Hey guys, more info about the first release and the status of the maps it will contain, in the case you aren't tracking the mod/mappack:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-enceladus-initiative/news/first-release-content

Hey, I only just now noticed that you made a thread for this project in here. I should stop not watching the single player / coop forum

As I said earlier, your custom style looks fantastic! I'm very curious how it plays, especially since you mentioned that it requires some flinging skills, and some of the rooms look pretty complex. So I imagine that it will be quite challenging!

Btw if you need more beta testers, I'm happy to return the favour

HMW wrote:
As I said earlier, your custom style looks fantastic! I'm very curious how it plays, especially since you mentioned that it requires some flinging skills, and some of the rooms look pretty complex. So I imagine that it will be quite challenging!

Thank you so much HMW. It's nice to hear that my custom style likes these many people in the forum indeed. But of course, coming from you, the mapper that I consider the one with the best personal style ever, is so cheering!

Regarding challenge, I'm trying hard to make it funny and creative at the same time, puzzlewise. I must admit that the last 2 maps are difficult, but I can't say that everyone will like them though. I think the rest will be ok for many ppl... Let's hope so!

About beta-testing, thanks a lot my friend! I'll take you up on it soon!

Hey guys! This is to share some images of the map n? 4 in which I've been working on this past weekend. As the main chamber is so open space, it's difficult to optimize and I've been delimiting it or dividing it in different sub-areas in order to reduce the bit of lag I had, so it's currently only 85% or so finished. Still some fine lighting pending plus indicatoring.

I hope that you like them. Any comments/suggestions would be nice! Thanks!

I also updated some of the images in page 1 of this thread.

Cool looking maps. Too bad there's no such thing as Portal 2 mods.

msleeper wrote:
Cool looking maps.

Thanks msleeper! I'm so glad you like them... I would REALLY like you to test them when released in order to get your opinion about the maps.

msleeper wrote:
Too bad there's no such thing as Portal 2 mods.

What do you exactly mean by that? I have already implemented the game menu, have my finished maps into the mod folder running perfectly, have included the pictures for each map in the menu, loading screens, and such... Portal2 mods do exist... Or are you saying again that about "no mod gets finally released"?

I mean that adding some maps and editing some plain text scripts does not make it a "mod".

Well, that's true, overall in my case, as this is my first mapping project ever. I never ever mapped for any game, so I'm still learning. I haven't even modified models and such, or made any new one... Maybe for the second installment I can introduce some really custom stuff that make this a real mod-ification of the game...

Or! You could just stick to calling it what it is - a map pack.

Yes... or maybe a single player mini campaign... To be frank, I don't really care about what would this be... All I expect is that ppl in the forum like the puzzles and don't find them too difficult.

OK, this got me thinking for a while. I also remember that I asked about the differences between mod and mappack to some of you via pm in order to gather some opinions before deciding to use one way or the other...

The question is: what does it really make a mod to be a mod? what amount of things should you mod-ify so your mappack can be considered as a mod-ification of the game?

Is is a new puzzle element or a modification of some of them? Because I expect to introduce a new puzzle element (with skotty's help) for the next installment (as I want to design the puzzles and such it'll take quite some time and won't be able to add it to this first release).

New with the mod so far:

• Puzzles ofc: I have tried to use some mechanics I haven't seen in any of the maps I've played. I know this doesn't mean there aren't there because I haven't played ALL maps here, just a good number of them. Anyway, I promise all puzzlse will be challenging and interesting (I sincerely hope not too much difficult)... I'm taking my time on it.
• Custom textures/style/atmosphere including new skyboxes
• New story
• New soundtrack
• I've been thinking seriously to add custom voiceovers as I've noticed they are very popular amongst players, many of you always emphasize about it when you find them in a map. On the other hand I've been thinking about it since the beginning because I think my storyline requires it, and I've always thought of something similar to HAL9000 from "2001: a space odyssey". I hope I'll have time to implement them before the deadline...
• There'll be an intro too but still working on it. I want it to be something good, not much just a short animation.

I would like to hear some thoughts from you guys. Thanks in advance!

EDIT: Lol... msleeper! I am now an "Immediate Past President of the Being Alive Club hahahaha... awesome!

No one?

A HAL9000 type character would work great with TTS software, so you don't have to record your own voice. (Or find someone else who will do it. I don't know how your voice sounds of course.)
On the other hand, if it takes too much time, I would personally release sooner rather than spend a lot of extra time on a thing like this. Sure, it's very nice to have, but not super essential. And this is one of those things that will work against you if you half-ass it. (See: Portal Prelude.)

