Documentation - Editing - Geometry

• Selecting
• The grid
• Extruding and carving
• Pushing faces and corners
• Moving
• Rotating and flipping
• Copy and paste
• Undo and redo
• Deleting
• Heightmaps
• Keys

A map’s geometry is cubes on a grid: select some, then extrude, carve, push, rotate, flip, move, copy and paste them. Press F2 to enter or leave edit mode, and newmap gives an empty world to try things on.

Keys here are the default bind preset’s. Where the legacy preset differs, it is noted as “legacy”; see Bind presets. Most edits act on the selection and work only while it is in view; otherwise the console says “Selection not in view”.

Selecting

Edit mode starts in cursor mode, so the editor works on whatever the mouse cursor points at; in mouse look (Tab) it works on the centre of the screen. With nothing selected, the cube under the cursor is outlined: that cube, at the current grid size, is what the keys below act on.

• Left click: select the cube under the cursor. Drag to select an area of cubes on the face you started on.
• Shift + left click, or Shift + right click: extend the selection to take in the cube clicked, turning it to the side clicked. In mouse look a right click does this without Shift; in cursor mode a right click opens the context menu of an entity under the cursor and, held, looks around.
• Middle click and drag: select corners instead of whole cubes, down to half a cube, for pushing.
• Space or Esc: cancel the selection, and stop moving entities.
• Hold left Ctrl: select through the selection and entities, to reach the cubes behind them. It also shows the paste preview.

The selection always has one side, the face the edits push from: the side you started on, shown as Side in the selection box (see Selection and status).

• X, Y, Z: turn the selection to its side on that axis, and press again for the opposite side (legacy Shift+X, Shift+Y, Shift+Z). While moving the selection or entities, they keep the move to that axis instead, and a second press frees it.
• ; + wheel: step the selection through its six sides.

The grid

Every cube is a power of two in size. The grid size is the size of cube you select and edit, from 1 unit (gridpower 0) to 4096 (gridpower 12); 16 units is one metre.

• G + wheel: grid size (gridpower). Changing it drops the selection, as a selection is made of cubes of one size.
• Alt+G: cycle the grid drawn over surfaces: the paste grid with the paste preview, a grid around the cursor, a grid around the selection box, or none.

Extruding and carving

The mouse wheel, with no key held, adds or removes a layer of cubes on the selected side.

• Wheel down: extrude, adding a layer of cubes out from the selected side. The selection moves out with the new face.
• Wheel up: carve, removing the layer of cubes behind the selected side. The selection moves in with it.
• Shift + wheel: the same, but the selection grows over the new cubes, or shrinks as they go, rather than moving. This is the quick way to select a block: extrude it with Shift held.
• Next to the cursor, Edit cubes counts the layers added (negative) or removed since the selection was made.

Pushing faces and corners

A cube’s faces can be pushed in, in eighths of the cube, to make slopes, ramps and wedges. These keys are held while turning the wheel; wheel up pushes in and wheel down pulls back out.

• F + wheel: push the selected side of every cube in the selection. With corners selected (middle drag), only those corners move.
• Q + wheel: push one corner, the corner of the cube nearest the cursor, on every cube in the selection.
• Next to the cursor, Cut face shows how far, in eighths, the face has been pushed.

A push that would bend a cube out of shape is left out, or only the part that keeps it whole is made.

Moving

• C (default preset; legacy Shift+C): grab. Point at the selection and press it, and the selection box follows the mouse along the surface it lies on until you left click. The cubes stay where they are: grabbing moves the box, ready to select somewhere else of the same size. With entities selected it moves them instead.
• Alt+C: grab as C does, adding every entity under the cursor to the entities moved, not only the first.
• U (hold): cut. Point at the selection and hold it, and the selected cubes and entities move with the mouse, landing where the selection is when you let go.
• While moving, the wheel moves the selection or entities out and in along its side, and X, Y or Z keeps the move to that axis.
• Grab and cut need the cursor on the selection when you press the key.

Rotating and flipping

Both turn the contents of the selection around the axis of its selected side, and turn and flip the selected entities with them.

