I like the new editor but I'd really like to see some more features like:

[list=]Finer-grained control for adding brushes - 32x32x32 would be fine
Same with portalable surfaces
Auto-rationalise brushes where possible
Sloped surfaces for brushes
Ability to alter the orientation of placed objects like faith plates when the default placement looks silly/weird
Textures for the different themes[/list]

As a first release though, the new editor is magnificent. It's a great way to knock out a puzzle without having to deal with Hammer's steep, steep learning curve.

chickenmobile wrote:
[*]When trying to open in hammer: 128x128x128 blocks annoying as hell to work with!

This is probably my general crapness with Hammer talking, but I actually quite like using those blocks in general; saves me having to cut up all my big brushes when I want to do some texturing and stuff. Looks a bit ugly in the grid views, granted, but a bit of toying with visGroup colours makes it perfectly manageable and IMO generally easier. I guess the key is getting as much down as possible in the PTI editor before you export, because making major changes is a bit of a pain...

El Farmerino wrote:
chickenmobile wrote:

[*]When trying to open in hammer: 128x128x128 blocks annoying as hell to work with!

This is probably my general crapness with Hammer talking, but I actually quite like using those blocks in general; saves me having to cut up all my big brushes when I want to do some texturing and stuff. Looks a bit ugly in the grid views, granted, but a bit of toying with visGroup colours makes it perfectly manageable and IMO generally easier. I guess the key is getting as much down as possible in the PTI editor before you export, because making major changes is a bit of a pain...

I totally agree with that. (Except the crapness bit. You can't be that crap at it if you already know about visgroups and their colours )

I think the nicest feature of the PTI editor is the way you reshape rooms. They really did a great job on that. I might use it just for that, and do all of the entity work in Hammer. (I always start with square blocks anyway, so I'm used to it.)

Theevina wrote:
Is there any way we can get Valve to see this thread? I don't know if they have a suggestions form.

A couple of them are regulars on the board. No, I'm not telling you who.

HMW wrote:
You can't be that crap at it if you already know about visgroups and their colours )

I think the nicest feature of the PTI editor is the way you reshape rooms. They really did a great job on that. I might use it just for that, and do all of the entity work in Hammer. (I always start with square blocks anyway, so I'm used to it.)

Ha, well, I didn't until after I'd finished my first map, when I saw chickenmobile write something like "a lot of mappers out there don't even know what visGroups are!" Blew my mind, I tell you. I always wondered what all those pretty colours were.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure all of my maps are gonna start in the PTI editor from now on. I don't see much point in going entirely from scratch any more.

Like
Extremely easy to use. I've never used the Portal SDK but i can create really cool maps just with drag & drop. The only thing you need to know are game mechanics. Awesome!
Very fast level creation and istant testing, goregeous to solve bugs and glitch that you won't see while placing elements

Dislike
You can't know if someone's chamber is solvable or not.
I've found chambers with ugly design where you can't figure out WHERE (not even how) to go or impossible to solve (like a map where i should jump but there were only black walls and nothing else...).
Cubes size force me to use stairs instead of a simple half-height block to climb.
Few Light source, i wish i could use more big observation rooms in my test chambers.

Likes:
It's fairly simple to use
It's great to plot out some interesting test chambers
Creates indicators on it's own
Faith Plates created easily ( I hate setting those up )
The lighting can be great if done right

Dislike:
64x64 grid size. I don't know about you but I like making walls rather thin at some points.
No test chamber doors. I'd like to see doors be put in for testing purposes. Instead I'm using panels as doors.
lack of wall detail. To be honest I though the game was going to randomly generate wall tiles, idk why though.
I can only place the 128x128 Observation room. I like using the 192x128 better.
I was kind of hoping for crushers. I can understand why they aren't there but even still.
I wish there was Auto Portals that can be activated/deactivated with buttons/switches.
With Auto Portals there should be the ability to force the player to only have one portal or no portal when the map starts up.
No cameras! I like them...a lot.

Most of my cons are more of personal preference and what I wish was there to begin with. Don't get me wrong I like the new editor but it's just not as customized as Hammer. Not that I expected it to be just like Hammer or better to begin with.

First of all, msleeper, great avatar! (sorry to post it here, but I just realized)

Likes:

1. This is indeniable an awesome tool which accomplish with Valve's intentions, make a simple, fast and easy tool for those who want to mess up with hammer. I'm amazed of how clear the puzzle editor is, about its intuitiveness, and about ... its lack of crashes (is this really made by the same company that made Hammer.... really?)

2. It allows you to test new concepts, puzzlewise, see which ideas could work

3. As already mentioned, the automatic indicatoring (somethimes I only set 2 entities far away with a lot of corners and such only to see how it quickly connects them with the indicator lights...)

4. I think it's fair to allow people who are unable to learn hammer show their potential for creating puzzles...

5. Optimisaztion and lighting is also automatic, and it's very habndy (I haven't tested its accuracy grade about it yet though)

6. It's great how easy and fast you seee the result after making a chamber in game...

Dislikes:

1. As discussed above, it has many limitations as 128 units blocks, impossibility of sailing into the 3D view as HMW said (this would be necessary for watching angles when placing entities or walls and check possibilities of shooting portals, etc...).

