Okay... I havn't played many custom levels yet... but so far... I've noticed that they all lack orginal ideas. They just take all the ideas from the levels that came with the game and reuse them.

One would think that we've reached the end of where portals can take you.

...

So here are some of my ideas on how to use portals... I'm not sure if they're possible though and I'd like some help with making them work.

1.) Underwater Portals
More than just being a portal underwater that you can go through, I'd like water to also go through it! By doing it you can drain one pool while filling another!

... but I have no idea how to do it...

2.) Gravity Altering Portals
When you create a portal on a special surface, it'll flip the gravity of whatever goes through it. Throw a box through and suddenly the box will fall towards the ceiling. Run through yourself and you go towards the ceiling. You get the idea I think.

... I have some ideas for how I'll do this... although I'm not sure they'd work...

3.) Time Altering Portals
Go through the portal and you'll go not just through space but also through time. You'll go back to the time when you originally created the other portal. This will let you work with yourself to solve a puzzle. Of course, try to avoid making a time paradox. If you picked up and moved a box in the past, make sure you don't try moving it again in the future or you'll have altered the flow of time and made a paradox! You fail!

... yeah, cool idea or what? But I also have no idea how to do this...

4.) Moving Enemies
Yeah... there weren't any enemies that moved in Portal. So I think there aught to be some that move.

... possibly it'll be as simple as taking an AI and unit from Half Life 2?

5.) Enemy Portals
I'd like to see some enemies that'll inteligently use portal guns. Maybe they all shoot purple and green portals...

is it possible with the portal/source engine or no?

6.) Carry a Light
I can't figure this one out... (not that I've managed to do anything else yet.)

I want to make a lamp... that emits light... and that you can carry. How do I do this?

I think that's all my ideas for now...

I could use help with all of them.

As far as you saying that

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they all lack orginal ideas

you are completly wrong. If you look around what's offered on this site, you will see loads and loads of original ideas. You just haven't looked for them.

As for the underwater portals, there were some posts made about them not too long ago on here. Read up on them to see if there is a way to do what you want to do.

1.) Indeed, like Megadude said, there have been several ideas about how to create a 'sense' of water flowing through a portal. But the Source-engine creates water through shaders. Water is not 'liquid' in the truest sense of the word, it's simply a special brush that applies special shaders when you're inside it.

2.) Changing gravity's direction is, once again, something that is not truly supported, although this time by Portal's mod files. It is possible in the Source engine itself, I've seen it being used in the Dystopia-mod. There are quite a few maps that toy with this idea, however they use some kind of pushing or pulling forcefield instead of special forcefields, and the gravity is not truly shifted.

3.) That would require much calculating and much RAM, not to mention the huge ammount of Chells that you could end up with if you'd keep going back. This has also been discussed before, somewhere on this forum.

4.) Very well possible, there have already been attempts to put Combine soldiers in maps, however they face a few issues. The AI isn't even the biggest; they don't make any sound.

5.) As you could see in the game, it is possible to make the weapon_portalgun shoot portals, even as a prop, if it's not equiped by the player. This could lend itself for an entity-controlled portal turret. It's also possible to have multiple 'pairs' of portals (I thought the max is 4) but they're all blue-orange, color-changing between pairs is not possible, I think. Also creating an enemy wielding the Portal Gun would require much work, with the additional modeling, animating and programming.

6.) Probably a light_dynamic parented to a prop_physics. However, you must remember that dynamic lights must be completely rendered in-game, resulting in sluggish performance in complex enviroments. If you want to try this, make sure you can only use the light in simple enviroments, i.e. big cube-shaped rooms (thank Valve the Enrichment Center is largely composed of cube-shaped rooms).

ArtOfWarfare wrote:
1.) Underwater Portals
More than just being a portal underwater that you can go through, I'd like water to also go through it! By doing it you can drain one pool while filling another!

Possible but not in a visually pleasing way. Water in Source is not meant to rise/lower good. Creates more of a problem than a solution in maps.

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2.) Gravity Altering Portals
When you create a portal on a special surface, it'll flip the gravity of whatever goes through it. Throw a box through and suddenly the box will fall towards the ceiling. Run through yourself and you go towards the ceiling. You get the idea I think.

As Ricotez said, not possible in Portal (except in a very small way).

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3.) Time Altering Portals
Go through the portal and you'll go not just through space but also through time. You'll go back to the time when you originally created the other portal. This will let you work with yourself to solve a puzzle. Of course, try to avoid making a time paradox. If you picked up and moved a box in the past, make sure you don't try moving it again in the future or you'll have altered the flow of time and made a paradox! You fail!

Again not possible in a non-modded Portal and creates way too complex gameplay. Most people can't even think with Portals...much like Portals and time!

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4.) Moving Enemies
Yeah... there weren't any enemies that moved in Portal. So I think there aught to be some that move.

Like what? The entire Aperture Science Facility is meant to be deserted except for Chell and GLaDOS/Turrets. No other humans are in there besides Chell. This would just take away from the general feel of Portal and make it more like an FPS.

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5.) Enemy Portals
I'd like to see some enemies that'll inteligently use portal guns. Maybe they all shoot purple and green portals...

Not possible with unmodded Portal and dear god I would hate to program the AI that uses Portals....

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6.) Carry a Light
I can't figure this one out... (not that I've managed to do anything else yet.)

Like Ricotez said, prop + light_dynamic. A lot of your ideas have already been discussed here and some even made semi-realistic (gravity one). Try to search around more in the Released Maps section and the downloads page.

I've experimented with water and portals. Problem is the renderer for portals has a real problem with water. It's the same problem 3D skyboxes has. The renderer has to take part of the scene on the other side of the portal and reder it in front of the portal. So you look at a portal where the other side is underwater and suddenly the water is rendered on your side of the portal.

And Gravity can be overridden, but the problem is the orientation of the player is fixed in Portal. It's the "auto righting" that happens when you come through a portal at an angle. You can change what wall you're falling toward, but you can't change the direction the player thinks is "up".

Oh, great programming projects!

Too bad we're doing maps.

Oh gravity's been done, and we know magical ways of shifting it, yup, it can be done!

MrTwoVideoCards wrote:
Oh gravity's been done, and we know magical ways of shifting it, yup, it can be done!

On objects...whoop de doo.

No, numnuts. Real Time, geezus. Aside that it, can effect your positioning.

MrTwoVideoCards wrote:
No, numnuts. Real Time, geezus. Aside that it, can effect your positioning.

wut

MrTwoVideoCards wrote:
No, numnuts. Real Time, geezus. Aside that it, can effect your positioning.

But does it affect your orientation? If you change gravity to have the player fall towards a wall, does the player orient as if the wall was the floor?

Give me one good reason I should not take "lack of original ideas" personally and crack down with my awesome powers.

Also, pretty much everything you mentioned is impossible without a mod, even then it would take FOREVER to do. Especially underwater portals. That would rape the shit out of your computer.

MrTwoVideoCards wrote:
No, numnuts. Real Time, geezus. Aside that it, can effect your positioning.

Also means Orientation as well in the Dictionary.

MrTwoVideoCards wrote:
Also means Orientation as well in the Dictionary.

Well, when you create maps, Position is the Origin (almost) and Orientation is the Pitch Yaw Roll. That wasn't clear enough.

BUT, STILL I'd like to see how it can be done. I mean, to reverse the player's view...