Puzzle Creator

The Puzzle Creator (also known as Puzzle Maker or Editor) is a part of the Perpetual Testing Initiative in Portal 2, a DLC released on May 8th, 2012^[1] allowing the creation of single-player test chambers within a simple in-game editor.^[1]

Overview

The editor was first mentioned within The Final Hours of Portal 2, "[An in-game level browser won't be of much use unless] Valve figures out how to make designing Portal 2 maps an easier process. It has a plan there too, it comes in the form of a simplified level editor [...] a Photoshop for test chambers".^[2]

The "Puzzle Creator" does not appear to have a single official name; Valve published a blog post on the October 27, 2011 referring to the editor as the "Puzzle Creator"^[3], later referred to it on the blog post of April 27, 2012 as "Puzzle Maker"^[4] and simply calling it "Editor" in-game.

Interface

The Puzzle Creator features a stylised representation of the test chamber being worked on; featuring a simplified, bright, and flat color palette, and models and textures lack the level of detail that they would have in-game.

The initial view of the Puzzle Creator.

Basic controls

Hovering the mouse over the left screen edge displays the item list.
The top edge of the screen features four buttons: "Build and play puzzle", "Undo", "Redo", and "Switch to game view".
Selecting and dragging the upper-right corner pans the camera view.
Selecting and dragging the right edge controls the camera zoom.
Selecting and dragging the lower-right corner controls the camera rotation.
- Select a block or item.
- On background: Pans camera view; On chamber: Context menu.
- Click: Controls camera rotation; Scroll: Controls camera zoom (follows cursor).
W+S - Zoom in/out.
Q+E - Rotate left/right.
W+S - Pan left/right.
R+F - Rotate up/down.
P - Toggle surface portalability.
++- - Push/pull (extrude) surface.
Delete/← Backspace - Delete selection.

Advanced controls

⇧ Shift+ - Allows for batch selection of surfaces.
ctrl+ - Duplicates an item (does not duplicate any connections).
alt+ - Places an item on the surface opposite to the one facing the camera.
space+ - Pushes/pulls surface if selected.

Shortcuts

ctrl+N - New chamber
ctrl+O - Open...
ctrl+S - Save
ctrl+⇧ Shift+S - Save as...
Tab ⇆ - Switch to game view.
F9 - Rebuild
ctrl+Q - Exit editor
ctrl+Z - Undo
ctrl+Y - Redo
ctrl+A - Select all

Items list

Pedestal Button (includes timer)
Button
Cube Button
Sphere Button
Weighted Cube (with dropper)
Companion Cube (with dropper)
Edgeless Safety Cube (with dropper)
Franken Cube (with dropper)
Tractor Beam (forward/backward)
Faith Plate
Light Bridge
Stairs
Fizzler
Glass
Piston Platform
Track Platform
Laser Emitter.
Laser Catcher.
Laser Relay.
Reflection Cube (with dropper)
Glass Panel
Angled Panel
Flip Panel
Observation Room
Laser Field
Turret
Deadly Goo
Light Strip
Bounce Gel (with dropper)
Speed Gel (with dropper)
Conversion Gel (with dropper)
Cleansing Gel (with dropper)
Door (cannot spawn)

Limitations

As the puzzle creator is designed for ease of use, certain limitations apply. These limitations can be overcome by importing the map into Hammer in the Portal 2 Authoring Tools.

The entity limit is set to 1750; the actual number of items placeable by the user is much lower than this.
The editor is block based, so complex geometry such as curves and angles smaller or greater than 90 degrees cannot be achieved.
Chambers are isolated, so sequences of chambers cannot be published as one map using the Puzzle Creator alone.

Related commands

procedural_generator_solve_it - Solve the procedural puzzle generator.
procedural_generator_test - Test the procedural puzzle generator.
puzzlemaker_autosave_dev - autosaves the current puzzle as 'autosave.p2c'
puzzlemaker_compile_and_preview
puzzlemaker_compile_and_publish
puzzlemaker_current_hint
puzzlemaker_drawselectionmeshes 0/1 - draw wireframe item selection meshes in red
puzzlemaker_export <name> - export the current puzzle as 'name.vmf' (maps are saved to common\portal 2\sdk_content\maps\)
puzzlemaker_load_dev - load the puzzle called 'name.p2c'
puzzlemaker_new_chamber
puzzlemaker_open_chamber
puzzlemaker_play_sounds 0/1 - sets if the puzzlemaker can play sounds or not
puzzlemaker_publish_dev - compile the current puzzle and publish it to the Steam workshop
puzzlemaker_quit
puzzlemaker_request_publish
puzzlemaker_save_chamber
puzzlemaker_save_dev <name> save the current puzzle as 'name.p2c'
puzzlemaker_shadows 0/1 - Enable shadows in the Portal 2 Puzzle Maker
puzzlemaker_show_overlay_web_page
puzzlemaker_show 0/1 - 1 shows the puzzle maker, 0 hides it
puzzlemaker_zoom_to_mouse 0/1/2 - 0-zoom to center of screen, 1-zoom to mouse cursor (smart), 2-zoom to mouse cursor