Talk:List of useful Portal models

I'm making a Portal mod, and I want to make my own test chamber signs. How would I go about "altering" the models so that, say, I could add the flinging icon to the Test Chamber 01 sign, or add my own icons? —Yar Kramer 16:49, 17 Jan 2008 (PST)

Firstly, you shouldn't change any content inside the official GCFs (in this case, portal content.GCF). What you can do is open up that GCF file (using GCFScape or similar tool) to extract the models you wish to alter (in this case, one of the group of files inside "root\portal\models\props_animsigns"), and start by changing their file names (so they will not be loaded instead of the (original) ones in the GCF!!). Then, you can create your own files based on the ones you extracted. After doing so, be sure to place them in the correct folder (i.e., for the Test Chamber XX sign files, the folder would be "%SteamInstallDir%\Steam\SteamApps\portal\models\props_animsigns").

As to how you change the files themselves, you'll just have to read about it elsewhere here on the wiki, since it's out of my grasp of knowledge! Start by extracting the files and researching about their file types, that should give you enough information to understand what each file is, and how to edit/create it. --Etset 02:27, 18 Jan 2008 (PST)

Heh, yeah, I know how to get stuff out of the GCFs. It's just that, well, what I didn't know is, as you say, beyond your graps of knowledge. ;) —Yar Kramer 13:01, 18 Jan 2008 (PST)

Oops! *ashamed* Sorry for the lecture then... To make up for it, I did a bit of research and found this article, and I was interested by this part, so I went to look in the materials folder, inside portal content.gcf, using VTFEdit. What I found was each of those tiny icons that you were referring to initially (the flinging icon, for example), at "root\portal\materials\signage". So I'm thinking that the whole sign is not made up of just one "texture", but rather a "base" texture, with all those "icons" on top of it. Have you tried opening up the sample portal map (the one that came with the latest SDK update:testchamber_a_05) in Hammer? Perhaps you could see how the sign in that level is being made and conclude something right there! :) Hope this helps! --Etset 14:15, 18 Jan 2008 (PST)

I actually disocvered the base-dexture thing separately, whoops ... Also, I used a BSP decompiler to decompile a number of maps to give me hints on how to make my own, and the sigsn are all just one prop_dynamic with the model set to a given models/props_animsigns/signage_numXX.mdl. No way to examine a model's textures directly, either. So I guess we're back to "altering the model directly" again. —Yar Kramer 14:50, 19 Jan 2008 (PST)