Designing a Life Size Companion Cube
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- Опубліковано 20 вер 2024
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The Companion Cube is one of the most iconic gaming items and today I'm diving into Fusion360 to show how I've designed my own. SEO buzz buzz Portal 2
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Unofficial hiatus over. The radio is still on it's way, but there's a lot more work going into that one. See you next week.
Really
why is this so deep in the comments
k
The weird franken turret from portal 2. The cube part of the franken turret is just a half disassemble cube. It show the inside of the cube and all the parts that hold it together. Just ignore the turret part of the franken turret
If you ever go the Cave Johnson route, just make sure not to be near the moon rocks during the grinding process.
terminal moon disease
Proper PPE is important kids
"Science isn't about WHY. It's about WHY NOT. Why is so much of our science dangerous? Why not marry safe science if you love it so much. In fact, why not design a door that doesn't hit you on the way out because you are FIRED"
@@MrVolt Fun fact: Moon dust is actually pure poison, its mostly fine silica iirc, breathing the dust or consuming it is similar to eating the contents of "DO NOT EAT" packets
@@MrVolt FFP-2 mask should do the trick, right?
Your goal should be to build the entire facility by 2040
That would just be straight up scary if it were real 😨
2040 may seem good but a full sized GLaDOS would take a few years aside from the whole facility
2056 would be better as a reference to portal stories Mel
For science, you monster
Make it 2050
Oh hey, I'm the Wikipedia editor who (somewhat recently) added those dimensions mentioned at 0:48 to the article. I'm glad I included that information in time to be helpful for your project! Those are the dimensions of the cube prop in Portal 1 and Portal 2 converted from Hammer units to real world units. 16 hammer units = 1 foot and the cube model in Portal 1 is 40 hammer units while the model in Portal 2 is 36 hammer units around the bounds of the whole cube (its corner pieces, not its inner cube surface).
As a fun fact, I read on an old Reddit thread from somebody who anecdotally claims to have talked to a Valve employee who said they shrank the cube during the development process of Portal 2 to prevent it from getting stuck in the portals as often.
And for the record, with turrets, in Portal 1 they are 3.62889 feet tall excluding antenna, but I never got around to measuring the Portal 2 turrets.
If you still doubt this scale factor from hammer units is canon, here's my defense of that. It's safe to say that the conversion factor is pretty much as canon as you can hope for. The cube size passes a sanity check when compared against the height of Chell's player model, and she's roughly an average-height female when converted to real world units. The developers are modeling props with a certain real-world scale in mind so all the pieces come together in a sane way, so it should match developer intent. In my research, I've found people posting online where they tried to find counterexamples where specific props or measurements in game don't follow those units. But those are more a matter of oversights or tweaks for technical reasons or artistic license. For example, I've seen people count the distance measurements on the wall of the shaft in the "fall" chapter (with the potato GLaDOS small clap processor monolog), but those labeled distances aren't necessarily to scale with hammer units because they wanted to fit the pacing of the monolog and the player wouldn't know the difference. Another one I've seen is a comparison against the American flag on the moon, but obviously that is just the wrong size for artistic license and can't be used to construe the size of the entire rest of the game based on one prop in an ending cutscene. Other people tried to compare the height of certain known objects like a chair which has a pretty common height, and found it might not perfectly match the hammer units likely due to developer oversight. Nothing is perfectly consistent, but the 16:1 conversion is the basis from which the developers create the whole game and then may choose to make certain things inconsistent for practical or artistic reasons.
So, I'm currently designing some small scale Turrets, and on my research I saw a video from someone who was designing a 1-1 scale Portal 2 Turret, who was in talks with valve on making a licensed product out of it. And he said that the in game units corresponded to 1 inch each. So instead of 16 hammer units = 1 foot, he used 12 hammer units = 1 foot .
I don't have a preference to either measurement since I'm making small scale ones, just wanted to get your opinion on it because he was pretty adamant on it being 1 unit = 1 inch.
And if I recall correctly he also used Chell's height to confirm his measurments (worked out to Chell being 180cm in height)
@@konstantinosstavrou7638 I think I know of the person you're taking about from my research and he is wildly mistaken. The consequence is that his turrets are roughly as tall as a human, but if you stand next to one in-game and view yourself through two portals, you'll see that turrets are only about 1/2 to 2/3 the height of the player model.
@@Keavon So I just put a turret next to an office chair in-game, and by eye it seems that your scale fits real life proportions better.
The only problem being that since Chell is 72 units tall, she turns out to be 1.37m tall (4 ft 6 in), which is obviously too short.
But also in the Valve Developer Community site, it uses both scales, so it's a bit all over the place, but concerning Turrets (and probably cubes) it seems that your scale is correct.
Thanks for taking the time to answer!
There is evidence of the cube being shrunk. The version of the model included in Robot repair is identical to the one shown in E3 2010, and the retail cube is only 0.9x the size of it.
As for the unit size, the scale varies between assets, as having the player and npcs at a smaller scale works better visually due to it being an FPS game. The depth signs in the fall chapter are actually perfectly spaced to fit 1unit = 1", which is interesting because world geometry tends to be at the 16 unit scale.
I think the 16 unit scale works better for this though, as it will look closer to how it does in game
In game engines, the programers usually use the units like real life measurements. Like 1 unreal unit equals to one centimeter. I think thats where the measurements came from for the cube
16 Hammer units is one foot
EDIT: Forgot that npc models are at 12 HU to one foot
ah i see. Maybe back in the day they were not consistent with it.
Thanks, I will keep that in mind, if i make hl or other source maps.
@@MomradG IIRC there was a factor of 0.75 between hammer units and the units used for prop and npc models, otherwise everything just felt cramped.
@@Dth091 16 hu to 1 ft is used for almost everything, but there are two other scale factors. NPCs, for some reason, use a different scale factor of 12 hu to 1 ft, but that's rare and cubes aren't NPCs. Also the 3D skyboxes are 1 hu to 1 ft, but obviously cubes aren't skyboxes either.
@@calcutt4 that's a really nice pfp, i almost forgot how detailed CS:source textures are!
This man could make a portal movie without cgi
when you realise you need portals:
@@thegoldengood4725 , если mr volt объединится с Alexgyver'ом то будут не только порталы , ещё будет целая GLaDOS!)
@@thegoldengood4725 I guess Volt will have to recreate the portals too.
@@justyouraverageperson9533 😳
I heard Warner Bros is doing a Portal movie, but I don’t know if I should believe it, nor do know if it’s based off of the game or not. If these were the cases, then yeah. I see no reason why they shouldn’t hire him!
A giant 'Super colliding super button" would be awesome to accompany this one day. I'd be cool if it was rigged up to open a garage door or something. Something tells me there are a million issues with that idea though. Then again, when is there not a million issues with a cool idea when it comes to engineering?
It's very plausible! I just need more floorspace :)
@@MrVolt awesome!
Кстати ,я сказал об этом под опросом , просто очень хотелось увидеть куб на кнопке в реальном размере .)
It’s actually an APERTURE SCIENCE 300 MEGAWATT super colliding super button
Unfortunately, the effects of prolonged exposure to the button are not part of this test.
This feels like the vibes of the cave Johnson promotional videos for portal 2 but If they were made by an aperture intern and I’m living for it
I love your goofy style, dude. I wish each of these videos were twice as long.
Thank you!
there are a few animations of the cubes being assembled, a few models that show metal sheets for cube manufacturing, educational edition shows the core of a cube
Hmm, I cant recall seeing those before. Where can I find the animations?
@@MrVolt here ua-cam.com/video/dQw4w9WgXcQ/v-deo.html
@@MrVolt During the manufacturing sections of Portal 2's escape (The part where Wheatley is flashing the light over a pitch black factory while telling you about the madman who destroyed his robots), you can see cube plates being cut by industrial lasers and turned into cubes.
Portal Stories Mel also has an amazing section inside a cube factory which mostly uses canon models, might want to check that out too
When you load to the coop game, the loading screen can show a cheme of atlas/p-body. On that scheme there is numbers, that show _exactly_ what height the robots are. You can then just compare robots to cubes, that's how you know what size is cube
sorry for my bad english
it's perfect here
I really like that the cube sans the corner bumpers and edge details looks reminiscent of the cubes in the old Aperture facility.
Very much looking forward to the video of you constructing this. Whilst I feel like the design of the cubes in the original Portal looks better (and is arguably more iconic) I do still like the P2 design. Heck, anything that glows in the dark is cool to me 🤣
Ha, I didn't even think about that, but it totally does. Also, yeah, the OG Companion Cube is definitely more iconic.
2078:
Designing a Life Size Test Chamber [Working Doors and Aerial Faith Plates!]
**Real Toxic Goo**
(Working Portal Gun)
Might as well start a company called Aperture lol
2.25 ft is accurate, in the map editor the cube is 36 units on each side, one source engine unit is equal to 0.75 inches, 36 units x .75 = 27 inches.
let me ask: 27 inches is the size of the edge of the cube without bumpy corners, or with them?
For making the light change color when it's on a button, you can use NFC tags. They work through a good amount of material, and they are hella cheap (100 for 5 bucks if I remember right).
Finding a coil big enough to place in the button would be difficult. NFC range can be a problem
A much easier solution would simply be putting a wireless transmitter in each of the buttons created, as well as a receiver in the cube, and any time a button is pushed, the cube changes colour.
Not perfect, couple orders of magnitude easier
I am so indescribably excited for this cube. The amount of planning that goes into these projects is incredible, and I cannot wait for the build video
This has been a dream of mine since I first played Portal countless years ago.
I would proudly show this off in every interview, picture of my projects, and interaction with people.
as soon as he said "warehouses of them" i had a thought
portal could actually be real
This video was so different with the humor and I loved it
Thanks! I'm always trying to change things up.
immediately subscribed. so excited to see you work on this. portal 2 is one of my favorite games and the companion cube is one of my favorite game objects of all time. best of luck to you!!
Seeing the system that moves the panels in the real world would be cool.
10:38 if you rotate the part on the left by 45deg, it won't waste any more material as the one on the right. but if one of the pegs breaks off, you're in trouble, so the one on the right should still be the better solution
I had sussed it out to be 88cm back when Portal was relevant, and I actually prefer the P1 model. I've always toyed with the idea of making a life-sized and real material one. I'd figured the white parts that look like shock absorbers had to be made out of a rubber like silicon. The main box could be brushed aluminum
awesome video I love seeing this kind of content where you make this stuff in real life It's fascinating how you work your way around certain problems and I'm excited to see how this turns out
if this dude had a couple of industrial robots he would make a portal merchandise buisness
I’m actually getting a companion cube tattoo soon
Nice new look
Although highly implausible a life size frankenturret would be unreal to see, I guess it would be easier if the turret is permanently in that “tucked in” pose when you pick it up but still a huge feat
this channel seems to always be either extremely underrated or not there's no in-between :/
anyway, good video, your stuff always amazes me. remember to take breaks and stuff ofc ofc :)
This looks to be a fun project! I was gonna say you should also do an Old Aperture cube but I'm pretty sure that's just plywood and rubber stapled together :p
This project looks easier than the Wheatley one, tbh. Great work!!
loving the haircut man 👍
i think sandblasting is probably a more effective consistent and reliable way to smoke the plexy for a diffusion effect, otherwise a coating or film, plus its way faster and less labor intensive,. its also great at flatting bare aluminum ,, sand paper is likely to be a very "tricky" method of getting the effect i think you're looking for , ,very easy to screw up your material and your budget with plexy and acrylic like stuff,.
I always wanted to make the companion cube and the radio from portal, and I think it's extremely cool all the stuff you've been making from portal it's amazing to see that someone was impacted so much by the games that they brought the amazing mechanical stuff to being irl. I do have one thing I wanna say about the cube tho. It seems to be really complex at the moment, and you can't use it for "storage" like the namesake it's based on.
It's certainly complex, but Im designing this one as just companion cube that _can_ be a weighted storage cube, but it would be fun to reimagine it as a "useful" storage container. That would be a totally different design approach.
@@MrVolt I am certainly excited to see how this cube turns out, and with inspiration from your design I might actually get myself to build my own.
you are such a great engineer and gamer
i'm already hyped for the followup video
man you are what is lacking in the pop prop replica world! your design, approach, problem solving and finishing is truly a cut above the rest. awesome stuff
10:40 couldn't you just arrange the pice in an X position rather than a + position?
...yep
Ah, for some reason I have never thought about using fiberglass with my 3d prints....oh the possibilities that have opened up!
Yay more portal content
This is my dream decoration, if I ever get enough money I'd make this when I get confident enough in my craftsmanship. Then again my dream companion cube may be extremely expensive, anodized aluminum, flush machined screws, reinforced with a wooden interior or filled with a cheap but light material to provide some structural rigidity. I'd personally out of the lights for mine, even though it's canonically lit, I'd want it as a cute stool or ottoman, or maybe as a nightstand.
