Unused Textures

This is a sub-page of Portal.

Portal features a variety of unused textures that can still be found in the game files.

BLU Briefcase#

Present in materials/models/flag is the Team Fortress 2 BLU briefcase texture, apparently misplaced here.

fixed_portal_border#

The early fixed portal border texture, seen in many pre-release screenshots and maps from the development history, remains in the game's files in the portal/materials/signage/ directory, and still appears in the asset leaked developer test map (devtest.bsp) if the map is loaded into the final game.
This texture was later made into the model that's seen in Portal 2, which oddly also has it as a leftover file.

Red Portal#

A red-colored portal, present in portal/materials/models/portals/portal-red-color.vtf. This is the color the orange portal had briefly during development, and if you turn on the closed captions the message "Red Portal Open" will appear whenever you shoot an orange one. This misnaming is present in all languages. The misnaming is also seen in the name of the audio files, is referenced in the Hammer Level Editor with the weapon_portalgun and prop_portal entities, and is seen in the leaked source code as well.

To enable it in-game (replacing the orange portal), modify portal/materials/models/portals/portalstaticoverlay_2.vmt to read $PortalColorTexture models/portals/portal-red-color instead of $PortalColorTexture models/portals/portal-orange-color, although the particles around the portal will stay orange.

The most likely explanation for these red portals is that they were a change made late into development, then reverted; previous designs of the portals were orange, and these red portals use the final design in addition to the orange particles. This may also explain the discrepancy in the captions and everything else, as the developers didn't have time to revert the rest of changes.

Alternate Portal Particles#

Present in the game's particle files are a different particle system for portals that was never used in-game. It can be enabled by running the game with the "-tools" argument.

"Sparta" Sign#

This odd texture, likely a reference to the movie "300", is present in portal/materials/models/props_facemovie/wet_floor_sign, without a matching model in the game's files. Files used in the "props_facemovie" folder were originally intended to feature in a Source Filmmaker video, and a matching model for the sign can be found in the Source Filmmaker files in game/tf_movies/models/props_facemovie/wet_floor_sign, albeit with just a plain texture instead. The file being located here in Portal was likely misplaced here by accident and was never fixed.

White Phone#

There is an unused skingroup texture of Aperture Science's emergency red phone prop, colored white here.

v_portalgun2#

Present in the portal/materials/models/weapons/v_models/v_portalgun/ directory is a texture for a much earlier Portal Gun, speculated to be from around 2005, as seen in this video.

Unused Map Textures#

A couple of concrete and plastic textures that were never used.

Many unused concrete wall textures of various gradients that are never used in any Test Chamber map. However, they are used in the bonus chambers present in Portal: Still Alive.

This texture named "hazard_liquid_beneath", located in portal/materials/nature, would have appeared as the surface of toxic slime, as seen from below, indicated by early screenshots. The material simply reuses the top texture for both sides.

Overlays#

A few overlays, those being a poster, a couple of oil stains, and some signs for an office and observation room that were likely meant to be seen during the escape, all remain unused. stain_oil_06.vtf lacks an alpha channel, for some reason.

Camera Detachment Texture#

When a portal is placed behind a camera, it will detach itself from the wall, leaving behind two dots where it would have connected to the wall. In the game files, an actual more-detailed texture for the camera detachment can be found, located in portal/materials/overlays, which is likely from a point in time when the security camera used a different model due to it looking like one of the models used during development.

Skyboxes#

An odd skybox showing metal test chamber walls with glowing orange holes.

Another odd skybox showing the first Xen map from Half-Life (c4a1.bsp). The map escape_01.bsp is in fact set to use this, but the map doesn't contain any skybox brushes, so it is never rendered. However, as shown in the uncompiled map file's _steaming_refuse visgroup, an early ending would reveal that Chell was to be in Xen after she defeated GLaDOS.