Quote from Jane_Doe on July 4, 2011, 5:57 pm

xdiesp: If you don't understand the difference between elegant and laborious, you might as well piss off, and if you're not being sarcastic then you need a new dictionary
bjs0 : I'll create you a walkthrough as I see it, then you can tell me - in a civilised fashion - where I've missed shortcuts - sorry about the darkness of the upload : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtM_tvxUxlc

Quote from MissStabby on July 4, 2011, 6:01 pm

Jane_Doe wrote:

If you don't understand the difference between elegant and laborious, you might as well piss off

I actually ask myself if you actually understand that difference yourself.

Blackbox maps are quite common and dull, working with paint, especially white paint is very very difficult. Paint is something that's intangible, it can get anywere if you dont watch out.

Paint can both easly shortcut or even break a puzzle (getting bouncy paint on the wrong parts can be frustrating).
Also when trying to "block out" wrong solutions, you might end up with a weird design with invisible walls, glass or other ways that players are constrained, you have to let them do "everything" but only have one of the options be the correct one, this will make players feel smart and free at the same time. If you are constraining the player, the player might feel like he's just performing a list of tricks that you have come up with, instead of solving a puzzle.

The reason xdiesp actually quoted those maps for you is for you to find them, play them and learn from them. Playing lots of different (user) maps learns yourself what you like and what you dont like about certain maps. After wich you can be "ill try to avoid making that mistake myself".

Those 2 maps were some good examples on how to handle (or how not to) handle paint.

I'd suggest adding white panels to places that wont matter to the puzzle being white or black.
Also adding glass, deep pits, goo, grates or other non-paint materials to your map can benefit it aswell.
Also when trying to "block out" wrong solutions, you might end up with a weird design with invisible walls, glass or other ways that players are constrained, you have to let them do "everything" but only have one of the options be the correct one, this will make players feel smart and free at the same time. If you are constraining the player, the player might feel like he's just performing a list of tricks that you have come up with, instead of solving a puzzle.

With a diverse map design you'll actually be able to hint a player what he is supposed to do.
Without spelling it out on the wall in a literal fashion.

You can start feeling attacked by those comments you are recieving, but remind yourself that they are only put down to help you improve your mapping skills. See them as ways to improve your mapping skill! Those people put time and effort in playing your map and finding flaws in it, you should appreciate that.

If i get a forum post saying "oh i could bypass this when doing that" i would thank them and search for a way to fix it, or figure out if that is maybe even a better "default" solution to the puzzle.

Anyways good luck with your maps, i hope they improve!

Quote from Jane_Doe on July 4, 2011, 6:09 pm

I do appreciate people telling me what is wrong with my map - after all it's my first attempt - but it's a matter of tone - hence my query about native language - either your man is epically gauche, or he's battling with a solid means of expression.
What I've heard suggests the latter - and before you pounce on me - I asked for feedback, not patronism, so 'lessons' are only helpful if they include detail. For example, I think your ideas about pits, grates and goo are worth a look - his diss-ing is not. Indeed as a first post it makes me want to quit trying - so hardly a productive reply
If you have played it MissStabby, I'd love to hear from you, you sound far less judgemental.
Anyway, tell me I'm over-reacting if you like, but meanwhile I'll look out for actual practical advice relating directly to the map I spent weeks learning to make
Cheerio

Quote from bjs0 on July 4, 2011, 8:48 pm

I apologize in advance for the length of this reply. Readers beware, as the following contains mild spoilers.

The walkthrough video was very enlightening. It seems, until I reached the final raised area in the second half, I was wrong about nearly all the solutions. But, I can see that there are specific methods for completing all of the puzzles.

The first chamber is much more soluble than I thought. I would even call the intended solutions "elegant." Equipped with the knowledge that the numbers indicate the places to stand to give the portal on the white floor panel the correct angle, I can see an experienced player completing the first area with not too much trial and error, and slightly above average difficulty.

Unfortunately, I don't think that knowledge is communicated. Some of the numbers are on the wall, and some are on the floor. And while I understand the necessity of placing them that way, it is very confusing. If they are meant to indicate standing places, they should be consistent. It is impossible to stand with all the numbers under your feet, or to stand centered parallel to them all. I made it to the second area (by improper means), and, in my mind, the fact that a laser was pointed directly at the "4" ruled out the idea entirely.

With the map's name, my instinct was to paint the numbers themselves. And I did, in fact. I even recorded myself bumbling around for ten minutes or so, accomplishing nothing.

I can say confidently that, as it is now, the first area is too open-ended to really be entertaining. At least for players with tastes like mine. My suggestion would be to couple the numbers with "x" marks on the floor, or some other consistent indicator. Maybe some arrows pointing from the "x"s toward the white floor panel. I don't know how much hand holding you prefer, but I might go so far as to put some indicator textures on the walls at important paint targets.

The second area is good. I really enjoyed it.

... With the exception of the paint gymnastics necessary to activate the first beam catcher. Even after watching your walkthrough video, I am still not entirely sure what went on. And that tells me this puzzle might not be salvageable.

