What do you wish you knew sooner?

[Forager]

What's a piece of advice a beginner can use, but it took you a long time to figure it out?

 

It didn't take too long to figure out exactly how to accurately move things that are attached to the floor, but not actually on the floor. It's a bit how you use the shadow of a finger to point in a display case.

 

But what I didn't fully grasp was how powerful moving the camera instead of your character is. You can put it at crazy angles, move through things, get very close and find clipped things.

 

I've been working on a base for quite awhile, and I just figured out how to really make the camera work for me.

[Glacier Peak]

Base Entrance Teleporters always make you enter facing South.

[Forager]

That's a great one! I would add to the list that teleport points within a base face you whatever direction you were facing originally (which I also just figured out this week).

[chuckv3]

I wish I had known about the F keys, and a the rotation shifts. Now I do, so life is much easier to do creative weird things.

 

F1 - toggle the grid SNAP (1/2x1/2 or 1/4x1/4 help make the TINY fonts not look ridiculous, whereas 2x2 or 4x4 is better for large grass tiles and such)

F3 - enable/disable clipping, so you can place things sticking out of the room (in game people only see what's IN the room)

F2 - toggle rotation SNAP (45, 30, 15, 10, 5, 1, none iirc). Very useful for rotating things the amount you want (without guessing)

F5 - change attachment type while dragging or placing.

 

ALT-mouse-drag, rotates items on the floor (XY axis?)

CTRL-ALT-mouse drag rotates around XZ

SHIFT-ALT-mouse drag rotates around YZ

(i don't really know if N/S is Y or X, but you get the idea. if one doesn't work, use the other)

 

 

Edited May 14 by chuckv3

[Dacy]

And...this is why I've done so many videos.

[Forager]

On 5/11/2024 at 7:18 PM, chuckv3 said:

I wish I had known about the F keys, and a the rotation shifts. Now I do, so life is much easier to do creative weird things.

 

F1 - toggle the grid SNAP (1/2x1/2 or 1/4x1/4 help make the TINY fonts not look ridiculous, whereas 2x2 or 4x4 is better for large grass tiles and such)

F3 - enable/disable clipping, so you can place things sticking out of the room (in game people only see what's IN the room)

F5 - toggle rotation SNAP (45, 30, 15, 10, 5, 1, none iirc). Very useful for rotating things the amount you want (without guessing)

 

ALT-mouse-drag, rotates items on the floor (XY axis?)

CTRL-ALT-mouse drag rotates around XZ

SHIFT-ALT-mouse drag rotates around YZ

(i don't really know if N/S is Y or X, but you get the idea. if one doesn't work, use the other)

 

 

 

F2 for and angle and F5 for attachment, but yeah.

 

I also didn't know there was a redo command for way too long. I knew undo because CTRL-Z is a habit, but didn't know CTRL-Y was redo.

 

Super handy when you miss a click-drag and you're not sure what, if anything, you actually grabbed and moved or where it went.

Edited May 14 by Forager

[Dacy]

Add to this: <esc> to let go of something like you never grabbed it. Especially handy for storage, because there is no undo for that.

 

Hold control to keep things on the same level/height they are currently while moving an item.

 

Hold shift when tabbing to select the item behind the item you're clicking on.

 

Put your character near the item you wish to select and hit tab, will usually select that item within a few tabs.

 

Hold control when you want to select the base section, not the items in front of them.

 

Get rid of flicker by disabling anglesnap, then angling the offending piece on the shortest or least noticeable direction possible, for the smallest amount of movement possible (it usually will move the item twice as far as the minimum, on the first try, so keep that in mind).

 

Surface tiles are a great tool for building on multiple levels, or for placing items at a particular height repeatedly. Surface towers are all seen as one big floor by the editor, so you can put things at whatever height you wish with a tower, then use control to move it over to where you want to have it stay.

 

Glass Windows don't make anything disappear. Glass dividers, sometimes do. And they have stripes, where glass windows do not.

Edited May 13 by Dacy

[Forager]

Dacy I got one from one of your videos recently:  I wish I had thought to attach surface towers to ceiling the ceiling instead of shift-dragging it down a million times. That's one of those simple ones that would have saved me a lot of time and energy. I'm mad I didn't think of it. 

[chuckv3]

18 hours ago, Forager said:

 

F2 for and angle and F5 for attachment, but yeah.

 

I also didn't know there was a redo command for way too long. I knew undo because CTRL-Z is a habit, but didn't know CTRL-Y was redo.

 

Super handy when you miss a click-drag and you're not sure what, if anything, you actually grabbed and moved or where it went.

corrected it (thanks!) too sleepy when I wrote that