Mai new map, pl_zeta

DOWNLOAD HERE:

dload.php?action=file&file_id=222

piczors:

The Start room +
[img]http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj121/Doomsday192/pl_zeta0010.jpg[/img]

A puzzle
[img]http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj121/Doomsday192/pl_zeta0011.jpg[/img]

Another puzzle
[img]http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj121/Doomsday192/pl_zeta0012.jpg[/img]

The coveted orange Portalgun
[img]http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj121/Doomsday192/pl_zeta0013.jpg[/img]

Quote:
The floor here will kill you, try to avoid it

[img]http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj121/Doomsday192/pl_zeta0015.jpg[/img]

Top view
[img]http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj121/Doomsday192/pl_zeta0016.jpg[/img]

looks good. look forward to it!

I might release it today if testing goes well

Doomsday192 wrote:
I might release it today if testing goes well

I highly recommend releasing WIP maps. The feedback you get can be amazingly helpful. Plus, it looks very nice but you can't really tell how much fun a map is gonna be until you play it. Look forward to playing this one.

All i have to do now is fix a few bugs (messed up indicator strips, a catcher activating with anything, etc) then im ready to upload a WIP version

beta released

dload.php?action=file&file_id=222

This map, as your previous one, was very very well done. Btw theres still something to correct:

[img]http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t307/Kiavik/pl_zeta0000.jpg[/img]

This texture is missing (happens a lot in the map)

[img]http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t307/Kiavik/pl_zeta0001.jpg[/img]

This door stays open even when you remove the cube from the button

[img]http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t307/Kiavik/pl_zeta0002.jpg[/img]

Hall of Mirrors effect

[img]http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t307/Kiavik/pl_zeta0003.jpg[/img]

The pellet shooter keeps shooting pellets of energy even after you've activated the catcher

Gameplay wise it was very good, you mixed the old with the new quite nicely

wha...

damn you pakrat!

also, the button beyond the first puzzle door, is so you can get your CC back after you get up there. unless you took the cube off normally...

also has anyone found both hidden BTS areas?

arghhh
you took my idea of making a portal map in a different section of aperture labs!
my map's name (agito) loosely means revolve in latin, does this maps name have a meaning too?

Nope, its just a letter from the greek alphabet(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeta) that i made fit into the map by calling it "Zeta Labs"

I truly suck at names

that sir was amazing. truely amazing! good pacing, fun, some neat puzzle ideas, aside from the errors previously listed and also these. the glass errors are just bad rendering, not sure what causes them, but i've seen a thread about this error before. you can kinda see blue streaks in my screen shots it was flickering alot just kinda hard to screen capture that.

anyway this was really really good work, fix the few errors.. run through it and fine tune it. and this will be one hell of a [RELEASE]


glass & missing textures: http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/6362 ... 000ay7.jpg
glass & missing textures: http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/5351 ... 001op0.jpg
glass & missing textures: http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/291/ ... 003uc4.jpg
glass & missing textures: http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/6004 ... 004fj1.jpg
HOM: http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/2879 ... 006rx0.jpg

i'll try to replay it and really point out the stuff i loved/hated etc. though i don't really remember any "hates" or maybe i'll just wait for the release to do that.

new beta!

dload.php?action=file&file_id=222

about the glass...

i am not sure at all about what causes that, cause it happens to me in logicportals and other maps, it only showed up after i built cubemaps.

is there a way to exclude a surface from cubemapping?

This map was quite enjoyable. I just noticed one error, and had a couple of complaints.

The error was when I've finished with the rocket turret, I deactivated it so it wouldn't keep shooting at me, and when it retreated into its hole in the ground, it went in at a strange angle, so that it was clipping through the floor. I'm not sure if that was just a random glitch, or if it has something to do with how you made the map.

The minor complaints are: 1) the g-man at the beginning looks like a mannequin. He's just standing there perfectly still. It would be nice if you could give him some sort of movement, like moving his head slightly, or straightening his tie.
2) there was one step flinging puzzle that looked to me like it was copied directly from Logic Portals. Now I know that step flinging is not unique to that set of maps, but the particular way that you designed it with the timer and everything, it just seemed too similar to me.

