My entry for the mapping competition. Now, this is my first co-op map, and I found out about the competition much later than I would have liked. So there's a few buggy things a would have fixed, but didn't have the time if I wanted to enter.
So don't throw any combustible lemons at me if you discover problems with it, chance are I already knew and didn't have the time.

File Name: coop_lifts.rar
File Size: 2.91 MiB
Click here to download The Aperture Science Symbiotic Ascension Course

I really liked this one, but it needs some tweaks. My biggest complaint was that me and my partner had to re-do the map when one of us fell from the elevator at the light bridge + cube + laser part. I'm not sure if this was a bug, but I feel like I should be able to ride my elevator up to the point I was last at if I have to restart like that.

I noticed a few visual problems - amisaligned/colliding brush face and a VertexLit texture on a world brush. I also noticed that you can get Conversion Gel behind the panel areas and into black rooms that house the models in there.

I was very confused about the exit elevator being beneath the map. I kind of thought you just didn't put an actual end at first, but it was an interesting touch.

I know, it needed a lot of tweaking really. I was debating whether to use an enabling/disabling player clip to stop people falling off the lift, in the end I went for the realistic option, main reason being I was running out of time. But yeah, I didn't think of making the lift go up to the level you were last at, interesting idea. Also, I noticed that brush face problem when I was playing it myself, I thought I had fixed it, but I see now I only reduced it (it used to be much worse). I didn't have a clue that you could get conversion gel back there. Oh, and I have no idea what a vertexlit texture is, I'm rather new to this mapping stuff, started about a month ago. Finally, the lift was supposed to take you to below the map at a ridiculously high speed, so no-one would get confused about where the exit was, my func_tracktrain seems adamant to go at that slow speed, I have pushed up it's max speed and made the stops (forgotten the proper hammer entity name) change the speed. But func_tracktrain wants to stay slow...

But overall, thanks very much for the feedback, and you're very right, it needs alot of tweaking, it was rushed in five or so days to get it in for the contest. Oh well. Maybe I should take up a different hobby. Reanimating the dead maybe.

Anyway, thanks loads, and don't suppose you could explain to me what this vertexlit thing is? Don't worry if you don't have the time, I can look it up, that's why they created the Valve Developer Wiki after all.

TheCakeDispensary wrote:
Anyway, thanks loads, and don't suppose you could explain to me what this vertexlit thing is? Don't worry if you don't have the time, I can look it up, that's why they created the Valve Developer Wiki after all.

VertexLitGeneric are textures that are placed on models so they can inherit light from their origin in the world. When you put this on a world brush they will inherit the players' light origin and look completely unnatural.

Ahhhhh. So I just need to change the texture to something non-VertexLitGeneric and more world brush suited? Good to know. Thanks chickenmobile.

There is a VertixLitGeneric and a LightMappedGeneric for the texture you were using. Just replace it and it should be fine.

You want to stay away from any material with "_vertex" in the name.

TheCakeDispensary wrote:
Oh well. Maybe I should take up a different hobby. Reanimating the dead maybe.

That's a little dramatic, don't you think? So your map has some problems. I didn't say it was garbage - and trust me when I say that if it was I wouldn't have sugarcoated it. The idea is cool, it just needs some small changes to really "work".

msleeper wrote:
TheCakeDispensary wrote:

Oh well. Maybe I should take up a different hobby. Reanimating the dead maybe.

That's a little dramatic, don't you think? So your map has some problems. I didn't say it was garbage - and trust me when I say that if it was I wouldn't have sugarcoated it. The idea is cool, it just needs some small changes to really "work".

I was joking! I don't think I should take up a different hobby at all, that was purely to make some kind of portal reference! I just felt like referencing in some way, which makes sense considering I'm on ThinkingWithPortals.com...My apologies. That was a bad excuse for a reference, an easily misunderstood one at least...

We loved the idea behind the map, but at one point we were wondering if it wasn't fundamentally broken: by repeatedly pressing the cube plate, I sent my mate to the top and he portaled by the exit. Can't be right: I would have thought that at each station, you had to conjoin some trick to get up one more floor together.

Falling and having to reset everything was too much, however: how about breaking the long course into several safe zones?

interesting idea, but it is way too buggy. eventually (i dont even know how) that orange eleveator when to the ground and we took it too the exit.