actual Fire Temple.

(The Forest Temple doors are also seen in very early footage and appear in an alternate scene setup in the Ice Cavern.)

Prerender	In-Game