I just can't explain it. For some reason, since the day I played it, E2M4 has been my favorite ID created Doom level. Maybe it was how much it used to scare me when I'd play it as a kid, or maybe it was the spooky music, or maybe even the hanging torsos and gore on the level. For whatever reason, when I decided to make a doom level after more than a decade of inactivity, an E2M4 map remake was instantly what I wanted to do.
But there was another reason I wanted to make a level. I've played Tormentor's UTNT, his community collection ZPack (awesome, btw,) and many other modern levels, and while they are all awesome ZDOOM levels, none of them were awesome GZDOOM levels...pushing GZDOOM to its absolute limit with tons of dynamic lights, oodles of true 3D floors, and XY billboarded sprites. (Those are REEEEALLY useful, folks!) In fact, I couldn't even FIND any good GZDOOM levels! Frustrating! There are some great PICTURES on the GZDOOM website, but...where are the actual levels? Who knows.
So my other goal was to make a level that really shows off GZDOOM to its maximum potential. Make a level that, if he should desire, Graf Zhal could point to and say: "See? Now THAT'S what what makes GZDOOM special!"
Of course, I haven't made a Doom map in over a decade, so I'm kinda rusty, but I've made plenty of maps for other games, so I feel like while there WAS a learning curve on the map, it shouldn't show to much and will hopefully be of ultra high quality from one end to the other. On to the screenshots!
This teleporter pad is late in the level. It shows off liberal use of colored dynamic lights, and dozens of 3D floors. The actual pad is high overhead, and is reached by climbing a circular staircase of 3D floors (left,) and crossing a glass walkway (not really visible.)
The park. Where UAC shows off many of its Nuclear waste reclamation techniques, as well as its Mars terraforming project. Here you can see more use of dynamic lights for subtle light and shadow touches, lense flairs, particle grass, and best of all, OBLIVION STYLE PARTICLE TREES! Yes, I've gotten Oblivion style trees working in GZDOOM!
OK, now for a feature list:
-Remake of E2M4 from original Doom. GZDOOM only.
-New music (Re composition of the original map song in mp3 format.)
-Dozens of ambient sounds.
-Hundreds of new highres textures and decorations.
-Map re envisioned as a "Nuclear Waste Reclaimation Facility" with all areas redone in this theme.
Required system:
Should work on anything above a GeForce 6200, though you may have to lower the resolution a bit for a smooth framerate. Some areas have literally hundreds of visible sprites (Hydroponics and the park, specifically) all being lit by dynamic lights.
So that's been my project for the last 2 months! ^_^v Should be out in a couple weeks!
Ben
----12/05/2008 update---
Enjay was kind enough to agree to take a look at the map and offer improvement suggestions, which he did by the bucket load. So I've been polishing and primping the map's rough spots until it (hopefully) gleams with perfection. He also showed me how to do some stuff that I didn't know how to do...like palleted textures...I had everything in the harshly limited Doom pallet. That required redoing a whole bunch of my textures. =>_>=
Anyway, hopefully soon it will be time for monster placement.
I'm torn for monster placement...part of me wants to keep the monster and weapons placement true to the original with only minor modifications...and part of me wants to completely redo all monster and weapons, using community created monsters and weapons and the whole 9 yards. What do all of you think? Keep monsters largely the same, or totally change the all up? Give me your thoughts! NOW!!!
Stats as they currently stand:
53,163 sidedefs in 6,190 sectors containing 7,113 things.
Architecture 100%(?) done
Monster and Weapon Placement 0% done
44MB for the level and resource Wads, uncompressed.
Wait 'till you see the teleporter in action! The rings on the sides zoom up and down their shafts in a semi-synched way that slowly separates 'till it looks like a spring, then separates more 'till each is moving by itself, then reforms into sets of three...it's hard to explain but it looks really cool, especially with the dynamic lights shining on them.
I had to lighten them in Photoshop to make anything visible, but that sort of reduced the color palette a bit and makes it look washed out. There is particle fog in the park area which also adds to the washed look on a screenshot. It all looks a lot better in motion is all I can say... 
can't wait till this map is finished 
also if the optimization sucks, the map will lag even on beefy comps, rendering it hardly playable... i hope neither of that will happen, would be great pity...