Well the way that Omnicoder and Reepblue have made gels work is as I was planning to do; the entire map must be prepared as if it were a grid with sections being activated to produce your effect when paint is detected in those areas. Unfortunately paint from an info_paint_sprayer according to Omni can't be detected so you have to use prop_paint_bomb as a template to reproduce itself. Yes, this is very inefficient, easily breakable and not a complete solution but until Valve give us access to modify the code it's the only way I see possible.

On another note, the particle effect is ready. Unfortunately I am having trouble overriding the standard VPK one. Omni told me that bspzip/packing the replacement file overrides any VPK version but that doesn't appear to be happening for me after using multiple packers with 0 errors. Inching closer and closer to VPK editing.

Another update.

I gave up trying to override the VPK and edited it. The custom coloured box is now complete as is the splash effect. Unfortunately the splash itself is STILL the wrong colour so it seems my almost certainty about the third unused colour in the effects file being used for the final splat colour was wrong. Still got to find it before I can edit it. Any ideas?

Are there any tuts for like programming things like gels, or somewhat specific? The one on the Valve wiki is mainly only about binding keys, not too helpful...

Sorry, where are you finding values to change the splash/world paint color? I'm doing something completely different but that also recolors the stick gel and would really like to know. I found the blob colors, easy enough, but what particle/script do I look for for the splash/paint?

Thanks.

Update:
I have now been through every single material & texture, particle effect and script. I cannot for the life of me figure out where the final splash on the ground effects colour is determined. I say 'every' to mean, 'all common sense places for where it would be,' but it looks as if either Valve are monkeys banging on a type writer and the colour file is in some completely innapropriately named place or it is being determined in the program itself. If the first is true, I am too tired of this chase to continue searching. If the latter, well as I keep repeating we'll have to prompt Vave for modding ability. Either way I now have enough to put together a heavily modified demonstration of my idea. Hopefully if enough people do this it will make Valve consider giving us the access we need to make our ideas a reality.

Additional note, I have also not managed to find the effect for when paint splashes on a player and the colour appears on their screen.

If someone knows of a command that provides a printout, or overlays the gameworld with a grid like navmeshing that tells you the name of the effect/material/script/w.e in action at that point in time it might help. Unfortunately, I know of no such script and until then cannot figure out the paint splashes source.

Last note for those who find this thread and wish to continue the search, I do NOT believe the splash is 1 simple material. As stated, you can have small sprays of a paint when you use a paintbomb and only when enough of an area is covered does the effect come to work. As a result I'm almost certain it is part of a script.

I will continue to check this thread for updates and I will be posting all I discovered in the next few days.

@TheDarkness73 - http://www.leeland.net/l4d2-scripts-pla ... c-toe.html is the best available example.
@MrHappy - I have only managed to modify the colour in the particle effects, the blob and the cube. I need to take a break from searching for how to modify that splash because as far as I'm concerned it is now as stated determined in the program itself somewhere.

Yes I was afraid of that, there are definitely shader maps for the surface paint but not color. Probably hard coded in the dll :*(

Does this mean I can't retexture the portal gun?

Does it look like this?
http://forums.thinking.withportals.com/viewthread-t3487.html

If yes, then I guess some old files where left in.

@MrHappy - My worry too sir.
@YoHoat - Yes, you can and people already have. It requires VPK editing at this time though.
@AnotherBadPun - I can get that easily. I'm going for changing the entire colour, not simply adding the purple blob colour.

I've taken the last resort step and am now asking Valve. Hopefully they'll give a solution or tell me it's not possible so I can completely give up the search. (Unless some genius comes along with a way to override the paint colours.)

@WinstonSmith

I can see that Electric Gel and the idea of Sticky Gel being mixed, the gel is lethal until you magnetize yourself when you can then walk on it for maybe a 30 second time limit at which point you fall to your death/get electrified. Think Iron Boots from Zelda Twilight Princess with the walking on walls/ceiling.

I unfortunately return with sour news. As stated I emailed Valve, specifically Dave Kircher. He then seems to have passed on the message to Pongthep Charnchaichujit who has confirmed to me that the code IS in the game itself:

Quote:
Currently, there's no way to change the color. It's determined in code that you don't have access to.

