What I Wish The Puzzle Creator Could Do...

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wildgoosespeeder
178 Posts
Posted Dec 07, 2012

I know what you are thinking. Why not use Hammer if I have so many problems with the in-game editor? There is a reason the puzzle creator exists and that is to create test chambers fast and with ease without the need of Hammer's complexity and feeling overwhelmed by it. Here's a list of things I wish the puzzle creator could do:

  • Manual placement of antlines. I shouldn't have to use lights or other test elements to manipulate the antlines.- Pedestal button allowing 1 or 2 seconds. Right now, if we lower the number of seconds from 03 to 02, we go directly to infinity instead. Shouldn't happen.- Adjust excursion funnel speed. In the single player story mode, you can see in the early excursion funnel puzzles that they are moving at different speeds.- The aerial faith plate should be allowed to exist in two variations. Looking at the source files in "steamapps\common\portal 2\portal2_dlc2\materials\puzzlemaker\palette", it is hinted at one time that this used to exist or will exist eventually.- The aerial faith plate should have the ability to be enabled or not. In some Hammer maps I played, some people have found a way to stop the aerial faith plate from launching you through the air until you enable it with a button or something.- Stairs, when not deployed, should be able to be portalable based on what surface they are placed on.- Portalable piston platform. An early puzzle creator screenshot hinted at this.- Portalable track platform.- Have an option for the laser emitter and laser catcher to be set to low profile (top) or centered (bottom).- Glass should have the ability to have a hole in it.- Glass should have the ability to be broken or not. A repulsion gel puzzle required this in the single player story mode.- Angled panels should have the option to set their deployed and undeployed angles. Apply this to glass panels as well.- Allow angled and glass panels to be extendable in a similar fashion as fizzlers or grating.- Grating should have the option to not be able to grab objects through them.- Instead of working in huge blocks (red), work in 1/16 of them (green).- Have an entity to be attached to a wall to automatically center and rotate portal placement, kind of like in some of the single player and coop story modes.
    So, what are your gripes about the puzzle creator?
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BenVlodgi
633 Posts
Posted Dec 08, 2012
Replied 2 hours later
I think the answer to your rant is in the description.... Puzzle maker. you aren't looking for a Puzzlemaker, you are looking for a map-maker, which is hammer. The puzzle maker was made by Valve for one reason, to make PUZZLES quickly and easily.
Many mappers I talk to use the PTI for puzzle testing, then actually create their maps in Hammer, which is the way it should be done.
I realize Hammer isn't incredibly easy at first.(especially compared to the PTI) but it is not a difficult tool to learn, and if you do learn it, you will have a lot more possibilities than just moving antlines around
Here are some Hammer tutorials.
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Lpfreaky90
2,842 Posts
Posted Dec 08, 2012
Replied 1 hour later
A couple of the things you suggested were in discussion whilst the editor was still in the closed beta.
A lot of things are very specific and thus too much work to include and/or just not worth a space in the item palette. Having a hell of a lot of things in the editor would make it too complicated.

some other things you are suggesting are just technically hard to implement. The pti instances are very complicated to allow all the different combinations. If you want more than the pti has to offer try any of the editor mods. If that isn't enough you should learn hammer. Pti is a puzzle maker, hammer is a level maker, it allows much more. using instances allows you to skip some hard work.

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wildgoosespeeder
178 Posts
Posted Dec 08, 2012
Replied 26 minutes later

BenVlodgi wrote:
I think the answer to your rant is in the description.... Puzzle maker. you aren't looking for a Puzzlemaker, you are looking for a map-maker, which is hammer. The puzzle maker was made by Valve for one reason, to make PUZZLES quickly and easily.
Many mappers I talk to use the PTI for puzzle testing, then actually create their maps in Hammer, which is the way it should be done.
I realize Hammer isn't incredibly easy at first.(especially compared to the PTI) but it is not a difficult tool to learn, and if you do learn it, you will have a lot more possibilities than just moving antlines around
Here are some Hammer tutorials.

