The 3D close-up
Press 3D in the middle of the top bar to look at the level from just behind the player start, the way the player faces. Or select anything and press View and place in 3D in its panel (or V, or right-click it) to look at that. The map gives way to a 3D close-up of the spot, drawn from the game's own models and textures: the ground with your shaping, the buildings, walls, fences, props and vehicles, the guards and the player as their characters holding their weapons, pickups as their models, cameras with their view cones.
The level's things look as the game draws them. Yours are tinted gold, and the one being edited is outlined.
The close-up shows the level as the game builds it:
- Cellars, lift shafts and tunnels are open where the game opens the ground: the generator room's cellar, the tunnels of Eagle's Nest. A building of yours opens the ground exactly as Apply will (see Buildings that open the ground).
- Roads and railways are the game's own models laid along their course: ballast, sleepers and rails, the embankment on its slopes, the track across the bridge.
- The game's own lifts stand where the level starts them, Eagle's Nest's cable car among them.
- The level's guards stand where the game stands them, on their walkways.
Ready when you open it
Opening a mission or a built-in level gets everything the close-up draws ready: every model in the level and the textures they wear. A bar at the foot of the map, Preparing 3D, shows how far it has got; it takes a few seconds, and then the close-up opens whole. Anything still on its way when you open it (a model you have just placed, say) shows a Loading bar at the foot of the close-up. Opening another mission closes the close-up of the last one.
The bar
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Range | How far round the item things are gathered, 10 to 60 m (60 to start). The ground reaches further and fades into the haze |
| Around | Circles round the item |
| Top (T) | Looks straight down |
| Eye level | Stands at a person's height |
| Walk (G) | Walks on the floor, see below |
| Camera view | For a camera: looks through its own lens |
| Cut | Cuts everything above a height, to see into rooms |
| X-ray | Makes other buildings see-through |
| Walkways | Shows the guards' walkway points and links, and a selected guard's patrol |
| Add walkway point | With Walkways on: click a floor or the ground to add a point. It links to the points on its floor within 15 m |
| Move / Rotate | Which handles the selected thing has (W E), see below |
| 0.5 m, 15° | Snapping: moves by half a metre, turns by 15 degrees |
| Speed | How fast the camera flies; the wheel changes it |
| Textures | Off shows plain colours |
| Done | Back to the map, as Map in the top bar is |
Looking and moving
The close-up works like Unreal Engine's editor: one mode, and the mouse is yours until you hold a button.
- Hold the left button and move the mouse to look around. The pointer hides while you hold it.
- Hold the right button to circle round the selected thing, or round the middle of the view when nothing is selected. The middle button pans.
- While you hold a button, W A S D fly where you look, and Q and E go straight down and up. The arrows fly at any time. Shift is three times as fast. The camera eases in, and glides to a stop when you let go.
- The wheel sets how fast the camera flies, in ten steps from a walk to a jet; it starts at 8. The bar shows it as Speed, and it is remembered.
- Esc lets go of the selection; a second time, it goes back to the map.
- Walk: you land on the floor under you and walk at eye height, following floors, stairs, slopes and roofs. Walls, crates and fences stop you. Shift runs.
- Fly or walk anywhere: what is near you is gathered again every few metres, so you can cross the whole level from any item.
Moving things in 3D
Click anything to select it, to move it or just to look at it. A click on the ground or the sky selects nothing, on the map too. Dragging never moves a thing by accident: the selected thing moves only by its gizmo, the handles drawn over it. It stays the same size on screen, but shrinks with the thing when you are far away.
- Move (W): drag an arrow to move it along that axis only, a right angle between two arrows to move it across their plane, or the ball in the middle to slide it over floors, desk tops and the ground (a camera, an alarm button, a siren or a light along walls, facing out). Shift with the ball lifts or lowers it.
- Rotate (E): drag a half ring to turn it about that axis; the rings turn to face you as you move round. Guards, pickups, cameras and switches turn only about up, which is the way they face. Buildings and props turn on all three, so a crate can lie on its side or a ramp can lean, and the game gets the same angles.
- There is no scale: the game has no size for a building or a prop, only where it stands and how it is turned.
- 0.5 m and 15° on the bar snap moves to half a metre and turns to 15 degrees. While you drag, the distance or the angle shows by the pointer.
- End drops it onto the floor or the ground below. Ctrl+arrows nudge it 5 cm (Shift for 50 cm), and Ctrl+PgUp / PgDn raise and lower it.
- Delete takes it away. Ctrl+C copies it, and Ctrl+V puts a copy where the view is aimed, on the ground or a floor; Ctrl+D does both at once.
- The readout says what it stands or hangs on, and how far above or into it.
- Placing: with something picked in the inventory, the mouse is a pointer: a ghost of it follows it over floors (or walls), and a click puts it there.
Every move is an ordinary change: undo, the change log and saving all work, and the map shows it too. A height you set in 3D is kept exactly when the mission is built. Whatever rests on something (a rifle on a crate, a crate on a crate) moves with it. When the thing the close-up was opened on is taken away, here, on the map or by an undo, the view stays open where it stood.
Opened on something indoors, the close-up cuts the building it is in just under the ceiling, so the room is open from above. Only that building is cut: a watchtower's head across the yard stays on.
Test from here
While walking, Test from here builds the mission with the player starting where you stand, facing where you look, and starts the game. See Applying and playing.
Next: the AI designer.