Clown Car Base

ParanoidDrone

L3: Member
Feb 19, 2009
147
11
Forgive the non-sequitur title. Here's where I got it from.

I'll skip the leadup and ask if it's at all possible to make a map that features a building that, on the outside, is a modest size, but on the inside is much bigger than it should be. Obviously it's not directly possible, but are there any tricks that can be used to fake the effect? Like teleporting a player to the "interior" structure, located elsewhere in the map?

I honestly don't expect this to be really feasible, but I thought I'd ask.
 

A Boojum Snark

Toraipoddodezain Mazahabado
aa
Nov 2, 2007
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Not without Portals being implemented into the base orange box code on a mapper-usable level.

(I've wanted a func_portal since before the game came out :()
 

sniprpenguin

L6: Sharp Member
Mar 14, 2008
266
258
I'd suggest taking a look at the .vmf for CP_Well. The insides are actually taller than what it appears to be on the outside.

The trick there is just making the higher parts far enough away from the outside area that one cannot see it.

Note: The Well buildings are not much taller in reality. This trick can only be used so far.
 

ParanoidDrone

L3: Member
Feb 19, 2009
147
11
Well, from what I remember in the Portal commentary, the portals themselves are sort of tricky for the engine to deal with, since it had to account for all the possible ways you could set them. Of course, they could place restrictions on how you could orient a func_portal, but I honestly don't see it happening. :(

I suppose a teleport entity in the middle of a twisting corridor (to disguise the point where you leave the "outside" and enter the "inside") wouldn't have quite the same effect?
 

Terr

Cranky Coder
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Jul 31, 2009
1,590
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Certainly, a 32-person multiplayer game with dynamically-shot portals would be simultaneously:
(A) cool, and
(B) a hellish nightmare existence from which no programmer nor QA tester could ever escape. (Wait, isn't that like Portal?)

Certainly, past game engines (ex. Quake3) have done teleporters which you can see through but transport people (and rockets) as chunks. (In other words, you can't just put your hand in, it's all-or-nothing.)

IMO a good "Clown-car-base" would be to use regular teleporters with some doors, darkness, or other trickery to hide the transition. In fact, that sounds like a good short test-map project...

_______________

Edit: Well, I've made an infinite-falling portal-esque set-up. Apparently your fall speed caps out at about 3500 units/sec. There are obviously some limitations : You have to give wiggle-room so you don't hit the floor before the teleport kicks in, and you can't see through 'em.

While you can preserve position (so walking through a magic corridor, you can on the left or right even after teleporting) you can't seem to rotate the user's point of view. (So no teleports that turn you around.)
 
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Shaar

L3: Junior Member<BR>toboruin
Aug 7, 2008
231
206
what one could do is have a tunnel, and a drop, in the middle of the drop, there is a teleport, and below is reference geometry which looks exactly the same as the place your dropping onto (And the same applies when looking up. the only flaw is that one would see your body dissapear.
 

evanonline

L420: High Member
Mar 15, 2009
485
273
You could probably achieve this by just sectioning off the insides from the outsides using skybox walls around the outer wall of the base to mask the insides, I would think...
 

re1wind

aa
Aug 12, 2009
644
588
I was going to mention func_monitor until i looked at tf hammer and noticed it wasn't there. Made properly, it could allow you to do what you want and have a low resolution stream of what's happening inside/outside.

Take the typical secret rotating door & hidden room design from films. rotating door, players enter the rotating door area,trigger_multiple, onendtouchall, door rotates, black texture, trigger teleport, players teleport to the "inside" area, the other door turns, and the player finds themselves in an area that's much bigger than it looked from the outside.

Still has the problem of entering a "kill zone" with sentries and the area saturated with stickies. func_nobuild can solve that...but demo's waiting for the door to open will make a killing. literally.
 

Terr

Cranky Coder
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Jul 31, 2009
1,590
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AFAIK all the monitor/video-camera stuff is broken in TF2. Not even sure how it'd work from a multiplayer perspective.
 

Shadow Tyrant

L69: Deviant Member
Aug 7, 2009
69
3
You could probably achieve this by just sectioning off the insides from the outsides using skybox walls around the outer wall of the base to mask the insides, I would think...

Along these lines...Make the small, exterior of the building in the skybox, and texture the outside of your building with skybox texture. As long as the doors line up, it should work...Maybe?