I understand there is a time and place for everything. I would use Hammer if I wanted to create more than just test chambers, like behind the scenes areas, create new game mechanics, etc.. Remember what I said earlier?

wildgoosespeeder wrote:
I know what you are thinking. Why not use Hammer if I have so many problems with the in-game editor? There is a reason the puzzle creator exists and that is to create test chambers fast and with ease without the need of Hammer's complexity and feeling overwhelmed by it.

All most people want to do is create test chambers. I strictly want to create test chambers as well. I have no plans to create an elaborate story or create new test elements. The puzzle creator is right for me.

Lpfreaky90 wrote:
A couple of the things you suggested were in discussion whilst the editor was still in the closed beta.
A lot of things are very specific and thus too much work to include and/or just not worth a space in the item palette. Having a hell of a lot of things in the editor would make it too complicated.

some other things you are suggesting are just technically hard to implement. The pti instances are very complicated to allow all the different combinations. If you want more than the pti has to offer try any of the editor mods. If that isn't enough you should learn hammer. Pti is a puzzle maker, hammer is a level maker, it allows much more. using instances allows you to skip some hard work.

I see a continuum: left is very basic and right is very complex. The editor in it's current condition is left-winged. The editor of my dreams is in the middle. Hammer is right-winged. I'm not looking for the editor to go very complex. I'm looking for the editor to get a bit more detailed than it is now but not by too much.

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CamBen
973 Posts
Posted Dec 08, 2012
Replied 6 hours later
Hammer isn't just for stories and scenery. I've seen a few great maps come out that are simply reguflar test chambers, but they have most of the things you speak of.

An easier way to learn hammer is through video tutorials. Imo, it is easier to be shown exactly what to do by a person than to Learn it through text. Once you get down the basics of hammer, you should go on the source mapping wiki, it has some valuable info.

Remember, no matter how bad your first map is, it is a learning experience. My first map was terrible, so I trashed it and moved on. If you feel like you are doing badly, don't give up! Just ask for help on this site, there is a whole community dedicated to hammer help. They will tell you what to do and what not to do, and give suggestions for your map to improve it.

So, yes. I encourage fiddling with hammer, it might be a key to success. Also, hammer is left and right winged,.

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Ravoria
37 Posts
Posted Dec 08, 2012
Replied 5 hours later
You can 'deactivate' a faith plate by putting a light bridge on top of it and turning off the bridge when you want the player to be able to use the plate. As well, you could make some sort of logic array to get a shorter output; if you want a quick burst, for example, use a flip panel to block a laser, and a flag array to make it only go once. This is heavy on the entities though. Also, I can't see any practical difference between glass with a hole and grating; they only used in ingame to make it obvious what we were supposed to do
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FelixGriffin
2,680 Posts
Posted Dec 08, 2012
Replied 7 hours later
For something closer to the middle try the BEEMOD and FGEMOD, although it's physically impossible in the editor to implement many of the things you described (such as the smaller grid)--VALVe would have to do that. Sorry.
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Lpfreaky90
2,842 Posts
Posted Dec 09, 2012
Replied 1 hour later

FelixGriffin wrote:
For something closer to the middle try the BEEMOD and FGEMOD, although it's physically impossible in the editor to implement many of the things you described (such as the smaller grid)--VALVe would have to do that. Sorry.

cough Hammer cough

The whole purpose of the pti editor was to make it easy to design puzzles. As with hammer, there are limits to what the pti can do, but the biggest limit is your own creativity.

Quote:
Manual placement of antlines. I shouldn't have to use lights or other test elements to manipulate the antlines

Believe it or not, this is one of the things in hammer I hate the most. It is extremely tedious and if there was one thing I would be adding to hammer for portal 2 it would actually be the ability to auto connect them. Fun fact: during the beta the game crashed if the editor couldn't find a way to connect the in- and output.