Aside from that, the map was lots of fun, and while it provided a bit of a challenge at times, it was never such that I didn't have a clear idea of what I should be doing next.

yes i am aware of the rocket turret bug, i dont know of any way to fix it atm :/

and i will make the gman at the beginning use a trigger_look to make it play an animation whne you look at it

also i only got the idea from logic portals, i copy+pasted nothing

Released
download link is the same, so what are you waiting for? go get it!

changelog:

gman at the start now walks away when you look at him
and thats about it

would a mod please move this thread to releases?

Awesome map! A lot of fun, but a single fatal glitch (more likely the cause of the Source engine than you) threatens to ruin it all - any loading within the map permanently disables AI. Because of the moderate use of turrets in your map, this completely kills many of the puzzles. To re-enable AI, you have to start the map over from scratch. Normally I'd be a lot more irate about this, but I enjoyed playing this map so much that I actually didn't mind starting over each time I died. I'd put this up with Logic Portals and the PMK series as the top three "must play" maps available here.

I really loved the little touches; the BTS easter egg by the incinerator was great , and the signs/coffee mugs/Gman in the observation area were a great way to make Aperture look more human - a nice contrast to what happens when GLaDOS takes over.

Another small glitch to add to the "AI disabled..." thing; if you acctivate the rocket turret, and then shut it down again, it just sort of flops over, clipping through the floor a bit, rather than properly shutting down.

Overall, great work - I look foreword to the next portion of the Zeta series!
(There is going to be more... right? )

wwhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?!

it doesnt do that for me! D:



anyone, help D:

EDIT: it might be because i accidently didnt include the ain file in the download

also, i know about the rocket turret bug, i think its cause i linked it to a button.
also no, this is the end of Zeta...

but i do have another project in the works... expect to hear about it soon

I hate you.


Ok, time to explain why:
The glasses are opaque, for example, i can't see the gman.
Gman... are you still there???

Here, http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj12 ... ta0013.jpg , i [spoiler]take the cube, go into blue portal whith that and it says "weighted cube destroyed" and the cube disappear, without any reason

Ok, updated
changelog:
-- fixed bug where putting a cube thru a portal on the fling platform would make it disapeer

but im not sure about the glass

I really liked the map except for the step-fling puzzle. I'm probably alone in saying that I HATE those puzzles. Finally noclipped up after wasting an hour trying to do that thing. It would have been easier if there wasn't an indicator light above the portal that I kept hitting going up or down.

Overall, a nice map though.

When the level loads the following errors appear in the console:

Scene 'scenes\canals\gman_watching.vcd' missing!
Scene 'scenes\test_chamber\ai_13_a_entry.vcd' missing!

These files were not included in the zip file.

umm, thats not my fault, i cant include any custom scene files in the zip file because i would have to include the ENTIRE cache of scenes in the zip file, which is huge.
and the second one should be included in portal...

Doomsday192 wrote:
umm, thats not my fault, i cant include any custom scene files in the zip file because i would have to include the ENTIRE cache of scenes in the zip file, which is huge.
and the second one should be included in portal...

From the experience I've had with scene files so far, you need to include the scenes.image that's generated after building your scene in Face Poser, not the entire scene cache. You'll need to pack this in to the map's bsp file to prevent it from accidentally being overwritten by other peoples maps though.

...i didnt MAKE any custom scenes...

i dont even know if the gman scene is missing because, it works fine for me. its probably just you

Even if you're using a scene file from another valve game (like HL2) a scenes.image file + the scene file itself need to be included with the map to get it to work right for other people. Portal uses it's own scenes.image file to keep track of what scenes are available for use, this default scenes.image file for portal doesn't have access to any of the scenes in HL2 or any of the other valve games.

I'm guessing that you extracted the file using GCFScape and that's how you got it to become available in hammer and your portal, correct? Without a scenes.image file included in the distribution, portal can't find the scene in the scenes.image manifest it has available, hence the error.

no, i used the gman prefab that came with source sdk, and it set it to use that scene, and it must work since gman works fine

and any custom scenes.image would override the default one.

besides its just 2 console errors, how much do they actualy affect the level...

