Move Tab

Move, rotate and scale what's already placed: with the kit's snapping instead of Unity's handles. The Move tab comes first (Shift+1 over the Scene view picks it, as long as it's the first tab; M goes straight to Move and S to Select). Select objects the usual way (click, Shift-click, drag a box); the handles work on the top objects of the selection (a child moves with its parent). In Prefab Mode they work inside the prefab.

  • The number keys switch between Move, Rotate, Scale, Select and Show / Hide (each tool shows its number before its name; drag a tool to reorder them and the numbers follow) while the mouse is over the Scene view, only in this tab, so they never get in the way elsewhere (change them in Settings > Hotkeys).
  • Snap to pieces and the Grid row are the same switches as the Place tools': what you set here is set there too.
  • Hold Ctrl (Cmd) while dragging to move, turn or scale freely.
  • W, E, Y or Unity's toolbar hand the Scene view back to Unity's own tools until you click in the Prefab Builder window (or pick a mode) again. (T tilts here.)
  • One Undo step per drag (or per press of R, or per button).

The anchor #

Every tool works from the anchor (the large yellow dot). Choose it with the two buttons in the panel (and the Scene overlay):

  • Pivot: the (first) object's own pivot. No dots.
  • Point (to begin with, the bottom middle): dots show on the selection's box, its corners, the middles of its edges and faces, and its centre; they grow under the mouse. Click a dot to make it the anchor; Move's arrows, Rotate's rings and Scale's square then sit there.

From a point:

  • Move puts the anchor on the grid (with the grid on): pick a corner to line corners up. Along an axis where the anchor is a middle, the box's edge goes on the grid instead, so a road tile moved by its bottom middle still fills whole cells.
  • Rotate turns round it: a corner swings the selection like a door, and the corner stays put; the bottom middle turns it where it stands.
  • Scale grows and shrinks round it: from the bottom middle it keeps standing where it stands; from a corner, a side or the centre instead.

Move #

Drag the selected object itself to slide it over the scene onto whatever is under the mouse: the ground, a roof, a table, a shelf (models without colliders too). Or drag an arrow to move the selection along X, Y or Z, or a coloured square to move it along two axes at once.

  • Land on what's under it (on by default): moved along X or Z, what stands on something keeps standing on what's below it as it goes: up onto a step, down off a table. A sign on a wall or a hanging lamp keeps its height, and the Y arrow always lifts freely.

  • With Snap to pieces on, the selection snaps flush against the pieces beside it (or on top of them) and lines up with them, as a stamped piece does.

  • With the grid on, the anchor lands on the grid (along a middle: the box's edge) and its height on the height step.
  • It snaps only on the axes you drag along: moving along X never shifts it along Z.
  • Move by: type an exact amount (x, y, z in metres) and press it.
  • Put on the ground: each selected object dropped straight down onto what's under it.

Rotate #

Drag a ring to turn the selection through the anchor, in steps of Turn step (the rule set's rotation step unless set here): the green ring turns it round the up axis, the red one round X and the blue one round Z (tipping it over). R and Shift+R, or Turn right / Turn left, turn it round the up axis a step at a time. T and Shift+T tilt each selected object a Turn step (its front down, or up) on its own foot, lifted so nothing sinks into the ground.

  • Turn each at random: every selected object turned round its own middle by a random number of steps, variety for a row of houses or crates in one click.
  • Straighten: every selected object's turn rounded to the step on every axis, pieces knocked a few degrees out are straight again.

Scale #

A box shows round the selection.

  • Drag a face to stretch the selection that way; with the grid on, the face lands on the grid (the top on the height step). Hold Alt to stretch both sides at once. Objects turned by quarter turns stretch exactly along their own sides.
  • Drag a corner (the pink balls) or the square at the anchor to scale evenly, in steps of Scale step (0.1: 10 % at a time), round the anchor, a corner that is itself the anchor scales round the opposite corner. Click a corner without dragging to make it the anchor.
  • Reset scale: each selected object back at the scale it has in its prefab.

Select #

Select placed pieces by a shape you draw in the Scene view, handy before moving, scattering or arranging them:

  • Box: drag its base on the ground, then move the mouse up for its height and click: everything whose middle is inside it (a low box picks the ground floor only). Click straight away, or double-click, and it stays flat: everything standing in it, at any height.
  • Sphere: drag from the middle out: everything whose middle is inside the ball.
  • Circle: drag a circle on the ground from its middle out: everything standing in it, at any height.
  • On screen: press Space (or the button): everything the Scene view shows.

New, Add, Subtract or Intersect says how what's found goes with what's selected, or hold Shift (add), Ctrl (take out) or both (keep only where they meet) as you draw. A click picks the piece under the mouse the same way. Space draws the last shape again (after changing the filters). What a shape will pick is outlined as you draw.

Only narrows what's picked: Like the selection (pieces of the kinds selected now, the same prefab, or the same name; Any clears it), Size (the longest side, from and to), Height (where the bottom stands, from and to). Kit floors (ground and road pieces) are left out unless Floors too is on; scatter on the small-props layer never counts.

Show / Hide #

The cutaway #

To see and build inside, slice the top or the side away. The Scene view stops drawing everything past the cut: through the middle of a building, even one made as a single mesh. The switches are at the top of this panel and on the Cutaway line of the Scene overlay, in every tool, so you can turn them on while placing:

  • Top (C) slices away everything above a height: roofs, ceilings and the floors above. A blue sheet shows where the cut is; drag its blue arrow up or down to put it anywhere (or type the height in this panel). The first time, it starts a storey above the middle of the Scene view. It slices while the camera is above it.
  • Side (Shift+C) slices away everything between the camera and an upright plane: the walls in front of a room. Drag its orange arrow to move it; Face this view stands it through the middle of the Scene view, facing the camera. Orbit round to the other side and it cuts that side instead.
  • One cut at a time: turning one on turns the other off.
  • Every tool aims straight through what's cut, onto what's still drawn, so you place furniture on the floor inside a building with its roof cut away, or against the far wall of a room. A hollow building needs a mesh collider or no collider for its floor to be found; one box collider round the outside of it leaves only the ground under it to aim at.
  • Only the Scene view's picture changes: the scene, its materials and the game are untouched, and it's off again when Unity restarts. What's cut still casts its shadow inside: turn the Scene view's lighting off (its toolbar) to see in brightly. A click to select in Unity's own way may still pick what's cut.

Categories #

Hide or lock every placed piece of a category while you work, all the roads, the buildings, the props:

  • Hide takes them out of the Scene view, and every tool aims straight through them: hide the roofs and place furniture inside, hide the props and fix the road under them. Lock leaves them showing but they can't be clicked or selected: still there to place on.
  • Only shows just that category and hides the rest. Show all and Unlock all bring everything back.
  • A category's switch marked * is on for some of its pieces only; a click sets it for all of them.
  • Scatter on the small-props layer has a group of its own, and so does what isn't from a kit.

Only the Scene view changes: this is Unity's own scene visibility (the eye and hand in the Hierarchy), so the scene itself, its saved file and the game are untouched. The Scene view's visibility switch (the eye in its toolbar) has to be on for hidden things to disappear.

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