#the cake is a lie ( Aperture Science )

[ariariari-freehounreal]

Her life is full of repeated, never ending pain and torment and she is tired of hurting and being hurt

[actiasflower]

Caroline Fanart

Hello everyone on Tumblr! This is my first post I guess. I already post on instagram but I decided to try Tumblr out 👍

I've been kind of stuck in the Portal fandom lately and I just needed to draw some fanart. So.. heres some Caroline art! My first portal fanart if I don't count with the doodles that I've made :D

Drawn on: Hipaint

Time taken: I think I destroyed my sleeping schedule ♡

Anyways heres Wheatley screaming

Thank you for taking the time to read the antire post!

[ngeruma]

"IRIS" | Perpetual Testing | Portal 2 Community Maps & Mods

By Enderek & Antek1234

WARNING: Gravitational anomalies may allow for extreme cheesing.

Full Video

More Test Chambers

[sad-catbrick]

I trust that

[aperture-science-official]

Me, an edgy and angsty teenager, 2013: Portal is a fun video game about puzzles, killer robots, and CAKE!!! XD

Me, a bitter adult working in research for a few years, 2023: Portal is a testament to how science companies with enough money and brain power still manage to squander it all and waste their potential by creating endless and needless QC and miles of red tape as a substitute for actual achievement, ultimately dooming the world we live in.

[impostororigins]

Some Portal sketches.

[ossyflawol]

Did you know that the cake signage appears in Portal 2? It's when the crabhead Wheatley decided to get off the rail.

(i tried to answer this atleast twice but it crashed the text editor twice, third time's the charm!)

Yup, fully aware of it. Though, a more interesting question is - why is it here? Valve, going into Portal 2's development, wanted to avoid every possible reference they could to the cake from Portal 1, as the internet practically ran wild with the whole "The Cake Is A Lie" thing and it'd be seen as them trying to cash in on a dead meme.

So let's answer that, why is the cake signage here, and only here?

So, back in Portal 1, every single Test Chamber sign was actually it's very own, unique model. The sign present in Portal 2 specifically is "models/props_animsigns/signage_num08.mdl", and it's the sign used in Test Chamber 8 from Portal 1.

(Sidenote, I don't believe that the dilapidated Test Chamber in Portal 2 labelled as "08" is the same Test Chamber 8 from Portal 1, it's just a different Test Track, the fact it's on the same level as Portal 1's Test Chamber 7 says enough.)

Let's take a quick look at Portal 1's Test Chamber signs on the more internal level. Valve did the 'activation' of the signs by having various texture skins that the model would progress through, controlled by internal map logic.

As depicted below, it starts at Skin 1 (the second leftmost skin), and progresses all the way until Skin 6, which is the "fully activated" Chamber Sign.

The main thing is that these signs are entirely premade, if you want to change the icons on these, you have to recompile the model to switch it over.

This was easier to do back in Portal 1, the game was smaller, only had 19 Test Chambers, and this design was established quite early in development, of course, after some iterations of earlier designs, but that's besides the point.

This would, however, become problematic if, say, a game had up to ~110+ unique Test Chambers...

Oh wait.

When making Portal 2, Valve was almost certainly not going to try and make a hundred unique signs for each and every Test Chamber, especially when they were shifting around the level order constantly to try figure out the difficulty curve of the puzzles.

So, now with the whole company working on Portal 2, rather than the small team that was Portal 1, they came up with an ingenious solution:

Just one, universal sign.

So, rather than making a hundred unique models, Valve instead projects a GUI onto the screen that mimicked the visual style of the Chamber signs from Portal 1, and the best part? It is completely modular.

Instead of a hundred bajillion models, Valve simply had the GUI read from two text files.

"lightboard_startup_sequences.txt" defines the unique style of 'activation flicker' of the signs, but the real meat and potatoes is in "sp_lightboard_icons.txt".

And so, rather than a million models, Valve controls it all through simple text! They can tell the UI to display every possible detail, such as what Test Chamber number the player is on, how many Test Chambers there are in the sequence, etc.

Though, most important is the icons.

