I figured you got busy too. I know how that goes. I've been thinking about completing this little project for a while now.
I'm using 3ds Max with finalRender and After Effects CS5, so I should have no trouble using your project files. =) I'll send you a PM about this.
If you send me the Highkeep scene, I only have the EC tunnel to do, but its the hardest one to do. I wanted to have people running around and casting spells, the spells wouldn't be too hard, but the animation would be tricky. I think I would have to rig the in-game models which would take a while and I'm not that experienced with it (I've only done it twice).
Recently I've been thinking of changing things up from the original plan. As you can see most people didn't like that version of the theme I made, so I've spent the last few weeks restoring the original music to the best state I could (
http://www.4shared.com/playlist/NMVg...oundtrack.html) and I think I want to take a few of the most popular songs and mix them together and make a kind of "Journey Through Norrath" type of video to go along with it. I just watched a bit of an episode of Planet Earth and WOW I'm going to watch the rest of that, but I see what you are saying and I like this alot. It would rely on exporting the entire zone with textures into 3ds max like you were trying to do. Did you ever accomplish that?
I think it will also need rigging and animating a few key mobs and players/npcs. All the shots I have so far are completely dead. I was hoping to hide it with the camera moves and environmental effects, but if there are many more scenes like that, I think people will start to get suspicious.
I really like your idea for a Rathe Mountains shot. I always loved the visual grandeur of Jurassic Park and I can completely picture that shot in my head.
I'm going to play with these ideas a little bit and maybe get a new plan for this.