And you thought Descent had bad vertigo.

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 2:15 pm

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... lve+portal

Sir Sam II · Post by **Sir Sam II** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 2:40 pm

Sweet, Great concept.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 3:18 pm

That is pretty impressive looking.

Foil · Post by **Foil** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 3:39 pm

More \"brain-twisting\" than \"vertigo-inducing\", but very cool!

Dedman · Post by **Dedman** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 4:23 pm

Meh, it's hard for me to get fired up about a FPS. Neat concept though.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 4:27 pm

where can i go to find out more?

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:08 pm

it's like a dream, man.

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:48 pm

Isaac wrote:where can i go to find out more?

http://pc.ign.com/articles/718/718911p1.html

The Lion · Post by **The Lion** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 7:00 pm

There is a game called \"Narbacular Drop\" which uses this concept
and which you can download. It looks like Portal itself is just a
mini-game for Half life \"Episode Two\".

I was thinking... could a similar effect be created in D2X-XL by
combining a camera with a teleport? :-)

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 7:50 pm

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:54 pm

Waiting for the Prey SDK.. I bet that can be added easily

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 7:03 am

The Lion wrote:I was thinking... could a similar effect be created in D2X-XL by
combining a camera with a teleport?

Not very well. You wouldn't get objects halfway across a portal doing that...

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 10:47 am

Funny how they portray Valve as doing something original in the article when they're just ripping off something that was already done in Narbacular. In fact, they hired the makers of Narbacular to make portal. The gaming world is borked.

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 11:25 am

That makes absolutely no sense.

roid · Post by **roid** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 12:53 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_(computer_game)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narbacular_Drop
http://www.nuclearmonkeysoftware.com/na ... rdrop.html

Narbacular Drop is a free game (25meg), i'm downloading it right now.

I'm not sure why you guys are complaining that \"this isn't an original concept\". Duh! Everyone knows that, portals have been a staple of puzzle games for decades! But i've never before seen it used (in combination with a good physics engine) as the primary gameplay element in a game played in First Person perspective.

It the seemingly open and intuitive nature of this form of gameplay reminding anyone else of nTrap?

ps: Descent had portals? huh? where?
the only portaly things i can think of are the things in Descent2 that warp you into a secret level (they were red swirly things right?)

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 1:20 am

Descent was first to impliment \"portal technology\". It was the way the game engine handled the movement of players from area to area.

In D1 and D2, there is a \"portal\" at doors and in doorways. It a kinda invisible digital gateway.

It's kinda hard to explain as I have a set visual in my head from building levels. It provided the computer a break off point for rendering and sound calculations. The same principle is used in D3, only from room to room rather than cube to cube as in D1 and D2.. i know I contridicted myself there.. it's late and the latter statement is the correct one.

roid · Post by **roid** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 2:45 am

ooOOOOOH! now i understand what all those Descent level artists were on about

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 2:59 am

In D1 and D2, when systems weren't as powerful, a low cube count was crucial. The more cubes in one room or in view could bring your system to a crawl. In D3, it was more about face count as the portals were spreadout and a whole room is rendered kinda like a single cube.

The Lion · Post by **The Lion** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 4:08 pm

I would consider the \"portals\" in Descent 1 and 2 you're talking
about to be something entirely different. You did watch the video
didn't you? :-)

The portals in Portal and Narbacular Drop can not be reproduced in
Descent, except maybe to a certain extent in D2X-XL, as I mentioned
above.

The whole point of these portals is that they can \"connect\" two
different locations, rather than just enabling vision and travel
between two adjacent cubes/rooms.

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 4:15 pm

I like the look of it!

AndyX · Post by **AndyX** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 5:04 am

wow... Narbacular Drop is a real tricky game

roid · Post by **roid** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 5:36 am

one of the cool things that PORTAL seems to have over Narbacular Drop is the parallax effect.

I was all looking forward to \"i can see infinityyyyyyyyyyy\" experience with Narbacular Drop only to find that a portal seen through a portal is just a boring black texture.
But it gives you the idea though. It's fun having your own door-gun.

(ps: instead of just pressing the make-portal button, try holding it down and dragging the portal around. it helps)

It's also quite handy to use the portals as cameras - just so you can see. I often found myself putting one portal in a weird place, and the other portal on a wall right infront of me, using it as closed circuit TV.

