Quote from Resplendent on April 16, 2012, 2:25 pm

Being an immense moron, it took me a looooooong time to figure out the laser controls where the cube teleports to. I wish there had been some kind of automated demonstration to make this fact clear. Once I figured that out, the rest of the map was very enjoyable. Great job

Quote from HMW on April 17, 2012, 5:04 pm

Moar hoot!
[spoiler]

sicklebrick wrote:

Gotta say, loving the insane amount of work you're putting into just flashing the laser >.<

Oh, It's not just the laser that's going to be flashing. I'm hoping to shoehorn one other special effect in where it's really useful to know the full path of the laser. And this code will undoubtedly be useful for future gizmos! (Either by me or other people.)[/spoiler]

Resplendent wrote:

Being an immense moron, it took me a looooooong time to figure out the laser controls where the cube teleports to. I wish there had been some kind of automated demonstration to make this fact clear. Once I figured that out, the rest of the map was very enjoyable. Great job

Thanks! The laser situation is being worked on. It will be a lot more obvious in the next version.

Quote from sicklebrick on April 17, 2012, 5:20 pm

[bigspoiler=Moar hoot!]Napalm cubes! o/[/quote]

Quote from HMW on April 22, 2012, 8:31 am

Version 3 is finished! It's still processing as I write this, so please wait a few minutes.
I think the new graphics effects turned out very well. Please let me know what you think!

I also put the source files online at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/51831059/Portal ... _v3_src.7z

If you want to look at how I made this, check out the source rather than decompiling the map. It has instances for the various parts and everything

Quote from El Farmerino on April 22, 2012, 10:20 am

Great stuff - an excellent concept and some very good ideas on how to use it. I thought the new elements came across beautifully as it is. In fact, I'd say Medium/Hard is a bit of a stretch - I was never stumped for more than a minute or so - but it was incredibly enjoyable from start to finish. Looks fantastic too. Looking forward to the next instalment.

Quote from FourthReaper on April 22, 2012, 11:53 am

Gee, HMW, I just replayed the map to see the changes in V3, and it looks great! The orange buzzy vibe through the laser when there's no entity to teleport is really nice. Though I must say the green halos are kinda' strange to see. The cube shape looks good, but those puffs are strange. Also, maybe the laser looks too much like a laser? You've already remade it all, right? Is it a good call to recolor the laser entirely? (Maybe to green?) Though it's your call, that might be far too difficult or just not rewarding enough to do, dunno'.

Anyway, great work, I love this. I can't wait for more of these maps!

Quote from HMW on April 23, 2012, 4:06 pm

@El Farmerino: I knew from the start that the difficulty would be perceived very differently by different players, so it was hard to give an accurate difficulty rating. I went for a more conservative "medium/hard" to avoid frustrating players who don't 'get it' as fast.
(Aside from that, the map designer is per definition the worst person in the world to be able to determine this, so it's generally a toss-up anyway )
I'm glad to hear that you still enjoyed it though, despite the fact that it was clearly on the easy side for you!

@FourthReaper: Thanks for your feedback! The original plan for the rings around the beam was to have them fade out like the other green things, but they just didn't want to, whatever I tried. Perhaps for the next map I'll make animated models for them instead of circular env_beams. We'll see.
As for the colours: because I don't know how to re-colour the original beam, I just draw a second beam over the existing one. This beam is indeed green when a cube is sent, but the red of the 'normal' laser still comes through, resulting in a sort of yellow. To make a more pronounced colour change, It would either have to be a thicker, more solid beam (which I have tried and found to look ugly), or I would have to shut off the normal laser while the effect plays. (Which I don't want to do because it will cause problems with future puzzles, when laser catchers and relays are involved.)
So the colours will probably stay the way they are for the time being. The most important thing for me at this point, is that there is an effect at all instead of none

Quote from Sesquiplicate on April 23, 2012, 6:47 pm

Awesome new element! The [spoiler]middle level's reflection teleport[/spoiler] had me stuck, but that was really cool!

Quote from zivi7 on April 23, 2012, 8:16 pm

Wow, great improvement both visually and soundwise!