Hi,

Well its finally here. After almost a year of work and me working on Portal: Project Beta. I got 2 Playable maps done from my old project, Blue Portals.
The first maps that I did last summer were it went from being too easy to really hard. Plus It was my first maps so of course, you got pretty bad framerates and all. .

This version however is pretty easy. However to make it worth while, I experimented on my warm texture pack, lighting and fog. Other maps will be coming along.
In future releases, I'll do 2 maps per update to keep it going and get feedback more quickly. . Enjoy what I worked on for many many months.

Download



Files been updated. . .

I love you, have my babies?

Really great maps. Custom textures looks really great and they bring a new atmosphere to the game. Can't wait for the harder challenges

some of the texture for some of the lights didnt work... :/
also, is the player meant to get the orange portal gun in the second part? because it makes the button in the middle completely pointless...

monkeyman wrote:
some of the texture for some of the lights didnt work... :/

How so? If you got purple and black checkerboards, must have extracted it wrong. Post a picture if you are sure you did everything right.

monkeyman wrote:
also, is the player meant to get the orange portal gun in the second part? because it makes the button in the middle completely pointless...

No. . Its called Blue Portals fro a reason.

portalgrinder wrote:
Really great maps. Custom textures looks really great and they bring a new atmosphere to the game. Can't wait for the harder challenges

Thanks..

PortalFan77 wrote:
I love you, have my babies?

Yummy, Babies. . .

I must say i had some purple and black checkerboards textures too.



I'm pretty sure i extracted it the correct way.
I think its the only place where i encountered those.

portalgrinder wrote:
I must say i had some purple and black checkerboards textures too.

{image}

I'm pretty sure i extracted it the correct way.
I think its the only place where i encountered those.

I checked the file, your right I forgot a light texture. My Portal file has so much stuff in it and it is disorganized, I'm gonna wipe it clean and start freash now.

Thanks for bringing this up!

Files been updated. . .

did you fix the portal gun issue? because it gives u an orange portal gun when it loads the second area... plus it is easily possible to do the second area using one cube and not using the button at all...

monkeyman wrote:
did you fix the portal gun issue? because it gives u an orange portal gun when it loads the second area... plus it is easily possible to do the second area using one cube and not using the button at all...

I'll look at it later tonight.

It gave me the orange portal gun too but I didn't take it
When I saw the custom cubes I thought "oh those are the burning cubes hurting on touch" but I was wrong and saw its effect after dropping it into the water.
These maps were good, decent looking and pretty easy to solve. Congratz

First of all, I like the new style. It's refreshing. However, at the point where everyone is complaining about being given the orange portal gun, it is possible to pass through the door that closes behind you. It doesn't lead anywhere, so it's not a big deal, but thought you should know.

Ok guys, fixed the Portalgun. I did not notice it cause I play with no crosshair.

Mek wrote:
When I saw the custom cubes I thought "oh those are the burning cubes hurting on touch" but I was wrong and saw its effect after dropping it into the water.
These maps were good, decent looking and pretty easy to solve. Congratz

I did not like the hurt feature that Kayaia said of its purpose. So I changed it, it also fits nicely with the maps too. .

Yes, These maps are easy cause I want to save my "grand slam ideas" for Project Beta.

speaking of project beta, i can't get onto the forums... i was wondering where the hell they had gone... :/
when i try click on 'enter forum' it doesnt do anything...

twp is alive!!!!

If the rest of the installments are as good as this one, then it's going to be a good day, I look forward to the release of the rest of them. How many installments do you have to release?

jrlauer wrote:
If the rest of the installments are as good as this one, then it's going to be a good day, I look forward to the release of the rest of them. How many installments do you have to release?

A few.

jrlauer wrote:
If the rest of the installments are as good as this one, then it's going to be a good day, I look forward to the release of the rest of them. How many installments do you have to release?

I only have 3 vmfs from the older version. If I have a very neat idea, I'll make a new installment as for right now, I have no clue when 03-04 is coming. .

I just finished this and I like it a lot. Great atmosphere!

I have a couple of minor points though:

• I got rendering bugs on portals near the part with the two red boxes. (Not all geometry is drawn on the other side of the portal, resulting in blackness or a partially rendered map.)
• I probably didn't use the intended solution on the big fling puzzle. When on the middle floor with the button, I put the blue portal on the floor, flat against the side of the next floor leading to the exit. I then jumped through, climbed up the stairs and jumped back into the orange portal, getting enough momentum to land on the exit floor. I think I know what the intended solution would be, but I couldn't pull it off right away and got bored.
• In the starting area, the HDR exposure changes a lot when moving around. Also, the "bloom" effect is a way too strong there. This is probably considered nitpicking, but you may want to tune down the HDR settings just for that area, using an env_tonemap_controller.

HMW wrote:
I just finished this and I like it a lot. Great atmosphere!

I have a couple of minor points though:

• I got rendering bugs on portals near the part with the two red boxes. (Not all geometry is drawn on the other side of the portal, resulting in blackness or a partially rendered map.)
• I probably didn't use the intended solution on the big fling puzzle. When on the middle floor with the button, I put the blue portal on the floor, flat against the side of the next floor leading to the exit. I then jumped through, climbed up the stairs and jumped back into the orange portal, getting enough momentum to land on the exit floor. I think I know what the intended solution would be, but I couldn't pull it off right away and got bored.
• In the starting area, the HDR exposure changes a lot when moving around. Also, the "bloom" effect is a way too strong there. This is probably considered nitpicking, but you may want to tune down the HDR settings just for that area, using an env_tonemap_controller.

