For the complete documentation index, see llms.txt. This page is also available as Markdown.

Using the Editor

A session opens on a free camera with the prop picker along the bottom and a key bar across the top. The bar always says what the keys do right now, including rebound ones, so this page is a map of the parts rather than a list to memorise.

Getting Around

WASD

fly. Hold Shift to fly faster

Space / Ctrl

up and down

Right mouse

hold to fly and look, aiming at the middle of the screen

Alt

hand the mouse to the camera, or take it back for the cursor

Mouse wheel

fly speed

F7

step out and walk what you have built. Press again to come back

Escape

closes what is open: a list, then a tool, then the session

The cursor and the camera share the mouse. While the cursor is up you click panels and tiles; the game never sees those clicks.

Placing One Prop

Pick a tile and the prop is in your hand, seated on whatever is under the crosshair.

Left click

put it down

Shift + click

put it down and keep a copy in hand

Q / E

turn it

F

drop it on the ground

Backspace

put it back

F6

reopen the picker for another

The prop sits on the surface under the aim, tilted to it when the surface isn't flat. What was placed is selected, so the handles are already on it.

Moving What Is Placed

Click a prop to select it. Shift-click adds to the selection; the Box tool drags a rectangle over several.

Handles

drag to move

R

move handles or turn handles

G

world axes or the prop's own

F

drop it on the ground

H

bring it to the crosshair

Shift + click

add to the selection

Backspace

let go of it

C

duplicate

Delete

delete. More than one asks first

B

undo. Shift + B redo

The panel on the right has the numbers: typed position and rotation, tint, collision, and the grid and snap switches. Snapping is two things: a grid the button walks through, and edge snapping that pulls a dragged prop flush against its neighbour.

More Than One at a Time

Three tools take from a pool rather than your hand. Arm one, then pick props from the grid: they go into the pool instead of into your hand, and you can add several.

Scatter drops copies while the button is held. Circle sets how wide, speed how many a second, and there's a minimum gap so nothing lands inside its neighbour. It can lean props with the ground.

Fill area takes clicks on the ground as corners, paints the shape as you go, and covers what they enclose when you press Fill it.

Along a line takes clicks as a route and lays props down it when you press Lay them: a fence, a row of lamp posts, cones down a closed road. Each one faces along the route, plus whatever turn you set.

All three read the same Turn control, which is the offset added to what they work out. A fence panel built across its own heading is corrected once for the whole run.

The Map's Own Props

Switch World objects on and clicks reach the map itself. What is under the pointer is boxed before you click it, in its own colour, so a click never lands on a surprise.

Three things can be done with a piece of map:

  • Hide it. Gone for everybody the layout is stood up for, and it travels with the layout.

  • Replace with prop. A hide plus a copy of the same model in the same place, which you can then move, turn, tint or throw away. The game gives nobody a handle on its own scenery, so this is what "moving a wall" means.

  • Look at it in the viewer.

Not everything can be copied. Most walls, floors and kerbs have no name in any catalogue, and nothing can spawn a copy of a nameless archetype, and the panel says which case it is.

The Hidden map props list puts anything back, one at a time or all of them.

Lights

The Light tool puts one where you point. Its panel sets shape (point or spot), colour, range, brightness, cone and edge for a spot, and shadows.

A light is a native call every frame, not an object. It exists while a layout is active and this resource is running. No map file can carry one. The same is true of hidden map pieces, a prop's collision switch and the colour of a light inside a drawable. The editor tags all four Runtime, and a session can be told not to offer them at all.

Groups

Select several props and Create group: they move, turn, duplicate and delete as one thing, and the group's name travels with the layout. The Placed props list is where groups are renamed, reordered and taken apart.

Session Settings

The last button on the tool strip. What is in here is decided once and then left alone:

Row
What

Reach

the boundary, as a radius from a middle. Widen it, switch it off, or type the middle

Follows

whether the boundary walks with what you place

Outline

whether the boundary is drawn. Your screen only; the rule holds either way

Runtime

whether the four things a map file cannot carry are offered at all

Others

whether the other people in the session are drawn where they are working

Time / Weather

held for everybody in the session. Two in the morning under a clear sky is what a shell opens at

World

a routing bucket of the session's own, and whether there is any traffic in it

People

who is in it, invitations, and who may change things

Building with Somebody

Invite from the session settings. Anybody connected can be asked, permission or not, since the invitation is yours to give. They get a card with your name and the command to answer with, and they arrive in a session of their own holding your rows: every tool, their own undo, and an id range that can't collide with yours.

Two roles. An editor can place, move and delete. A viewer watches and can't change anything. The host can change either mid-session, or remove somebody: their copy of the map goes with them and whatever they placed stays.

The layout is the host's. Nothing a guest does saves it, and closing their window is leaving.

Finishing

Done asks what to call the layout, or hands the rows to whoever opened the session. See Layouts and Exports. Export on the same screen writes the build out in any of five shapes; see Import & Export.

Cancel throws the session away, and asks first if there's anything to throw.