At first, Taron was supposed to become hightech themed, with a dark and claustrophobic atmosphere like in Doom3, which was the main inspiration for the tech theme. As you can see, we changed our visions on what the theme during the map's evolution, resulting in not a hightech space station on Deimos, but in a Nali Temple in the hills of Na Pali. That step was not very easy to make, and it took me a lot of time to think up correct looking architecture for a temple, because the rooms/layout was set up around a tech theme, which obviously has a different structure than an ancient temple. I think I did a decent job with the architecture, you will most likely recognise the general outline of each room in the before shots, compared to the after shots.
The rocket launcher room was one of the last additions to the layout when it was still being constructed. Connected to the bio rifle room, the damage amplifier room, and one of the two linkgun corridors. Although the tech theme did not hold grand plans for this particular room, it became the best looking room in my opinion. With some outdoor scenery, the last sparse drops of rain, a puddle of water, and a distant thunderstorm that's slowly moving away, it certainly has atmosphere. A few small layout changes between the layout version and the final were made. The new architecture allowed for a slightly wider/longer room, not more than 64 UU, but still. Also the staircase to the bio rifle room was made shorter/steeper, but acceptable.
This room never caused any serious problems during the build, except for when I moved the staircase to the bio rifle room all the way to the right, leaving no path to be walked there. I oversaw the decrease in gameplay value, and my co-author BIOS quickly intervened and set me straight on that. If he hadn't, you'd be looking at a staircase parked right next to the wall to the right of the shot.
Along with the Flak Cannon room, this room was probably the hardest to build. Connected with the bio rifle room, the shock rifle room, one of 2 linkgun corridors and the rocket launcher room, you can imagine that it's the biggest room too. The room features some nice details, like shadows cast by the ceiling beams, watery underpass with wet walls and waterreflections, a spiderweb waving in the wind, loose bricks and 2 of the craziest lifts ever seen.
With some bigger BSP brushes overlapping others, I sometimes had to duplicate half the room to make 1 small BSP change. At any rate, this room has undergone some serious changes throughout the layout construction. At first, the lift on the far side of the room was situated on the wall right of it, the 2 underpass corridors were first just 1 wider corridor. Also, as you can see, the ceiling of the layout version was a lot less open compared to the final version's. This was done so gameplay couldn't be hampered, and so that the Z-axis in that room became even more crazy than it already was. It allowed for more liftjumping joy too.
The bio rifle room turned into the bio rifle room at the beta before the final, because the bio rifle was first on the location of the linkgun in the linkgun corridor described below. In the layout version there was a +20 health pickup on the location of the bio rifle, which moved a bit to the left. Dripping water, a water puddle, loose tiles and loose planks, vines hanging down from the ceiling opening, water grate and terrain are the decorative pieces of this room. The room is a connective piece between other major rooms, connected to the shock rifle room twice, the rocket launcher room, the alcove above the Flak Cannon room, the Flak Cannon room itself and the damage amplifier room.
This room has undergone some serious changes too, mostly because it would fit the new architecture of the Nali Temple better. One of the changes is that the small corridor with the healthbase on the left of the before shot has been replaced with a bigger platform and a shorter hallway to the shock rifle room. The entrance to the connection with the rocket launcher room moved to the side a bit, 64 UU or so, so it would fit the architecture better. The lower connection to the shock rifle room has been widened considerably, allowing better flow. Another change is the addition of terrain, which is a mesh shaped like the floor of the layout version, but allowing a nicer view, and the function of the terrain as a staircase in the Flak Cannon room. The lift is quite frantic, but when timed correctly you can perform nice liftjumps with it.
