These lights in Portal 2 have a secret - Quick Answer #shorts

These small lights hold a little secret; they don't contain anything at all! Another quick answer, a series on quick techniques too simple for a longer video.

Don't worry, longer videos are still coming.

💜 Jacob, Jasmine

[kip]

I first learned about this long ago when I was making custom maps in hammer. NOBODY would describe how to make these lights in their tutorials, but it turns out that that was because they're actually really simple, and there's even a premade actor you can just drop into the maps.

[yerk]

Man those light fixtures have become iconic. Never really talked about, but instantly recognizable and emotion/memory evoking.

[Cookiemelter]

Technically speaking, how does a texture "slide down"? Do you change the texture coordinates based on the position and direction or how does it work?

[TheCrewExpendable]

Man this channel is so freakin’ good. The Mario Galaxy gravity video is a real tour de force. Channels like this are what YouTube should be.

[Shadykatus]

I love when games go the long way around for stylization and optimization

[powergannon]

Neat. I could tell that these lights used a shader and not extra geometry, but I assumed the displacement map would be more complex than it actually is.

[Rascoh]

Man your content is brilliant. The way you break down these concepts is just perfect. I found your channel through your video explaining the cel shading of Wind Waker, and I think I've gone through your whole channel now. Definitely going to keep coming back here for more video game geekery lol. Cheers!

[Visleaf]

I love tricks to avoid transparency, and in this source engine case also avoid wacky weird shaped rooms and other bsp nonsense.

[pacifico]

I always found those fixtures fascinating

[Someone-wrms]

I remember playing portal for the first time and being absolutely blown away by this specific asset.. When I grew up I realized this was not really a 3D model but a shader, which blew my mind yet again by how clever it is. And now I'm getting my mind blown a third time by how well explained this vid is

[Cxntrxl]

Yeah, exactly. Most people don’t realise that something that seems more complicated is less resource intensive; since rendering a physical object takes more resources than running several lines of code. It’s pretty sad to see most games throwing this kind of optimisation out the window these days due to high-power computers, I’d love to see some super highly optimised AAA games again.

[alibit]

the fact that me, a 3D modeler never noticed it was a shader shows how effective this really is.

[Aspharon]

Man I absolutely love details like this. Awesome vid.

[Shiny]

I’ve finally got my hands on portal 2 recently, and it is amazing, I love all the details in valve games!

[CadetKosmov]

This is also how zelda botw's zora's domain floors work

[HotandReddy]

I just watched the three shorts you’ve made, and I’d love to see more. Keep doing what you’re doing!

[LandryUltra]

They went through all that effort to make the lights look like something their not when there's a easier solution just to make the game run a little smoother.

I respect that.

[Quesbe]

I would love a video about the inner working of the Source Engine and Hammer, the way light is baked, how a map is complied, etc!

[Starpotion]

Maybe it's just because the visual jump from Portal 1 to Portal 2 was massive, but I've always been impressed with how truly next gen the game looked when it was revealed. There are tons of small things like this that make such a purposely sterile feeling game feel so alive and real.

[flagdefender]

That’s how a lot of the rooms work too, but some of them you can actually clip into with precise portals or just fly in there with noclip