My first Underground map, and first released Portal 2 map, but not my first one. Lets see, it has old-style Faith Plates, wait, those have been done already. It also has Gel Cubes, wait, reepblue's making those too. Argh. To put it shortly, it somewhat sucks. But tell me if you're having difficulties/bugs, and I'll respond.

[Changelog]
Made it more clear what to do and what things do.
Tried my best to clear the exploit where you can beat the map without the Repulsion Gel
Other crap I can't remember
I hope I'm not late!

File Name: underground_innovation.zip
File Size: 4.71 MiB
Click here to download [SP] Underground Innovation

please make a .bsp file not a vpk

resul4ee wrote:
please make a .bsp file not a vpk

Only if .vpks aren't allowed in the contest.

Just because a map isn't original doesn't mean it can't be good.

People use Excursion Funnels in their maps, Valve used them first. Do they then suck?

Not bad but needs work. Took me a while to figure out the deal with the cube. It is a very nice idea. You might want to find a way to teach players on the concept of that idea in a seperate chamber.

whats the script you used to make the music with velocity. please tell me.

The Irate Pirate wrote:
Just because a map isn't original doesn't mean it can't be good.

People use Excursion Funnels in their maps, Valve used them first. Do they then suck?

Especially since some ideas (like old-style faithplates) are obvious (but awesome! gj!) so there's no reason to concern yourself with repeating others.

Furthermore I think that the whole idea of a modding community means to let people influence each other.

tactical fluke wrote:
whats the script you used to make the music with velocity. please tell me.

Don't double post.

I liked the concept of the box, but to find out by accident how these things work is not good, not at all. Also those faith plates are new to me, i didn't know at all what these things were until i accidently walked on one, that is, after waisting 10 minutes trying to find out what the hell i was suppose to do. Also the faith plate jumping was annoying because when you start you see all those fancy towers until you realize they are just a big jumping around for no reason at all.

What i liked a lot was the pointer to the music, first time i seen this outside of co-op

tactical fluke wrote:
whats the script you used to make the music with velocity. please tell me.

You don't use a script, you just use an ambient_generic with the proper music for the section.

Kibate wrote:
What i liked a lot was the pointer to the music, first time i seen this outside of co-op

Those pointers ARE used in SP.

Oh, and sorry for not telling what the cube is for. The next version will heva a pointer.

Well, I'm working on inprovements, including fixing the exploit where you can jump instead of using the Repulsion Gel. But now I just need a brush entity that detects Gels.

Mr. Happy wrote:
The Irate Pirate wrote:

Just because a map isn't original doesn't mean it can't be good.

People use Excursion Funnels in their maps, Valve used them first. Do they then suck?

Especially since some ideas (like old-style faithplates) are obvious (but awesome! gj!) so there's no reason to concern yourself with repeating others.

Furthermore I think that the whole idea of a modding community means to let people influence each other.

I guess the Faith plates are cool, and I'm pretty sure I made that gel cube before reepblue did.

SuperSoldier wrote:
resul4ee wrote:

please make a .bsp file not a vpk

Only if .vpks aren't allowed in the contest.

You don't have to, but I would appreciate it since we are going to have to decompile the VPK.

Let's give Ceasar what's Ceasar's: Old Aperture looks in this case are subpar, with those stocky walls ruining the panorama. And using that little opening in the fizzler resembled violence against the innocents.

But the spilling cube was cool. That thing alone saves the map in corner, but see if you can at least fix: fat fizzler, dotted line from button to blue gel, glass under fizzler almost invisible.

msleeper wrote:
SuperSoldier wrote:

resul4ee wrote:

please make a .bsp file not a vpk

Only if .vpks aren't allowed in the contest.

You don't have to, but I would appreciate it since we are going to have to decompile the VPK.

Only the map itself is in the .vpk.

xdiesp wrote:
Let's give Ceasar what's Ceasar's: Old Aperture looks in this case are subpar, with those stocky walls ruining the panorama. And using that little opening in the fizzler resembled violence against the innocents.

But the spilling cube was cool. That thing alone saves the map in corner, but see if you can at least fix: fat fizzler, dotted line from button to blue gel, glass under fizzler almost invisible.

A line from the button to the gel would be kinda weird, as it wouldn't get covered in gel. As for the glass, I had to choose it bcause of lightmaps. It made the textures pitch black. I would need an unlit texture for that. As for the fizzler, sorry.

how do open the map if it?s in vpk?

I'm used to dropping bsp's in my map folder and loading them, so this is a little confusing. Maybe a readme.txt file would have been useful?

Just drop the addons folder in your portal2 folder, and replace if asked. Then you just load the map like normal.

Fun map but needs some extra work. Those faith plates weren't intuitive, I'm sure lobster will allow you use his if you ask. Also the dripping of orange gel from box was a bit stretched idea.

SuperSoldier wrote:
and I'm pretty sure I made that gel cube before reepblue did.

I also made Gel Cubes before reepblue in Flaming Lemons. (link in my signature) I also beat you! It must have been obvious/inevitable just like the underground faith plates...

What is the cube for?
I finish the map without it. I even didn't need to go to the place where you get the cube!

I also like the idea of the cube spilling gel, however I had to read it on this forum to realise it because
1. As Sherik said, you can finish the map without even picking the cube up (which you could easily avoid if the plate only work with the cube and not yourself)
2. You can jump to the faith plate without a trail of red paint.

I'm playing custom maps and record my first time of playing them. So the run is not perfect and may not use only intended ways, but maybe it can let you see how other people may understand the map or you could just enjoy someone playing this map for entertainment.
Anyways, here is the recording:

0xUJqp2tc_8
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xUJqp2tc_8)

Also note the video description for more feedback and my signature for additional project information.

Figuring out the white panels are faith plates and how the cube works is the hardest part of the test. After that the test becomes too easy and you quickly see how unnecessary and redundant the cube is since it could easily be replaced by portalable walls or funnels or whatever. Don't get me wrong, for what it does, it does very well. But it just seems like it's trying to reinvent the wheel on this one. So to this map's credit it lives up to the Aperture standards; doing all it's science from scratch.

Also you can trap yourself on this map by dropping down from the top of the miniature building onto the starting walkway since the doors won't open again.