Quote from Random on July 9, 2011, 5:35 pm

I'm not trying to sound condescending, but I hope you know what I mean when I say it still feels like a "beginner's map" as it is.

For starters the puzzles were extremely lacking. Most were one step, and portalable surfaces were only where they needed to be. This didn't make it any quicker to traverse the rooms, most of which were needlessly huge (the laser room). There are plenty of areas where portalable surfaces wouldn't break the puzzle. I would also suggest making rooms smaller in future maps if there's nothing to do in them, as loads of empty space just doesn't look that good.

I don't remember noticing much problem with the allignment of textures and such. But again, more variety and white surfaces would make things look more like a test chamber. The incinerator room looked too decayed and more like a behind-the-scenes area. Also, how the frosted glass repeats vertically there naturally looks unpleasant to me. You could probably make the glass shorter (the player couldn't jump over it anyway) or just stretch out the texture a little (though overdoing that would look bad too). It's just awkward how it fades up to dirty then resets back to clean at the start of each tile.

In the gel room I had trouble making it over the pit without crouching, not sure if it's because of how you did it or if I just goofed. Also, I would have made it easier to see where the gel lands from the floor, but climbing up the ramp to see it was just a minor inconvenience.

Personally, I'd have made some areas a tad brighter, and the bottom of the first pit looked way too yellow, but maybe that's just me, I'm not too skilled at lighting myself.

Finally, you should get in the habit of building cubemaps. I don't know if you didn't add them or just forgot to build them, but it makes the reflections on things like the elevator and faith plate not look too swell.

Overall the map just seems too linear and could use more elements. Keep mapping though, and I'm sure you can make something great.

Quote from ForbiddenDonut on July 10, 2011, 4:38 am

Oh boy.

This map feels more like a playground/test map than release-worthy. I suggest that you spend some time playing through the single-player and cooperative campaign a bit more (especially with the developer commentary enabled) and try out high-rated custom maps found on this website. When you've exposed yourself a bit to design theory and aesthetics, start by thinking up puzzle concepts and placing it on paper or a commonly-used graphic design program such as Photoshop or Sketchup. Start by blocking out the maps and get the overall concept down, then work from there with details such as textures, lighting and sound.

As for your map itself, there are a few glaring problems:
1) There are no cubemaps or you forgot to build them. Cubemaps are an entity within Hammer that takes a three-dimensional picture of the surrounding area in order to provide reflective surfaces with something to reflect. You have to place the entity, enter your map and build your cubemaps with the 'buildcubemaps' console command. The lack of these is what is giving your elevators, glass and other reflective surfaces this horrifically ugly pink and white color.

2) You include maybe six white surfaces in the whole map. Essentially, your player cannot get a puzzle wrong because wherever he places his portals will be correct. With your laser room (which was absurdly huge for no real reason), how can the player get the puzzle wrong at all? He only has two options to portal, and they're both right. Puzzles shouldn't be stupidly difficult, but they also shouldn't be pushovers, or the game isn't enjoyable. For the funnel room, your player has the same problem, but he also can get stuck on the other side of the glass if he uses the wrong portal, which is a design flaw.

3) Impossible or luck-based puzzles. The final puzzle, the "gel" puzzle, is simple in execution (the ramp + gel is overused in the actual campaign itself, which shows a lack of originality in your map design), but your gap is way too large and feels as if you haven't tested it at all. The only way I could get across was to sit at the bottom of the ramp and use glitchy crouch techniques to fling over. Also, why is there a hole in the map on the edge of the exit area? You can see the whole nodraw exterior of the exit elevator.

I don't mean to sound rude or cruel, but this is the only way a mapper can learn. Keep familiarizing with the successful elements of puzzle and map design and try to formulate your next map with better planning and organization. Also, play test. Have anyone you know that plays portal 2 play test your map, mappers and non-mappers. You can even PM a WIP map to me and I'll help you work out the kinks. There's a board here where mappers just post WIP maps so they can get the proper feedback.

Good luck, and don't give up.

Quote from Djinndrache on October 2, 2011, 5:25 am

I'm playing custom maps and record my first time of playing them. So the run is not perfect and may not use only intended ways, but maybe it can let you see how other people may understand the map or you could just enjoy someone playing this map for entertainment.
Anyways, here is the recording:

nsBRKXmGI2I
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsBRKXmGI2I)

Also note the video description for more feedback and my signature for additional project information.