The later part was perfect, except for a small exploit. In order to paint the wall at the end of the excursion funnel, all that's necessary is to catch a ball of paint in the funnel and press the standing button repeatedly. Consider adding a small delay before the button can be re-activated, allowing enough time for the paint to fall out of the funnel's range.

And there is a glitch in the logic of your indicator lights. The section between the standing button and the sphere button seems to be out of sync.

But this is your first map, right? It's a great start. Overall, I think the concepts are worth exploring, but the action is a bit messy. I consider myself an average player. For me, the fun of Portal lies in discovering the solution, and I believe the execution should thereafter be simple. I've heard many others make similar statements. If you can make the execution rewarding as well, then all the better.

MissStabby said that you should be thankful for criticism, and she is right. The players are giving you their effort and attention. But that's half the story. When a person creates a map, they are giving at least as much to the players. Some people in this community have an air of entitlement, as if the privilege of being provided with free entertainment was a given. And that makes me upset. Ideally, the process should be mutually beneficial. Making maps is fun. Playing maps is also fun. So why shouldn't it be?

Quote from Another Bad Pun on July 4, 2011, 9:31 pm

I think this map has some interesting potential. I really like maps that use conversion gel; some maps try to avoid it beacuse it's so difficult to control. I just have two suggestions that should help out on you're next mapping project. The first one is that gel usually functions best when both the angle radius have a value from about 10 to 13. Valve usually uses 12 for the radius and 12 again for the angle. This should help the gel spread out more natuarally. The second thing is that you're map was sorta dark for me. A very easy way to solve this is observation rooms. Not only do they give the map a creepy feeling that the player is being watched, but It also helps light the chamber natuarally. You can implement them quickly using the instances Valve provides. I usually end up building them from scratch, (for some reason I prefer to make everything myself.) Overall, I think it's a fantastic first map, and I'll be looking out for you're next one.

Quote from MissStabby on July 4, 2011, 10:47 pm

I have tried your map,
Fist of all i wont try to mess with the puzzle itself, its nice, its yours and it all depends on the mapper how he wishes to setup his puzzles.
(for instance, i like to make "hard to solve, easy to perform" maps without too much risk of death or time punishments for failed jumps or other moves)

Though from what I've seen I have the idea that you have trouble communicating with the player.
when looking at a chamber, there is too much similarity in all the walls and floors.

what I recommend trying is have the entire chamber as white as possible (since paint will most likely do this anyways), except the parts that you need to paint.
this will both brighten the room an inform a player on what he should an shouldn't do.
You can spent a lot of time painting a black room white, only to discover you just need a certain patch to be painted white, you can prevent this by having most parts already start out as white, since they would be covered in the first few clicks of playing around with the white paint.

Also, on places that you don't want portals you can use white stripes or checkers with a 64*64 size(or height) this will prevent portals but also add much needed brightness to your map or smaller.

A way to control how players can and cannot handle the paint is using the "info_placement_helper".
If you set both the "override normal placement rules" and "use specific angle" (or something sounding similar), you can redirect a portal's position to a certain area on a panel. (i suggest using a radius of 96). This trick is often used in fling maps to make sure people dont misplace portals while they are majestically sailing through the air like an eagle... piloting a blimp.
Though the best way to use this feature is on "extended" panels (panels that are extended outwards of the wall by 16 32 or 64 offset, on a panel arm) , this way players wont question the different portal placements as much as there isn't room for different places to place a portal.
(use a panel texture with a bullseye or just a texture consisting of two 128x64 panels, another fancy option is using a row of four 32x32 tiles left and right to a 128x64 tile)
The info placement helper works like this:
Big red arrow pointing perpendicular outwards, blue big arrow pointing to the bottom of the portal, green arrow pointing to the left and right sides of the portal. The portal itself is around 100x60 in size. So be sure to place it on a 128x64 or bigger panel to make it work properly.

Another thing I would advice you is to add logical lightsources.
A few examples are: sky holes for destructed chambers. For modern chambers you can use labs, labs were initially introduced in portal to add a logical lightsource that the player could believe in.
The last lightsource is the fluorescent lights behind those frosted panels. They can be found as a instance, both in clusters or just as single units.

You can use lights to guide the players attention to certain parts of the room.
Like put 2 128*32 lights left and right to a place where players should paint and funnel.

Another tool is the patterns on the wall.
By varying the tile textures you can create hints for players on where to place a portal.
The best example is the one portal 2 singleplayercampain map that Involves the lasergrid (chapter The itch)
There you see a big white wall, with the intended portal areas marked by 64*128 tiles, while the rest is covered in 32*32 or even 64*64 tiles. Even though it is subtle it manages to convey info.
Though be sure to add more random tile patterns to the walls since just having the portal spots be different still has 80% off your walls look sameish and dull. Just have fun creating elaborate panel setups. I'd say, have a look at the "triple laser" SP campain map in portal2, it is completely white, though it contains so much elaborateness in the patterns on the wall.