You forgot the living screaming corpse in the center. I love lore diving 😍
Oh my goodness! So many clever solutions to these engineering and fabrication issues! It’s an absolute joy every time you upload my guy
PLA is not innately garbage. It all depends on the use case. PLA is great for parts that need to be rigid, where abs is flexy and pla is stiff. Printing pla at temperatures of even 250-260c can allow the internal structure to crystalize which immensely increases strength. Also, with some heat treating (not that hard... can be done with a piece of wood, aluminum foil, and your average oven), the heat resistance of PLA can exceed that of ABS.
If you’re making the Portal 2 cube, do you plan on making the Portal 1 cube sometime? Apparently both cube designs are canon, because you see both the Portal 2 cubes and Portal 1 cube in the ending cutscene of Portal 2.
Dude I’m actually so excited for the build video, this is incredible
He says he doesn’t have much spare time but he spent hours or Mabey days designing a cube.
Beard needs to see a comeback!
Can't wait to get my dad one of these for a Christmas gift in about 20 years:)
This guy should work on the portal movie.
you could add a wireless charger to it somewhere and to the button, will take care of both detecting when it's on a button but also charge it to power the electronics inside
one day I hope to have a room filled with life size video game references
The cubes are canonically also bulletproof, good luck :)
Instead of making the "windows" circles, you could have just made the polycarbonate into a square that fills the side. Then attach the the corners of each side to the polycarbonate. Save on cutting it into pieces. That is clearly the way the thing is designed in-game.
The texture appears that way at first, andI didn't focus on the 3D game model in this video, but the there's noticeable depth to all the edges and illuminated strips as they rest below the faces of the cube, so I'd still need separate plates to cover them (painting over them wouldn't look right). With polycarb faces, each piece would cost $40 too. This way (as circles) I still have the option of edge lighting them from the outside edge, which wouldn't be possible if the whole face was polycarb. There's lots of different ways to make this! I appreciate your comment, just want to explain my thoughts.
The Enrichment Center reminds you that the Weighted Companion Cube will never threaten to stab you and, in fact, cannot speak.
okay thats it im hooked on this content
Love the project, and if you ever want 3D printed squish there's always TPU to give you a comical amount of it (but I'm biased as hell from combat robotics so yeah).
Looking forward to the future of your projects!
Но американцам такие технологии нельзя давать: от мира ничего не останется.
Did you know inside of the cubes in portal are computers and have been shown to blow up when destroyed.
So does this mean the storage cubes are servers?
source?
@@tweeleaf look at them in-game the franken turrets and when they get shredded they explode sending computer parts about whilst aflame glados also fizzles one remotely and they glow
@@jockdouglass3824 that represents wheatley’s shitty engineering skills.
There are people in the cubes. There are many hints about this in the games. Here is a Game Theory video about it
ua-cam.com/video/q5w6ieaTxGA/v-deo.html
I did not. I have no solid plans, but this does inspire me to turn it into a casemod.
To switch between blue/pink and yellow and charge the cube, put wireless charge receivers in each window and a wireless charger in the button and configure the cube to turn yellow when charging.
Stoked for the inevitable working portal gun
You should make face plates change the colors of the tube so it senses which is which to change to the pink or blue for the cubes
Great idea!
I'd probably use wled with pixel LEDs, might be a little over the top, but means it can be used with lots of things, you could also add a Reid switch or some other trigger, maybe RFID, so it can tell when it's been placed on something
I got into engineering because of you!
That's amazing and means a lot to me. Stick with it!
Thanks!
The size probably came from heights of characters in the Half-Life/Portal universe. Each object (including players and NPCs) have a size in the game engine (obviously), so you can just use a little math to figure out the size of the companion cube, then. And before you ask, no Source game engine does not use any kind of real-life unit. The height of one of the blocks you scale in Test Chamber 17 with the companion cube is 64 units (as is the width of all the portalable panels you see throughout the game).
If all the edge guards would touch a theoretical button, you could have a sensor or a similar part to detect a small electric current in the ring of the button.
The edge guards might be the best pieces for it.
I’ve never messed with this stuff, but hopefully it gives ideas
Can u please make a defective turret?or u playing portal?
