Hello, I have been lurking here for awhile and enjoying all the wonderful content that you've all released. This thread isn't really about that...

I come here today looking for some urgent help. I need to find a talented and creative Portal 2 mapper who will be able to help me with a very, very important personal project that needs to be completed before the 21st of August.

What I can tell you about the project is that I need someone to make a portal 2 map with a starting area, two extremely simple, basic puzzles and a finale. The map is more about atmosphere than it is about being a challenging set of puzzles and it must be easy to complete. The "finale" is a short scripted event similar in complexity to GLaDOS' fake "surprise" in Portal 2. I have more specific plans for you to work with but I cannot post them here.

I can also tell you, rather excitingly, that I have Valve's blessing with this project and have in my possession some unheard GLaDOS dialogue which I scripted and Ellen McLain recorded for me. Once revealed, I intend to make a short video of the map which I'm certain will get some coverage on gaming blogs because of Valve's input. You will of course be thanked in the video.

I'm afraid that the nature of the project doesn't allow me to go into any further detail on a public forum as it would entirely defeat the purpose of it all if anything were leaked. I'm aware that this might make this whole thing seem a little bit suspicious but I assure you that you will understand my reasons once I explain it in detail to you.

The ideal person for this job would be someone who:

Is familiar with portal 2 mapping such that they can deliver a playable, bug free map by the deadline.
Is also able to create a visually pleasing and entertaining map using the game's assets, lighting and soundtrack. The ideal map shouldn't look out of place next to the campaign levels.
Has some examples of their work that I can see and, preferably, a portfolio of other level design work (not necessarily Portal maps).
Can keep the nature of the project a secret until it is revealed.

I mostly need someone who will take this project and run with it but also understand how important this project is to me and take it seriously.

If this sounds like something that you might be interested in, or if you know someone else that might be up for it then either post here or send me a PM and I will PM you my email address.

Thank you all for reading, none of this will be possible without you.

I'm a little curious; if the project is so dear to you, why not oversee the dev process yourself and learn to use Hammer? Trust me, it's not that steep a learning curve, and it's really quite satisfying to see the project grow and develop, culminating in a work of art. I'm also, however, a little curious in the other direction, that of liking this idea (though I do have a healthy amount of scepticism for now). Because of that, I wonder whether your secrecy would forbid me from asking a few little question; for example, what sort of theme is it, destroyed Aperture, CJ era, clean...? Also, is there some sort of correspondence or something with either McLain or Valve (all secret details redacted, naturally ;D) that can prove the legitimacy of this project? I look forward to hearing your reply. Have a nice day!

I'd love to learn to use Hammer and do this myself but I have very, very good reason why that's not possible with this project.

I'd be willing to give this reason and answer almost all of those questions via PM or email. I only want to avoid posting them in public. Unfortunately, I can't seem to use the PM system as a new member (anti-spam measures, I guess). Is there any other way that I could contact you?

EDIT: Here's one of the emails that I received from Erik Wolpaw about the recording with my name, email and the subject edited out. Hopefully it should go some way to proving that I'm not making anything up!

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s283/GaryHudston/Screenshot2011-07-19at201048.png

Sure - Rubricapaintnet (at) googlemail (dot) com. It's a public email anyway, practically, so I don't mind posting it here.

LovelyNeurotoxin wrote:
Unfortunately, I can't seem to use the PM system as a new member (anti-spam measures, I guess).

You just need three posts to be able to send PMs. So, one more.

Also, excited just to know that they are just recording new dialog. Sounds like the DLC is comin'.

Looking forward to hearing more about this project. Feel free to PM the admins and let us know about any big releases and we'll see about covering them in the news section.

I'll definitely contact the admins once I've got something to show. I'd like it if thinkingwithportals.com got some exposure from this as well.

I hope that I find someone to help me soon, I've been keeping this to myself for a couple of months now and it's going to kill me!

this looks like some serious shit

This is the first of the 'someone make me a map' threads that is legit. I'm surprised msleeper hasn't said anything yet.

LovelyNeurotoxin, i would be glad to take a look at your project,
if you want to know what iam capable of, just check the frontpage of this website

My mapping style mainly features logic over agility and tediousnes.
With a nice consistent and subtle visual language to instruct players on what to do and what not to do.

