This map focuses on some advanced techniques in controlling the flow and trajectory of your paint. It's also a puzzle.

No ninja timing, no anal precision and no questionable mechanics.
There's no tutorial either, work it out.

I went with some lights and detail this time and kinda ripped off Lp's wall design. I'm still not so sure it was worth the time spent, but it's good practice at least. If anyone wants the .vmf to prettify it a little, shoot me a PM.

Anyway, white paint being as it is, it's a fucking nuissance to control on a large scale, so I'd love some feedback on possible solutions!


SB.

Edit1:
Fixed a slight oversight.

Edit2:
Fixed a bunch of intriguing, but unintended elements.

Edit3:
One last fix - serves me right for trying to patch stuff at 3am.


File Name: sp_advancedpainting_04.rar
File Size: 2.16?MiB
Advanced Painting

Liked this one I had more fun jumping around with the blue gel than trying stuff with the white. In the end i was able to strafe behind the big fizzler with a monsterjump. That was fun but had no useage at all
To get the white gel behind the pit I let it drop from the wall with the laser. I switched portals quickly, catched the gel again and shoot it in a 30-45? angle over the pit. I guess that was the keypoint to your puzzle.
The design is way better that your previous maps. I share your opinion that a map don't need to be great looking to be a great map. It's the puzzle that counts. The way you did it this time is much better because the player never gets distracted by bad visuals, like missaligned textures or strange lightening and can fully concentrate on the puzzle.
I really enjoyed playing around with the gels and I owe you cake bacause you gave me a great idea for my next map.
Cheers

What is the intended way to get the cube? I pressed the button multiple times until the box falls near the laser wall... I hope this is not the intended way...

marKiu wrote:
To get the white gel behind the pit I let it drop from the wall with the laser. I switched portals quickly, catched the gel again and shoot it in a 30-45? angle over the pit. I guess that was the keypoint to your puzzle.

...The design is way better that your previous maps....

I really enjoyed playing around with the gels and I owe you cake bacause you gave me a great idea for my next map.
Cheers

Heh, that's one way to do it.. there's another which is more reliable and less fiddly though I'll post the solution in a wee while if nobody finds it

I'm glad all the extra texturing effort didn't go to waste either, it's tedious :p

And yeah, cake is always welcome, looking forward to your next map too; I just posted an alternate solution

cathixx wrote:
What is the intended way to get the cube? I pressed the button multiple times until the box falls near the laser wall... I hope this is not the intended way...

Hah, absolutely not... looks like it's time for hammer again >.<
(I'm not saying hammertime...)

I got accross the large pit by putting the white gel in an infinifling and shot it accross the gap. I didn't need to use the button that turns the death grid off or the second button on the other side of the gap.

ahh, i didn't notice that i could get to the white gel without the cube. This is my solution now:
i0TxHpIkhQw

Heh.. seems like maybe I made a few little oversights. Kinda big ones even. Maybe gaping.
Still, I really liked cathixx's solution.

I should get my ass into hammer again though. Cheers ^^

Nice run but it would of been faster to just bring the cube over rather than spray all that white at the end :p

I watched the first minute of cahtixx' solution and it looks good so far.
A white gel puzzle? That's always a challenge to get right (mapping whise).
I will try this map as soon as I've got time and a mouse; playing portal with a touchpad is still a bad idea :p

andyb wrote:
Nice run but it would of been faster to just bring the cube over rather than spray all that white at the end :p

Yeah, heh.. not supposed to happen.. I'm re-doing the map atm

Nice map. Lots of painting with white the way I solved it.
Had to go back up to the white dropper a couple times which was a little boring after initially getting up there (no shortcut used) and getting the cube....btw, I took the cube to the back to laser open the door. Other than that minor annoyance - excellent map and use of paint...Thanks for creating....

quatrus wrote:
Nice map. Lots of painting with white the way I solved it.
Had to go back up to the white dropper a couple times which was a little boring after initially getting up there (no shortcut used) and getting the cube....btw, I took the cube to the back to laser open the door. Other than that minor annoyance - excellent map and use of paint...Thanks for creating....

