Development:Portal/2005 - Nova Prospekt Era
This is a sub-page of Development:Portal.
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"Early versions of Portal featured more detailed, cluttered environments, much like Half-Life 2. We quickly realized that unnecessary objects scattered all over the place distracted players to the point where it actually interfered with the portal training process. So we simplified the art style to favor clean, focused test chambers." -Nick Maggiore[1]
Portal underwent design changes through its development, starting with the testchambers featuring Nova Prospekt-like architecture, thus dubbing the 2005 era the "Prospekt Era".
Contents
Early/Unused Maps
Many early and unused maps from Portal have been leaked, which allow us to view the game's development history.
Note about "Beans Leak" levels
The "beans Leak" - a leak of the internal developmental version of the Portal mod "Portal Project Beta" from 2016 that happened as a result of a developer's computer being compromised through a malicious program - included a number of level recreations by a member of the mod's team, ReepBlue. These levels include "lvl1," "lvl3," "lvl5," "lvl7," "testchmb_a_08_leipzig0," "testchmb_a_09_leipzigera," and "testchmb_a_10_leipzigera." These levels are not original levels created by Valve Software. As a result, they should not be included on these pages unless they are clearly marked as recreations.
intro_lvl5
intro_lvl5 was the original version of Test Chamber 08 and can be seen on VGUI\chapters\xbox\demo\chapter3.vtf. Like all other 2005 chambers, its visual design here is significantly different to how the final version of the chamber looks. A Half-Life 2 corpse in the toxic goo in the map zoo_testarea named 'floating_body_lvl5' shows that there used to be a floating ragdoll in this level.
The only remaining official screenshot of this level
Reepblue's remake of intro_lvl5
ditto
lab_lvl1
A small room split in two by a fence, one side has the player and the exit, the other features a cube on a button, surrounded by infinite health High Energy Pellets. The player must portal into the room, and place the cube from the button to proceed. The exit does not lead to anything. For some reason by default the Cube is already on the button, removing causing the door to close.
In the portal\maps\custom directory from the early stages of development shows custom_example.tga a low resolution screenshot of lab_lvl1 with the early cube and button designs present. The description actually gives this lab_lvl1 a name, "Cage o' Balls" and it credits the map to Jeep Barnett who was a developer of Portal with the comment: "It's a cage full of deadly energy balls!".
This is possibly meant to be an example some sort of custom map for the custom folder that was in place.
It's been suggested that lab_lvl1 is a early version of the missing 'testchmb_a_12' but it is quite unlikely.
The Main area.
The area with the HEPs.
The room behind the door.
custom_example.tga
lab_lvl3a
The earliest form of an escape sequence for Portal. The player walks into the early halls of Aperature. They turn on the Auxilary power in the Utility Closet and have to find three batteries to power a door to let them escape.
After going through they stumble in the main large and open lobby area with a Half-Life 2: Episode One Projector and a giant floating Aperature Model with changes movement depending how many batteries are plugged in.
After entering the Kitchen, a broken Turret will see the player and attempt to fire and sets the gas main of fire causing the kitting and the nearby lounge to go up in flames. The player must use a Portal to navigate through and avoid the fire to reach the pantry, under one of the many boxes is the second battery. Taking it back to the Utlilty Closet they put it in the second slot causing a distant explosion. The force causes the entrance to the kitchen to fall apart with rubble, preventing re-entry.
Next the player needs to navigate through the nearby Office Wing to find the third battery. Most of the outside doors are locked apart from two, one that can be explored and one that opens only halfway, the player is intended to fire a portal through the gap. However, the projectile gets stuck at floats on top of the door, which is a bug in the game that can even been seen in escape_01. Therefore you need to use "noclip" to get past. The player reaches a small room with a crack in the wall where they fire a Portal to get into another office room where there is another crack in the wall, fire another Portal for the final time to get into the last office room and on the table is the battery.
The fourth battery is located in the Observation area. This area features the observation rooms from the previous Test Chambers 1, 13 and even 18. In hammer, they are all contained in visgroups, with the names of the visgroups being the same as the original map the appeared in. Suprisingly Test Chamber 18's fling area is featured, referred to as lab_lvl4 in Hammer's visgroup. Inside the observation room for Test Chamber 18 features an exposed air vent. Crawling through the player lands in some sort of Security Room with the Fourth Battery inside of a glass case.
