I have a small 64x128 patch of portalable wall attached to a movable arm on the ceiling of a map I am working on. The problem is that it is nearly impossible to place a portal on the brush unless you are standing in exactly the right spot. I have tried placing portal bumpers but they did not help much. Attached is an example of what I am talking about. Is there a way to make it so that no matter what angle they shoot from they will always be able to place a portal on this surface?

Also, has the theme for the March mapping contest been officially announced?

func_portal_orientation ?
Adjusts a portal's rotation to match a specified angle. The 'Bottom' of the portal points in the specified diretion.

No that does not seem to help. I still have to be pointing at almost the exact center and directly underneath in order to get a portal to form.

Func_portal_bumpers should fix this. Are you sure you're using them correctly?

NocturnalGhost wrote:
Func_portal_bumpers should fix this. Are you sure you're using them correctly?

No, it can't fix this.
There's room for only one portal in a given direction. Portal_bumpers try to shift portals away from metal, but if there's no room, there's no room.. If someone try to portal this surface perpendicularly, it will fail because there's no room for a portal in this way.
I had this problem with one of the maps of my mod, and never managed to fix it. So if somebody has an idea...

I am pretty sure I am using them correctly. Here is a picture of how I have them set up, tell me if I am using them correctly.

i am pretty sure its been used in a custom map here at TWP. i think its one of the ren_tests, but im not sure.

Just ran through the ren_tests and I did not see anything similar to my problem. Though I think I saw a func_portal_orientation in the first one.

I had this problem too.

As long as the surface is COMPLETELY level and parallel with the ground, portal will try to orient the portal in the direction it was shot from.

But if you make the ceiling even microscopically tilted (like lower one side 1 unit with the vertex tool), Portal will treat the surface like a wall instead of a ceiling/floor, so the portals will be placed in the orientation you're hoping for no matter what angle they are shot from.

Of course you'll need to keep the bumpers, too.

Thanks, that worked perfectly.

Glovis wrote:

great hack could confuse players though. but if its for just a panel (like this) thats pretty bad ass

I had a similar problem with needing to portal small surfaces. I noticed that when I tilted the surface even 1 unit you could visibly tell that it had been tilted and it looked a bit messy.

So what I did is I had my rectangle of concrete texture flush with the metal wall and then put a wedge brush 1 unit deep over the top of the concrete and textured it nodraw (things textured with nodraw can be portalled). This means that it looks completely flat but actually isn't.

You can also tilt it way less than one unit.
Let's say 0.01, it should be totally invisible, but I don't know where is the engine limitation regarding coordinates.

How would you tilt it less than 1 unit in hammer?

Fusion wrote:
How would you tilt it less than 1 unit in hammer?

if you zoom in ALOT, and hold (i think its alt (the no align to grid button) OR turn off grid align, and move really slowly you'll notice it moves in less-than-1 unit increments. but like he said the engine might have limitations that piss it off.

Hammer hates that have dimensions of less than 1 unit. Those lead to microbrush errors in the compile log.

Megadude wrote:
Hammer hates that have dimensions of less than 1 unit. Those lead to microbrush errors in the compile log.

no no no, it hates brushes that are smaller than 1 unit in any of the three dimentions. That shouldnt be any problem here as that brush should be at least 8 if not 16 units deep.

Fusion wrote:
How would you tilt it less than 1 unit in hammer?

CTRL+M > Move > Axis > 0.01