• R + wheel: rotate the selection a quarter turn per notch (rotate). A selection that isn’t square is made square first, taking in more cubes on its shorter side.
• Ctrl+X: flip the selection, mirroring it across its selected side (flip). Legacy X.

Copy and paste

A copy fills the paste buffer, which keeps it across maps until the next copy.

• Ctrl+C: copy the selected cubes, with the selected entities (copy). Legacy C.
• Ctrl+V: paste. Hold it to see where the paste will go, and let go to paste (paste). Legacy V.
• The toolbar’s Copy and Paste buttons do the same, the Paste button pasting at once at the selection.

Holding Ctrl, or the paste key, shows the paste preview: the copy drawn see-through at the spot it would land, with a box around it.

• With no selection, the preview follows the cursor, and the paste lands with its corner on the cube under the cursor.
• With a selection, the paste lands with its corner on the selection’s.
• Pasting at another grid size scales the copy to it, so a copy made at gridpower 4 and pasted at gridpower 3 comes out half the size.
• A paste replaces whatever was in its box, empty cubes included.
• With only entities selected and no cubes, copy takes the selected entity, and paste sets the selected entities to it, or adds it at the selection when none are selected.
• pastepreview 0 in the console turns the preview off and leaves only the box.

Selections can also be saved to file and loaded back as prefabs, with saveprefab and copyprefab, which loads one into the paste buffer.

Undo and redo

• Ctrl+Z: undo (undo). Legacy Z.
• Ctrl+Shift+Z: redo (redo). Legacy O, and Ctrl+Shift+Z still works.
• The toolbar’s Undo and Redo buttons do the same, and the info bar says what was undone, a map edit or an entity edit.

An undo step covers every change made to the same selection in a row. Each notch of extruding moves the selection, so each is its own step, but a run of pushes, rotations and flips on one selection undoes all at once. Undo selects the area it changed. How much is kept is set by Undo size in Editor settings (undomegs).

Deleting

• Backspace: delete the selected entities, or with none selected, empty the selected cubes.
• Delete: delete the selected entities.

Heightmaps

Heightmap mode shapes terrain with a brush, pushing the corners of the cubes under it rather than whole faces.

• H: heightmap mode, on or off. P and left Alt also turn it off.
• Wheel: raise (down) or lower (up) the surface under the brush.
• K + wheel: choose the brush; its name is shown in the console.
• Middle click a surface: add its texture to the textures the brush changes, or take it away again. With none chosen, or with a selection, the brush changes any surface.

Keys

Key	Action
Left click	Select a cube; drag to select an area
Shift + left or right click	Extend the selection to the cube clicked
Right click (mouse look)	Extend the selection to the cube clicked
Middle click	Select corners; in heightmap mode, choose brush textures
Space	Cancel the selection
Left Ctrl (hold)	Select through the selection and entities; show the paste preview
Wheel	Carve (up) or extrude (down) on the selected side
Shift + wheel	Carve or extrude, keeping the selection over the cubes
G + wheel	Grid size
Alt+G	Cycle the grid drawn over surfaces
F + wheel	Push the selected side, or the selected corners
Q + wheel	Push the corner nearest the cursor on every selected cube
R + wheel	Rotate the selection
; + wheel	Step through the selection’s sides
X, Y, Z	Turn the selection to that axis’s side; keep a move to that axis (legacy Shift+X, Shift+Y, Shift+Z)
Ctrl+X	Flip the selection (legacy X)
C	Grab: move the selection box, or the selected entities (legacy Shift+C)
Alt+C	Grab, with every entity under the cursor
U (hold)	Cut: move the selected cubes and entities
Ctrl+C	Copy (legacy C)
Ctrl+V	Paste; hold for the preview (legacy V)
Ctrl+Z	Undo (legacy Z)
Ctrl+Shift+Z	Redo (legacy O)
Backspace	Delete the selected entities, else empty the selected cubes
H	Heightmap mode
K + wheel	Heightmap brush
-	Texture every face of the selected cubes, or only the selected side (allfaces)
B	Fullbright
F9	Cycle the outline mode

The keys of editor actions, such as grab, flip and the wheel keys G, F, Q, R and ;, can be changed in the Editor bindings Tool panel. The others, such as the mouse buttons, Space, Backspace, H, K and -, are set in the console with editbind.