The ThinkingWithPortals Map Showcasing Thread
Click to make it bigger, using the Majhost thumbnails.
The more you give, the less appreciated it will be received.
You're using Reflection Gel as well? Nice, I can't wait to see what you do with it.
But which particles will you use? At the moment I know of four--I made purple ones, Sprowl black, Carl silver-gray, and someone on BackStock neon green. 
But which particles will you use? At the moment I know of four--I made purple ones, Sprowl black, Carl silver-gray, and someone on BackStock neon green.
Decided to go and work with Valve's screw ups and use a silver color. I also tried to play with the vmt to make it more mirror-ish, but my results made it look like it was in some graphics benchmark; ugly.
The more you give, the less appreciated it will be received.
I've been working on a destroyed theme map for a little bit now. I'm remaking some more of my friends' PeTI maps so I can really focus on detail. Any feedback would be great, here's some screenshots:
Click to show screenshots
Companion Cube that shows up several times in the map.
Small room in the first chamber (any idea how to get some light inside the tubes?)
Corner view of a room in chamber 1.
My first attempt at a destroyed ceiling. Just some props, should probably add some tiles and such.
A little bit of dust falling from the ceiling.
A little puddle and a shot of LP's death fizzler.
Small picture of a hallway connecting chambers 1 and 2.
Another try at a ceiling. Props look a little dark though.
Main room of chamber 2.
Floor view of chamber 2
I'm pretty happy with the work so far, but I'm sure you all will have lots of ways I can improve. Thanks in advance!
Wait is that the portal 1 companion cube? (I like it better). Also, as you said, the broken ceiling section does look a bit strange. Make it look more irregular, and have some tiles bending off of it. Other than that it looks very good.
Aperture Science: We do our science asbestos we can!
Yeah. I got bored one day and decided to port it over. I've added some lights in the ceiling and will add some bendy broken tiles soon. Thanks for the feedback 
I really like that skybox - is it meant to be like a sunset kind of thing? The dark blue sky + orange/red light gives it that impression.
...... screenshots ......
I'm pretty happy with the work so far, but I'm sure you all will have lots of ways I can improve. Thanks in advance!
WOW mate! Really really good looking so far 
However you could work on certain details:
- Normally, I guess that mostly because the cool skin light covers are a bit too clean, the destroyed theme looks better using warm skin light covers and I'd suggest also a warmer overall lighting. Check in pics no. 3 and 5 those light covers spotted by the env_projectedtexture coming from the sky (or whatever lighting you're using), look too unstained.
- Even though you're making a good usage of the skybox to spot the chambers, these are really darkened, overall at some parts. I'd suggest you to mess around with the light_environment entity and also adding some light_spots. Overall last 2 pictures and the second one look specially darkened. That cube_floor_button (the square-shaped one) has almost no light around.
- If it's not too annoying to you and you think it's a good idea, you could use the dynamic models for the fizzlers so you can set them to be closed when the trigger_portal-cleanser is not active, at least to me they look so odd opened when they are not emitting the fizzler 
Other than that, really good job! Keep it up!
useful tools and stuff here on TWP 
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]
...... screenshots ......
I'm pretty happy with the work so far, but I'm sure you all will have lots of ways I can improve. Thanks in advance!
This looks pretty good!
Here are some ideas you may want to think about:
The area above your collapsed ceilings looks very boxy, especially in the fourth image. It would look better if the area above the hole were bigger than the hole itself. (I was going to include some example screenshot but fucking Steam doesn't let me upload them.)
Anyway, the way I usually do it is either:
Method a: cut an irregular hole in the ceiling and build a big cap over it with brushes. The walls of the cap are metal, and the ceiling is sky. (If at all possible, turn any inner ceiling parts into func_details.)
Method b: move the original ceiling up and turn it into sky and build new destroyed (func_detail!) ceiling pieces below it. (This looks perfectly OK as long as you make sure that the inner hole is not too close to any wall.)
If there is any place where the sky-hole still looks too regular or boxed, throw in some extra debris to cover it up. It also looks cool if you put some more things at a greater distance, like another layer of destroyed ceiling, or a "models/props_destruction/rubble_ceiling_collapsed01.mdl" with lots of plants hanging down from it, etc.
As for the lights: I agree with Jose that some of the light panels look a bit too clean still. I have noticed that placing the lights in horizontal strips close to the floor usually works better with the destroyed theme. Also just for fun: make just one light in a group a different colour. It will look like that bulb burned out some time ago, and the correct colour was not in stock so they just used whatever was available.
Other Portal 2 maps: Medusa Glare
Portal 1 maps: Try Anything Twice | Manic Mechanic