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If you look at the beginning of the original Portal game, GLaDOS opened portals for us.

While the portals were opened on plain white surfaces, how could GLaDOS do it without portal gun? Portals weren’t some in-built capability of walls that GLaDOS could manipulate using code and that’s why she needed us to further her agenda (only a human could use portal gun due to its design).

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    Of course she can..we see her restructuring walls, floors and ceilings throughout the game.
    – Valorum
    Commented May 17, 2022 at 10:39
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    @Valorum They were as per testing room specifications. We see background of the rooms in both Portal and Portal 2 games. There were hydraulics and cube-transporting tubes. The rooms weren’t made of nanotech.
    – Doctor Doom
    Commented May 17, 2022 at 10:55
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    She can (and does) move the walls to push things, then move them back. No nanotech required for moving things.
    – wizzwizz4
    Commented May 17, 2022 at 12:54
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    @SatelliteofSin In the video you linked in your question, you can see the pedestal from which you grab the gun rotating and using the gun automatically before it is retrieved by the player. See starting at 2:35, for example.
    – reirab
    Commented May 17, 2022 at 15:59
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    @reirab Interestingly, the walls it's shooting have the "autoportal" bars shown in Valorum's answer, which implies they wouldn't need shooting at all.
    – IMSoP
    Commented May 17, 2022 at 19:22

1 Answer 1

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This is an Autoportal, also described as a 'Portal Spawner' in the official game level creator.

enter image description here

The mechanic isn't described, but the Autoportal has two bars on either side that appear to emit one side of a portal, either blue or orange in a testing area.

enter image description here

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  • Note that the Portal 2 model looks significantly more obvious, and we can clearly see that it is actively projecting the portal (the lights along either side match the portal's color, point towards the portal, and turn off when the portal is removed). I like this model a lot more than the Portal model, which looks a bit arbitrary in its design.
    – Kevin
    Commented Feb 22 at 21:49

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