Quote:
Pedestal button allowing 1 or 2 seconds. Right now, if we lower the number of seconds from 03 to 02, we go directly to infinity instead. Shouldn't happen

Where do you need two seconds for? Generally very short timers are very annoying. I think three seconds is also a minimum because less could mess up cubedroppers. (this happened a lot earlier)

Quote:
Adjust excursion funnel speed. In the single player story mode, you can see in the early excursion funnel puzzles that they are moving at different speeds.

Why do you want this? The only times the speed matters in the game itself is in parts with story elements. Tell you what; there are no story things in the PTI maps

Quote:
The aerial faith plate should be allowed to exist in two variations. Looking at the source files in "steamapps\common\portal 2\portal2_dlc2\materials\puzzlemaker\palette", it is hinted at one time that this used to exist or will exist eventually

A faithplate is a faithplate; the PTI allows you to see the trajectory nicely; what more do you want?

Quote:
The aerial faith plate should have the ability to be enabled or not. In some Hammer maps I played, some people have found a way to stop the aerial faith plate from launching you through the air until you enable it with a button or something.

Various pti things possible to get the same result.(like hinted before: a hard light bridge over it for example.

Quote:
Stairs, when not deployed, should be able to be portalable based on what surface they are placed on.

could be useful.

Quote:
Portalable piston platform. An early puzzle creator screenshot hinted at this.

That wasn't a screenshot, that was a mash-up . Pistons are only a graphical thingy; with the normal angled panels you can get the same thing.

Quote:
Portalable track platform.

The game doesn't allow mobile portals and most moving platforms generally are glass in-game?

Quote:
Have an option for the laser emitter and laser catcher to be set to low profile (top) or centered (bottom).

Why? generally only a graphical thingy ;P

Quote:
Glass should have the ability to have a hole in it.

Would this be a 1-voxel specific block? Would it be worth to sacrifice something else for this?

Quote:
Glass should have the ability to be broken or not. A repulsion gel puzzle required this in the single player story mode

Replace glass by grating and you have the same result. besides; how much sense does a broken glass panel make in a clean test chamber?

Quote:
Angled panels should have the option to set their deployed and undeployed angles. Apply this to glass panels as well

Since the panels have 0,30,45,60 and 90 as possible angles the number of possible cominations from angles to other angles would be a pain, there would be over 20- animations; relays etc, that'd be a real pain. If it really would use 20 relays that would also mean you can do a hell of a lot less than now, because it's using up so much edicts.

Quote:
Allow angled and glass panels to be extendable in a similar fashion as fizzlers or grating.

Ever seen entire walls getting to a 30 degree angle in portal 2? That's a bit weird don't you think? It's designed to be a test element; not a fancy-looks-element

Quote:
Grating should have the option to not be able to grab objects through them.

Why would this matter? Besides: glass does that, doesn't it?

Quote:
Instead of working in huge blocks (red), work in 1/16 of them (green).

The PTI is always designed with 128x128x128 blocks as voxels. This allows all test elements to nicely work. 8x8x8 will only make it a hell of a lot harder; you'll get misaligned test elements and weird walls etc. Besides; it would include re-writing all code.

Quote:
Have an entity to be attached to a wall to automatically center and rotate portal placement, kind of like in some of the single player and coop story modes.

Placement helpers should be in indeed, but doesn't bee has that?

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portal2tenacious
393 Posts
Posted Dec 09, 2012
Replied 21 minutes later
I think it was HMW's extension where he called them portal magnets.
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wildgoosespeeder
178 Posts
Posted Dec 10, 2012
Replied 1 day later

FelixGriffin wrote:
For something closer to the middle try the BEEMOD and FGEMOD, although it's physically impossible in the editor to implement many of the things you described (such as the smaller grid)--VALVe would have to do that. Sorry.

This was indirectly targeted at Valve. I put it here to maybe further understand why it is designed this way. So far from what I am learning through responses here is that most people replying have fiddled with Hammer first, even before PTI. Those people must not understand how complicatd Hammer is compared to the in-game editor because they have used it for so long. You have someone clearly not that dedicated to the utility since Portal 1 (me). It's not that I can't use the utility, it's just overwhelming to me and probably many other people. That is why the in-game editor is perfect. I don't have to worry about clipping blocks and trigger points or whatever those things are called to create puzzles because the in-game editor takes care of all that tedious work.

