Tutorial: Understanding the Lumberyard Interface This tutorial walks you through a basic overview of the Interface. Along the way we will create our first level, generate terrain, navigate within the editor, explore the UI and learn some basic terminology regarding Lumberyard objects. At the end of the tutorial you will have an understanding of where to find the various tools you will use in Lumberyard.

You will learn how to do the following:

• Create a New Level • Navigating in Lumberyard • Identify interface areas • Learn essential terms and tools • And learn a few other useful things

Prerequisites This tutorial requires that you successfully download and install the Lumberyard Editor.

Step 1: Creating a New Level The first step in the tutorial is to create a level so we have a space in which to make awesome things happen.

To create your first level follow the steps below:

1. From the Welcome Screen click on New Level. In the new level interface, name your level (we will use New_Level for this tutorial) and set a heightmap resolution. You can use any size you wish, but we will keep everything at the default settings. Click OK.

2. In the Generate Terrain Texture window, set the Texture Dimension to 1024 (again you can use any value you wish for this tutorial). Click OK.

3. After a moment Lumberyard will generate the Terrain Patch and we can begin working.

Now that we have successfully created a level, let’s learn how to move around inside of Lumberyard.

Step 2: Navigating in Lumberyard After you have created a level, we will learn to navigate within the engine. If you have played First-Person Shooter (FPS) game or have used other game engines, navigating within the editor should feel familiar.

To navigate within the editor use the following controls:

W – Strafe Forward RMB + Direction – Look Direction

S – Strafe Back MMB + Direction – Pan Direction A – Strafe Left LMB – Select / Marquee Select D – Strafe Right

You now know how to navigate within the Lumberyard Editor, we will define the areas of the interface we will be using throughout development.

Step 3: Identifying the Interface Areas The Lumberyard interface can be intimidating at first, but in this section we will identify the main areas of the interface that are referenced throughout this and other tutorial series

Main Menu

The Main Menu contains all function and settings including menus for many tools accessible in other portions of the interface

Editor Toolbar

The Editor Toolbar contains the most commonly used tools and editors within Lumberyard. These include grid snap functions, undo, and redo, shortcuts to core tools such as Gepetto and the Time of Day Editor and much more.

Perspective Viewport

The Perspective Viewport is where we see our 3D environment. Here we can select objects, entities and brushes and manipulate them within our level. The Perspective Viewport has a header and control bar that offer increased control over what we see and what we can do.

Perspective Header

The Perspective Header contains toggles for various display options and a search bar to filter objects within the Viewport.

Perspective Control Bar

The Perspective Control bar offers various controls for selected objects, options for adjusting navigation speed and other viewport functionalities.

Console

The Console contains Input and Output data on the Editor and any custom code written for your level.

Rollup Bar

The Rollup Bar contains access to many objects, entities and tools for creating and managing content within the Perspective Viewport. These tools are separated into five tabs: Objects, Terrain, Modeling, Display and Layers.

Objects Terrain

The Objects Tab contains options for various brushes, entities, volumes, prefabs and more.

The Terrain Tab contains tools for sculpting and painting terrain, adding vegetation and creating rivers and roads

Display Layers

The Display Tab contains options for rendering settings, 3D display settings and hide settings for the and various types of objects and entities in Lumberyard.

The Terrain Tab contains tools for sculpting and entities, volumes, prefabs and more.

Now that we know where to find some of the options available to us, let’s define some terms commonly used to refer to Lumberyard assets and some essential tools for creating and manipulating content.

Step 4: Essential Terms and Tools This section will define some commonly used terms in Lumberyard and give us an overview of some of the basic tools we will be using in-engine.

Essential Terms

Lumberyard uses many terms when referring to the various objects that can be found and used in the engine. These terms are commonly used throughout this and other tutorial series. Most objects in Lumberyard can be separated into three categories: Entities, Brushes and Designer Objects

1. Entities – An Entity is any asset that contains behaviors that can be manipulated by code or scripts. Entities are broken up into four sub-categories

a. Entities – General gameplay and visual objects such lights, volumes, camera and physics objects b. Geometry Entities – An entity that also contains mesh data c. Particle Entities – An entity which contains particle information d. Archetype Entities – Entities which contain custom code or scripts.

2. Brushes – Brushes are entities which contain only mesh data. Brushes are not responsive to code or scripts.

3. Designer Objects – Similar to brushes, designer objects are white box objects created using the designer tool. Designer objects are not responsive to code or scripts.

Essential Tools

Lumberyard uses many robust tools, settings and options to help you develop high quality games and content, the most essential tools for manipulating content are outlined in this section. These tools include Select, Move, Scale, Rotate, Snap to Grid, Snap Angle and the Follow Terrain tool.

In order to use these tools effectively we must first have an object to manipulate. In order to quickly add an object to the level we will use the Brush menu in the Objects Tab.

To add a simple cube follow the steps below:

1. Open the Brush Tool by selecting the Objects tab in your Rollup Bar and then selecting Brush to access the Brush Tool.

Objects Tab Brush Tool

2. Drag the primitive_cube brush into the Perspective Viewport to place the object in your level.

To Select objects LMB click on them with the Select Tool.