Anyways, i do however want the option to "opt-out" if i dont see any good in the idea.
(though i guess if you have good stuff going on it wont be a problem)
However i wont spoil anything if i were to quit the project obviously.

If the project works and if i'm convinced that valve is prepared to record custom content because of a mappers request, then i might request valve to record some extra rick lines for planned chambers i intend to make.

Also, if you let me in i would be able to "verify" the legitness of the project and then convince the rest of the community about it being legit (and maybe even attracting extra help if needed).

If everything what you say is true we need all the help we can get, but it will be a bomb of a project

Try to send me a PM or mail to [email protected] for further details.

Hello, I read through the post and figured that I might be able to assist you in the creation of this project.

As for mapping experience I've got 6 years mapping experience and currently work for a small game design company. I'm also the project lead on a rather popular Portal 2 mod called: Portal 2 Lab Rat.
http://www.moddb.com/mods/portal-2-lab-rat

As for portal 2 levels that I've created, I have one I can show you in this public post and the other will have to be private as it pertains to the mod and needs to be kept a secret until its release.

Here is the latest portal 2 map I have created that is for public viewing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T3OaUGuGbQ

I figured I'd keep this short and simple, I'll leave all of my contact information below if you want to check me out further.
Website: http://www.tophattwaffle.com
Steam: doogiehoogie
Skype: TopHATTWaffle
E-Mail: [email protected]
(Email is the best way to contact me)

Thanks for your time!

I would love to be a part of this, I only have 1 1/2 - 2 years of mapping experience, but I can definitely create a quality map if needed.

Email address - [email protected]

Please contact me when you can!

ok i've seen your email LovelyNeurotoxin, and i can verify for other forum readers both that it is "legit" and has all the reasons in the world to be kept secret until it's release, it will be awesome though!

count me in!

MissStabby wrote:
ok i've seen your email LovelyNeurotoxin, and i can verify for other forum readers both that it is "legit" and has all the reasons in the world to be kept secret until it's release, it will be awesome though!

Ooooh, I can hardly wait to learn more about what this is! I have to admit it had a distinct whiff of troll or rickroll when I first read it yesterday. Something about the OP's post just felt a bit too earnest. Who is that nice on the intertubes?

Anyway, if you are involved, MissStabby, this truly will be awesome. I know the request is for two simple puzzles, but that doesn't mean they can't be GOOOOOD!

Good luck! Looking forward to all being revealed. This is almost as much fun as a Valve ARG!

P.S. That was my other thought upon first reading this thread. I thought it might be the first curl of smoke in a new ARG related to Portal 2 DLC or something else Portal-esque. A couple of the photos of crustaceans in the OP's photobucket folder (where the Erik W screenshot is) sure reminded me of Frankencubes.

beatdarwin wrote:
Something about the OP's post just felt a bit too earnest. Who is that nice on the intertubes?

This made me smile a lot. There's worse things to be, I suppose!

EDIT: Don't go wasting your time analysing those images in photoshop for ARG clues, they're just old photo's of some Hermit Crabs that I used to own!

The project is proceeding nicely,
Though i can tell that this map isn't suited for all players, it's kinda quirky, you either love it or not.
Still the map will be awesome i promise

This project sounds really exciting. While I'd love to get in on this, there have already been applicants (like MissStabby) who I'd consider more qualified than myself.

If I may ask on question, to either the modders or lovely, how would you go about adding the dialogue to the game? Would it be handled by an ambient generic, or is there a way of adding custom scenes to actors?

morrock wrote:
Would it be handled by an ambient generic, or is there a way of adding custom scenes to actors?

for the angrybombs map i only used "Abmbient_generic" sounds.
And for the timing with the onscreen sphere i used a relay that fired the sound at 0.00
and then fired all kinds of different animations at later times, depending on the dialog.

The times of when the animations had to fire were obtained by opening the extracted wav files in audacity and just selecting parts and watching what the timer displayed.

Well, as nice as the dialogue inAngryBombs was, using Ambient generics means that you don't get subtitles, and considering that people probably aren't going to want to kiss out on all-new GLaDOS dialogue, this could be a problem, i.e., for the people with no speakers, or the deaf, et cetera... I know they're a minority, but you might want to take that into consideration, perhaps if you finish before the twenty-first.

I had custom subtitles in Retrospective, I'll explain them to anyone who needs them.

--redacted--

Never mind, see a few posts down. My apologies.