The Prefab Builder Window
Open it with Tools > All In One Prefab Builder > Prefab Builder (or Alt+Shift+W).
Layout #
- Tabs: Move, Place, Physics, Dress, Fix, Check and Settings. One tab is visible at a time. When the window is too narrow for them, the tabs scroll sideways (the mouse wheel over them, or the arrows at their ends) as the mode selector and every row of tabs in a tool do.
- Mode selector: under the tabs. Each tab has a few modes; only the chosen mode's panel is shown. Each mode button has its number before its name ("1 Stamp": press 1 over the Scene view or the window); they share the row evenly, as the tabs do; drag a tab or a tool along its bar to put it in another place, the number keys follow your order; when they don't fit, the row scrolls (mouse wheel, or its arrows).
- ⌂ is Home: try the sample city, turn a pack into a kit, the tour, and jobs that open the right tool (see Getting Started).
- ? shows a line of help for the current mode; click it (or its ✕) to put it away until you press ? again. ⋮ holds the rare actions: Add Pack, Presets, snap the selection, tidy scene folders, leave out duplicate pieces, make thumbnails again, show the tour again, Get help, report a bug, Copy support info, About.
- New packs: folders in the project that look like packs and aren't kits yet are listed in Add Pack (⋮ > Add Pack). Nothing is ever scanned or imported without a click.
Tabs whose tools aren't in this version yet say what's coming.
What's new: after an update, a small card at the top of the window lists what the new version adds (from the CHANGELOG), once; Got it hides it until the next version.
The status line #
A line at the foot of the Scene view says what a click does in the tool that's open, and its keys ("Click to place it. R turns it…"). While Unity's own tools are in use it says how to go back. ⋮ > Show what a click does in the Scene view switches it off; the overlay then shows the same line under its settings.
The Scene overlay #
The Prefab Builder overlay in the Scene view is kept small: the mode and its tab, the mode's most used settings, the very same settings as in its panel (change one in either and the other shows it at once):
| Mode | In the overlay |
|---|---|
| Stamp | Snap to pieces, Allow overlaps |
| Brush | Radius, Density, Same floor type only, Allow overlaps |
| Row | Spacing, Allow overlaps, Snap to pieces |
| Spline | Fronts face, Spacing, Curved, Allow overlaps, Snap to pieces; Lay it / Loop / Clear while drawing |
| Fill | Area / Selection / Inverse (with Margin, Outside / Inside, Round it, and the Fill buttons), Density, Same floor type only, Allow overlaps |
| Fence | Opening, Fixed, Fronts in, Allow overlaps, Fence the selection and its margin, Snap to pieces |
| Street | Allow overlaps, Dress the selection, Clear, New mix |
| Closures | Which parts are built (Barriers, Cones, Sign, Wall, Road), Turn round |
| Signs | The text (the selected sign's, else the next one's), Snap to pieces |
| Erase | Radius, Category, Leave floors |
| Replace (Fix) | Replace the selection, Replace all |
Every tool that places things on a grid (Stamp, Brush, Row, Spline, Fill, Fence and Signs) shows the Grid row (on / off, its size, ÷2 ×2, Auto, and Keep once it's set by hand), with Turn under it (how far a press of R turns, and T tilts), in the same place: the last lines, over the hint. The grid is the same for all of them, so it isn't in their panels. After a Fill, a Brush stroke, a Row or a Spline, every Place tool also shows Re-roll (N) and Select (Shift+N) (see Re-roll). Every mode shows the Cutaway line too: Top and Side slice away the roof or the near walls, to see and build inside (see the cutaway). Move it, collapse it or hide it like any Scene view overlay (the overlay menu, or the ` key in the Scene view). With the window closed it offers a button to open it.
Messages #
What the Prefab Builder tells you, "Row of 12", "3 piece(s) filed", "Pick the pieces first", shows as a box across the top of the Scene view, in bold under a small Prefab Builder title (blue; amber with Heads up when there's something to fix), and fades after a few seconds (longer messages stay longer). A new message replaces the last. It never takes a click: you can keep working under it.
Unity's own tools #
While a mode that places things is active, the Prefab Builder takes the Scene view's clicks and Unity's transform tool is set aside. To select, move, rotate or scale things as usual, with the window still open, press Q, W, E or Y, or click a tool in Unity's toolbar, or press Esc when there's nothing to cancel. The Prefab Builder then leaves the Scene view alone (the overlay says Unity tools). Click anywhere in the Prefab Builder window, or Back to … in the overlay, and the tool you were on is back, as it was; picking a piece, a mode or a tab does it too. (R and T stay the Prefab Builder's keys for turning and tilting what you're placing or changing; T is Unity's Rect tool elsewhere.)
What the tools aim at #
Every tool lands on whatever is under the mouse: anything with a collider, and models without one too, a pack's models placed straight in (as in Demo City), roofs, roads, tables, by their meshes. (The Prefab Builder keeps hidden stand-ins of those meshes to aim at; nothing is added to the models themselves.) Scatter such as grass is aimed through.
Tabs in this version #
Undo #
Every action is one Undo step: a placed piece (with the folders made for it), a snap, a drop to the ground, a Fix all.