I have added a generic actor named "Aperture_AI" to the map but when I detach a camera, I get any one of the following errors:

Scene 'scenes\general\generic_security_camera_destroyed-1.vcd' missing!
Scene 'scenes\general\generic_security_camera_destroyed-2.vcd' missing!
Scene 'scenes\general\generic_security_camera_destroyed-3.vcd' missing!
Scene 'scenes\general\generic_security_camera_destroyed-4.vcd' missing!
Scene 'scenes\general\generic_security_camera_destroyed-5.vcd' missing!

Any help is appreciated.

Thats just a shot in the dark; its not something I have really looked into.

Give me 2 mins to check.

Edit:
Yep, the problem lies in the way Riven's competition map was distributed. The scenes.image file he included in the "Scenes" folder is taking priority over the default Portal ones, and therefore the game can't find the GLaDOS voice scenes any more.

Delete that file, and it will work again.

NocturnalGhost wrote:
I also have the same problem, on a map that was fine just two days ago. I think I know what the problem is though.

Give me 2 mins to check.

Edit:
Yep, the problem lies in the way Riven's competition map was distributed. The scenes.image file he included in the "Scenes" folder is taking priority over the default Portal ones, and therefore the game can't find the GLaDOS voice scenes any more.

Delete that file, and it will work again.

Yup, that fixed it - and I have deleted all files related to Riven in any way and will spend the next 3 days trying to forget that he even exists.

For everyone that does not know this information, their Portal game is now "broken".

Curse you and your methods Riven!

Blame Valve, and their new implementation of the scenes.image file. It seems that now, using custom .vcd files is limited to mods rather than just maps.

Plus, there seems to be no information about this problem online, so this may be the first time this issue has been encountered.

NocturnalGhost wrote:
I understand your frustration, but it's not entirely Riven's fault.

Blame Valve, and their new implementation of the scenes.image file. It seems that now, using custom .vcd files is limited to mods rather than just maps.

Plus, there seems to be no information about this problem online, so this may be the first time this issue has been encountered.

So, curse them too?

Downloading a set of files that works for one map but hurts other maps is just not a good practise. The potential for problems is ALWAYS there, as this latest fiasco demonstrates. Its so easy to use those BSP bundling tools, and its MUCH cleaner for the people downloading.

The files are still packed into the current map though, so you are essentially downloading some 50mb for the map and then another 50mb*2 for the double resources.

The map really needs to be fixed up - and made smaller in file size.

I'm not sure if scenes.image is one of these files, but suspect that it may be, as Riven's original upload was bspzipped, and none of his scenes worked, which is why he distributed these files seperately.

However, it may not have been the packing of the scenes.image file in particular that caused his original problem. Some experimentation will probably be needed on this.

there can be just as much functionality with everything nicely packed into one custom maps folder, separate from everything else.

its just lazy programmers who found it easier to have .bsp files separate from any sound files or models or anything else that goes with a map.... good for the valve programmers. saved them a few hours. bad for users... makes an atrocious mess of the portal folder after a while.

I personnally thinks the SDK is simple when you see all he things you can actually do with it.
Saying SDK is a mess is kinda like saying building a bridge is a mess : yes, it is, but this mess is very small when compared to the result.

you have local as well as global resources and applications are smart enough to figure out the priorities of such resources and load them properly. in the meantime everything is kept nice and neat.

You can't, for example, make a scenes2.image file, and get the game to see it. This means that any custom scene files have to be named in a way that overwrites the original, and since they can't be embedded in the bsp, there is no way to use them without breaking the original game, or making a mod.

This is the situation with the beta sdk, and so, has a good chance of being the same in the release, since I haven't seen anyone complaining to Valve about this method yet.

Also, I don't think that bmz files will solve this, as they basically just extract the files to the correct folders anyway

It is also worth saying that there are other files that will not work when bspzipped. Some of the script files are executed before the map loads, and so modified versions packed inside the bsp will not function.

I may be wrong about some of the above, so feel free to correct me. That is just my understanding of it. Also, I would love to see some evidence that Valve will be making custom scene usage any better than it is in the current beta SDK implementation.

NocturnalGhost wrote:
This is the situation with the beta sdk, and so, has a good chance of being the same in the release, since I haven't seen anyone complaining to Valve about this method yet.

This is a feature of the next SDK.

Quote:
You can't, for example, make a scenes2.image file, and get the game to see it.

-Yes, that's totally true, and I tried to do that before releasing the map, but it wouldn't work.

Because nobody to my knowledge had done this before, you could say I was taking my chances implementing the custom vcd's with the new scenes.image file and that I was the first sucker to be fooled by its dis-functionality. I would take the map down, but I can't find a way to remove a file from filefront because I uploaded it without an account. I also can't remove the links I posted from the contest rules thread because it's locked, but It's probably best if msleeper remove the link from the voting thread.

Once again, I'm working to fix the map, and I'm debating whether I want to rework it with ambient_generics and timed triggers for everything, or wait until the scenes.image file gets fixed in the next update. (If it does). I'm also experimenting with bspzip and the file size, so hopefully I can release this map when it's finally "fixed" and done!

-Again, I'm sooo sorry for all the trouble. (there are currently 87 downloads for that file on filefront, and it needs to stop; this could mess up so many people!)