Lpfreaky90 wrote:
The whole purpose of the pti editor was to make it easy to design puzzles. As with hammer, there are limits to what the pti can do, but the biggest limit is your own creativity.

I think that what I am suggesting would still make it easy to create test chambers compared to Hammer. That is the point of this thread.

Quote:
Believe it or not, this is one of the things in hammer I hate the most. It is extremely tedious and if there was one thing I would be adding to hammer for portal 2 it would actually be the ability to auto connect them. Fun fact: during the beta the game crashed if the editor couldn't find a way to connect the in- and output.

Automatic is fine, but not being able to edit it from there directy is frustrating.

Quote:
Where do you need two seconds for? Generally very short timers are very annoying.

Good designers won't do that crap and would find good use for one or two seconds.

Quote:
Why do you want this? The only times the speed matters in the game itself is in parts with story elements. Tell you what; there are no story things in the PTI maps

Depends on the puzzle. If you have to wait 30 seconds for something to go where you want it, even when moving the funnel around, it would shorten the time. If you have to work on timing of something, good for that too.

Quote:
A faithplate is a faithplate; the PTI allows you to see the trajectory nicely; what more do you want?

Various pti things possible to get the same result.(like hinted before: a hard light bridge over it for example.

That wasn't a screenshot, that was a mash-up . Pistons are only a graphical thingy; with the normal angled panels you can get the same thing.

Merely aesthetic.

Quote:
The game doesn't allow mobile portals and most moving platforms generally are glass in-game?

I understand that portals can't move with the surface they are on, but wouldn't it be nice to have the option to have the surface be portalable?

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Why? generally only a graphical thingy ;P

Merely aesthetic.

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Would this be a 1-voxel specific block? Would it be worth to sacrifice something else for this?

Replace glass by grating and you have the same result. besides; how much sense does a broken glass panel make in a clean test chamber?

Just a thought...

Quote:
Since the panels have 0,30,45,60 and 90 as possible angles the number of possible cominations from angles to other angles would be a pain, there would be over 20- animations; relays etc, that'd be a real pain. If it really would use 20 relays that would also mean you can do a hell of a lot less than now, because it's using up so much edicts.

WHAT?! Whatever happened to dynamic calculations for geometry? Why not take a current animation and stop it midway to achieve the correct angle?

Quote:
Ever seen entire walls getting to a 30 degree angle in portal 2? That's a bit weird don't you think? It's designed to be a test element; not a fancy-looks-element

Merely aesthetic.

Quote:
Why would this matter? Besides: glass does that, doesn't it?

Non-physics objects pass through it like gel and lasers. What if you want that to pass through but not have the player be able to grab physics objects through it?

Quote:
The PTI is always designed with 128x128x128 blocks as voxels. This allows all test elements to nicely work. 8x8x8 will only make it a hell of a lot harder; you'll get misaligned test elements and weird walls etc. Besides; it would include re-writing all code.

I am going into programming and maybe some parts may need to be re-written, not all. Plus have a basic mode (current editor) and advanced mode (what I want in the editor). Expert is Hammer.

Quote:
Placement helpers should be in indeed, but doesn't bee has that?

No, autoportals, logic gates, and triggers.

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ChickenMobile
2,460 Posts
Posted Dec 10, 2012
Replied 4 hours later
Ok so most of what you said seems unnecessary. If you want to make something look good, use a better tool. I rarely use the puzzle editor because I would rather draw on paper first. The editor is my second tester for more complex puzzles.

I agreed with some of your points like holes in glass and moving the antlines, but there are definitely alternatives - even with the puzzle maker. As for crossing confusing indicators, try splitting up your puzzle or think up a more intuitive design with re-use of elements.

One thing that got me was this:> wildgoosespeeder wrote:

WHAT?! Whatever happened to dynamic calculations for geometry? Why not take a current animation and stop it midway to achieve the correct angle?