Besides that: great design, great puzzles, great everything! This is a good inspiration for one of my upcoming maps, which will have a bit of a futuristic theme...

Thanks for your comment!

The rendering bugs in 02 might be some stupid error that was made a year ago. I'll look into it. Your solution to 01 was pretty smart I had to read it a few times to understand it but its nice to see that if your smart you can do things a little differently. Here is a video on the map to the puzzles original solutions.

Nice to see that you liked it and it gave you inspiration.

wow. i LOVED this map! very awesome! i had been waiting to see the warm textures in action for a while, but hadnt had very high hopes, but i must say that i was just about blown away by the atmosphere in this map! it felt like i was playing something Valve had made. and on top of that the puzzles remained clever and fresh, rather than something generic just to have an excuse to use the textures.

can't wait for more!

HMW wrote:
I just finished this and I like it a lot. Great atmosphere!

I have a couple of minor points though:

I probably didn't use the intended solution on the big fling puzzle. When on the middle floor with the button, I put the blue portal on the floor, flat against the side of the next floor leading to the exit. I then jumped through, climbed up the stairs and jumped back into the orange portal, getting enough momentum to land on the exit floor. I think I know what the intended solution would be, but I couldn't pull it off right away and got bored.

Besides that: great design, great puzzles, great everything! This is a good inspiration for one of my upcoming maps, which will have a bit of a futuristic theme...

I couldn't pull off that fling either, so I did the same thing. Then I began to wonder if that wasn't the way is was inteded to be solved. Perhaps the fling isn't possible the way we believe it to be, but it's a misdirection.

Is that right or am I assuming to much.

I did it in the fling video. You gotta press the timer, jump, crouch, and shoot a portal under you then shoot were the first orange portal was while watching were your aiming at the portal.

Here is the video again. . .

reepblue wrote:
I did it in the fling video. You gotta press the timer, jump, crouch, and shoot a portal under you then shoot were the first orange portal was while watching were your aiming at the portal.

Here is the video again. . .

That's the way I thought it had to be done, but I could never get past the ledge and to the section where the orange portal first appeared. I always fell short. I'll try it again.

It's not really a problem, but Chamber 01, the big fling, can be done without going onto the second ledge. In Chamber 02 you can simply throw the cube into the catcher, updating the filefront link in a moment: full demo of the chambers here, http://files.filefront.com/blueports+2d ... einfo.html
I would suggest altering the dimensions of the room so that you cannot achieve the double-fling necessary from the ground level where the original orange portal is. If you're inclined to remove alternate routes that is.

Otherwise, both puzzles are pretty straight forward. Really interesting approach with 02, haven't seen many maps employ that kind of puzzle yet. I'm glad you didn't design it to be as much of an incredibly tedious puzzle as it has the potential to be, so uber props there.

Your solutions to those puzzles are solvable solutions, however if I made players take those short cuts because I thought basic players will not know what to do without learning it first.

I might do advance maps when this "project" is all done. However, I got 03-04 and PB to do so I have a lot of time to think. And I'm glad to see that people like my textures, style of lighting that I have been working on for months. (Cause how I was gonna light it was a big problem and I really did not wanna use a lot of observance rooms like in Portal.)

Great looking map! The fling worked for me. Only had to try it three or four times before I hit it.

Problem in chamber 2, though: I assume there's supposed to be a cube falling out of the chute? When I look up in there, I see a red ERROR graphic stuck in the chamber...

(Hi, JR!)

Played it through again, and got the same error. No cubes.

(In my eyes, making a new topic would be pointless since it will never get moved to this board, So I'm bumping this one. . .)

Hi,

Well, 03-04 is here! After many time of mapping, its done and ready to be played.

Download

-In Chamber 03, your introduced to magnets (Pull, Push and Hold) and you are learning how they can make your life harder then it has to be.

-In Chamber 04, you do advance flings and what not. Without giving to much away its pretty hard.

-In an addition, 00-02 have been updated.

It took very long to get 03 perfect, but I made 04 overnight. So 04 is still a beta as I see it. (But others don't)




Hope you enjoy the next installment of Blue Portals!
~reepblue

That last fling was killer. Keep it up! In the experiment room, though, the box catcher/button rejects the green one, I understand, but if you stand on top and put the green one in, it'll try to shoot it out and fail, but it won't try again. It'll be stuck.

And I got the green box stuck in the chutes that close. Nothing unpredictable so far, though.

And one more thing, is it possible to make the REPEL thing make the little light particles move AWAY from it? It makes more sense that way.

theVDude wrote:
That last fling was killer. Keep it up! In the experiment room, though, the box catcher/button rejects the green one, I understand, but if you stand on top and put the green one in, it'll try to shoot it out and fail, but it won't try again. It'll be stuck.

And I got the green box stuck in the chutes that close. Nothing unpredictable so far, though.

And one more thing, is it possible to make the REPEL thing make the little light particles move AWAY from it? It makes more sense that way.

Everything in the experiment room is now fixed, I just did not update the file. I put it there cause in 03, there is no "crap" to put in it. As for the repel magnet, I wanted all to look the same, but the colors to be an important role on telling the difference.

Thanks for the feedback!

I was wondering why you called the green cube "crap". Yeah, it all works, and it looks nice. I like putting both cubes in the hold/float magnet, and making them spin.

theVDude wrote:
I was wondering why you called the green cube "crap".

The Aperture Science Vital Cube Catching Tube refuses to accept Aperture Science Weighted Crap Cube.