TIGERassault · Post by **TIGERassault** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 8:01 am

roid wrote:It's also quite handy to use the portals as cameras - just so you can see. I often found myself putting one portal in a weird place, and the other portal on a wall right infront of me, using it as closed circuit TV.

That's how you're supposed to do the "Very Vertical" level. You have one door directly above you, and move the other door along the roof. If you can see the floor in the door directly above you, then you put that door directly under you.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 8:51 am

Duper wrote:Descent was first to impliment "portal technology". It was the way the game engine handled the movement of players from area to area.

In D1 and D2, there is a "portal" at doors and in doorways. It a kinda invisible digital gateway.

It's kinda hard to explain as I have a set visual in my head from building levels. It provided the computer a break off point for rendering and sound calculations. The same principle is used in D3, only from room to room rather than cube to cube as in D1 and D2.. i know I contridicted myself there.. it's late and the latter statement is the correct one.

That's all not quite exact. It is true that in a portal engine a portal provides a transition from one room to the next. This is mainly a thing of the renderer though. The renderer only renders the various (visible) sections of the level, and projects them each visible portal face.

D1 and D2 do not use portals.

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 12:24 pm

Are you sure? I thought D1/2 operated off of \"cubes\" each face was either a wall or a portal to the next cube. That way you only have to hit test against the cubes you're in.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 12:47 pm

The portals used in Prey and this thread's subject and the portals that diedel describes aren't the same thing.

Its a texture projector, camera, and a teleporter. if diedel really wanted to, he could make it happen.

The first game to market to use this was Q3A. iirc.

the portals that Topher and Duper are talking about are divisions between spaces created with binary space paritions.

the original doom used those, Im hard pressed to think of a modern engine that doesn't use something similar.

maybe Unreal.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 12:56 pm

Topher wrote:Are you sure? I thought D1/2 operated off of "cubes" each face was either a wall or a portal to the next cube. That way you only have to hit test against the cubes you're in.

That's the way I read it on PArallax's site years ago. It was revolutionary for its day.

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 3:02 pm

The last level in Narbacular was tough... I pretty much stumbled through the last part without even realizing what I had done. After you figure that out, suddenly the last level becomes pretty much the easiest.

Topher · Post by **Topher** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 3:04 pm

fliptw wrote:The portals used in Prey and this thread's subject and the portals that diedel describes aren't the same thing.

Its a texture projector, camera, and a teleporter. if diedel really wanted to, he could make it happen.

The first game to market to use this was Q3A. iirc.

the portals that Topher and Duper are talking about are divisions between spaces created with binary space paritions.

the original doom used those, Im hard pressed to think of a modern engine that doesn't use something similar.

maybe Unreal.

Right, but there's nothing in the D1/2 level format that says you can't have one cube on one side of the level attach to another cube no where near it. Cube neighbors are just indexes into the cube array.

However, the Descent engine (probably) requires neighbor cubes to be physically aligned and non-intersecting. So it may be easy to teleport the ship from any location but rendering the portal like the video does is a different story. Also, objects partially in and out side of the portal would be additional challenges.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 3:12 pm

Topher, the reason why Prey took so long is they tried to do what you are suggesting(with the build engine no less) - shortcuts between arbitray visibilty nodes. Work stopped after they couldn't get it work well.

There is a MUCH simpler solution - what I stated before hand. If your engine can do mirrored surfaces, then you can do what Prey/Portal does. The Dr Breen Tv's are an example of how to do this in the Source Engine.

This isn't fantastic new technology - Prey and Portal are unique in being the only games to base gameplay around the sci-fi concept of portals(ie the STTNG episode Contagion).

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 2:48 am

Grendel wrote:Waiting for the Prey SDK.. I bet that can be added easily

Doh -- no SDK necessary. Behold the Portal Wrench

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 4:42 am

Topher - you can probably do that in D1/2 without a crash (hopefully) but as you say, it would break rendering, and I suspect even moving across it wouldn't work well - Descent never really teleports players anywhere. They may just head off into HOM space.

Edit: Tried it (cubes \"connected\" but the points weren't).
Standard Descent 2 crashes.
D2X-XL doesn't crash, and as expected it shows the cube in its actual position rather than \"translated\" as per the cube->cube portal. However you can't actually exit the confines of a cube, so you just hang at the gap into empty space. Laser shots simply disappear.

In other words... yeah, it doesn't quite work that way in Descent.