Ironically, the making of the Afternoon Age didn't start
on paper - it started right at the modeling stage in Strata
3D. A few people at Rivenguild, including me, had been
inspired to see how fast we could make a new age/world, by
how successful someone else had been at it.

But how did I get the idea? Despite the fact that it turned
out looking like Myst's Channelwood age, that was not
the inspiration. A while ago, I was sitting in a car, looking
out the window at some small trees in a small plant bed. Around
the base of each tree was a small mound of soil, and I began
thinking - what if someone poured some water in there? Then there'd
be a nice stream weaving between those islands. And
what if those trees were really huge? It would be a neat looking
forest, shaded from the upper foliage, with all those little islands...

Well, it evolved from there... The streams raised up and became
an ocean, the dense foliage adapted into giant leaves to catch sunlight
in the new tropical environment. You can see the result.

There is only one piece of Afternoon Age concept art. Here
it is:

Now, for the standard list of programs used to make it!

>Strata 3D: 3D graphics
This is the program used to "build" the age in 3-D, and to render,
or generate, the images for it. Although the panoramic interface
makes them look smaller, the original images are actually huge,
at a resolution of 1500 by 840. This, combined with anti-
aliasing, helps to prevent them from looking too "pixelly"
during gameplay.

>Adobe PhotoDeluxe: textures and all other graphics stuff

>IMB Hotmedia: Used to put together the panoramas, sounds,
and animations for gameplay.