Quote from nightfire on April 15, 2008, 11:03 pm

First of all, Welcome to TWP!

Now on to the map.
I understand that this is your first map and I am happy that you have decided to take the plunge into map making, so I will go easy on you.

First of all you should probably align your textures so that they do not abruptly end like they do in some places in your map. You should also try to vary the texture a little, try using the no-portal floor tile texture instead of the wall texture for the floors. and try adding some more detail to make the environment more interesting.

Second make sure that your map makes since. I had a hard time figuring out where to go or what to do in this map. An example would be the pit that if you fall in it you just randomly die. You should place some toxic waste or some other method of identifying that it is dangerous for the player.

Third, again I understand that this is your first map and all but you may want to post your maps initially in the [wip] section to get more feed back on how to improve your map before it is sent out for final release.

Since your new to mapping I suggest that you check out some of the other hl2 mapping community for tutorials about mapping in general. Sites such as http://www.halfwit-2.com and http://www.interlopers.net are a great resource for beginning mappers such as your self.

Quote from tijitdamijit on April 16, 2008, 12:03 am

OK, so what you're saying is the way I design the levels is flawed?

What about the puzzles themselves, because that's mainly what I was focusing on. Did you finish the whole thing?

As from now on, yeah I'll post maps in the wip section first.

Quote from nightfire on April 16, 2008, 12:33 am

No, not the way you design your levels, just that you need to learn to spend more time adding detail as well as making sure that the map makes sense to more people than just you.
I will admit that the farthest I have gotten in your level with out nocliping is the death pit. Let me make sure that I am doing the level according to the way you intended it.
[spoiler]I start off by putting a portal through the hole in the wall in the starting room. then I go into the room with the deep pit. and place a portal on the wall. Then I jump into that portal and while still inside it I shoot across the pit to place a portal on the opposite wall(this is called portal hopping) once I am on the other side I then slowly approach the entrance to the hall then quickly place a portal on the inside of the hall and duck in before the turret can get a lock. I then proceed to duck out go a little ways and then duck back into the portal until I was close enough to the turret to pick it up and knock it over. Now with the cube safely in hand I place it on the button and go across the extended bridge and place a portal through the small hole in the wall. Then I go back to the door that opened in the wall and proceed into the starting room and through the orange portal. once I am here I am a little confused as to what you want me to do? The cube is not tall enough to be placed inside the pit of death and I dont think that the turret would help much. At this point I am assuming that my solution was not the intended solution for this map.
Perhaps you could enlighten me?[/spoiler]

Quote from rellikpd on April 16, 2008, 1:29 am

nightfire please put that last part of your post in spoiler tags. just incase someone doesn't want to see

tijitdamijit: firstly i would say this is DEFINATLY a work in progress. a "final" map should be polished, look good, have lighting, signage, more than 2 textures. etc etc. now like nightfire i will try to be nice as this is your "first map" but. this thing is... is....

Ricotez wrote:

...is ugly like your sister's butt...

now the puzzles them self were kinda cool. but seriously request to have this thing moved to work in progress. had we downloaded this thing FROM work in progress i doubt we'd even be dawging your textures and such, now we might have mentioned them, but still rather focused on your puzzles instead of ugliness of design.
some notes on THAT (design) as nightfire said. the "random death in pit" thing. needs some sort of sign that its dangereous. also its possible for the player to become screwed cuz if i'm correct you have to [spoiler]use the cube to jump said pit, and if thats the case you can accidently knock the cube into the pit, and have no real way to get it out without reloading a previous save game or starting over[/spoiler] aside from that i thought that the puzzles (although not entirely new) were fun, or atleast could be if this thing was polished, my personal favorite was the [spoiler]hallway with the turret and how you either have to carefully portal tunnel behind the turret, or leap frog down the hall into progressively closer portals[/spoiler] and just fyi, i have beat the map, and never had to noclip/or anything.

anyway welcome to TWP and you have already contributed more than many of us so you're on your way, keep up the good work, and oh yeah ask to have this thing moved to work in progress

Quote from Hober on April 16, 2008, 1:34 am

rellikpd wrote:

but seriously request to have this thing moved to work in progress.

Tijit, just ask.

Quote from MrTwoVideoCards on April 16, 2008, 6:10 am

Can we get some images, that will really help alot.

Quote from Fusion on April 16, 2008, 7:24 am

I think you could be a great mapper with some more practise on how to use Hammer like snapping to grid, texturing, lighting etc.

[spoiler]I managed to get up to the last bit where the exit sign was and I assumed you wanted me to jump up onto the raised platform. I couldn't do this without the cube but I couldn't bring the cube through because it was stuck in the death pit. The way I got out of the death pit was by walljumping with the cube, I'm not sure if it's the intended way.[/spoiler]

Even though I couldn't finish the last bit there were some good ideas in the map. Well done, keep on mapping.

Quote from Aldéz on April 16, 2008, 2:55 pm

I finished the map without any cheating, but it was very confusing. I had a hard time figuring out where to go next. Signs and perhaps indicator strips would help a lot [spoiler]and it was far from clear that one was supposed to end the map by pressing the "button".[/spoiler] I also had to do much backtracking, because it was easy to do mistakes. Other than that I think everything has beens said. If you can learn to do some polishing I think you can make good and challenging maps. My favorite puzzle was also the turret at the end of the corridor. And thank you for crediting me for the prefab.

Quote from tijitdamijit on April 16, 2008, 7:51 pm

Initially, the death pit didn't kill you, you could put a portal on the floor to get back, but then getting back to that point without the cube was annoying. I'll change it back how it was before. I'll probably add another button that moves up a second ramp, so you can get back there reasonably quickly.

Does anyone here think backtracking to solve the puzzles is actually a bad idea? If not, I might use that concept in my future maps as well.

I'm glad people liked my turret puzzle. I would've added another one, but half the community maps I've played is just turret spam, and didn't want to create anything like that.

In the next release, I'll change the textures on the floor as well, and accomodate a few other requests you guys asked for. The fact that my map is ugly and has no lighting etc is coz like I said, I'm completely new to the program, and I was focusing on making the puzzles as unique and intuitive as possible.
So thanks for the feedback everyone!

And one more thing:

Quote:

How did you know my butt is ugly?

~my sister =P