Perhaps you don't understand how animations work. Stopping an animation half way through would cause a number of problems including visual glitches, sound errors or sudden stops. A full animation for each stop of the panel would be easier than using specific timing to 'pause' as a number of logic entities would be needed to decipher when the panel is open and would have to calculate what precise time it needs to stop.
Would you like to figure out the exact timing to stop the panel at an exact angle? Good luck.

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FelixGriffin
2,680 Posts
Posted Dec 10, 2012
Replied 1 hour later
You could do it with a func_rotating, like with the rotating portal gun stand. That's precisely timed.

EDIT: Tell you what, what if I gave you a panel that rotated as long as it was powered? With the FGEMOD and BEEMOD you have all the necessary entities to time it correctly.

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BenVlodgi
633 Posts
Posted Dec 10, 2012
Replied 2 hours later
So you are looking for an easy MAP maker not a PUZZLE maker, because right now you have an excellent PUZZLE maker. Hammer is not as difficult as you might think, it takes about a week to really start using. And its going to be your only option for making ascetically pleasing MAPs

as for the smaller voxels, LP is right, there is no need to implement this, it would just cause a whole lot more problems for puzzlemakers... it is however not impossible, I almost decided to scale the voxels down to 32 quare units for the BEE2, it however would take a re-writing of the scrips, and a lot of work for august adjusting the size of models, and for nearly no gain.

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wildgoosespeeder
178 Posts
Posted Dec 10, 2012
Replied 1 hour later

ChickenMobile wrote:
Ok so most of what you said seems unnecessary. If you want to make something look good, use a better tool. I rarely use the puzzle editor because I would rather draw on paper first. The editor is my second tester for more complex puzzles.

I agreed with some of your points like holes in glass and moving the antlines, but there are definitely alternatives - even with the puzzle maker. As for crossing confusing indicators, try splitting up your puzzle or think up a more intuitive design with re-use of elements.

One thing that got me was this:
wildgoosespeeder wrote:

WHAT?! Whatever happened to dynamic calculations for geometry? Why not take a current animation and stop it midway to achieve the correct angle?

Perhaps you don't understand how animations work. Stopping an animation half way through would cause a number of problems including visual glitches, sound errors or sudden stops. A full animation for each stop of the panel would be easier than using specific timing to 'pause' as a number of logic entities would be needed to decipher when the panel is open and would have to calculate what precise time it needs to stop.
Would you like to figure out the exact timing to stop the panel at an exact angle? Good luck.

I think what I am trying to say is why use something that is clearly overkill for most players? Instead, for most of us, we get what seems like a half-assed editor. Why not meet in the middle? I honestly didn't think the editor would be released as fast as it was. It's good, yes, but I think it needed more time to be refined and polished.

BenVlodgi wrote:
So you are looking for an easy MAP maker not a PUZZLE maker, because right now you have an excellent PUZZLE maker. Hammer is not as difficult as you might think, it takes about a week to really start using. And its going to be your only option for making ascetically pleasing MAPs

Not exactly. I'm saying why don't we have a beefed-up version of the current puzzle creator? This doesn't have to be all or nothing. I'm seeing three levels of editing control:

  1. Basic (current release of the puzzle creator)
  2. Advanced (what I'm suggesting)
  3. Expert (Hammer)
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BenVlodgi
633 Posts
Posted Dec 10, 2012
Replied 5 hours later

wildgoosespeeder wrote:
I think what I am trying to say is why use something that is clearly overkill for most players? Instead, for most of us, we get what seems like a half-assed editor. Why not meet in the middle? I honestly didn't think the editor would be released as fast as it was. It's good, yes, but I think it needed more time to be refined and polished.

