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.
Already existing tutorials
These are already existing tutorials for elements used in the Behind the Scenes style.
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 |

There is one single cable in escape_00 that uses the cable/cable_back
texture.
Fuse Set Props
To create fuse props, create a prop_static
entity and use any of the following models:
- models/props/128_fuse_set01/128_fuse_set01.mdl
- models/props/128_fuse_set02/128_fuse_set02.mdl
- models/props/128_fuse_set03/128_fuse_set03.mdl
- models/props/128_fuse_set04/128_fuse_set04.mdl
- models/props/128_fuse_set05/128_fuse_set05.mdl
- models/props/128_fuse_set06/128_fuse_set06.mdl
- models/props/128_fuse_set07/128_fuse_set07.mdl
- models/props/128_fuse_set08/128_fuse_set08.mdl
- models/props/128_fuse_set09/128_fuse_set09.mdl
- models/props/128_fuse_set10/128_fuse_set10.mdl
Set its skin to 1 unless if it's inside an Observation Hallway.
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:
