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Portal 2 Hints
Advanced Portaling Tip
1 of 12: As the General Portal Info mentions, you can't fire a new portal so that it goes through an existing portal. Anything else can go through an existing portal, but not the focused energy burst needed to form a new portal.
2 of 12: However, there is a way to get around that once you get the new portal gun near the end of Chapter 1. (Or even before that if you have the original portal gun, and the computer-placed orange portal is in a usable position.)
3 of 12: Let's say that there's a blue portal on a nearby wall and an orange portal on a far-off wall, and you'd like to fire a new blue portal through the current blue portal so that it comes out of the orange portal and forms on the wall across from it, right above a small platform.
4 of 12: Walk up to the blue portal, then crouch down and move forward into it in tiny, quick steps by just barely tapping the "Move Forward" key.
5 of 12: You'll need to move far enough into the blue portal that you can turn left or right to see the outline of the orange portal, then maybe go a few steps farther.
6 of 12: Stand up and aim at the spot where you want to create the new blue portal, then quicksave again.
7 of 12: Right after you fire a blue portal, you're going to be pushed forward. In order to keep from falling out of the orange portal, you'll need to start moving backwards at the same instant that you fire the blue portal.
8 of 12: That can be tricky, and you may have to quickrestore and retry several times. When you do it right, you'll end up backing out of your new blue portal, which in this example would put you on the small platform that's next to the wall across from the orange portal.
9 of 12: Once you get used to doing that, you can start trying to just nudge yourself backward a very short way when firing the new blue portal instead of leaning on the "Move Backward" key. The idea is that you want to move backward far enough to avoid falling out of the orange portal, but not far enough to fall out of the new blue portal. Unfortunately, this is *very* hard to do, even with lots of practice.
10 of 12: If you keep failing, you could try moving back a bit before firing the new portal. Also, try being crouched while firing the new portal and moving backward.
11 of 12: If you manage it, you could then turn around, crouch down, and move very slowly to where you can fire an orange portal onto a portal-friendly surface. If you do the nudge-backward-while-firing routine again, you could then turn around and edge forward to where you could fire a new blue portal, and so on.
12 of 12: Using this process, you can move around an area without ever touching any floors, platforms, etc. -- you'll just be standing inside portals the whole time. This is very rarely a preferred method for getting around, but it can sometimes be useful (or just a fun alternative) if you don't find it to be too much trouble.
