Hi!
I have in mind to add a new kind of obstacle that is electrified water that should be a way to do the same thing than goo but with 2 advantages:
-It can be not deep, just 50 cm high
-It can be toggled on/off

But with my experiments, I noticed that water causes enormous portal lag even if we turn off reflections and much of refractions. It's like a big camera is giving a refracted picture of what's under the water.
And with another experiment, I could find that refractive GLASS with a an animated texture water don't lag at all the player (actually, a bit).

So, here's the trick:
-An invisible, lag-less water, absolutely invisible, just the sound, swim and splash effects.
-A refractive glass we can go through

The problem is, I can't do the invisible water. Is there a trick I can do? I know that in Half-Life 1 mapping, a buggy func_illusionnary could make water when set to volumetric light. Equivalent in HL2? Trick with materials?

Thanks for any help,
Hurricaaane.

Have you tried the low-quality water textures? the dx70 versions and such?

I've personally not seen any amount of lag when putting portals under water. But it kinda glitches up now and then, not showing up properly sometimes.

Glados tell this man how to fix this!

Interitus wrote:
Have you tried the low-quality water textures? the dx70 versions and such?

Yeah, use the DX7.0 water textures and it won't do any of the neat rendering stuff and you should be fine.

For the glass, just make it a non-solid func brush. For the water, create a texture that is 100% transparent, then your vmts like this.

Above water vmt

"LightmappedGeneric"
{
   "$basetexture" "[name of folder]/[name of water vtf]"
   "$translucent" 1
   "%compilewater" 1
   "$abovewater" 1
   "$bottommaterial" "[name of folder]/[name of below water vmt]"
   "$surfaceprop" "water"
   "$fogenable" 0
}

Below water vmt

"LightmappedGeneric"
{
   "$basetexture" "[name of folder]/[name of water texture]
                "$translucent" 1
   "%compilewater" 1
   "$abovewater" 0
   "$surfaceprop" "water"
   "$fogenable" 0
}

Since you are going to having shallow water in your map, you probably won't need the second vmt.

Why would you put portals under water? It would be wierd, (no physics sims in Source, so the water cannot drain,). Im just wondering.

Oh, and the DX 7 should work. Silly DX 7... no refraction or any fun stuff like that..

Extensive analysis has shown that not all types of matter can traverse the portals. Matter that is known to be capable of traversing the portals is: test subjects, cubes, the ASHPD, cameras, most solid objects actually. However, large bodies of liquid act very glitchy with the portals and thus cannot traverse them.

As MALCom stated above: you could include something in your storyline that the portals cannot transport water, or that they include some kind of special forcefield or something. Would seem me the most obvious. Aperture Science probably don't want you to move the water anyway, so...

Ricotez wrote:
Aperture Science probably don't want you to move the water anyway, so...

Now that would be a cool feature to have. Imagine having to flood/unflood rooms to solve puzzles, not just in Portal but in a FPS game as well. Good idea for Valves next engine.

I'd be very curious to find out how portals work with water and water levels. I'd guess the reason there's no water in Portal is because they couldn't adapt the engine in time to deal with variable water heights and portals spawning on the water level. Just a guess...

/kick user MALCom

Finally, some rest!

Well, wouldn't it be possible to do someting with portal detectors and func_water_analogs? Through carefull chamber design, you could try to create something where you can place portals on only 2 places, one underwater and the other above an empty container, and that if you place the portals there the first body of water is emptied, and the other filled.

Just some idea, though. It would be frikking hard to execute.

this has been done. i can't remember the level exactly. but you would place a portal under the water in one little "square" area, and another NOT in water in another square area.. and the other area would flood with water there by floating a table in that area.
vague i know. but i'm tired. or something, but i have seen it done.

Sometimes I get the idea mapping for any Source-game is slightly like Murphy's law: if you think of it, it has been done before. There goes another of my wannabe-brilliant, wannabe-original ideas...

Doesn't change anything to the fact that it would give some cool puzzles, though hard to implement.

Wait, wait...
I never said that we could make portals in water. Of course we can technically, but visually it causes bugs and technically it would demand thinking do do water transver from silo to silo, an idea I would immediatly exclude.
The point of the fake water is to save visual resources, and in game, it would be playing the same role as goo but with dangerousness toggleable with a superbutton for example. Coupled with a cube floater for example. Never meant to put portals in water.
The gameplay advantage is that it is immeadiatly identifiable dangerous by the player with electricial arcs and zap sounds, unlike a metal floor with wires on it. You don't need to be a genius to know that electricity and water is not good.