Most players won't even realise they are being helped this way and end up feeling smart after solving the puzzle

Another tool is colour, if you put warm tinted lights to places where players need to go, and cool tinted lights where players are coming from, it will guide them.
A last hint is to use the light grey tiles instead of the black ones.
They do the same but give so much more detail and brightness to the map.
Also, when combined with wall or ceiling lights, they look much better an more detailed.
Another trick is using laser emitters and portal funnels to add some blue and red glows to your map.
Just add a normal "light" in front of the emitters and let those emitters tint your room. (also a trick seen in the triple lasers map in portal 2)
Red for laser emitters/lasergrids, Blue for funnels. This will add some colour variation to your maps.
Though be sure that if the emitters can switch on/off that you couple that with the buttons and switches that toggle it, so when the emitter turns off the chamber wont be red/blue.
for the colour values (255 255 255 200) note that the first 3 numbers are for the tint and the 4th number is the brightness of your light, for emitters a brightness of 50 or 100 is more than enough.

As a last advice i would give:
If you are making a map and want it to be good, be prepared to support and fix your map for 2 or more weeks after you have released it. There's just no way to think of how 1000+ people can solve your map. Be prepared to fix exploits or atleast acknowledge them by adding some quote or other thing letting the player know you anticipated his trickery.
Also what i would advice is first for the mechanics only, put it up in a WIP section, then when you have finished tweaking the mechanics, start adding the visual layer to your map, and if that looks how you want it to, put it up in the released forum as version v1.01 and keeeep patching, that is inportant, let players know you are still ready to tweak and improve your "released" maps.
Calling a map final sends a message like "take it how it is... or gtfo" this isnt good ofc

I hope this helps you in getting to make awesome maps

Also, everything I mentioned I put into practice in the angrybombs map listed in my signature, try it out I would say.
Let me know what you think.

Quote from Jane_Doe on July 5, 2011, 2:18 pm

Thankyou to all the folk who replied with specific advice, I've learned a lot with regard to future detailing and lighting of maps.

I did wrestle somewhat with the idea of how to show players where to stand in order to orientate the 'collecting' portal under the gel stream in the first area - it appears the numbers on the walls were not as helpful or apparent as I'd imagined, and ideas from both bjs0 and MissStabby have given me ideas of how they could be better hinted at, with signs, lighting and wall-patterning. Also, perhaps some other walls or panels in the room could indeed limit gel use, making the intended solution more likely to be required to succeed (rather than xdiesp's talk of just spraying repeatedly until the place is white).

Also very helpful was some advice from AnotherBadPun about gel properties - I tinkered with thise for ages, but never seemed to find the right numbers to make it do anything but streak the walls somewhat.

As for lighting, it seems most folk like things better lit, though I was originally hoping to give the impression of being shunted into an abandoned, decayed chamber and then 'breaking out'into the better lit final area via the glass panelled wall. Even so, tinted areas and lighting extras like Observation Rooms could brighten things without changing that impression, I hope.
It being my first map, I basically began with simple things and tried adding more as I went, hence the way the first chamber is so plain and the last area has buttons and boxes galore. (duly noted about the standing button exploit btw, bjs0) I was also unaware of the protocol surrounding map releases - having only called it Final since I wanted to get it out for folk to look at.

Anyway, I'm much heartened by later postings about my map, I think I've found a lot more information and a growing amount of knowledge thanks to you folk. I still maintain that 'lowly playground instincts', 'unlikeable', and 'useless' are hardly constructive terms for a newbie to read, but otherwise I'm inspired to look over examples, learn some more, and come back with something better - or maybe just something else.

Mind you, since I'm working 6 days a week lately, I wouldn't wait underwater about it....

Quote from quatrus on July 5, 2011, 2:55 pm

Doe.... normally I wouldn't even play a map with rating of 2, but with all the conversation I thought I'd see what was happening. I couldn't see your video, link must be lost? I got through to the upper level where there was a round ball drop and a cube retrieval. I had to laboriously paint almost the entire room but still could not get the cube down from the upper area. Even if I did, it looks like I would have to paint yet another wall in order to get the cubes up to the double receivers. All the painting became tedious to say the least and I've unfortunately lost interest in finishing.
IMHO painting any surfaces should be relatively quick so that it doesn't become the puzzle to be solved.... Nice start though, I look forward to more maps in the future.
Playing others maps will help with ideas and techniques to incorp in your maps..... Play the list of contest winners if you haven't done already...Some of the older Portal 1 maps are also valuable....

Quote from MissStabby on July 5, 2011, 3:09 pm

Jane_Doe wrote:

I was originally hoping to give the impression of being shunted into an abandoned, decayed chamber and then 'breaking out'into the better lit final area via the glass panelled wall.

The best way to light a chamber like it's broken is with very sharp shadows.

In the dark, you cant see shadow's so using light provides strong contrast.
Study how the early chambers of SP P2 are lighted.

use spot_light's to cast shadows through broken parts of the chamber.
Also using warm lights gives the impression of sunlight peeking through.

Another think i can say is, when having a "flickering" light in your room, have another light at a lower intensity to make sure the "off" periods aren't completely dark, resulting in a stroboscope effect that would be offputting to certain players. you could add a "cool" low intensity light to fill up the shadows.

Also have you finished the game with commentary mode on already?
The commentary provides many hints to how to cope with certain difficult situations.