Building

Building is the construction of structures in the game world, like walls and houses. See Creation System if you are looking for items and vehicles.

To activate build mode, press B. Two things will change on the screen: at the bottom, you will see the build toolbar, on the left, you will see a list of build controls.

Quick Overview
The controls are similar to the ISO editor controls.

Controls

 * B: activate and exit build mode
 * T: rotate (Point/ISO Brush)
 * Shift Z: Undo actions one by one (max 5)
 * Shift X: Redo undone actions
 * F: Toogle free camera mode, so you can move the camera without moving the character. The camera will still be limited to a certain area around the character, you can not explore the whole world in free build mode.
 * (Point/ISO Brush) Arrow keys, Page Up, Page Down: move the block/ISO around before you click to place it
 * Select Brush
 * Shift Click: add to selection
 * Alt Click: remove from selection
 * Ctrl Click: cross select (invert selection)
 * Arrow up/down: increase/decrease selection depth
 * Del: Delete selected blocks
 * Shift + Arrow keys, Page Up, Page Down: Extrude selection



Toolbar
The upper toolbar from left to right:
 * 1) Point Brush (place and delete mode)
 * 2) Volume Brush
 * 3) Slope Brush (4 direction modes)
 * 4) Select Brush
 * 5) Save
 * 6) Delete
 * 7) Menu with
 * 8) * Voxel selection
 * 9) * Block material and form selection
 * 10) * Building ISO list

The lower toolbar has 3x 10 slots for quick access to materials and block types. You can drag materials and block types from the menu into the slots. On the right is a control panel with arrow buttons and a number showing the current slot list. In 0.881, changing material and block type from the hotbar does not work yet, you will have to select the options in the menu.

Point Brush
The point brush allows you to place a single block in the game world. Using the arrow keys, you can move the brush around if the mouse doesn't move it where you want. With the page up/down keys you can move the brush up and down. When the brush is where you want it, click to place the block. The point brush has a delete mode that is available when you click the arrow icon above it in the toolbar. It is the one with the X instead of the arrow pointing to the right like a play button. Clicking with the delete point brush will remove the highlighted block.

Volume Brush
Click-drag to draw an area of blocks. When you release the mouse button, the size will be locked and you can move the mouse to set the height. Then click to finish and place all blocks.

Slope Brush
The slope brush allows easy building of ramps and roofs. It works like the volume brush except you will see that not all heights can be selected. A 6x6 area can have a height of 2, 3, 6, 12, 18 for example, as shown in the image to the right. The 6x6x6 will create a 45° slope.

Like the point brush, this brush has different modes. They all work the same way, the difference is the direction. The icons show the direction of the slope when the camera looks north.

In 0.881 not all slope modes seem to be working yet.

Select Brush
The basic usage is simple: hover over some blocks, then click-drag to select. Arrow up/down will increase/decrease the selection depth so you can select a whole building in one action.

Note that the selection highlight will change color according to the direction, for example when you hover over a north/south surface it will be blue. This will help to know how the selection depth works.

Selection modes: Hold Shift while you select blocks to add them to the selection. Hold Alt to remove blocks from the selection. Hold Ctrl to select unselected and unselect selected blocks.

Extrude is part of the select tool because you have to select the blocks to extrude. Hold Shift and press arrow keys to extrude the selection, the extrude direction depends on the camera. Page up/down extrudes up/down, this does not change with camera orientation.

Delete tool
Deletes the current selected blocks. The Del key works too.

Save tool
Saves the current selection as a prefab that can be reused. The save dialog shows a preview that you can change (free camera mode recommended) and a name input. Click the save button to finish the preview image and move the prefab to your ISO list.

The save tool is useful for designing buildings in the build game mode where you have unlimited resources instead of wasting story mode resources for corrections.

Block Mode
The build menu allows you to choose what blocks you place, the material and the type.

Available materials:

Voxel Mode
The voxel mode is similar to the block mode except that you change the landscape voxels. Only point brush and volume brush work in this mode. You can not use the select brush to remove voxels so the only way to get rid of unwanted voxels is the point brush in delete mode. There is no smoothing tool so you can't create smooth hills.

ISO Mode
In the ISO mode you select a prefab from your list. On the right you will see a list of required resources to place the prefab. Click the export button and the prefab will be on your cursor. You can rotate it with T, move it like the point brush, and place it with a click. The prefab will stay selected until you right-click so you can place more than one and don't have to export one by one.

Links

 * Official board ISO section
 * ISOs by Type