In the visuals and puzzle departments you don't have anything to worry about, judging from what I've seen so far

Re: the mod/mappack debate - I'm inclined to agree with msleeper on that one. To me a mod is something that changes the fundamental game into something else - like how Counter-Strike turned Half-Life into a team-based military sim, or more recently how DayZ turned Arma 2 into a zombie apocalypse survival game. By contrast, although you've undeniably done a shedload of work on custom elements and stuff (and even if you come up with a whole new testing element) at the end of the day the game is still Portal 2, with a portal gun and cubes and lasers and lightbridges and all the rest.

That said, this looks absolutely fantastic! Love the look, and as someone else said above it's really nice to see you've got a good consistency throughout the levels. I especially love the floors. Downright sexy floors. I also appreciate the fact that you've gone to the trouble of designing a whole backstory and everything. You just jumped right up alongside HMW's Sendificate sequels in my most-anticipated list. If I'm still around when you need beta-testing done (got a big round-the-world trip coming up, so might not be) I'd be honoured to help out. Best of luck with it all!

If you need a male voice and you like mine, I might be able to help you out. Check this thread for an example.

Thanks for this comment HMW! I don't know what TSS software is though, but I was thinking of recording myself some "plain prosody" lines and then tweak them in Reason 5.0 (the software I use for music composition) with some filters or making a mix of the voice + an instrument using the Reason's combinator (you get awesome results with this tool!)

Man, I know I should release ASAP and forget about all those details, but I want this to be good and as much detailed as I can... I will give it a think, plan my time and see if I can do all the things (I'm almost alone with this project so...). My deadline is July, 21th... let's see what I can and what I cannot get by then.

HMW wrote:
In the visuals and puzzle departments you don't have anything to worry about, judging from what I've seen so far

Thank you SO MUCH for your support! I repeat that coming from you, that's a real honor!

El Farmerino wrote:
Re: the mod/mappack debate - I'm inclined to agree with msleeper on that one. To me a mod is something that changes the fundamental game into something else - like how Counter-Strike turned Half-Life into a team-based military sim, or more recently how DayZ turned Arma 2 into a zombie apocalypse survival game. By contrast, although you've undeniably done a shedload of work on custom elements and stuff (and even if you come up with a whole new testing element) at the end of the day the game is still Portal 2, with a portal gun and cubes and lasers and lightbridges and all the rest.

Thanks a lot for this explanation El. I understand. To be frank, inside of me I understood the concept the same as you have described, but I wanted to know opinions about thes concepts anyway. I DO NOT want to make a Portal2 mod, then! . dude, I love this game, I stopped playing the rest of games because of this (due to my lack of free time I had to concentrate in one game ), so... you get the picture. Anyway, I think the mod-system its better for my project and I'll continue with it though.

El Farmerino wrote:
That said, this looks absolutely fantastic! Love the look, and as someone else said above it's really nice to see you've got a good consistency throughout the levels. I especially love the floors. Downright sexy floors. I also appreciate the fact that you've gone to the trouble of designing a whole backstory and everything. You just jumped right up alongside HMW's Sendificate sequels in my most-anticipated list. If I'm still around when you need beta-testing done (got a big round-the-world trip coming up, so might not be) I'd be honoured to help out. Best of luck with it all!

Thank you so much mate!:D. That really cheered me up. It's nice to bet for personal aesthetics when most of ppl use to stick to an existing Portal2 theme, to discover that yuo guys like! I sincerely hope you'll find the puzzles good as well.
Thanks as well for your offer to beta-test this. Noted! I wish you all the luck in that huge journey of yours! Sounds great!

EDIT: @zivi7, Thanks my friend! I'll listen to that sample you made for Motanum and let you know something later today on steam, k?

josepezdj wrote:
I don't know what TSS software is though [...]

I should have spelled that out. TTS = Text To Speech (software)

For the elevator, I would suggest that you change the elevatorcarpet texture to something that matches the atmosphere like plastic/office_plasticwall001a, or just creat a new texture that looks "seamless" with the round shape.

Thanks for your suggestion Ryan. Indeed I tried to use different textures looking more for contrast between them than the same look... But anyway I'm now reskinning some props, playing with lighting and introducing some minor changes in some parts, the elevators amongst them. I'll check out and post any new update pic!