Hyperfixation is a cruel mistress. One moment you're super super capable of carrying out a hobby and the next moment you want to do something entirely different. For instance I'm experiencing an animation and general art kick (which is one of the reasons for all the new art posted) when I should be doing game development.

Rest assured Delta Final is not dead and still in active development despite this "change of heart". The motivation to keep going just alludes me a bit due to recent events (namely my Dog passing and such), and when I got some form of motivation back is was for the "wrong" things.

So while I'm still trying to figure out new puzzle designs, I figured we'd look at some of the development difficulties I've faced so far.

I recently discussed this back on ModDB when doing a similar article about my recent mental health episode and the delays on progress. I'm currently trying to devise a new chamber to replace an already made chamber. I've also made some improvements to a chamber that isn't getting replaced (or at least I don't have plans to yet)

Let's recap about Delta Final's interesting development history, or at least the puzzle history. I made Delta Final's original iteration as Portal 2 workshop maps that never got released due to me using up my cloud storage on steam. Once I finally learned hammer enough to rebuild these puzzles confidently, I was dissatisfied with most late stage puzzles.

This is where the first minor drought came in and the one i'm having to fix things because of. After porting over Chamber 15 to Portal 1, I was out of the "satisfactory" original puzzles and had to start coming up with new ones to fill the rest of the slots.

Chamber 16 was easy because I wanted to introduce the new custom mechanics quickly and easily. 17 onwards...

the 17 I came up with to replace the Portal 2 one was too hard (and is being pushed back to a later chamber slot), and 18 is a bit clunky. So I'm having to come up with a new chamber to help smooth out the learning/difficulty curve.

Coming up with good puzzles is a really challenging thing to do, but it's my first step to continuing the Mod's development.

Face Poser needs some better tutorials. So do soundscripts. If you're someone who has worked with Source 1 and knows how these two work, talk to me in the comments!!!

Soundscripts are supposed to work across all levels from what I gathered. Keyword is supposed to.

I created the Soundscript file and added it to the manifest, so it showed up in Hammer. Problem is it doesn't play in game or show up in Faceposer's list, therefore rendering it pointless. I then made a Soundscript file for the specific map, which does make the sound play in game, but doesn't fix it not showing up in Faceposer. Rendering it moot. 

So the other two options are simply use the raw WAV files in Faceposer, having to guess if they'll play or not, the exact length of each one, and on top of that figuring out how scripted sequences work in general when the steps to making one are hard to find...or just find a way to make Ambient_Generics work as best as I can.

Ambient_generics are a type of entity in Source that play sounds, raw sounds or game sounds. With a few problems, They won't pause what they are playing when the game pauses (unless it's a sound that's somehow hard coded to). It also means having to make a new individual entity for every single sound and also having to make sure none of them start or stop too early or late as to not overlap with each other.

I managed to fix the overlapping by simply making all lines for a specific action (Entry, Exit, etc) in a chamber one single file, and then making a logic output turn the volume down on that file when a new one was ready to play.  It's not perfect or elegant, and there's no subtitles, but I'm just one High Schooler doing this whole thing.

This one is more of a future thing but as someone who has tried and failed to figure out the Source model tools in the past, I already know the Proto-boy's model is going to suck to implement. I'll have to try my best though unless you want him made out of sh*tty brush based geometry. 

This is where I get off for now. Thank you for your patience and continued following of Delta Final's development.