The Mystery of Christopher "shaithis" Buecheler and the CWB Texture Packs

[Dusty_Rhodes]

Hey all, Dusty here,

 

Recently, over on the Parallel Doomensions Discord, @Morpheus666 showed off some screenshots of a wad he's working on. I was interested by the textures and inquired what texture pack he was using. "CWB 5," he responded.

"What's CWB stand for," I asked. He said he didn't know. All Morpheous knew was that it was probably the fifth entry of a texture wad series. Still, we were both intrigued and decided to do some digging. The only other info we had was the name "Shaithis" and that these excellent textures came from 1999.

 

The first thing Morph found was some art he thought Mr. Buecheler had made, but it was actually an acquaintance, one Fredrik Johansson. Mr. Johansson is a software engineer working in France. He's worked on many, many interesting projects, including some C libraries such as Calcium and FLINT, as well as other Python and C related projects. According to his website, Fredrik works at INRIA on algebra software. What does this have to do with the CWB wads? Well, according to Morph, the text file mentions him. Fredrik also has quite the Doom history, both with composing excellent midis and making maps, one of which, Vrack 2, even ranks 7th on Doomworld's 2001 top maps list. He also contributed to Doomworld's Speedmapping Competitions.

 

Here's the art, by the way:

Spoiler

 

Sadly, this got us nowhere. There weren't any mentions of CWB on his website that we could find. I decided to look for more work from Shaithis. Well, I not only found that the Doomworld.com\afterglow mentioned in text file for CWB 5 still exists, but that it houses CWB 1 - 5! Well, there we go, we now have all of these excellent, mildly obscure texture packs to choose from. Here's all of the CWB packs at Afterglow. However, there are some more things to consider:

 

1. We don't know what "CWB" stands for, or if any other works, such as maps or midis exist from this author.

 

2. Much more interestingly, Shaithis' name is Christopher Buecheler and he apparently worked for GameSpy, writing some articles: http://www.gamespy.com/articles/618/618817p1.html

 

3. Even more intriguing, is that there is a CWB 8!

 

https://www.fileplanet.com/archive/p-53659/CWB-Texture-Pack-8-BMP

 

Found in this link above is what is supposedly CWB 8.

 

WARNING

This download tries to load an executable. It could very easily be a virus, so please use discretion. I have not downloaded it myself, for fear of a virus or other malware. However, this is the only trace of CWB 8 I could find.

I found nothing pertaining to CWB 7. No trace as far as I can tell.

 

So, the mystery is almost solved. Here's what we need to figure out:

 

1. Did Christopher Buecheler ever contribute other files?

 

2. Where is he now? Is he contactable?

 

3. What does CWB mean, and what were they originally used for?

 

4. Do CWB 7 and 8 really exist? Are there more? The text file on FilePlanet mentions that GameSpy exclusively can use these textures commercially, any other use has to be freeware. So it seems more legit. Either way, use caution.

 

So, any thoughts or clues? I haven't looked up all the websites mentioned in CWB text files, so maybe I am missing something. This was just a fun little search we've been on for a little bit, I thought it would be fun to share.

[Chris Hansen]

I remember these textures. Have worked with them a loooooooong time ago. They are cool.

 

I don't know if it's him, but Christopher Buecheler has a website (https://cwbuecheler.com/) displaying all his work and such. If you notice the URL then you can see that it contains CWB. I think maybe Chris has a middle name that he just doesn't use all the time and it starts with W. So, in short: CWB are simply his initials. Anyway, why not just send him a message and ask him a few questions? :)

[xdude_gamer]

6 hours ago, Chris Hansen said:

So, in short: CWB are simply his initials.

I'm betting W means William or something... and also I find it cool that this guy wrote articles for GameSpy and also made a few files as well. Someone should check out this CWB-8 file, I think it could simply be his 8th release.

[lokbustam257]

CWB probably just an acronym of his full name, I mean it makes sense, C: Christopher B: Buecheler while W is probably William or something like that.

