Big thanks to Omnicoder for this! I basically (with permission) pulled it straight out of his excellent "Retrospective" map, cleaned up the names, and made a prefab.

This package contains 3 files:
* combine_ball.vmf : The prefab vmf file
* combine_ball.vpk : Dependency VPK file (stand-alone)
* combine_ball.bsp : prefab test map (as .bsp)

Usage:

Very simply, distribute the combine_ball.vpk file with your map, and it can be placed into the 'steamapps\common\portal 2\portal2\addons' directory which Portal 2 loads on startup. Then, you can immediately copy-paste the prefab ball launcher & catcher.

Alternatively, you can use the program GCFScape to extract the VPK file, combine these into your own files, and then create a new VPK file; this allows you to repackage the dependencies with your map.

Important note: You must use the .vpk file provided or create your own from these files. Simply copy-pasting the contents of the .vpk file into your portal2 directory (and not as a single .vpk in the addons directory) simply crashes the game from my experience. The identical files in a VPK then work without a problem. I haven't yet figured out why this is.

File Name: combine_ball-1.0.0.zip
File Size: 469.17 KiB

msleeper wrote:
Question: Does this use new material assets, or are these taken straight from Portal 1? Because if they're recycled from Portal 1 then I'm not sure how I feel about it being distributed (as much as I love energy ball puzzles).

I don't know, and I also never did any maps for Portal 1 (nor do I own the tools), so I'm also not even sure how to find out.

What I can confirm is that they're the same material files distributed with the Retrospective map. If this crosses some intellectual property boundary, it might be worth creating some modified material assets since the heavy lifting (the two prop_dynamics) are available in the Portal 2 tools already.

Thoughts?

Basically, I love the energy ball puzzles, so if we can find a way to do this "right", it would be worth doing.

I really like the energy ball puzzles as well, I was looking forward to using them in Coop and was sad that they were effectively replaced by laser emitters/catchers. So it's not that I have a problem with the concept at all. I just want to make sure that, given that TWP is the #1 downloaded-from Portal 2 site, there's no question about IP rights.

msleeper wrote:
I really like the energy ball puzzles as well, I was looking forward to using them in Coop and was sad that they were effectively replaced by laser emitters/catchers. So it's not that I have a problem with the concept at all. I just want to make sure that, given that TWP is the #1 downloaded-from Portal 2 site, there's no question about IP rights.

Naturally.

Feel free to take this down until you have a chance to review it. If there's anything I can do to assist in the remastering process, I'll do whatever I can as well.

Why would Valve have a problem with people using these files? What suddenly they don't want people using Portal assets in Portal 2? That makes no sense. It ain't like anyone is going to claim they MADE these files themselves. Believe me, Valve is so NOT going to care if people integrate Portal elements into Portal 2.