One of the harder rooms to build, since there's some overlapping BSP brushes. Connected to the bio rifle room, the lightning gun room, the flak cannon alcove, and the shock rifle room/100a rooms. One of the most interesting rooms, as it has a terrain mesh, carefully constructed with a BSP terrain, exported to 3ds max, cleaned up vertices, planar UV mapping and vertex colouring, so multiple materials could be used. I constructed the BSP terrain for BIOS to complete in Max. Other interesting details in this room is the wet wall near the puddle of water and loose tiles. Interesting was aligning the BSP block trims on the sloping wall behind the flak cannon, it took quite some time to exactly rotate and vertex edit the brush to match alignment with the steepness of the slope.
The changes that took place in this room are notice-able. The addition of terrain was the most important one, but other small changes from final layout alpha to final overall version are increased width for the left entrance to the bio rifle room, and a slightly moved ceiling entrance to the flak cannon alcove.
The lightning gun room probably has the most memorable landmark of the map, the big Nali statue. This room is connected with one of the linkgun corridors, the flak cannon room, the flak cannon alcove and the 100a room. Details in this map are the Nali statue with the triggered Nali sound, loose tiles, plantlife on the ceiling and ceiling grates. A slightly tricky liftjump will get you right up on the aqueduct in the next room, or just on the lightning gun's platform. Changes again are obvious and notice-able. The platform of the lightning gun became much more solid, no more see through, the ceiling opening was made smaller, the opening to the linkgun corridor became taller, some extra space for the Nali statue. The entrance to the 100a room was widened 64 UU for easier liftjumping.
The minigun corridor was actually the first part of the map that got changed to the old temple theme, primarily to see if the theme would work. It's connected to the 100a room twice, and that's it. Initially I had some trouble with it, but it quickly grew to what it has become. This second outside area also has a small wall with fence, loose tiles, foliage, lots of deco, view of the skybox, and a waving spiderweb. Being the first area to be rebuilt, it was quite a challenge. I first tried an Albatross-like setting, and even a heavy industrial setting reminiscent to Fractionary. I ended up playing DM-Echo by Joe Swinback, and I was hooked on the theme instantly. It took some time and some sketches but I soon found the idea to make that section into an outside part. From there the rest of the map was redone. It's basically become a simple corridor, with 2 exits, but the surrounding area camouflages that a little.
The aqueduct room was another interesting room to do. The room connects with the minigun corridor twice, the lightning gun room, the flak cannon alcove, one of the linkgun corridors, the biorifle corridor/room, the flak cannon room and the damage amp room. The aqueduct idea came naturally, and in my opinion it's well executed. Plenty of details in this room. Water, waterreflections, wet walls, an aqueduct with flowing water, ceiling grates, loose planks, creeking wood sounds, dripping water, view of the skybox. This room was the second room built in this style when the big theme conversion came. The solution for an aqueduct would justify like no other the presence of that platform with the 100a. The overpass became a lot more solid, without the pillar up top. Behind the 100a platform dodgeramps have been added in one of the last builds, to provide more ways to get to the 100a. No real problems ever occurred in this part of map construction, the most troublesome part of the room was the aqueduct itself, as it had multiple subtracted brushes running through it, making the changes there always required a little workaround. There were a few little problems with the flowing watermesh on the aqueduct during the build though. The first problem was that there weren't enough vertices on the mesh to get it lit right without having to make the lighting look weird in that area, but BIOS solved this by making the mesh more detailed. The second problem was that there was an ugly effect on the mesh when it was hit by weaponfire. The mesh didn't handle decals that well, so BIOS had to change the texture used for the problem to be fixed.
This corridor doesn't stand out that much, with a few repeating architectural elements (arches) and pretty much the same colour light. The few details it has are the waving spiderweb, windows with view to the outside, ceiling grates with plants behind them, a floor grate and a loose tile in the small staircase. It started out as a corridor with the biorifle in it, but during the testing of the map Slainchild highly recommended to move the biorifle elsewhere and to put a linkgun in it's stead, so this happened. This corridor connects the damage amplifier room with the shock rifle room. There were absolutely no problems with building this corridor, it being such a small corridor kept construction time low and to keep the design simple, while it still looks good.