Hehe, now I feel bad.. I uploaded the update (including the fix for the boring technique) while you were playing >.< Glad you liked it anyway

Ok, I think the map is broken now? I can only use blue gel in the beginning? Floor plate is now un portalable? it worked in the beginning.. Cant really see a way to get over lasers without it (my cube is caged, so no using that to bridge..

sicklebrick wrote:
I should get my ass into hammer again though. Cheers ^^

Your hammer doesn't work very well... Its still possible to play the map in almost the same way as in my video. The only think i really need to change is the way to get over the lasers at the end, because the blue gel isn't available anymore. But i had a lot of fun to find new ways to do the old things

Here is my solution to advanced painting 03. Sorry, no video just a demo file.

paint03demofile.zip

Nice run.I never thought of jumping over like that.I did the first part mostly the same.Last part after taking the cube down I went back up to the white paint and shot a portal to the other side and went over and painted white above and below the laser then dropped the cube in and then just dropped down on.Didnt have to do a backwards jump as the cube was close to the side.

my second run required going back to the white paint twice as I did a freefall with the white paint paint above and below the lasers then shot it across to the laser wall on the other side and that rquired going back for more paint to paint the floor on the far side.

Probably another way I'm missing but I have to go out soon so maybe later today I'll try again.Last part was easier before with the blue gel before lol

Szieve wrote:
Ok, I think the map is broken now? I can only use blue gel in the beginning? Floor plate is now un portalable? it worked in the beginning.. Cant really see a way to get over lasers without it (my cube is caged, so no using that to bridge..

Heh nah,. just sorta figured that solution was a little easy, so the blue paint is a one shot thing

cathixx wrote:
Your hammer doesn't work very well... Its still possible to play the map in almost the same way as in my video.

It's not hammer, it's my brain. Figured I should fix it at 3am.. and kinda skipped the last grate. One last patch should fix that

benvent wrote:
Here is my solution to advanced painting 03. Sorry, no video just a demo file.

paint03demofile.zip

Heh that's prettymuch it, excluding the oversight at the end there ^^

andyb wrote:
my second run required going back to the white paint twice as I did a freefall with the white paint paint above and below the lasers then shot it across to the laser wall on the other side and that rquired going back for more paint to paint the floor on the far side.

Hopefully it makes more sense now.

Cheers for all the feedback and help with this one guys, seems I might have been over-focusing on certain elements here and completely overlooking ways around the intended core puzzle.

Suffice to say, you're supposed to need the cube and paint towards the end, and the cube at the very end!

J

benvent wrote:
Here is my solution to advanced painting 03. Sorry, no video just a demo file.

paint03demofile.zip

Ahh, thats the intended way. Looks much easier than my solutions

This is my video for version 03:
nZwMuFJCpJs

cathixx wrote:
benvent wrote:

Here is my solution to advanced painting 03. Sorry, no video just a demo file.

paint03demofile.zip

Ahh, thats the intended way. Looks much easier than my solutions

This is my video for version 03:
nZwMuFJCpJs

Hah, cheers for that ^^ I love your solutions! Just about every wee bit was slightly different than I had intended, but that's more or less it. Thanks again =)

Double posty time, here's the intended solution for 1.4 - cheers for all the feedback regarding the unintended ones and stuff

0maOTzNqkqI

Ahh didn't see you posted the intended solution... I'll upload my solution to v4 aswell... liked how you shoot the gel over the pit. Btw I solved v4 exactly the same way like I did before.
Anyways nice map! Looking forward to your next one.
Cheers

pWRf_g1WUZA

Heh, I was sorely tempted to remove that little drop at the end there... but it's so ballsy it has to stay ^^

I wasted a lot of time painting white gel everywhere.
Never realizing that I needed that one trick to speed up the gel in the top room then send that little burst all the way across 2 football fields !! Without that I was dead in the water. Great map by the way. I would have like to see something more tricky in the final room, but the rest was tricky enough . . .

PCdoc wrote:
I wasted a lot of time painting white gel everywhere.
Never realizing that I needed that one trick to speed up the gel in the top room then send that little burst all the way across 2 football fields !! Without that I was dead in the water. Great map by the way. I would have like to see something more tricky in the final room, but the rest was tricky enough . . .