BenVlodgi wrote:

So you are looking for an easy MAP maker not a PUZZLE maker, because right now you have an excellent PUZZLE maker. Hammer is not as difficult as you might think, it takes about a week to really start using. And its going to be your only option for making ascetically pleasing MAPs

Not exactly. I'm saying why don't we have a beefed-up version of the current puzzle creator? This doesn't have to be all or nothing. I'm seeing three levels of editing control:

  1. Basic (current release of the puzzle creator)
  2. Advanced (what I'm suggesting)
  3. Expert (Hammer)

no, right now you have a full puzzle maker for all users.... the things you are suggesting are mostly aesthetic which are not nessesary in PUZZLES. Valve gave you a full PUZZLE maker, they are not going to release a crappy half version of hammer. Hammer is not for Experts.... Hammer is just an Advanced editor. Coding Hammer is for experts. If you want to make puzzles use the PTI, if you want to make real maps, use hammer. dont complain thats its too hard or you dont have the time, the fact is that you just want an easier way to do something. and you want other people to make it easier for you, when really its not all that hard to begin with.
Dont be that lazy person, its like the common American "I dont want to make dinner, so I'll just get some fast food"... soon that lazy American is fat, and is online searching for a faster way to get thin because they "don't have the time to go to the gym, or eat healthy food".
Hammer takes no more than a week to learn, its way more powerful than any handful of PTI mods. it is also a useful skill if you ever plan on doing any real game design.
Also, don't forget that everyone on this site was at one point a beginner, we know how ridiculous hammer looked before we learned it, and in retrospect, it was really easy to learn.

So stop trying to take the quick way out, and watch these tutorials, follow along and once you're done, you'll be able to make a better looking map, faster than the PTI can generate one.

http://www.tophattwaffle.com/tutorials/

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page

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FelixGriffin
2,680 Posts
Posted Dec 10, 2012
Replied 52 minutes later
I spent the few weeks between when I beat P2 and when the Portal 2 Authoring Tools came out reading through everything I could find on the VDC. I became an awesome mapper in theory, although I still don't know how to use the clipping tool properly.

Hammer doesn't take too long to learn, the big part is learning all the entities and what they do. At first you can just use brushes and func_instances from the p2editor folder. That's enough to build (almost) anything you can make in the PTI. Then you can try using more logical entities and such.

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wildgoosespeeder
178 Posts
Posted Dec 10, 2012
Replied 4 hours later

BenVlodgi wrote:
no, right now you have a full puzzle maker for all users.... the things you are suggesting are mostly aesthetic which are not nessesary in PUZZLES. Valve gave you a full PUZZLE maker, they are not going to release a crappy half version of hammer. Hammer is not for Experts.... Hammer is just an Advanced editor. Coding Hammer is for experts. If you want to make puzzles use the PTI, if you want to make real maps, use hammer. dont complain thats its too hard or you dont have the time, the fact is that you just want an easier way to do something. and you want other people to make it easier for you, when really its not all that hard to begin with.
Dont be that lazy person, its like the common American "I dont want to make dinner, so I'll just get some fast food"... soon that lazy American is fat, and is online searching for a faster way to get thin because they "don't have the time to go to the gym, or eat healthy food".
Hammer takes no more than a week to learn, its way more powerful than any handful of PTI mods. it is also a useful skill if you ever plan on doing any real game design.
Also, don't forget that everyone on this site was at one point a beginner, we know how ridiculous hammer looked before we learned it, and in retrospect, it was really easy to learn.

So stop trying to take the quick way out, and watch these tutorials, follow along and once you're done, you'll be able to make a better looking map, faster than the PTI can generate one.
http://www.tophattwaffle.com/tutorials/
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page

You just don't get what I'm trying to say. The authoring tools were released weeks later after Portal 2 was released. There was quite a response from the fan community creating their own puzzles with the tools. That's why the puzzle creator was made. My concern is that it may have been released too soon; it just looks rushed to me when more could have easily been done to it. Hammer is designed to create maps for use in games that use the Source engine to run. The puzzle creator is within the scope of Portal 2. Its focus is purely for test chamber creation and nothing else, a perfect way for me and many other players to get test chambers from paper to game very easily. With your logic, Valve should not have made the puzzle creator in the first place. I'm just wondering why it is so basic. How I question it is by sugggesting things it could be doing to hopefully meet middle ground and make it more robust and rounded, but not to the extent of Hammer. It's not that Hammer is hard to use but really it is too complicated. That is why I say Hammer is overkill for what most players want to do with Portal 2. If some players want to do more than that, like you, then Hammer is the right tool. If you prefer it over the puzzle creator, good for you. If you are basically just going to keep suggesting Hammer as a reply for every post I make in this thread, don't bother commenting because it is not contributing to the topic at hand. I didn't want this discussion to turn into something like that.

