The ThinkingWithPortals Map Showcasing Thread

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RectorRocks
522 Posts
Posted Jun 07, 2013
Replied 36 minutes later
@PortalCombat PTI maps are nothing special. Not matter how good the puzzle is, the visuals of a PTI map can never be as good as a Hammer map. I don't see why you need to post screenshots of a PTI map here. Still, your PTI map looks fantastic and its visuals are much more better than any other PTI maps out there so good job! :thumbup: :smile:

@jordan1m Like what Lpfreaky90 said, this thread is not to promote your map. Since you already posted your map in the Download Database, place your screenshots there. From what I see, your map seems boring, although you used colorful colors which doesn't really fit well in the map. You only use one texture for the whole map's wall, one texture for the whole map's floor and one texture for the whole map's ceiling (which doesn't fit at all). I don't see any visible light models that emit white light (or even those colorful lights) and protruding white walls look sloppy. Another thing is your vactubes look out of place and lack of its connector. Also, panels can be seen overlapping the walls. Your laser fields lack of emitters and your grating lacks of frames. There is also what looks like a very thin glass which lacks of frames too. There is a lot of room to improve. Keep working on it :smile:

@Caden Your room looks pretty awesome but its a little too bright, making the purple field somewhat invisible. Also, the white floors on the fizzler makes it possible to portal-bump. Other than that, pretty good design :thumbup: :smile:

@FelixGriffin The Compressible Smoke Field will block the player and prevent portals from being fired through it.

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Caden
174 Posts
Posted Jun 08, 2013
Replied 37 minutes later
img

Is this still too bright? I tried halving the brightness of the projectedtexture and spotlight in the observation room, but to no avail.

RectorRocks wrote:
Also, the white floors on the fizzler makes it possible to portal-bump.

Except it's only possible to portal-bump when you have a Portalgun :wink:

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jordan1m
15 Posts
Posted Jun 08, 2013
Replied 12 hours later
@RectorRocks & Lpfreaky 90. My mistake, i should have mentioned, its heavily work in progress at the moment, as I've only implemented the necessary gameplay/puzzle elements. I simply wanted some feedback on that before I implemented proper art, everything is placeholder. I'm not looking to promote my map, just get feedback.

Its easier to fix a gameplay issue when your map is in whitebox than after you've nearly finished it and are ready to publish.

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FelixGriffin
2,680 Posts
Posted Jun 08, 2013
Replied 36 minutes later
Caden: that looks better, although still a bit too bright for me. Observation rooms give off a lot of light, so I prefer to use them sparsely.
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PortalCombat
306 Posts
Posted Jun 09, 2013
Replied 20 hours later

RectorRocks wrote:
@PortalCombat PTI maps are nothing special. Not matter how good the puzzle is, the visuals of a PTI map can never be as good as a Hammer map. I don't see why you need to post screenshots of a PTI map here. Still, your PTI map looks fantastic and its visuals are much more better than any other PTI maps out there so good job! :thumbup: :smile:

Well, thanks for your comment and I totally agree with you. :thumbup:

I know that the PTI looks are nothing special and they are almost boring,
but as you already said: I try to make the best of it.

My real focus is the puzzle itself. I am very lazy and I cant finish my maps with hammer,
because it just takes too long and I cant focus on the puzzle, when I have to worry about
the map building itself, too much.

Thats why I use PTI to create my maps, and if I really need something modded, I just create a
instance in hammer and then use it in PTI. which makes things so much easier. :smile:


I know there are many things which you cant do with PTI, but my laziness wont let me finish maps. :lol:

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josepezdj
2,386 Posts
Posted Jun 13, 2013
Replied 4 days later
Hey guys! I wanted to share how my remix of Toncica's "White Room" it's looking like so far. I'm finishing lighting and detailing a bit more and I need to finish the easter egg area :smile:

I know it's a bit too destroyed, but let me explain this: since the original map is called "white room" because of the absence of black tiles, I challenged myself to keep that idea from the beginning, so there isn't any black tile into the map except for the entry part (same as the original); this forced me to destroy certain walls in an "extra" area that I made as a way to avoid portals from being opened >.< And I decided to take this chance to make a destroyed/overgrown style map... because from all the orignal themes this is my favourite! :wink:

(Click on each image to enlarge.....)
img img img img img img

Any suggestions or comments are highly appreciated :thumbup:

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FireFusorf
57 Posts
Posted Jun 14, 2013
Replied 9 hours later
Whoa ! This is beatiful ! Very good job josepezdj.
I think I'm not as qualified enouth to give you suggestions, but I have one question : I can't find the "grid with a hole" like under the button on pic 2. Is it a texture or a model ?
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josepezdj
2,386 Posts
Posted Jun 14, 2013
Replied 27 minutes later
Cheers mate! Thanks :biggrin:

Those below the button in pic 2 are models (just browse for 'wall' or 'debris' and you'll find them), the texture of the grate with a hole is 'metalgrate018b.vtf' :wink:

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RectorRocks
522 Posts
Posted Jun 14, 2013
Replied 11 minutes later
(going horizontally)
Picture 1 looks great, but the rest of the pictures are a little too bright for a destroyed/overgrown chamber.
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Fluppy
94 Posts
Posted Jun 14, 2013
Replied 54 minutes later
@josepezdj

Wow, this map is looking awesome! Almost everything is destroyed, nice job! :thumbup:
I also really like the idea of using only white walls because a lot of people limit the amount of white walls in order to prevent unintended solution. But if your puzzle can't be skipped even if player is allowed to place portals anywhere, your puzzle design is probably very good.

