Blender2Crystal Portals

[jwir3]

Hello Everyone. 

I am having a large amount of trouble trying to figure out how portals work in Blender2Crystal.  I was wondering if someone might be able to give me a step by step instruction on how to setup a portal between 2 sectors like the following:

http://people.aero.und.edu/~scottj/2rooms.jpg

I know that I need to separate the meshes into 2 different scenes, but in order to make sure that the rooms are up against each other, I draw them all in a single scene, then copy everything to new scenes and remove that which is not needed.  This is drawn in a single scene so that you can see what I am trying to do.  I would like the top room in a sector, and the bottom room in another sector (they are just mesh cubes).  Then, the idea is to place a portal between the two. 

How do I go about doing this?  All my portal attempts thus far have resulted in disaster (either the portal not showing up, or it not existing at all). 

Thanks,

~Jwir3

[caedes]

hi Jwir3

i have made a tutorial for portal creation on b2cs, i hope it helps...

http://b2cs.delcorp.org/index.php/Portal_tutorial

greetings!

 Pablo

[CaptBewil]

I think the tutorial can be a bit misleading.  This is my interpretation of the intent.  Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Basically, you'll need to create a hallway (or more traditionally, a doorway) between the two rooms.  There should be no surfaces where you cross from room 1 into the hallway/doorway or where you croos from the hallway/doorway to room 2.  You should be able to just walk between them.

The portal:
The purpose of portals are to cut down on how much geometry is drawn to the screen at any given time.  These 'portals' between the rooms (basically) allow a snap shot of what the room would look like from the players look vector to be rendered on this single surface.

I think the most misleading thing is that when people think 'portal' they think of a surface used for teleporting from one location to another.  We really need that kind of portal system.  Maybe combining the two.  Perhaps by changing how portals are setup.  Right now, you have to have the target sectors (scenes) next to each other so the when you setup your portal, blender knows where to adjust your position to.  Maybe change it so that you get to choose both the target sector and the 'spawn' surface.

This system also doesn't work very well with rooms that are joined by archway's instead of a simple square (at least, when following the tutorial).