At the beginning of the text file, every possible icon the signs can display is listed:

Notice anything missing?

There's no cake icon.

So, what's going on in this Portal 2 map, the one with Chamber 8's sign?

Simply put? It's just the very same Chamber sign model all the way back from Portal 1, stuck on the third activation skin of the set, which happens to display the cake icon as part of the model.

This is actually due to to a limitation of how the modular chamber sign system works in Portal 2, it can only support one unique sign per map, which is a downside compared to Portal 1's 'every Test Chamber sign is it's own model' system. Both have their flaws and benefits, but Portal 2's is easily has more pros can cons.

So in order to combat this problem of being unable to have two unique chamber signs in one map, Valve just plonked in Chamber 8's sign into the other chamber, and called it a day.

I just thought that was interesting.

ADDENDUM:

If you're wondering, the Cooperative Campaign of Portal 2 has it's own lightboard_icons.txt, it's just located in the 'coop' folder for scripts.

[precious-ketchup]

Thank you GLaDOS, thank you.

Portal 2

(Definitely recommend this game if y'all love puzzle games.)

[littlemushrumboy]

Playing portal 2 after having actually played the first one really does hit different. I was so confused the first time.

[privt-eye]

aperturescience.com - Aperture Science Applicant Form (pg. 4)

[ariariari-freehounreal]

“It was you, and you alone that he had shown his bedroom dancer to

Shown his bedroom dancer to (x5)

And he would never tell you that it was his first time.”

.

Hello chelley nation look I drew the objectum autistic girl and her glorified soccer ball boyfriend

[the-zippyy]

Nuevo capítulo!

[ngeruma]

"Cuboid" | Perpetual Testing | Portal 2 Community Maps & Mods

By Storm

When you’re as good at overcomplicating things as I am, it really should be considered a skill. Even GLaDOS acknowledges it.

Full Video

More Test Chambers

[incorrect-portal-2-quotes]

Portal is a horror game.

It posits itself as this fun, quirky puzzle game, but that's so clearly not what it is even 5 minutes in. This supposedly bustling science facility is completely silent. No one is watching through the observation windows, the test chambers are visibly dirtied and worn, and the only voice you hear throughout the entire game is the "Pre-Recorded" GLaDOS, who is consistently glitching and saying things that are slightly ominous. This feeling is only amplified by Kelly Bailey's masterful soundtrack, which similarly to Half-Life 2, creates this feeling of loneliness and abandonment. It all comes to a head in Chamber 16 when you finally see Doug Rattman's writings for the first time and realize "Something is VERY wrong here." Afterwards, you learn more and more about how fucked Aperture really is, like how the water in the test chambers is actually a result of flooding, how the Turrets are very much NOT a testing element, and how the Iconic Cake is in fact, a lie. This all comes to a head in the final chamber when the illusion completely falls away and GLaDOS is revealed as a killer, leading into the game's final act. However, even after the Reveal, Portal still manages to keep its horror elements, as GLaDOS slowly hunts you throughout the facility. Stalking, waiting. It's still quiet, still lonely. But now the danger is real, and it's coming for you.

[local-hyena]

I just finished Portal and I LOVED IT SOOOO MUCHHH

First of all, the puzzles. I liked how the first ones were very easy, and then became more and more complicated with time. They were just challenging enough !

Another thing I adored was GLaDOS's voice. Her robotic, sing-song tone was really great. And, of course, her personality.

The story was great as well ! I really liked finding clues hidden in the environment. Some of them could be easily missed. I made my mom play (she enjoy it also, but the movement/portal mechanics make her feel dizzy) and she almost missed the first clue.

The ending, also. It was... quite mysterious. But hey, the cake wasn't a lie after all ! I can't wait to play Portal 2 :D !! But for that I'll have to finish the content of the Orange Box first. Which mean the next game I'll be playing is Half-Life 2 Episode 1.

Also ! I The song at the end. Sung by GLaDOS I guess ? It holds... a mysterious meaning. What is Aperture Science's objective ? Why does it have beef with Black Mesa ?

So many questions. Hope POrtal 2 has some answers :P