[tuturbo1991]

This is the contents of the file donwloaded from the URL provided as the CWB 8:

 

 

The readme.txt has the same text as the file description in that page, as follows:

 

CWB Texture Pack

----------------

All textures in this pack are copyright 1998 - 2001 Christopher Buecheler.

License to use these textures is granted under the following explicit

specifications:

1. The project in which the textures are to be used is 100%

non-commercial. No money will be charged for its creation or

distribution.

2. Christopher Buecheler is credited in a text document included

in the distribution.

GameSpy Industries is exempt from these conditions, and may publish

these textures on CD or other media to be sold commercially.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you wish to obtain a license to use these products in a form

that does not meet the above standards, or you have questions about the

above text, please contact me directly.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Christopher "shaithis" Buecheler

shaithis@gamespy.com    - [primary]

cwb@cuse.org        - [backup]

Design Director - Core Services

GameSpy Industries

http://www.texturestudio.com

http://www.gamespy.com

[Dusty_Rhodes]

11 hours ago, Chris Hansen said:

I remember these textures. Have worked with them a loooooooong time ago. They are cool.

 

I don't know if it's him, but Christopher Buecheler has a website (https://cwbuecheler.com/) displaying all his work and such. If you notice the URL then you can see that it contains CWB. I think maybe Chris has a middle name that he just doesn't use all the time and it starts with W. So, in short: CWB are simply his initials. Anyway, why not just send him a message and ask him a few questions? :)

Well that's more simple than I expected! Not complaining though. Morph already contacted him, I might too. 

[Dusty_Rhodes]

2 hours ago, tuturbo1991 said:

This is the contents of the file donwloaded from the URL provided as the CWB 8:

 

 

The readme.txt has the same text as the file description in that page, as follows:

 

CWB Texture Pack

----------------

All textures in this pack are copyright 1998 - 2001 Christopher Buecheler.

License to use these textures is granted under the following explicit

specifications:

1. The project in which the textures are to be used is 100%

non-commercial. No money will be charged for its creation or

distribution.

2. Christopher Buecheler is credited in a text document included

in the distribution.

GameSpy Industries is exempt from these conditions, and may publish

these textures on CD or other media to be sold commercially.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you wish to obtain a license to use these products in a form

that does not meet the above standards, or you have questions about the

above text, please contact me directly.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Christopher "shaithis" Buecheler

shaithis@gamespy.com    - [primary]

cwb@cuse.org        - [backup]

Design Director - Core Services

GameSpy Industries

http://www.texturestudio.com

http://www.gamespy.com

Would you care to send the wad over? I'd like to contact Afterglow and see if he can upload them to his website. I think it's important to preserve this stuff, and Afterglow's website is the best place for the CWB wads. 

[tuturbo1991]

1 hour ago, Dusty_Rhodes said:

Would you care to send the wad over?

Sure, but one thing to notice is that the file is not a WAD, but a simple ZIP folder. I upploaded it on my Google Drive:

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tcAsQoO4cD6EEuujJYp7w9oCLxECWGr1/view?usp=sharing

 

If you want to get the file directly from fileplanet.com without the "exe downloader tempering", the link is bellow:

 

https://download.fileplanet.com/ftp1/fpnew/action/half-life/graphics/textures/studio/cwb_texpack8_bmp.zip?st=UffwgMs3AAKIaT8hMOICAA&e=1640821536

[Dusty_Rhodes]

48 minutes ago, tuturbo1991 said:

Sure, but one thing to notice is that the file is not a WAD, but a simple ZIP folder. I upploaded it on my Google Drive:

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tcAsQoO4cD6EEuujJYp7w9oCLxECWGr1/view?usp=sharing

 

If you want to get the file directly from fileplanet.com without the "exe downloader tempering", the link is bellow:

 

https://download.fileplanet.com/ftp1/fpnew/action/half-life/graphics/textures/studio/cwb_texpack8_bmp.zip?st=UffwgMs3AAKIaT8hMOICAA&e=1640821536

Thank you so much! I'll be glad to check these out. Now we just need CWB 7 . . . .