This is the map I submitted for the Super Mapping Contest at TWP... but this new version is much more polished, deeply TESTED (hehehe) and also easier! I've taken care of each single step making them firmer than in previous version upon my beta-testers' comments. I have added a new panel in the middle of room 3's ceiling in order to make the final step much easier. And yes, I've packed everything into the file so it should be seen now perfectly

It's a MEDIUM-HARD difficulty fling-based map along 3 main chambers. No glitches, ninja movements or crazy things are involved, seriously! Only logic is required and a certain ability to control flinging, that's all.

I've added an easter egg too for those who wants more challenge It's not so difficult but it's funny to reach! Try!

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OFFICIAL SOLUTION VIDEO RELEASED
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SOLUTION TO THE NORMAL RUN (NO EASTER EGG)
uKAS9f765TU
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COMPLETE SOLUTION (INCLUDES EASTER EGGS)
RHLJwWs2fOc
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Special thanks to:

• Greykarel: Grey, man, you're incredible, thanks for your help playing it again and again and with the skybox technical improvements... I owe you one!
• Markiu: Marc, thanks my friend for test this map in each version and for finding all those ninja movements for breaking the map that only you are capable of ... And also for suggesting/inspiring the easter egg!
• Zivi7: Chris, thank you so much for testing it all the times and let me know your detailed comments on issues and annoyances!

You're awesome guys!! There's an overlay for each of you hidden in the map... go find them and take a picture!

• Vanessa, my graphic designer and friend. Artwork, signage and skybox colour correction by her... you are the best! don't leave me ever!

• Neco: Necati, I have missed you all this time my friend!

And finally, thanks a ton to Thnkingwithportals.com, I wouldn't known what I know about mapping now without the community, thanks from the bottom of my heart!

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CREDITS:
- Portal's Light rail platforms by Skotty (thanks for that man, awesome stuff as all you make!)
- Original Skybox by Komaock
- Original design of the light supports by my dear friend Neco.

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ChangeLog

• v2.0.1: changed the height of a portalable wall that allowed an important unintended movement (thanks Sickle). Added some more tweaks.

• v2.0.2: changed player model from "Bendy" to "Chell". Added many particles and effects. Fixed the bug on the water reflections when shader details settings are set to "low"/"medium".

• v2.0.3: minor changes. Removed unintended move for the easter egg part (thanks to comoros94). Added a reflector-cube respawning at room 2 (in order to prevent that the player has to get back to room 1 to solve it again and get the cube back). Fixed a possible player's lock at final steps in dot2 (thanks to Mr. Waterhandle)

Click here to download The Second Exodus 2.0

Click here to download The Second Exodus 2.0

Even though they're uploaded to the Workshop, and there were some in the contest version's thread here there are some screenshots:

Wow! Awesome map =)
It took a while to get used to the color scheme and just what was portalable, but after that no real issues. Considering how few portalable surfaces there were overall, I think you did a marvelous job of reusing bits 'n pieces and making the user think at every single step without the various elements giving too much away! It deffinitely requires thinking, and a bit of finesse, but nothing too crazy so it's the sort of map I'm happy to play in any mood. Visually I love the way you kept it consistent too, even with the alien skybox looming over. I have too much praise for this map (except for the P1 rail platforms; I'm too impatient for that shit). Thanks!
I'll get cracking on the alt ending and easter eggs after breakfast.

Here's my solution, seems pretty legit:
Solution
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Thank you so much for those kind words Sickle I'm so glad you liked it, man.

About the video, did you really watch it before posting it? I think you missed some editting... I didn't expect to watch you noclippin', dude!

Also, is that really the look of the water texture in your computer? My beta testers played this last version and I am pretty sure the water texture is embedded into the bsp and can be seen correctly... but in your video looks like if it would be missing (??) Please let me know.

And, at 4:19 I'm afraid I simply left in the last version that wall too low and your movement is completely unintended! Damn it! Fix on the run..............

Aaaah, just noticed the angled panels on my replay. That bit at 4:19 makes sense now!
(The noclip was deliberate, I just hate waiting for platforms and lifts :p)

That is how the water looked though, yeah. Could it be 'cause I was using LDR only?
I'll let you know how the update looks!

Edit:
Forgot to say thankyou for adding those triggers to hold the cubes in place and stop them falling off stuff! Thankyou!

sicklebrick wrote:
That is how the water looked though, yeah. Could it be 'cause I was using LDR only?

Hmmm... I compiled both, LDR and HDR, built cubemaps in both... and tested it... and it looked perfect... I'll look into my water's .vmt and see if there's something missing as soon as I arrive home

sicklebrick wrote:
(The noclip was deliberate, I just hate waiting for platforms and lifts :p)

OK, but I think what you did is not possible Try the normal way and revise your portal placements to finally do the fling and place the cube on the bridge...

The water works fine for me.

Got the companion cube, but I still have to find those hidden overlays.

Lol, it is possible - I didnt noclip through any fizzlers or anything.. just over the moving platforms.
Here it is with just that section:
video
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sicklebrick wrote:
Lol, it is possible - I didnt noclip through any fizzlers or anything.. just over the moving platforms.

Lol you're right

About the water issue, I think it could be the directX... I'll try something when I arrive home that I think will fix it (hopefully).