Once all batteries have been found the player can leave in a small staircase room which leads to nothing.
The intro hallway has a small door further back from the start. In Hammer, it is revealed that there is a level transition that would've taken players back to a missing lab_lvl3 map.
Intro Hallway.
Office Wing without Power.
Utlilty Closet.
View of the Office Wing.
Main lobby.
Lower down the lobby.
The kitchen on fire.
The lounge on fire.
Storage and the location of the second battery.
Area in the back the Office Wig.
The hole in the wall.
One of the inaccessible offices.
Office with the third battery.
The kitchen after plugging in the second battery.
Observation wing.
Observation room for Test Chamber 00 (intro_lvl1).
Observation room for Test Chamber 13 (intro_lvl7).
Observation room for the Fling part Test Chamber 18 (lab_lvl4).
Air vent in the Observation Room.
Inside the Air Vent.
The security room.
All four batteries.
Early fizzler in front of the escape door.
Escape.
Part of the missing lab_lvl3 shown in hammer. Even featuring a trigger_changelevel from it.
testroom_point_camera
A map from Half-Life 2 development, that was used to test the point_camera entity that was used heavily in Half-Life 2 which is camera that projects a live feed from itself in one part of the map to a screen from somewhere else. The map has two rooms that have a skybox on top, there is one where the player is spawned and uses placeholder textures and is mostly small and empty apart from the point_camera entity. A whole separate hidden area contains a building from City 17. This area is what the point_camera will display. This map is last edited from June 20th 2004.
The area with the point_camera entity.
The other area where the point_camera is intended to display.
testroom_point_camera_teleport
This is the exact same as 'testroom_point_camera' featuring the point_camera entity and the two areas of the map though there is a wall and trigger in the first room and the scaffold is oddly missing a texture. However there is a Half-Life 2 Citizen who will walk out the camera's end of the live feed almost like a Portal when you step on a visable trigger entity. This is why this map and 'testroom_point_camera' were scrapped for Portal development. Likely to see if Portals already existed in Source already. Possible making these the first portals for Portal even though they are from Half-Life 2. This map is also last edited from June 20th 2004 so they are both from before Half-Life 2 was released.
This map's original purpose might have been likely to test the effects of Gunships coming out from the Combine Overworld portal seen in the end of Half-Life 2.
The area with the point_camera entity and where the citizen will walk to.
The other area where the point_camera is intended to display and where the Citizen spawns.
testroom_trigger_portal
This is a testroom for testing the early noise Portals though (for some reason PORTAL_1.tga is shown on both) in an entity known as a trigger_portal. It features the same testroom area from testroom_point_camera and testroom_point_camera_teleport but with a pipe and a prop_physics set to a Cactus Pot to test physics objects through Portals. The Portals unfortunately don't work anymore. The point_camera entities are still is in the testroom. This map also features other map logic which doesn't seem to function anymore.
However there is an older version of the Portals seen here. If you open the map in Hammer you can enable two hidden Visgroups which show Portals using the ShaderSlab models from Valve's Shader testing.
Overview of the map.
zoo_lab
A map that contains a collection of mostly Hafl-Life 2 assets and a few unique Propekt Era Only assets that the developers would reference hence the 'zoo' name. the 'lab_lvl' name was going to be used to the maps in the escape section and the 'bts' (Behind The Scenes) section of the game at the time. This is a map that would be a styleguide for assets to use in those lab_lvls.
The Map features Three major rooms, two of which have names, one being the 'Prop Room' and the other being the 'Decal Room'. The third room might just be a part of the Decal Room but if it is a separate room then it could called the Pipe Room as there are lots of Pipe models in the room. Every single Model and Decal or texture, features a Text Entity in front, this details the file location so the developers know where to locate them. There are a lot of assets shown here most of them being from Half-Life 2 but there are some exceptions.
In the Decal Room on the side of the opening there is a wall that is supposed to feature three assets that aren't in Portal nor Half-Life 2. Wall Decals F,G and H don't feature a texture as they are missing. However, since the map lists everything about these files we learn that they are supposed to use 'decals_drawing', 'decals_graph' and 'decals_equation' for Wall Decals F,G, and H respectively.