Just be sure to try out all kinds of flings because with a lot of white walls it is easy to fling somewhere and break the puzzle.
Example
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCzMBDGfReQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlUSLz1HHhA

I can't wait for this to be released!

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josepezdj
2,386 Posts
Posted Jun 14, 2013
Replied 33 minutes later
@RectorRocks: yeah, you are probably right, thanks for the comment. You're not the first one who points that out, Lp and Sickle already did yesterday. I added extra lights in order to raise the overall lighting because I thought it was too dimmed, lol... I'll play with the contrast later today :thumbup: ...as I mentioned I'm dealing with lighting right now, so it's not definitive. Also maybe you're liking more the first pic because it has black textures in, they look great with the warm lights (I prefer those over the white ones). Usually the mixture of white and black destroyed textures allows you a more rich environment than if you try to keep the white ones all over like in this case...

@Fluppy. thanks for the kind comments mate :notworthy:

Fluppy wrote:
I also really like the idea of using only white walls because a lot of people limit the amount of white walls in order to prevent unintended solution. But if your puzzle can't be skipped even if player is allowed to place portals anywhere, your puzzle design is probably very good.

THAT is the magic of the original White Room! :biggrin: I loved the idea of having a completely white room where, as you said, many flings and crazy stuff is possible (amazing video-shorcuts btw :eek:) and still build a solid and challenging puzzle! But ALL merit here goes to Toncica! Indeed the original one is clean and elegant, while mine might be a bit more twisted :biggrin: As I mentioned I had to destroy certain (lot of) walls in the extra area to avoid portals on, and I guess this kind of breaks the rules >.< !!

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LoneWolf2056
193 Posts
Posted Jun 14, 2013
Replied 4 hours later
Wow that looks really awesome Jose :thumbup: Guess you are the new master of destruction :lol:
The bottom left is my favourite picture, love the obs room broken in half.

I do agree with the others that apart from the first picture its a little too bright, still looks epic though.

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srs bsnss
552 Posts
Posted Jun 14, 2013
Replied 41 minutes later

josepezdj wrote:
Hey guys! I wanted to share how my remix of Toncica's "White Room" it's looking like so far. I'm finishing lighting and detailing a bit more and I need to finish the easter egg area :smile:

I know it's a bit too destroyed, but let me explain this: since the original map is called "white room" because of the absence of black tiles, I challenged myself to keep that idea from the beginning, so there isn't any black tile into the map except for the entry part (same as the original); this forced me to destroy certain walls in an "extra" area that I made as a way to avoid portals from being opened >.< And I decided to take this chance to make a destroyed/overgrown style map... because from all the orignal themes this is my favourite! :wink:

Any suggestions or comments are highly appreciated :thumbup:

Wow! That looks amazing! Attention to detail is fantastic. Perhaps a bit bright, but that's arguable.

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iWork925
1,080 Posts
Posted Jun 15, 2013
Replied 1 day later
Destoryed/Overgrown needs harsher shadows. More contrast!
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LoneWolf2056
193 Posts
Posted Jun 15, 2013
Replied 8 hours later
Some destroyed detailing for Portal Stories: Mel, btw this chamber is tilted about 4 degrees or so.
img
img
img
img
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RubyCarbuncIe
303 Posts
Posted Jun 15, 2013
Replied 4 hours later
Trying to get back into map making, I've been out of it for a long while. I found this old side scrolling project I was working on, I decided to show it so that maybe someone more experienced with how some of this stuff works would like to take a crack at it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwcBNJxnnss&feature=youtu.be

Before, I couldn't get Chell's thirdperson model to show up, so I made an attempt to bind a model to the player, that worked, sort of. The camera still needed work, as well as limiting the player's movements to only the A and D keys, because moving up and down would mess up the player's position on the map.

I doubt I'll ever finish this before I go onto other projects, so if anyone wants to expand on this idea, then they can go right ahead.

I've been looking through the pages here, and I see some very promising looking maps from everyone. Keep up the good work! :smile:

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iWork925
1,080 Posts
Posted Jun 16, 2013
Replied 7 hours later
Would totally play the crap out of that. :thumbup:
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Sejievan
232 Posts
Posted Jun 16, 2013
Replied 2 hours later

RubyCarbuncIe wrote:
Trying to get back into map making, I've been out of it for a long while. I found this old side scrolling project I was working on, I decided to show it so that maybe someone more experienced with how some of this stuff works would like to take a crack at it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwcBNJxnnss&feature=youtu.be

Before, I couldn't get Chell's thirdperson model to show up, so I made an attempt to bind a model to the player, that worked, sort of. The camera still needed work, as well as limiting the player's movements to only the A and D keys, because moving up and down would mess up the player's position on the map.

I doubt I'll ever finish this before I go onto other projects, so if anyone wants to expand on this idea, then they can go right ahead.

I've been looking through the pages here, and I see some very promising looking maps from everyone. Keep up the good work! :smile:

Man that's pretty cool!!!! you have to finish that.

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josepezdj
2,386 Posts
Posted Jun 17, 2013
Replied 17 hours later
OK, I've been playing with the lighting contrast and it is becoming to look much more interesting! :biggrin:

Thanks to all for the suggestions :thumbup:

imgimgimg

@Lonewolf: those screenies are impressive, as usual! YOU are the master of destruction, no doubt about that.

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iWork925
1,080 Posts
Posted Jun 17, 2013
Replied 3 hours later
Much better. Last image seems to have a lack of shadows though.