(please wait up for the upcoming version )

Heh.
I think I remember reading somewhere that renaming the .bsp can screw up your cubemap and reflections and stuff? Doesn't look like the workshop has screwed with your BSP name though? (And I assume it would correct for that).

sicklebrick wrote:
Heh.
I think I remember reading somewhere that renaming the .bsp can screw up your cubemap and reflections and stuff? Doesn't look like the workshop has screwed with your BSP name though? (And I assume it would correct for that).

No, it's not that, I never changed the bsp name after building cubemaps, don't you worry, I think I've got it. If you don't mind and you're online on steam within 2 hours, I'll update it and will ask you to check in order to see if it's corrected, ok?

Woops, I edited that message during your reply. Sorry for spamming the thread with this issue.
Just checked.. it's fixed when I move "Shader Detail" from medium to high.

OK, map updated to v2.0.1

Thanks Sickle

Here's my solution for 2.1 - The water's looking good now
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(give it 10-15 mins)

Well, I finally managed it! Some manoeuvres are a bit tricky, but nothing beyond impossible for mere mortals.

The only time I had a bit of trouble, is in step 3 of the last room. The second place where you have to put a cube on a light bridge. I don't know if it's something weird I did, but the bridge kept getting deactivated time after time, so that took quite a lot of attempts before it finally worked. It may be that I played it before you added the triggers sicklebrick mentioned. I'll try it again later to see if anything has changed since the last time I played. (Gotta do that anyway to get the companion cube.)

About the water: do you run "buildmodelforworld" before shipping? Because if you don't, the water will look like shit on certain shader detail settings. (The nasty thing about this command is, that it only works properly if you installed Steam in a folder without spaces in its name. So if you accepted the default "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam" during installation, it won't work.)

Edit: To clarify: this is a console command, like "buildcubemaps". It builds a simplified model of the entire map and plops it into your BSP file. On some settings, this is used in the water reflection (and faraway portals) instead of the actual map.

@Sicklebrick: Thank you for the video! Both path and movements are completely intended now. Anyway, there are a few steps that could be done easier as the chamber n?1, you don't really need to move the blue portal from below the ledge that leads to main hub after placing the cube on the button, only the orange one to get near the button and grab the cube from it to place it on the other side of the blue portal, below the ledge. Also, a couple of steps can be done differently but I didn't feel like forcing the player to do my way of doing them after zivi7 already did and also it's shown in your 1st video. I'll post the official solution video later this evening after getting back from work. Only the "normal" run, without the easter egg

@HMW: I'm so glad you played the new version of my map and managed to finish it . About the second laser beam area, well, it's strange because I believe you played the same version than Sickle. Both laser catchers are so tweaked in order to make the cube placement very easy, maybe you didn't ungrab the cube quickly enough right when it made the laser beam hit the catcher?

Regarding that command "buildmodelforworld" I think it's interesting, but I installed the game in its default path so it has spaces in the path... Isn't there a way of solving this any other way? by introducing for example any variable into the .vmt of my water material. Something similar to when you use the <dx90 or GPU<1 variables in combination with "$forcecheap" 1? I'd like not to uninstall the game if there would be any other options.

About your comments and rating you posted in the contest thread of previous version of the map, I wanted to thank you for that man, even quite some time after the contest finished, I found it very useful. Also:

HMW wrote:
Aesthetics: 5
This is the most beautiful map I have seen so far in this contest. Not only does it have a very unique style, the lighting, textures custom details and custom skybox all form a solid, coherent theme that wouldn't look out of place at all in a commercial game. Some models are white and the cylindrical wall lamps are missing a texture, but I don't feel like subtracting points for that since it's obviously a packing error.

Thank you so much for that It really means much for me.

NOTE

To anyone who may be stuck and want to solve the map, please do not hesitate to ask for any hint. Just tell me where you're stuck at and I'll help. Also any comment or suggestion is much appreciated!

josepezdj wrote:
maybe you didn't ungrab the cube quickly enough right when it made the laser beam hit the catcher?

That's probably it! I'll pay extra attention to that when I try it next time.

josepezdj wrote:
Regarding that command "buildmodelforworld" I think it's interesting, but I installed the game in its default path so it has spaces in the path... Isn't there a way of solving this any other way? by introducing for example any variable into the .vmt of my water material. Something similar to when you use the <dx90 or GPU<1 variables in combination with "$forcecheap" 1? I'd like not to uninstall the game if there would be any other options.

It's not so hard to move the Steam folder to another location. I have done it before, specifically to get this one thing to work. (There are several other suggestions further down in that thread, involving hard links, junctions and such, if you wanna get your geek on )

Now, if I junctioned it, would both filenames have to have no spaces in them? Or just the "real" one?

For the most part, the new junctioned path will be kinda like an extra door into a room - different path, same result...
However if a program attempts to figure out its own folder, (i.e. to load other files in the same folder), it'll get the path back as the original one (since it now has multiple paths to choose from). If you make a shortcut to the .exe, you can specify a "Start In" folder, which might actually work if you provide the new path (without spaces), but by the looks of it, you'd have to alter the files HMW mentioned anyway... so you're as well off just moving it to c:\steam\ or something.

Hm. But what about a hard link on the EXE? It would depend which path it was run from to determine argv[0], right? But it Steam launches it indirectly...I have to try this.