Commentary for ATW2
Ultra Quality Issue: To reduce file size I'm only supplying the compressed versions of the diffuse/specular maps which the game ignores when in Ultra Quality mode. If you don't want to drop down to High Quality, type this on the console: "image_useprecompressedtextures 1" and reload the map.ed.

This map is sort of an homage to Hexen and Quake 1 with its medieval design and autumn motif but it is set during the Strogg invasion of Earth around 2065.

After ATW1 I wanted to design an outdoors map that didn't require a NASA computer to run so my goal was 60fps locked at 1024 x 768 @ High Quality on my old Pentium 4 3.2C with a X850 XT PE so that people with older machines could dial down the quality settings but still enjoy reasonable performance.

This goal was met but in some areas, like the courtyard with the broken tower (first screenshot on the left) gave me a little problems because there're too many polygons in view. I ended up cutting quite a bit of detail from "scenery" architecture and having to manually disable shadows on geometry that would never cast them.

The DOOM 3 engine does have a compiler optimization for this but it's not perfect so some degree of manual optimization was required.

The original version of this map didn't have any jump pads but with v1.3 id Software either removed or broke ladders in multiplayer. I waited until May 2007 for a fixed patch but I couldn't wait any longer so I went ahead and replaced all ladders with jump pads. (as an example of a ladder check the rope on the well).

This did end up changing the dynamics of the map quite a bit, making it faster paced and more arcadey than what my original plans called for. Again, I used water extensively but unlike atw1 I removed all geometry mirroring to improve performance.

This map uses a terrain for the skybox with a unique texture that makes the mountains look really good. I've also used texture projection for the tree canopy shadows which gives you soft shadows.

Although QUAKE 4's ambient lighting is superior to DOOM 3's it's still a royal pain to get it to work just right when you have this type of map. Because of this you may notice some black lines running across geometry in a couple of places. I could remove this artefact at the expense of HALF the framerate. I figured most people prefer 30fps more and deal with a few black lines.

Another QUAKE 4 feature I used a lot to improve performance was distance-based visportals. In a couple of places I was perhaps too agressive in the distances but my performance goal required it.

Ireally enjoyed working on this map, especially for reminding me of my Hexen map making days, until I had to deal with all the ambient light artefacts. If you ever want to build a hybrid indoors/outdoors map I urge you to stay the heck away from ambient lights! This is the primary reason why most buildings are square-ish, otherwise the black line problem would be much more visible.