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 allowing the creation of single-player test chambers within a simple in-game editor.

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".

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", later referred to it on the blog post of April 27, 2012 as "Puzzle Maker" 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

• Storage Cube (with dropper)
• Companion Cube (with dropper)
• Redirection Cube (with dropper)
• Edgeless Cube (with dropper)
• Franken Cube (with dropper)
• Switch (includes timer)
• Heavy Button
• Cube Button
• Edgeless Cube Button
• Laser (emitter, catcher and sensor)
• Aerial Faith Plate
• Excursion Funnel (forward/backward)
• Hard Light Bridge
• Fizzler
• Laser Field
• Panels (flips 180° to opposite portalable status, tilt 30-90°, forms staircase)
• Light strips
• Observation room (one-block rooms only)
• Goo
• Repulsion Gel (with dropper)
• Propulsion Gel (with dropper)
• Conversion Gel (with dropper)
• Cleansing Gel (with dropper)

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

Unused content

The following have been found in the game files:

• Aerial Faith Plate (large).
• 'Push out' panel.
• Additional voting criteria for a map, including "confused" and "stuck".
• Various "upgrade" badge textures.
• Crusher
• Portal Spawner
• Unidentifiable panel
• Observation room with adjustable size
• Teapot

Gallery

Puzzle Creator

An example of a simple test chamber.

Pre-release

Announcement screenshot #1   Announcement screenshot #2

External links

• Official "Tips" page
• Official "Controls" page