So here is how far I got. Nothing special I know, but it scales dynamically with the resolution. That makes for less needed background pictures and I don’t even use multiple panels.

Now the windows for Save, Load and Options… yes that is going to be a bitch to do. But who knows, maybe I come up with some brilliant idea.

So yeah… When the menu is done, the next step will be more levels.

Yeah, that is probably how YOU are going to look after reading this.

I keep frikin’ promising that I will soon have time. But you have to understand my current “employer”, shall I say rather “client”. He always comes up with some new idea, some new thing here, one tiny weenie little problem on that page and if I have some spare time maybe I can help on that other website.

I don’t say no, because he pay’s well and frankly I need the money.

(Look up, what did I tell ‘ya? You’re facepalming right now!, aren’t you!)

And it is for YOUR benefit too. I am putting lots of money into Portico, paying modelers, programmers and other people to give me exactly what I need. Why? Because I’m picky and most people don’t tolerate pickiness without being paid. So I can’t get free models, sounds and stuff because people get angry at me for telling them the 5000th time to change this and that and make that little thingy there a little smaller.

What do I have in mind for keeping you entertained weekly? Originally I was planning on “Nerd TV”, weekly posts to give you some tip on what new/old interesting TV Series to watch that could appeal the Standard-Nerd. But I wrote them on my iPhone and for some reason the WordpressApp doesn’t work anymore. So you’ll have to bare with me until I get to write them anew.

Don’t worry though, I think I might be even re-writing them this weekend. It’s the only godforsaken time I don’t have to work anyway.

What the red button does all by his own in that new room and what it’s gonna do when you press it, you will find out the in the release of Portico.

See the Screens after the jump.

Huge Kudos to David Lancaster!

Well, not a hell lot of informative information there, but still better than nothing and saying every day “nothing new”.

Nothing really exciting new, but I integrated the “Countdown clock” to the “wake-up” chamber. Needs some shadow work still, as it yet appears quite flat on the wall, but that will be changed soon. For now, just giving my life sign that I keep my promise this time to continue to update the blog.

By the way: New code snippet coming up soon.

I can now give you a little further sneak peek into Portico! The “theme tune” which you will hear throughout the game and at the intro will be “Air and Kilometers” by Kaki King

And in case you don’t know the awesome, AWESOME Kaki King, here’s the song for you to listen:

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Did I mention she is awesome?

Anyway, if you’re asking yourself if “that’s it?” then no, the credits tune will be sung in Portal manner, though it won’t be a “Still Alive” rip-off nor anything you would possibly expect. So just let yourself be surprised!

I am having quite some trouble with media_play, which is the function I use to play sounds in the “dialog” system. Well, not quite a dialog system, but used to display the captions and play the sound files whenever the AI is talking.

My trouble is that the media_play function doesn’t play sounds correctly if you have more than 1 speaker. If you have a Quad Speaker system like me, the sound only comes from the front speakers, yet the two rear speakers keep quiet (or in my case, only play the jingle from the little table radio – Goddamn! ent_playsound works fine with a surround system) which kind of destroys the illusion that you have a voice in your head.

I should also mention, that the “Dialog” System and the “Caption” system are independent from each other, thus I can also use the captions to display what the Turrets may play, or even for some other uses.

Right now, the “Dialog” system reads out “pcap” files which look like this:

:fx:ai_on.ogg

:wait:1

:file:ai_story02b.ogg

Hello, and again welcome to the

:wait:3.4

Tuscture Science Practical Application Testing Facility

:wait:4.7

:pause:

...

:event:evStory01()

:resume:

:wait:1

- voluntary test subject.

There are ultimately 7 “commands” you can use in these PCAP (Portico Captions) files:

• ":file:” – To play the voices, like the one from the AI
• “:pause:” – to pause the sound played by :file:
• “:resume":” – to resume a previously paused sound
• “:wait:” – Wait the indicated number of seconds
• “:fx:” – Play another sound, e.g. for playing a reboot sound.
• “:event:” – Execute a function, to enhance the “adventure”.

Now that were only 6, what about the 7th commandment? That’s the part where the dialog system and the caption system interact: Normal text adds the text to the caption system by the “vGUI_PushCaption” function, much like this:

vGUI_PushCaption(sDialogCurIn, iiDialogDefTexttime);

or

vGUI_PushCaption("This text will display for 500 ticks", 500);

Right now I am working on making the Captions more “smooth”. They already fade out and to white as the time elapses, though the "background box” is still static, and I’d like it to adapt to the text content and smoothly expand or retract depending on the situation.

Right now it looks like this:

I hope you like these small sneak peeks into the portal development. Please leave a comment if you have any questions burning on your fingers or just to chat!