Can you make some desktop arial faith plates? They'd be great for flinging things into a bin
Pretty incredible video, and I'll be looking at more of your content :)
One thing, though: you failed to account for the cube's sentience. Seeing as you're doing this way more sensibly than Aperture ever did, you may consider sticking Siri in there. Just make her quiet unless she happens to be singing in that one test chamber during Portal 2's The Cold Boot.
The end made my day
when you build a full size glados i volunteer my soul
you schould make an aperture science emergency intelligence incinerator as a precaution in case they will speak, because they, in fact, cannot
can't wait for part 2!
Make a life size turret with the laser and voice lines that actually shoots nerf darts!
Thankx for breaking it down.. great tutorial for beginners
You should definitely make that orange core that always says “I’m in space”
he already made wheatley that i’m pretty sure he could change the pupil (which is the only difference between wheatley and space core) so the only difference would be the eye and voice
Combustible lemons next with Nilered?
you could make it change lights when its on the button by using a nfc switch so when its in range of the key it will activate
Idea for colour control.
I know your probally past the point of needing any ideas but thought id share anyway.
Two ideas.
1. There are cheap nfc stickers you can get you could use them in one of many configurations for example on a magnetic logo so when it goes on it triggers a colour or the button detects and changes the colour.
Or 2. A less programing method, simply hardware. Have the magnet logo plates.
On one side of the cube, on the inside magnets have the cables connected to the magnets one corner negative, one b, one r, one g, for rgb led. Now on the logo plate depending which logo run a wire between negative and what ever colour combo you want. So when you connect the plate the magnets complete the circuit selecting the colour.
I just realised i think i made a mistake with the power explaination but you get the idea i mean, your a smart guy and this comment is too long to bother fixing what i wrote keep up the awesome content.
One Day we will sit on our couch and watch some UA-cam and see that Mr Volt made an working Portal gun
I know you said you wouldn't change the design but why not try using wireless LEDs for the lights?
You could have the induction coil under a button that turns on when it's pressed and it would power the receivers which would be placed on 3 different sides of the cube which would work as the color choice.
For example side one is has one receiver that makes the whole cube pink, side 2 has one that makes them blue and side 3 has one that makes them orange.
If you place the induction reciever close to the center it shouldn't activate any other lights as even the longest range induction coil I've seen that isn't a million dollars only went like 20 cm.
and idea for how to get the button to change color could be to make the button when pressed sends a frequency that the RPI or whatever is inside it detects changing color
1:50 Ah, yes, * remembers that time you had to use a cube as a shield from turret bullets and energy orbs *
I want to do one too but first i have to make a perk a cola from zombies
Oh man when I was a kid I'd would dream of having a life size companion cube and weighted storage cube!
the cube should be so durable that you can stand on it, but light enough that you can hold it without too much difficulty
I believe they got the 2 something feet size from the hammer units that the source engine's map editor uses
Another 12 minute video!! LETS GO!!!!
I was looking at the thumbnail, with the title visible, but had zoned out the title and thought, that could be fun to print.
I also need an aperture labs shirt
Mr. Volt's last Aperture branded product is most likely to be the Sentry Turret. I real question is, is he saving it for last because it's the most awaited robot to be built, or it's the most difficult?
Hey remember 9 months ago when you did those exotic round screens ? , would you be able to turn two of those into a pair of lcd glasses where you can have stuff like toggling what’s displayed, and sound effects ?
The size probably came from loading it in the same place as a prop of known size ie: an oil drum. I know that hl2 props can work in portal, I don't remember if there are any prop oil drums in portal 1 or 2
"I'll always need you." -Doug Rattman
The video is amazing it's fun to watch someone is going to be Cave Johnson in the future :D
you could use a magnetic senser to find out when the button is pressed or not pressed and light it accordingly
this vs my foam board Halloween prop from a few years ago. ...I still have it, love it, and hug it. XD Although, I spent 20$ on everything, including the dress and the tools I used for glados. Though, it is NOT Durable. Paper vs fiber glass re-enforced plastic... Yeaaaaah...
A small detail about companion cubes specifically is that they very faintly play a little tune. It's barely audible in game so it's often overlooked
ua-cam.com/video/I6NJCt9yLfY/v-deo.html
Underated dude
i feel like you would need to build the button and the cube together to actually have the cube light up when its on the button but thats just me. Also just relized that the ubes are laser proof...good luck with that lol.
Your goal by 2060 should be to make a real fully working quantum tunneling device AKA the ironic portal gun that works