There is also a light entity that references a missing map called 'lab_lvl2'. and a a receiver cart model and rope both reference another missing map 'rm6' which would have been the earliest name format for Portal. There is also a random vent model outside of the map in the void.
Spawning position.
Text indicating the name of the Prop Room.
Overview of the Prop Room.
Other side of the Prop Room
Text indicating the name of the Decal Room.
Overview of the Decal Room.
Example of the text detailing the assets.
Overview of the Room that could be the Pipe Room.
Overview of the layout with 'noclip'.
The missing textures without being restored back into the game
The missing textures restored.
The strange vents seen with hammer.
The light and prop_cart entities seen in hammer, their names referencing 'lab_lvl2' and 'rm6' respectively.
zoo_testarea
Another 'zoo' map that features some early elements that would have appeared in the test chambers. It features three sections, one with rubble and walls with holes models, the area is dark and features a spiral staircase that stops in mid-air. There is a combine logo in the wall and lots of rubble everywhere. The second section feature two platforms that the player must jump to suspended over a pit of toxic goo there is a platform to side that is inaccessible apart from jumping. There is also a floating ragdoll from a Half-Life 2 City 17 Citizen in the Toxic Goo which is named 'floating_body_lvl5' showing that was originally from lvl_5, an early version of Test Chamber 08.
The next and final area is large and open that resembles a warehouse like the later versions of Prospekt Era maps. It contains the first Portal Gun Pedestal design and an auto-portal frame from the time and it still works perfectly but it fires a portal on the opposite side of the auto-portal frame. There are some of the early physbox Cubes and brush based button designs featured here and a door which leads to nowhere and an High Energy Pellet catcher even though there is no launcher. And finally higher up, there is the early Unstationary Scaffold design which is large and instead of travelling on rails of light, there were originally instant-kill scaffolds that would kill the player on contact. This was mentioned in the final games commentary.
This map features one of the earliest Cubes in Portal being a func_physbox not a prop_physics and it cannot be picked up, it can only be moved by Portals or pushing it like the cubes in Narbacular Drop.
The start of the map.
View of the rubble.
The area featuring the Citizen in Toxic Goo.
Overview of the third main room.
The Cube and Buttons with the door. You can also see some rails on the ground.
Closer up at the Cube and Buttons.
The Player on top of the Unstationary Scaffold.
Ditto.
zoo_combine
This map is interesting as it has every Combine related model and animation that the developers can reference, which is why it is called a 'zoo'. This map is also from Half-Life 2 development, possibly used for the early stages of the Prospekt era.
Most of the entities appear functional. The map is quite large with a sky box and is quite open. It has four Citadels in the sky, gates, many objects, thumpers which scare of any antlions and a 'working' Combine APC veichle which you can get into but the player is stuck inside and the camera is pushed to the slightly under the ground and you cannot drive it. There are two 'cycler_flex entities' in the map that both use a Combine Soldier model, since they are a cycler_flex they would play every animation that the model has when they take damge. One of them wields a shotgun however it is a 'prop_dynamic_ornament' so it can be attached to the Solder model instead of it being a real weapon.
This map being used in Portal's development makes sense as the Prospekt era uses Combine assets and possibly set in a Combine Aperature.
The start of the map.
Further along the map.
More Further along.
Extra entities on the right.
The four Citadel models.
The edge of the map.
2005 Prospekt Era Visgroups in 2006 Maps
There are leaked 2006 maps of the Test Chambers that can be opened with Hammer (Valve's Level Editor Program). These have leftover Prospekt Era assets which are hidden by default. Making them visible in the Visgroups box, shows early parts of the map in question.
You can see them in more detail and categorised here. Credit to The Valve Cut Content Wiki for putting this together.
If you want to have a look for yourself then here are the steps. Hammer is located in Portal/bin/hammer.exe you can just double click it and it will work normally. The Portal mappack is located here on the Half-Life Project Beta Website in english. Open Hammer and open the 2006 folder in the map pack. Choose any .vmf file and the map will load.
Example of the VisGroups.
Example of a Prospekt Era Visgroup Walls in Camera view. From background01.vmf.
