Teleporters versus Warp Portals

By Tentacle-HunteR

Q. What’s the difference between a Warp Portal and a Teleporter?

A. There are few basic differences:

• A warp portal (WarpZoneInfo actor) MUST be placed inside a box and a teleporter can be placed anywhere. You can place a teleporter inside a box if you wish.

• A warp portal will let you "see" into the zone where you'll be teleporting and a teleporter will not. This means...

• A warp portal lets a player know that he or she will be teleporting to another zone (because they can see the other zone). A teleporter gives no hint because you can't see it or the other zone (this is good if you want to surprise the other player when they are not expecting it).

You can place a teleporter inside a box if you wish but you will still NOT see the other zone.

• A warp portal is harder to setup than a teleporter because you have to build a box. But, I think it’s worth it; they look better because you can see into the other zone and it creates a neat looking effect that seems to break the laws of physics.

Here's how to do both.

<<Teleporters>>

1) Insert the teleporters where you want. One should be where your teleporting from, and the other should be where your teleporting to.

2) Rotate them so the red arrows are pointing in the direction you want the player to be facing AFTER they have teleported.

3) Pick names for the set of teleporters (Example: teleporter1 & teleporter2)

In the default Settings of the teleporters you will change these settings:

set one teleporter like this:

+Events

-> Tag = Teleporter1

+Teleporter

-> URL = Teleporter2

... and for the other just reverse the two settings:

+Events

-> Tag = Teleporter2

+Teleporter

-> URL = Teleporter1

That's pretty much it!

<<Warp Portals>>

1) The first step is to make two boxes of the same size (apparently this is important or it can cause problems). One box should be in the zone you are warping from and the other should be where you are warping to.

The positioning of the boxes and the direction in which they face is critical; One should be facing the OPPOSITE DIRECTION from the other:

If one is facing sideways to the other, then it makes it very clumsy to walk through (because you come out sideways) and you tend to get a "Hall of Mirrors" effect when creating the portals.

If they both face the same direction then you come out backwards when you walk through and end up walking right back into the warp zone you just came from.

2) The second step is: you place sheets that are Zone Portals over the openings.

This is done by sizing a sheet that totally covers the opening and even better if it goes into the walls of the box a little. Then use the "Add Special Brush" tool to make the sheets "zone portals". Pick a texture to apply and if you want to be able to see into the next zone then make the sheet texture transparent.

3) place a WarpZoneInfo actor into each box (this is a subclass of ZoneInfo).

4) In the default WarpZoneInfo setting youll see a field for WarpZoneInfo. The two things you need to change are: "OtherSideUrl" and "ThisTag".

Pick a set of names for these two warp portals. For example: Portal1 & Portal2.

In one, set it like this: OtherSideUrl=Portal1 ThisTag=Portal2

in the other, revers it: OtherSideUrl=Portal2 ThisTag=Portal1

5) Rebuild and run the map and if all goes well they will work right.

<<A Common Problem with Warp Portals>>

One common problem is you will often get a "Hall of Mirors" effect (looks a lot like a BSP error but it's not). One thing you can try is delete the zone portal sheets and re-add them. Also be sure ALL your geometry is aligned properly.

If this doesn’t work, then you can always make the sheets NOT transparent and replace the WarpZoneInfo actors with Teleporters instead. This doesn't look as nice but it should work if the warp portals don't.