First off, very nice website!

I'm just wondering if anyone has yet attempted to make a map that would allow the game mode that Valve mentioned and cut. The one where you try to get a ball across an arena using portals. I personally was really looking forward to that one!
If it hasn't already been done, I might be interested in making my first map for portal.

I'm actually basing my first map around that type of concept. You will be separated from one side of the room, which will contain a ball. You will have to simultaneously solve puzzles on your side and the other side to send the ball into a "hoop", which is basically a tube section on top of a ball button.

I'm still trying to get my mind around the logistics of being able to accurately fling the ball with consistency without making it painfully simple (very small portalable surfaces that give you no room for error and the like). The end goal is getting the ball into the hoop to go to the next room, if there are any more rooms

Btw, how do I get the edgeless safety cube in the game? I have yet to find it in the FGD. I thought it might be a subset (I/O option on the weighted cube), and theres no prop for it, yet we still have the button. Am I missing something painfully obvious here?

Neoxx wrote:
Btw, how do I get the edgeless safety cube in the game? I have yet to find it in the FGD. I thought it might be a subset (I/O option on the weighted cube), and theres no prop for it, yet we still have the button. Am I missing something painfully obvious here?

CubeType 3 is an edgeless safety cube. Add that keyvalue to a prop_weighted_cube and you should be all set.

Nightgunner5 wrote:
Neoxx wrote:

Btw, how do I get the edgeless safety cube in the game? I have yet to find it in the FGD. I thought it might be a subset (I/O option on the weighted cube), and theres no prop for it, yet we still have the button. Am I missing something painfully obvious here?

CubeType 3 is an edgeless safety cube. Add that keyvalue to a prop_weighted_cube and you should be all set.

Oh! Looking through the properties again I found "Type of cube" and "Ball" was one of them

Also, I'm using the FGD from Facepunch, so I dont know if thats slightly different from this.

More ball based puzzles would be sweet,
but I was thinking more along the lines of something like a competitive sport.
Open arena, two buttons and an Edgeless Safety Cube. If a cube lands on a button, it starts to run up a counter so the other player must get there asap to remove it. The first one to get so many seconds on the button wins.
some obstacles and minor puzzle elements will help it out, though. Later versions might have traps so you could kill the other player(s?).
Here's hoping that mapping for Portal's not too difficult. I guess I'm going for it.

earllad wrote:
More ball based puzzles would be sweet,
but I was thinking more along the lines of something like a competitive sport.
Open arena, two buttons and an Edgeless Safety Cube. If a cube lands on a button, it starts to run up a counter so the other player must get there asap to remove it. The first one to get so many seconds on the button wins.
some obstacles and minor puzzle elements will help it out, though. Later versions might have traps so you could kill the other player(s?).
Here's hoping that mapping for Portal's not too difficult. I guess I'm going for it.

So basically, competitive Co-op? King of the Hill with two hills? Sounds cool!

Nightgunner5 wrote:
earllad wrote:

More ball based puzzles would be sweet,
but I was thinking more along the lines of something like a competitive sport.
Open arena, two buttons and an Edgeless Safety Cube. If a cube lands on a button, it starts to run up a counter so the other player must get there asap to remove it. The first one to get so many seconds on the button wins.
some obstacles and minor puzzle elements will help it out, though. Later versions might have traps so you could kill the other player(s?).
Here's hoping that mapping for Portal's not too difficult. I guess I'm going for it.

So basically, competitive Co-op? King of the Hill with two hills? Sounds cool!

OMG YES!! I would love some competetive coop. It wouldnt simply be problem solving, but more like a battle between each player. Have different nodes that are activated/deactivated in different ways, and you need a certain number of them active to win. If not just simply king of the hill, have stuff like throwing a ball into a hoop, throwing yourself at 1 of many activated targets, building a multi-stage light bridge to press a button.

Might even be worth its own thread to explore competetive maps and mini-game like things more. I'm a huge fan of mini games and 1 on 1 games, and portal definitely has many new opportunities for this.

well that sounds awfully complex. I need to figure out how to run Hammer and actually build a room before I can ask for help scripting some awesome stuff.
Ideally I'll build a basic room and just turn it over to whoever can improve it and we'll get variants

New to mapping? Never used Source SDK before? Look here!

I can think of very easy ways to work something like the idea I stated:

1. Connect each "node pair" to each other so that when Player 1 activates a node, Player 2's node deactivates. Player 2 has to then reactivate that node to gain control again.

2. Have a logic gate that requires X number of nodes to activate the end game sequence (killing the other player, confetti, etc). It would be very easy to make something that needs ALL nodes active, but with more than 3 nodes to get it might be too hard to actually win.

I'm sure theres a much simpler way to do it, but if you want a sure fire example right now heres one:

Make a logic gate for every permutation of how ever many nodes you need to win. If theres 5 nodes and you need 4 active to win, you would make 5 gates to represent every combination of nodes active to win. Only when all 4 corresponding nodes are 'on' for any of the gates would it fire the end sequence.

Thanks for the link, I've already got a basic room but for some reason all textures and entities I have access to are HL2 stuff, have to keep looking.

That concept still sounds too complicated! I'm really digging just a room with 2 buttons LOL.

Ok, so I have a basic layout with two courts connected by a chamber that'll have to be navigated to bring the cube between them. I've got goals and a place to put the button, but I haven't attemped scripting yet to get the button or the screens for score.
Right now I'm stuck on getting the right textures/lighting.
Is there a guide out there that can help me find just the Portal textures amongst all the HL2 stuff?