What all typical rooms should have in common
Introduction
In this page, you will learn what almost all rooms of the Portal's Behind the Scenes areas have in common.
Support beams
Almost every single room in the BTS areas has at least one support beam. Rooms without support beams are some sewer rooms, areas with panels, areas with the test chamber metal wall texture and off-limit areas.
For more information, take a look at Support beams
Vents
Not all rooms have vents in them, although there is no limit to where you can place them.
You can learn how to create vents at Creating Vents
Fans
Fans have no limit to where they can be, although they aren't really used in really small areas.
You can learn how to create fans at Creating Fans
Cables
A staple feature of most bts areas are the cables hanging from the ceiling. In Portal 1, they are made using keyframe_rope entities, with a single move_rope always being the first in a system. Be sure to get creative with adjusting the slack.
These properties are required for ropes as seen in Portal.
| Property Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Subdivision | 8 |
| Rope Material | cable/cable |
Note:On the end of each keyframe_rope, set the Subdivision to 2, on cables that hang and are unattached, set the subdivision to 2 as well for better performance.
There is one single cable in escape_00 that uses the cable/cable_back texture.
Entities
Fog
The official BTS maps have an env_fog_controller in them with the following properties:
| Property Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | fog_ctrl |
| Fog Enable | Yes |
| Primary Fog Color | 58 82 101 |
| Secondary Fog Color | 85 43 0 |
| Fog Start | 64 |
| Fog End | 3500 |
Color Control
All official escape maps have a color_correction. Create a color_correction entity and enter the following properties:
| Property Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | color_correction_bts |
| Lookup Falloff Start Distance | -1 |
| Lookup Falloff End Distance | -1 |
| Lookup Table Filename | scripts/colorcorrection/cc_bts.raw |
| Lookup Fade In Duration | 2 |
| Lookup Fade out Duration | 2 |
Tonemap Control
All escape maps have anenv_tonemap_controller entity.
Create an env_tonemap_controller and set its name to tonemap
Create a logic_auto and give the logic_auto the following outputs:
| My Output | Target Entity | Target Input | Parameter | Delay | Only Once | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
OnMapSpawn | tonemap | SetBloomScale | 0.3 | 0.00 | No |
|
OnMapSpawn | tonemap | SetAutoExposureMin | 0.5 | 0.00 | No |
|
OnMapSpawn | tonemap | SetAutoExposureMax | 2 | 0.00 | No |
|
OnMapSpawn | tonemap | SetTonemapRate | 0.3 | 0.00 | No |
Note:If there are test chambers within the same map, be sure to have the entities disabled during those points. If your map is mainly just a testchamber with small BTS elements (for example, a Rattman den) the entities aren't necessary.