JerryAtricks writes...
I said: "...there is nothing sealing the portal. Think Portal "cells". They can't be left open like that." So I did give you a reason why you can't use portals like that.

And I also told how you can go about doing portals the right way. You can use the included stock map that came with the tools to study. I even whipped up a simple example map for you to download.

dude u have to relax, remember that portals are place there to create an imaginary room (also known as "cell") so wat u have to make sure of is that ur sections are closed in....so this means if you have 4 sides (walls) and a floor plus a doorway,

you will have to use portal no draw to seal the open areas such as the doorway and the ceiling. Make sure they meet with the walls and the floor.


Then u must select a single face of the portal nodraw (in this example i selected the outsides of both the portal nodraw and textured them with portal)

now the room is sealed up and the portals will not create any errors if you did it right.


now for the sake of the arguement, if you had 2 portal faces that would meet somewhere, you would have to make sure that they meet at a mutual edge(highlighted in red) and do not cross one another. heres the first pic which shows how it is done correctly


heres the wrong way:



as u can see it is crossing the mutual line but not ending there. Hope that helps clear up a few things. remember portals have to meet a solid texture and when meeting with another portal or other portals they must all meet at a mutual edge but neither one must cross one another. As far as meeting with a patch terrain, u must make them meet with something solid because patch terrains wont work, the best way is to have caulk or something under the patch terrain and have the portals meet the cualk . If you need to see wat i mean just take a look at the mp_backlot that came with the mods tool

Everyone please take note, Voidsource knows how to explain things in full and concise detail.

Thank you voidsource for being the first to actually EXPLAIN and show how it is done.

PCInvasion: I did look at the Backlot map and it too showed me how to layout the portals, although it was quite a mess in there. Thanks for that info as well.

This topic has been answered and I'm done with portals. Let's move on.

now your thinking with portals

lol thanks but u should just try to be patient, remember were all here to learn off of each other.....I ran into the same issue when i was learning about portaling and no one was there for me to explain it like so. I had to read a lot of tuts, dl different test portals and lil by lil it all started to make sense. When i understood well enough i then started a small map, and in this map i had portals everywhere like crazy. Some where up, some where down and some even floating in the air, some with 1,2,3,4+ walls . Some even without a wall just a floor but they were all sealed up. The reason? only to test how portals worked. The thing i found the harder to do (and i believe u will too)was to have the portals fit or work with some buildings placed at angles, rotated and watnot. In other words, the outside portaling. From that i learn a powerful lesson....always, and I do mean always, make sure u have in mind where u will have ur outer portals going and how far whenever ur creating a map. It will really make things much more easier when u try to portal the map. Believe me when i say i have noticed a difference with a portal map and a non portal map. The fact is in the fps. Thats when u need to make ur own test map for outside portaling purposes.