So at this point I and everyone else has 3 options. The first is to simply use purple paint. The second is to wait and hope Valve do eventually release code access. The third is to have the paint blobs that you want but not have the paint land on anything. I.e, the paint falls into the sludge in the underground or just falls into the chasm in the modern facility. This means your effect can still be applied to objects/cubes. The fourth is to wait until I or someone else figures out a way. Considering the importance of the mechanic to both the storyline and central gameplay mechanic we wish to add I will have to continue working on this to try and figure it out.

If someone comes up with a solution before I do, please post it up here. Massive credits will be given.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who has helped me with advice and notes for where it could be. Goodluck out there gentlemen.

I don't know if this has been posted already, but in addition to unused paint type "1" which is purple, there's type "5" (dark blue) and "6" (black)

When I try to shoot a portal at purple, nothing happens. When I try to shoot a portal at dark blue or black, my game crashes.

OMFG! No this had not been posted and I didn't think Valve had any other paint in the system! The only reason I found the abandoned sticky purple paint was because the number 1 was not used, it jumped from 0 to 2!

Sir, your finding is astronomically important to me! We now however have to hope that there is a way to add a blob texture. We guessed correctly that the purple paint was 'stick' so we just did that as the end of the name of the texture and it worked. What the hell could these be!?

If you'll notice however, there is no splash particle effect with these paints. They do not exist at all. However this is less important then a correctly coloured splat!

I don't want to rush back to Valve and annoy them with this the day after I asked them for help with the other question. It is likely that these paints were other abandoned game mechanics. If this is the case I wouldn't hold my breath on getting the name of the texture we need to add as it would reveal the mechanic, something they are probably thinking about using later.

Everytime I give up on this someone finds something to spur me on. The hunt is back on in less then 12 hours after it ended, gentlemen! We must find the blob names to make those 2 gels work! HUZZAH!

Quote:
When I try to shoot a portal at dark blue or black, my game crashes.

• Fuck, we'll have to find a solution. It's either finding a way to block portals and add a blob texture or attempting to somehow automatically colour correct a texture that doesn't exist. I haven't given up yet... again.

I believe I know why firing at those 2 would crash from looking through the code in the binaries, it appears they don't have the proper handlers for Portal placement that they all inherit because the white gel needs it so it crashes. If it was giving verbose error messages I assume this would be a pure virtual function call, I'll check with a debugger when I get the chance. If this is the case there is no way to fix it without patching the game exe or modifying it in memory as it crashes even if you fire at it on a metal surface.

Ah fuck. I thought walropodes might mean just when it was on a standard portable surface which would have still allowed it to be used without heavy modification.

Omni, can you tell what the name of the material is supposed to be, i.e, portal, stick, bounce, speed for the blob materials for either colour, or has that not been properly determined either? (If it's not determined I take it there's no way to add the texture it requires.)

Also, where are these binaries?

Enraged wrote:
Omni, can you tell what the name of the material is supposed to be, i.e, portal, stick, bounce, speed for the blob materials for either colour, or has that not been properly determined either?

It isn't defined. There's a chance naming it with no prefix (but still keeping the underscore) may work if the engine is just concatenating the paint type name with the material suffix.

i know this is 4 years later, but valve was lying- you can change the splat color with these console commands:

[speed/portal/bounce]_paint_color [red amount, 255 max] [green amount, 255 max][blue amount, 255 max] [transperancy, 255 is the fully opaque default.]

now you just need to know how to re-skin the blobs themselves and your good.

tile wrote:
i know this is 4 years later, but valve was lying- you can change the splat color with these console commands:

[speed/portal/bounce]_paint_color [red amount, 255 max] [green amount, 255 max][blue amount, 255 max] [transperancy, 255 is the fully opaque default.]

now you just need to know how to re-skin the blobs themselves and your good.

Several people have already used this, look at (Hammer) maps with Adhesion or Reflection or Adhesion or whatever gel in them.

But if you have discovered this thread among the ruins of civilization, welcome! And remember, in singleplayer you need to reload the map after applying the console commands, unless you want them to only affect the screen effect when the player is painted. Testing is the future, and the future starts with you!

• If the developer console no longer applies in the future, God help you.