2. Entity placement is very restricted as well because of the blocks/grid restrictions.

3. You are forced anyway to use hammer in order to detail your map and personalize it (almost all PTI maps look the same! ...aesthetically)

4. ALL THE CRAPPY MAPS RELEASED...85.000 maps so far and counting. I've played all Mevious maps (AMAZING PUZZLES BTW!), Lp's, some of the already played here, and some of the top rated... but there are lots of them SOOOO EXPLOITABLE, SIMPLE, OR SIMPLY BAD PUZZLES... Welcome everyone to puzzle making!

@Moderators and Admins: Seriously guys, I think you are doing a great job dealing with all this mess. It's a huge explosion of new mappers/maps and, even though I think TWP is becoming a bit of mess since PTI release, I think the forum is well organized after all, it0's good separating hammer maps from the PTI, that is the best you did! I was afraid all the maps would mix and frankly speaking, there's an enormous difference...

josepezdj wrote:
@Moderators and Admins: Seriously guys, I think you are doing a great job dealing with all this mess. It's a huge explosion of new mappers/maps and, even though I think TWP is becoming a bit of mess since PTI release, I think the forum is well organized after all, it0's good separating hammer maps from the PTI, that is the best you did! I was afraid all the maps would mix and frankly speaking, there's an enormous difference...

We're not going to discount or ignore puzzle creator maps. I know that some of you think we should because it "taints" "real" mappers but that's dumb and I don't care. The measures we've taken so far are just a first step, we'll make sure that things are organized a bit better with the new download system.

Likes:
Big speed of making tests

Dislikes:
128x128x128 blocks D:

*I need to start learning instances commands (outputs\inputs)...

Btw, isn't it possible to save your status while you're playing a map made by the community and load it again?? I've searched amongst my savegames in the main menu and this doesn't keep a record of any progress for these maps. Also there's no option into the new menu for loading saved points...

I'm just saying because that would be an annoying "dislike", not directly related to the new puzzle editor, but to the dlc2.

F6 and F7 (by default) still work fine, but you have to take care that you actually are in the community section when loading a community map save, otherwise it breaks the rating window at the end.

(They should add menu options for those IMO.)

My biggest problem with making maps in hammer (for pretty much any game, heh) was always getting started. Setting up all the little stuff like level-start and end entities, all that. I'm kind of looking forward to when I do my first hammer export. I'm just toying around with the editor as of now, doing complete PeTI maps, but I'm hoping to start exporting them and making them REAL maps.

Likes: -Does the hard parts for you.
-Elegant as hell (For some reason, whenever I'm extruding a corner, I'm thinking of SBURB)

Dislikes: -Not as precise or wide-ranging as Hammer can be. (Not really a fault, but a trade-off)

I've noticed that not a lot of people are downloading PTI maps as much as Hammer made maps. But then again, that's just from looking at the overall downloads. And that there are multiple ways to find a PTI map beside looking in TWP.

MasterLagger wrote:
I've noticed that not a lot of people are downloading PTI maps as much as Hammer made maps. But then again, that's just from looking at the overall downloads. And that there are multiple ways to find a PTI map beside looking in TWP.

For me, I never will see a PTI map the same way as a Hammer-made map. I definitely do not like PTI maps, at all. They just feel so different. Maybe that's just me...

What do you like?
User-friendly. Easy to make things big and complicated, fast.

What do you dislike?
I cannot make specific markings when I construct more complex stuff, like arrows and dots indicating direction and order.

What needs to be fixed?
No idea if these have been observed:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/716/2012052100002.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/214/2012052100003.jpg/
We are talking about oscillating platforms. They will cause the map-editor to crash in about half an hour, but only when entering in-game.

What annoys you?
I have to publish and subscribe to my own map, then restart the game in order to actually play it and skip the map editor generating the whole thing all over again.

How do you feel about other's maps?
I'll get curious once (although it appears I shouldn't be)

Will you continue to use Hammer, PeTI, or both?
I've never used Hammer, so I guess I'm an outcast in this matter.

Likes:
Sets up trigger hurts for goo and discouragement field
Clean textures
Animated panels with inputs
Auto indicator lights
Easy to change entrance and exit
Path tracks are easy to set up
Observation rooms are SO easy to place
Less crashes

Dislikes:
128X128 grid
Mess of indicator lights
No OR gates
Lack of clean only
No models
Turrets don't shoot through portals and have limited sight
No overlays, info placement helpers, or trigger
Where are the crushers?

portal2tenacious wrote:
Dislikes:
Turrets don't shoot through portals and have limited sight

I modified the turret for you: it now shoots through portals and has a range of 4096 instead of 1024.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37801279/turret.vmf download/save that and place it in Steam\steamapps\common\portal 2\sdk_content\maps\instances\p2editor and overwrite the turret.vmf that's in there and your turrets are more deadly then those of most others.

Good things: I like the simplicity of it all, and how You can make a level in 5 minutes. It's also good since you can upload levels from the hammer editor too.
Bad things: It doesn't let you add details. Not as many elements as there is in hammer.
NOT ENOUGH SPACE. We need more of it. I agree with Space core. Space. Space? SSSPPPAAACCCEEEEE!!!!!

If you are a beginner at making tests, It's a good place to start. But if you already know how to use hammer, use that instead.

Vill. wrote:
I have to publish and subscribe to my own map, then restart the game in order to actually play it and skip the map editor generating the whole thing all over again.

Really? I never have to restart the game - just subscribe then go back to my queue and it's there....