1. Using Select (Hotkey 1), you can choose any object in the Perspective Viewport. To select, move your cursor over the object you wish to select. When the object is highlighted yellow and the cursor changes to a + sign, LMB click to select the Object. The gizmo for select is a set of three lines – one for each of the three axis.

To Move objects LMB click on them with the Move Tool.

1. The Move Tool (Hotkey 2) can select and move on object within the Perspective Viewport. To move an object along a fixed line click the X, Y or Z line which then becomes highlighted in yellow. You can then click and drag your object along that line.

The Move gizmo also features three small right angle squares along the XY, ZY, and XZ planes. To move your object along a plane, click to select one of the small squares. You can then click and drag your object along that plane.

To Rotate objects, first Select them and then use the Rotate tool.

1. The Rotate tool (Hotkey 3) can select and rotate an object. To rotate an object, select one of the small inner circles. You can then click and drag to rotate around that rotational plane. A larger outer circle also surrounds the entire gizmo. Select and drag this circle to rotate the object in relation to the screen display.

To Scale objects LMB click on them with the Scale Tool.

1. The Scale tool can select an object and change its size. To scale an object, select the X, Y, or Z line, then click and drag in the direction you wish to scale your object.

To Snap object to the grid use the Snap to Grid Tool

1. The Snap Grid lets you snap to points along a grid when moving an object. The Snap Grid is on by default, and can be turned off or on by clicking its icon on the Editor Toolbar. To customize the size of the Snap Grid, select the small down arrow to the right of the grid icon. Adjust this value to increase or decrease the snap steps of the object you are moving.

To rotate an object by a specific increment use the Snap Angle Tool

1. Snap Angle (on by default) sets the incremental degrees of rotation that an object snaps to when you rotate it. To turn Snap Angle off or on, select the icon. To customize the Snap Angle degrees of rotation, select the down arrow to the right of the Snap Angle icon. Adjust this value to increase or decrease the degree of rotation with each snap.

To snap objects to the Terrain use the Follow Terrain Tool. The Follow Terrain and Snap to Objects option enables you to move an object along terrain features rather than along the X, Y, Z axes or planes. With the Follow Terrain and Snap to Objects option selected, you can freely move your object in any direction along your terrain, and the object automatically adjusts to terrain features.

In levels with a terrain mesh, this tool can be extremely useful, as you can easily keep your objects sitting directly on the terrain, or in whatever relation you already have it to the terrain, rather than having to adjust it manually to peaks and valleys.

Congratulations! You have successfully learned how to create a level, navigate the engine and interface, and learned how to manipulate objects within the Lumberyard Editor. Next we will cover a few tips and tricks to help you streamline your workflow processes.

Step 5: Other Useful Stuff This section will provide information on a few other extremely useful menus and toggles within the Lumberyard Editor. These tips are meant to show you more options on how to customize your workspace and workflows.

Editors

1. The Lumberyard Editor features a collection of editor tools that enables game developers to build specific categories of content. Over the course of the Getting Started tutorial series, we will refer to many of these editors and their uses. You can open all editors from the Tools menu. Please note that almost all of these tools and editors have icons in the Editor Toolbar.

To adjust your display options and settings use the Perspective Viewport options, Viewport Header and Toggle Display options.

Display options and settings allow you to customize what you see within Lumberyard Editor so that you can set up your view to be the most effective. The following sections describe the display options and settings available to configure.

1. Perspective Viewport options To configure display options for the Perspective Viewport, right-click on the Viewport Header. Check or clear options to best suit your individual workflow preferences.

2. Show/Hide Helpers

The right-hand side of the Viewport Header shows additional display settings. Toggle the H "Helper" icon to show or hide all the entity icons and their visual guidelines. Hiding these elements can de-clutter your view when you wish to focus on other components.

3. Toggle display information

The right-hand side of the Viewport Header shows additional display settings. Toggle the H "Helper" icon to show or hide all the entity icons and their visual guidelines. Hiding these elements can de-clutter your view when you wish to focus on other components.

4. Navigation speed settings

You can adjust your Perspective Viewport navigation speed. The Speed setting shows the current movement speed setting. You can type a number into the Speed field, or click .1 (Slow), 1 (Normal), or 10 (Fast).

5. AI/Physics toggle

The AI/Physics button turns on and off the movement events for physics, AI, and particles in edit mode. With these options, you can test and view these events without entering game mode.

6. Auto backup

Lumberyard has an auto backup feature that is off by default. Auto backup saves your level file incrementally. This helps prevent loss of your progress in case an unexpected event causes a crash/freeze while you are working in your level. Under Edit -> Editor Settings -> Global Preferences -> General Settings choose Files. In this dialog box, you can customize your Auto Backup settings.

Related Tasks and Tutorials Now that we have knowledge on how to navigate and manipulate objects in Lumberyard let’s see what else you can add to your game:

• Getting Started: Making Your First Level • Getting Started: Working with Lighting • Getting Started: Setting up the Player Controller • Getting Started: White box Design using the Designer Tool