Played it and loved it, great level design and great level of difficulty, not too hard and not too easy.
Also, I didn't got any kind of errors.

After some help, i should probably be able to finally play this map and give it a proper review, can't wait!

User has been banned for this post. --msleeper

Syon wrote:
When the level loads the following errors appear in the console:

Scene 'scenes\canals\gman_watching.vcd' missing!
Scene 'scenes\test_chamber\ai_13_a_entry.vcd' missing!

These files were not included in the zip file.

Maybe it's because he doesn't have HL2?

umm, i have the whole orange box, css, dod:s, half life source

its not that

ill have to check and see if i get that error, because i havnt played on zeta in a while
also does it really matter that much...?

Doomsday192 wrote:
also does it really matter that much...?

i'd say yes, only cuz some people really freak out when they see error messages and ASSUME they will not be getting the full effect of the level. one could only assume. but also. a level really can't be considered complete unless its error free (or atleast any "major" errors)

Doomsday192 wrote:
umm, i have the whole orange box, css, dod:s, half life source

its not that

ill have to check and see if i get that error, because i havnt played on zeta in a while
also does it really matter that much...?

No I meant they guy who was having the error.

oh ok

hi! I have this problem with your map where all the viewing glass just reflects whats in the portal.

hmm, infernet89 has that same problem i think...

im not sure what causes it :/

Are you sure that your glasses are func_brushes and NOT func_details?

well, i thought that just caused the flickering glass... like in relliks pics a page or so back, but maybe it causes the HOM glass too

The brushes that the special observation room glass texture is aplied to, MUST be func_brushes. Neither func_detail nor world brushes will work, and both will get HOM-effects. I don't know about other brush entities, but it would be nonsense to make it anything else than a func_brush (why a func_door or something else?).

Cool map! A few specific issues for me:

SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS

1) Map was incredibly bright and white for me (lighting didn't load for some reason I guess, so everything was just bright). Made it really hard to see at some parts. This rendered me unable to see the forcefield in the second? chamber, and I kept trying to go through it myself. Anyway...
2) I exploited the room with the missile turret. There's a part where you have to fling yourself using the panel underneath the movable thingy controlled by the switch. However, I just put a portal on the portalable floor right next to it, and then jumped into that one.
3) G-MAN = awesomeness
4) For some reason I didn't see the hole bordered by white in the last chamber, so I had no idea how to do that puzzle. I spent about 15 mins thinking and doing pointless things before I noticed that little hole. May have been the weird lighting that screwed me up though.
5) When you destroy the cube in the last chamber, I don't believe another one comes out of the vital apparatus vent.

Fun map though! Not too hard, and not too easy. You managed to make the one-portal sections fun, too! Oh, and I had no problems with the glass.

i need to play the "newest version" so i can see the g-man. but damn i've been busy




btw use
[spoiler]Spoiler Text Here[/spoiler]
example:
Spoiler Text Here

This is a very good map, and very challenging for me. I especially liked the reversed-gravity field to activate the button in the Orange Portalgun room.
BTW, I think that electrofloors have been done before (in the Portal TFV mappack ), but I liked the way you implemented the one-surface version (the other version has floor and ceiling modules to make the death field, and they're timer'd; yours are always active until button-deactivated, which is cool).
You should really add to this map, because I can think of a lot more that can be done here.
(I DID find one of the bts places, but I didn't find the other )

I really enjoyed this map. It was a good challenge for us battle scared portal players. Good Job.

Enjoyed this map, only had to noclip for the step fling, tried a million times, but couldnt get it (but i am useless), thought the rest of the puzzles were great. Only one glitch... If you fall in the pit in the room with the button inside the glass box/tube AFTER you have activated the 10 second portal in the next room (why you ask, but hey???) then you are stuck in there and have to reload. No biggie, but thought I would mention it.
All in all a great level, oh also some of the lighting was very bright
Cheers

Phil