Building a Map
The catalogue
17,473 entries — props, prop groups, people, animals, wagons, boats and train cars — sorted into categories with search, favourites and a recent list.
Hover an entry and a live preview appears in the world before you place anything. It turns slowly on the spot so you can see all sides, and faces the camera by default.
Thumbnails come from the internet; the preview does not
The grid images are fetched from GitHub at runtime. If they are blank, search and the in-world preview still work — you are only missing the pictures.
By default the catalogue shows vanilla models only. Your own streamed props appear once you list them in Config.CustomProps, under whatever category you give them.
Placing
Pick an entry, aim, left-click. While the preview is on the cursor:
| Key | Does |
|---|---|
| Arrow keys | Turn and tilt it |
Q / Z | Push further / pull nearer |
R | Random turn |
Placement distance runs 0.5 m to 100 m, starting at 6 m.
A prop group places as several objects at once, up to 150 in the preview.
The gizmo
G for move, R for rotate. Drag an axis to move or turn along it.
Two axis modes:
| Mode | Axes follow |
|---|---|
| Global | The world. X is always east, whatever the prop is doing |
| Local | The object. X is the object's own forward |
Global is right for laying out a street. Local is right for anything already rotated — a fence post on a slope moves along the fence rather than along the compass.
Snapping
Four kinds, and they stack.
| Snap | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Grid | Positions land on a grid | 0.25 m |
| Angle | Rotations land on a step | 15°, off by default |
| Surface | Aligns to the surface under it | Off by default |
| Prop-to-prop | Snaps to a nearby object's edge | 8 m radius |
Grid sizes run 0.05 to 5.0. Angle steps are 1°, 5°, 15°, 22.5°, 45° and 90° — 22.5 is there for the eight-sided things the game is full of.
Two more that are not snapping but belong here:
- Drop to ground (
U) puts the selection on whatever is under it. - Align to slope rotates it to match the ground's angle, which is what you want for anything on a hillside.
Nudging
Arrow keys and Q/Z move the selection exactly one step.
| Steps | Default | |
|---|---|---|
| Move | 0.001 to 5.0 | 0.05 m |
| Rotate | 0.1 to 90 | 5° |
0.001 m is one millimetre. That is the tool for closing a seam between two building sections that looks fine from a distance and wrong from the doorway.
Exact numbers
The Entity tab takes typed coordinates and angles. When something has to be at an exact height, or two props have to share a heading precisely, type it rather than fighting the gizmo.
The same tab holds the per-object settings:
| Setting | Default | |
|---|---|---|
| LOD distance | 500 | How far away it stays drawn |
| Collision | on | Solid or walk-through |
| Frozen | on | Immovable |
| Visible | on | Drawn at all |
| Alpha | 255 | Opacity |
| Dynamic | off | Physics |
Duplicate, copy, replace
Duplicate (B) | A copy at the same spot, selected, ready to move |
| Copy / paste position and rotation | Take one object's exact transform and give it to another |
| Replace model | Swap what a placed object is, keeping where it is |
Replace model is the one that saves an afternoon — build the layout with a placeholder, swap all of them when you have decided on the real prop.
Brush and Scatter
For covering ground rather than placing one thing at a time.
Brush paints as you move. Scatter drops a count inside a radius in one go.
| Range | Default | |
|---|---|---|
| Brush radius | 0.5 – 60 m | 6 m |
| Brush density | 1 – 60 | 6 |
| Spacing | — | 1.5 m |
| Scatter count | 1 – 500 | 50 |
| Scatter radius | — | 25 m |
Both default to random yaw on and snap to ground on, which is what makes scattered rocks and bushes look placed rather than stamped. Pitch and roll jitter are available and default to zero — a little roll on debris helps; any on a tree looks wrong.
Scatter puts down up to 500 objects in one action
That counts against your map like anything else, and undo treats it as one step. Check the radius before the count.
Undo
J, 60 steps deep. It covers placing, deleting, moving, duplicating and bulk operations.
What the server will not accept
| Limit | Default |
|---|---|
| Objects accepted per minute | 1500 |
| Objects per write batch | 250 |
| World bounds | ±20000 X/Y, −1000 to 5000 Z |
| Objects per map | unlimited |
| Objects in total | unlimited |
The per-minute limit is the one you can hit — a very large Scatter followed immediately by another will queue rather than be lost. The map limits are off by default; see Server setup.
Performance for everyone else
Your players are not running the editor, but they do load what you build:
| Setting | Default | |
|---|---|---|
| Spawn distance | 250 m | How close before objects appear |
| Max entities | 900 | Ceiling on simultaneously spawned objects |
| Spawn budget | 12 per tick | How fast they stream in |
A map that puts 900 objects inside 250 m of one spot will reach that ceiling. Spreading a build out, or raising SpawnDistance and lowering MaxEntities, is the trade. These are in Configuration.