Plus, every suggestion I made appears in a test chamber, not the entire map, throughout the single player and coop campaigns at some point.

Why does Hammer have to do the aesthetic and timing tweaking parts of a test chamber? Why can't it be the puzzle creator as well? It's not like I want to change themes or something (decay, 1940s, Wheatley, etc.) which would be a better reason to use Hammer.

Avatar
portal2tenacious
393 Posts
Posted Dec 11, 2012
Replied 41 minutes later

wildgoosespeeder wrote:
Why does Hammer have to do the aesthetic and timing tweaking parts of a test chamber?

It doesn't. Most of the first maps made by people look terrible, and IMO, hammer makes things simpler. I don't need to scale my chamber 4? as large to make it proportional with a 32 unit block. I can simply make one like that. snap. Isn't his exactly what you were referring to? You want to fix the silly zig-zag indicator lights. Make them in hammer, or even export it. A well exported map can make a map better. (And in some cases, worse). Hammer isn't difficult to learn, and I don't think people really care about aesthetics on your first map. No matter how impossible it looks, hammer basics are just remembering what does what, and where on youtube you can figure out how to make things your not sure of yet. VALVe's puzzlemaker is great. I have seen amazing maps, and there are always things people will want added that will do more damage than good for the portal community. BenVlodgi has made the best points here.

BenVlodgi wrote:
So you are looking for a MAP maker, not a Puzzle maker... Valve gave you a full PUZZLE maker, they are not going to release a crappy half version of hammer...If you want to make puzzles use the PTI, if you want to make real maps, use hammer. dont complain thats its too hard or you dont have the time, the fact is that you just want an easier way to do something...Also, don't forget that everyone on this site was at one point a beginner, we know how ridiculous hammer looked before we learned it, and in retrospect, it was really easy to learn...

Avatar
wildgoosespeeder
178 Posts
Posted Dec 11, 2012
Replied 1 hour later
Nope, still not getting where I want to go with this. Stop trying to convince me that Hammer is what I need to use to achieve what I want to do. I'm sure Hammer is an awesome tool, but it is overkill for most people, and the puzzle creator removes the tediousness behind it but at the same time makes it too basic. I wish the puzzle creator could do this instead, because, if Valve developed it differently, it could easily be done. I wanted to discuss, not achieve the results I'm looking for, without bringing in Hammer to the discussion, but I guess I can't have that kind of a discussion here.
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BenVlodgi
633 Posts
Posted Dec 11, 2012
Replied 6 minutes later
Well the guys at Valve think its perfect... perfect for roughly smashing out new puzzle ideas, which was their goal from the get go. I know because I ask them if they are adding new features, and they ask me... "what more could we possibly add?"
and I have nothing to say, because there isn't anything to add... They spent many more months than you know working on this. They only announced it once it was actually to a relatively finished state (which beta testing proved wrong)

wildgoosespeeder wrote:
If you are basically just going to keep suggesting Hammer as a reply for every post I make in this thread, don't bother commenting because it is not contributing to the topic at hand. I didn't want this discussion to turn into something like that.

HammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammerHammer.... in all seriousness though, there is no good reason for them to add anything to the PTI, it serves the purpose they intended it to, which is a well rounded puzzle maker, not to be used to replace hammer by any means.
Also fun-fact there is no Portal 2 team at the moment, everyone has moved on to new projects, so I wouldn't be expecting any Portal related DLCs any time in the next few months.