Please read the Contributing Guidelines, FAQ, and known issues list before opening an issue.

BEE2.4 Default Pack

This is the default set of packages for the BEE2.4. Packages contain resources for BEE2.4, such as items or styles.

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Download and Use

Release Version

These are instructions to install the release version of BEE2.4. For the development version, see below.

1. Download the BEE2.4 app and compiler from here. Do not use the "Clone or download" button above, this will download the source files which do not include an executable.
2. Download the Default Pack from here. Make sure to get the same version as the application, otherwise you may encounter errors.
3. Extract the application zip to anywhere on your computer.
4. Extract the contents of the Default Pack zip to the application folder you just extracted.
5. To launch BEE2.4, go to the extracted folder and open BEE2.exe.
6. Once opened, select the game you want BEE2.4 to modify.

You can add another game using File > Add Game. Any Source game can be added, but BEE2.4 will only work with Portal 2 and Aperture Tag. Thinking With Time Machine support is planned, but has not yet been implemented. To remove a game, use File > Uninstall from Selected Game. As well as unmounting it from BEE2.4, this will also remove all BEE2.4-related resources from the game and reset the Puzzlemaker to the default items and style for that game.

When exporting BEE2.4 after installing a new version, old resources from past releases will not be overwritten, resulting in bugs that were fixed still being present and some things not working correctly. To solve this, choose File > Uninstall from Selected Game to remove all BEE2.4 resources from the game. Then, choose File > Add Game and browse to the location of portal2.exe. Next time you export, the new resources will be copied to the game and new changes and bugfixes will take effect.

Development Version

These are instructions to install the development version of the Default Pack. This will allow you to access features directly from GitHub branches such as dev, instead of having to wait for a release to be made. However, this version may be unstable. Therefore, it is recommended that you use the release version unless you are developing custom content.

For some things to work correctly, you may need to use this with the development version of the application/compiler. Instructions for how to install this can be found here.

1. If you don't already have one, download and install a Git client such as GitHub Desktop, or command-line Git.
2. Clone this repository to your computer. If you are using GitHub Desktop, this can be done with the green "download" button at the top of this page.
3. Once it is finished, select the branch you want to sync changes from. master, the default branch, is the release version. dev contains features which will be in the next update. There are also various other branches available, for testing different features.
4. Open %appdata%/BEEMOD2/config/config.cfg in a text editor.
5. Set the package directory to the packages folder within your cloned repository folder. If using GitHub Desktop, this will default to C:\Users\<yourname>\Documents\GitHub\BEE2-items\packages.
6. Open the BEE2.4 application. If it works, your files will be equal to the files of the branch you selected.

To continue recieving the latest changes, you must regularly pull commits from the repository in your Git client. For GitHub Desktop, this is done using the "Pull origin" option at the top of the app.

Additional Information

• If you are editing in Hammer, anything that is placed in the folder sdk_content\maps\instances\bee2 will be deleted if you export the BEE2.4 pallete without enabling the setting Preserve Game Directories. If you are editing any package, after you have finished, do not forget to save it inside the packages, by replacing the old files inside. If you are using the development version, you can run reverse-cache.py to do this automatically.
• BEE2.4 will crash if you are exporting while another folder or file is open that is important to the BEE2.4 compilation process.
• It is recommended to keep backups of the following Portal 2 folders: sdk_content, portal2_dlc2, and bin, just in case you need to restore your Portal 2 files.

The BEE2.4 Default Pack wiki contains more in-depth explanations of items and styles, as well as development guides. The BEE2.4 wiki has information on the application. Note that both of these wikis are missing a lot of content, you can help by contributing to them.

If you have a question about BEE2.4, check the FAQ or ask on Discord. Please do not open an issue to ask a question.