Heh, it was actually still possible with the infinifling (the big ass gap), but I wanted to encourage that lil' paint missile - fun mechianic You've got a point about the final room really, never thought of it like that, but it needed something to ensure you brought the paint and cube accross... something to think about though, cheers

I usually don't like gel maps very much, but this is a great map!
Here is my blindrun:

B_SyFCT6CgU
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_SyFCT6CgU)

Djinndrache wrote:
I usually don't like gel maps very much, but this is a great map!
Here is my blindrun:

B_SyFCT6CgU
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_SyFCT6CgU)

Heh, I've been watching this blindrun alongside the Gubble one; pretty interesting too.
I'm just sorta glad that even though you got all the concepts prettymuch straight off the bad that there was still a wee bit of thinking involved

Still a little tempted to block that large fling over the central pit, but it'll do for now

Nice map. I think I pretty much solved it the same way as others here, though I didn't check out any solution vids for an exact breakdown. What is the button in the cage across the gap for? I never ended up needing it, which is good because I would have had to go all the way back around to get the conversion gel, which I was not looking forward to. In any case, lots of fun. Thanks!

TaiMai wrote:
Nice map. I think I pretty much solved it the same way as others here, though I didn't check out any solution vids for an exact breakdown. What is the button in the cage across the gap for? I never ended up needing it, which is good because I would have had to go all the way back around to get the conversion gel, which I was not looking forward to. In any case, lots of fun. Thanks!

Glad you liked it

The cage with the cube was for a harder solution, where the user had to get accross with working paint and the cube together, but I overlooked a few things and most people didn't use that way. Been toying with the idea of fixing it for a while, but people seem to enjoy the map alright, so I'm still 50/50 on fixing it =)

Yeah, that's cool. I'm totally down with multiple solutions as long as there is no 'cheating' or shortcuts which allow you to skip whole portions of the map. I was actually pleased I didn't need it because I had to use a new technique to solve this, namely jumping backwards off the cube while grabbing it mid-air. Made me feel like a ninja!!

TaiMai wrote:
Yeah, that's cool. I'm totally down with multiple solutions as long as there is no 'cheating' or shortcuts which allow you to skip whole portions of the map. I was actually pleased I didn't need it because I had to use a new technique to solve this, namely jumping backwards off the cube while grabbing it mid-air. Made me feel like a ninja!!

Haha, yeah! Loved that when I saw it!

I'm no fan of gel puzzles, and I'm already tired of the re-portaling gel mechanic in particular, so this map did nothing for me in the fun department. I think the layout was well thought out, if somewhat oversized. I don't mind big rooms if you give me big flings to traverse them, but this was all portaling and running and bouncing around. Add to that the fact that it gave you acres of surfaces to slather white gel all over, and it became a real time killer.

It isn't a bad map, not at all. But sorry, it just wasn't any fun for me. 3/5.

KennKong wrote:
I'm no fan of gel puzzles, and I'm already tired of the re-portaling gel mechanic in particular, so this map did nothing for me in the fun department. I think the layout was well thought out, if somewhat oversized. I don't mind big rooms if you give me big flings to traverse them, but this was all portaling and running and bouncing around. Add to that the fact that it gave you acres of surfaces to slather white gel all over, and it became a real time killer.

It isn't a bad map, not at all. But sorry, it just wasn't any fun for me. 3/5.

None too sure why you're slathering acres of stuff in portlegoo, but cheers for the feedback
I'm wondering if perhaps I'd enfored the intended solution you might have enjoyed it a little more - but it's too late now.

You have a knack for giving players epic "a-ha!" moments!

"Hmmm... I wonder if I can build myself a Large Paint Collider. SQUIRT! Yes we can.

My only real complaint is that some areas are too dark, especially the space around the big grates and the side room where the lens cube is. But otherwise this map looks way better than your previous ones!

Hah, cheers man.
I'm never gonna create something as sexy as your maps but I suppose there's room for a half hour's extra lighting time here and there in the next :p

Hi. Just played v4, I like this map more than the last couple I have played, though I have to confess I did not get the idea about getting the paint to do long jumps to make it travel farther.
I found it's possible to get the level into a state where it's not completable.. Basically I got as far as claiming the cube, but had accidentally covered the blue goo on the floor and since the blue dispenser was now shut off, there seems to be no way to get any more...so no way to get out of the cube room (because I no longer had access to the "take down forcefields" button)
Anyway that situation needs a way out, some way either back to the white goo or to reactivate the blue goo.
Unless I missed something of course!

Hah, woops! I never heard of anyone else doing thatl let's hope you're the only one so I don't have to change stuff ^^