Observation Rooms

[Bulska]

I'm working on a little map for Portal and I would like to place some Observation Rooms around the place.

But I have no idea where I can find the glass texture... Does anyone know where I can find that shader?

Other usefull hints about making a cool observation room is much appreciated too.

[Ricotez]

That special glass texture can't be found in the texture browser, and Hammer depicts it as purple-black squares. The best thing you can do is open the Portal map Valve has supplied with the SDK (or decompile a random Portal map) and copy-paste the texture.

Please note that you must turn the brushes you use that special glass texture on in func_brush, if they're world brushes or func_details the textures will act very buggy, much like a hall of mirrors-effect.

[Bulska]

how excactly can I open up a Portal map? I got GCFscape, i dont know if I need to use that.

I've bumped upon another problem, but it isn't about the observation rooms.

The lights don't bounce anymore, lighting looks really bad now. I dont know what I've done but suddenly the lights wont 'bounce' anymore.
How can this problem appear and how to fix it?

Besides that, any tutorial on how to make an observation room?

[Aldéz]

The texture
The texture can be found in the texture browser. The name is glass/glasswindow_refract01. It will appear as a missing texture (purple/black checked pattern) since Hammer can't display refracting textures. It'll look fine in the game though. The texture won't work on func_detail entities.

The lights
You probably have a leak, check the compile log. If you have a leak, go to Map > Load Pointfile. A red line will appear somewhere in your map. Follow it and you'll find the leak.

The observation rooms
To see how Valve did, you can extract the maps with GCFScape and then decompile them with VMEX.

[Ricotez]

Watch out, Aldéz, I thought it was illegal to post a download link to VMex on this forum...

[youme]

mlseeper wrote:

Oh, and if anyone is caught vmexing you can bet your ass you're gone.

Correct me if I'm wrong but what msleeper meant here was that using Vmex to copy/paste valves work into your own maps is stricktly forbidden. msleeper himself has said that for education purpouses (which is what Aldéz is suggesting) is fine.

[Megadude]

The VMF that come supplied with the SDK has an observation room in it already, so no need to decompile any maps. If you want a bigger observation room than the one in the VMF, just make the room and the window bigger.

[MrTwoVideoCards]

Ricotez wrote:

That special glass texture can't be found in the texture browser, and Hammer depicts it as purple-black squares. The best thing you can do is open the Portal map Valve has supplied with the SDK (or decompile a random Portal map) and copy-paste the texture.

Please note that you must turn the brushes you use that special glass texture on in func_brush, if they're world brushes or func_details the textures will act very buggy, much like a hall of mirrors-effect.

The texture exists in Hammer right, then it must be in the Texture browser... YOu have an example Portal vmf in your Source SDK content folder, look that up, and you'll find the texture.

[Bulska]

Woa thanks! All my problems which i've posted have been fixed!

Thanks alot, especially the red line. I remember it from Quake 3 Arena mapping to indicate leaks. Now I can fix my other map too ^^


Oh I got the texture placed on the windows now, they look cool.
But what's a good way to make doors in the observation rooms? Overlay?

[Bulska]

I'm off for a week, so I wont be able to reply for a moment.

I'm going to post one last question, and if I need anything else in the upcoming week, I'll just make a new topic with a fitting name.

The rotating Portal Gun pedestal tutorial is a little bit incorrect. I used it for my room but in my test chamber the Portal Gun rotates for a longer period.

In time, the Portal Gun aim gets off and shoots at the wrong wall, making it impossible to complete the test, unless you want to wait a long time for the gun to regain its aim. (Or restart the test chamber)

I know I can look this up in the original maps, but a quick answer would be usefull, in case anyone already knows.
Please don't waste time looking it up in the original maps for me, I'll do that myself if nobody has the answer in their head or notebook.

In anyway, thanks for all your help so far

PS: I'm going to Mallorca for 1 week, be back monday.

[Aldéz]

Ricotez wrote:

Watch out, Aldéz, I thought it was illegal to post a download link to VMex on this forum...

Hmm, the rules only says that it's wrong to post links to illegal files. VMEX is not illegal itself. There's even a link to the program in The Valve Developer Community. As youme stated, I only intended to provide the link for learning purpose. I'm not encouraging anyone copy/paste anything from maps made by Valve or anyone else. If the moderators find it suitable to remove the link, please do.


About that rotating portal gun. Did the tutorial tell you to use a func_rotating to rotate the gun? It's not a good idea, since it relies on a timer to start and stop, and timers aren't exact. Use a func_door_rotating instead. I'm too lazy to explain how to set everthing up. You could download my prefabs instead and see for yourself. And please don't pick on me for tipping about my prefabs (I'm not saying any names... ). It's very convenient to do so, and they are perfectly legal! They contain observation rooms too... OK, enough advertising lol

[MrTwoVideoCards]

Vmex FTW, it isn't a bad program, but it can teach you alot once you really see a Valve map, even I vmex now and then. But copying and pasting is bad, yes.

[Fusion]

MrTwoVideoCards wrote:

But copying and pasting is bad, yes.

Copying and pasting may be taking Valve's work and calling it your own, but both Portal and Hammer are Valve's work and we're using Hammer to make maps that look like Valve's testchambers, the idea of the appearance of the testchambers and all the textures used also being Valve's work.

Of course it's bad to steal someone else's work but if you build it from scratch to make it look like the real testchambers and it ends up exactly like it, why not just copy and paste, it's just easier and you get the same result. When we build maps for Portal we are automatically accrediting Valve for the tools to make it, the textures, and the layout anyway.

[Aldéz]

Fusion wrote:

Copying and pasting may be taking Valve's work and calling it your own, but both Portal and Hammer are Valve's work and we're using Hammer to make maps that look like Valve's testchambers, the idea of the appearance of the testchambers and all the textures used also being Valve's work.

Of course it's bad to steal someone else's work but if you build it from scratch to make it look like the real testchambers and it ends up exactly like it, why not just copy and paste, it's just easier and you get the same result. When we build maps for Portal we are automatically accrediting Valve for the tools to make it, the textures, and the layout anyway.

I don't see a problem in copying certain entity setups from decompiled maps. It's when you start copy whole rooms etc you can call it stealing. If you want to make a test chamber with that genuine feel to it, you can't do it in many ways. The style of Portal don't allow much room for free thinking.

[msleeper]

Aldéz wrote:

I don't see a problem in copying certain entity setups from decompiled maps.

I do.