Early Portals
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The portals created for the 2005 build of Portal featured a rougher purple-and-cyan look to them. They later got a slight adjustment, sporting the modern colors (albiet darker), as well as a vine design, made during trailer era and were replaced in the X06 Era which introduced 'Swirl' Portals which featured a distinct oval shape, and a much bigger swirl effect with swirl particles. It was redesigned to the modern look when Valve began work on the console ports during the GDC Era as apparently the Xbox 360 wasn't capable of rendering the Swirl Portals. However there is a step in between design of the Swirl and Final Portals they feature the final design and the Swirl particles in the GDC Era but was changed in E3 Era.
| 2005-2006 Portals | 2006 'Vine' / 'Fire' Portals | 2006 'Swirl' Portals | 2007 GDC Era Final Portals With Swirl Particles | Current Portals |
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Early Portal Guns
Two early Portal Guns were created around this time. The earliest is a simple pistol model with no animations, while the second one is reminiscent of the Gravity Gun from Half-Life 2, with unfinished animations. Interestingly, the latter continued into the transitional phase of Portal's aesthetics during Early - Mid 2006.
| Earliest Portal Gun | 2005-2006 Portal Gun | Current Portal Gun |
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Early Elevators
In the early Prospekt Era, the elevators where of the Half-Life 2 variant. It is the only elevator to have the door as a separate entity. Some 2005 map have broken links that would have opened the door but are broken because the Combine Elevator was introduced (which has a door built-in). The Half-Life 2 variant was replaced with an unique design known as the Combine Elevator due to it's Combine art style.
The prefabs for the Half-Life 2 Elevator were found in the Source SDK Portal prefab folder. A VisGroup of the Combine Elevator was found in the 2006 version of background1.vmf called elevator.
| Half-Life 2 Elevator | Combine Elevator |
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Early Emancipation Grid / Fizzler
The 2005 Brush Emancipation Grid can be seen in a VisGroup from the 2006 version of testchmb_a_01.bsp called _old_cleanser. It features a rough metal border with a metal top with six small round projector like objects which display three small glowing green bars in a horizontal position. It functions exactly like the normal fizzler.
| 2005 Grid | Early 2006 Grid | 2006 Warp Grid | Final Grid |
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Early Elevator Prefabs
Two Elevator Prefabs were found in the Portal's Source SDK Prefab folder. extreme_elevator.vmf last modified on July 15 2005 and transition_elevator.vmf last modified on July 29 2005. Both maps feature the Early Half-Life 2 Style Elevator. extreme_elevator.vmf is modified from the one seen in Black Mesa East in Half-Life 2 that goes up instead of down. It also has a button that the user needs to press to open the door. transiton_elevator.vmf is from Kleiner's lab and functions more like the ones in Portal. The elevator is also taken directly from Test Chamber 00 or intro_lvl1, as seen in the transition entity that would have taken the player in a missing intro_lvl2 map. These prefabs and more files related to these are available here on gamebanana uploaded by Wolfcl0ck.
Start of extreme_elevator.vmf.
End of extreme_elevator.vmf.
The Elevator Shaft of extreme_elevator.vmf.
Overview of transition_elevator.vmf.
The Elevator Shaft of transition_elevator.vmf.
intro_lvl2 referenced in transition_elevator.vmf.
Unused Textures
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There's a surprising amount of unused textures from the Prospekt Era of Portal.
Signs
Some signs made for this era. What's interesting is most of these seem to have been made after the 2005 maps were made
A sign for a common room that doesn't appear in any of the maps
A sign telling the player to go back that doesn't appear anywhere
A sign for an office wing that appears in lab_lvl3a
A sign outside of the observation wing in lab_lvl3a
Arrows in several directions that don't appear in any of the maps
Another offices sign that doesn't appear in any maps
Several test chamber signs that don't appear in any maps
decals_drawing, decals_equation and decal_graph resable tattered paper and was a unique asset to the Prospekt era that was removed. All three were referenced in 'zoo_lab' as every asset featured has a text box in front of detail the file location. Seen in intro_lvl1 and zoo_lab.
A sign used at the exit in lab_lvl3a
A utility closet sign that isn't used anywhere
References
- ↑ Portal developer commentary
