Assembly Mode

Tries to keep the affected object upright despite other forces like gravity, friction and other gadgets. Perfect for a boat bobbing around on waves, or a spinning top.

The gizmo on the gyroscope gadget is used for defining "upright" - just point the arrow in the direction you want "upright" to be.

It's super easy to see it in action. Stamp a shape and snap a gyroscope onto it. Tweak the gyroscope so you can see the arrow gizmo.

Grab the shape and turn it so that the gizmo is no longer pointing upwards. Hit start time and you'll see the gyroscope do its thing.

Arguably the gadget you'll find yourself using most often. If you want something to move around your scene under its own steam then you need one of these.

The gizmo on the mover is for setting the direction of travel. Point the gizmo in the direction you want the attached object to move.

It's best used for projectiles and platforms and the like, rather than anything you want a player to control. Stamp a shape and snap a mover onto it.

Start time and the shape will scuttle off. Try tweaking the forward speed to a negative number and see what happens.

Does exactly what the mover does, except this one gives you more directions to play with, as it can move along the X, Y and Z axes. There's no gizmo for direction here.

You'll need to wire it up and control it by sending it signals from logic or other gadgets. It's perfect for using in conjunction with the controller sensor.

Here's an example of that. Throw a shape in and snap an advanced mover and a controller sensor onto it. Tweak both of the gadgets.

Make sure the controller sensor is set to remote controllable. Connect the outputs of , and to the inputs of X speed, Y speed and Z speed on the advanced mover.

On the advanced mover, whack the movement strength up to 100%. Hit start time and mess around with the , and buttons. You just made a wee vehicle!

You could, of course, use instead of the buttons. If you want to try that, you'll need to connect it to a splitter, and connect the X and Y outputs to X speed and Z speed.

Then either disable Y speed by making it 0.0 m/s (or things will get weird); or connect to another splitter and connect its Y output to Y speed to give you up and down on

As you might expect, this can be used to make the attached object follow something. But you can also make it move away from something if you set it to flee.

So it's good for making enemies which will chase a player character, but also for making things that will run away from a player character.

Note that whatever you want the follower to follow or flee from, it'll need a tag on it. This is a really simple gadget to demo. Stamp a shape and snap a follower onto it.

Add a puppet and snap a tag to it. Give the tag a name by editing it at the top of the tweak menu. Put that name in the enter tag name... field on the follower.

Make min. distance 1m (or it'll stick like glue). Hop into test mode and possess the puppet. Run about and notice you just can't shake that shape.

For spinning things around. This one, the "vanilla" rotator if you will, is the simplest and will rotate something on a single axis only.

Rotators are particularly useful when the thing you want to rotate is attached to something moving. Say for example the turret on a tank.

The gizmo on the rotator gadget is used to set the rotation axis, i.e. the line around which the object will rotate. Just point the handle in the direction of the axis you want.

Chuck a shape in your scene and snap 2 rotators and a controller sensor onto it. Tweak one of the rotators and set rotation speed to -180°/s, so that it'll go backwards.

Set the controller sensor to remote controllable. Connect the outputs of and to the power ports of a rotator each.

Start time and use the buttons to spin the shape.

Like the rotator, this is for spinning things, but this one can spin on all three axes (X, Y and Z), so it's perfect for making things like flying vehicles and animals.

There's no positional gizmo - control it by wiring it up and sending signals from logic or other gadgets. Let's make a controllable ball. Stamp a sphere into the scene.

Tweak it and set it to moveable. Snap a controller sensor and an advanced rotator onto it. We'll use to control the sphere, so we need a splitter too.

Connect the output of left stick local to the splitter input. We use that one rather than left stick because otherwise control will feel strange. Do feel free to try it and find out.

Connect the X and Y outputs of the splitter to the X axis speed and Z axis speed inputs of the advanced rotator. Set Y axis speed to 0.0 m/s, or it'll have a mind of its own.

Go into test mode, possess the sphere, and go for a little roll about.

This rotator can be set up to turn toward a defined point. Think CCTV, gun turret, a painting with creepy eyes that follow you around, and the like.

The gizmo here defines which part of the attached object will do the looking, so point the arrow in the direction you want the object to face to its target.

A great shape to use to demo this is a pyramid, so stamp one in. Snap a look at rotator onto it and tweak it so you can see the gizmo.

Make the arrow point the same way as the pointy end of the pyramid. This is easier if you have grid snap on. Chuck a puppet in there and snap a tag onto it.

Give the tag a name, and then put the same name into the look for tag... field on the look at rotator. Switch to test mode, possess the puppet and walk around.

This rotator is for making an object point in the direction it's travelling, so it's ideal for things like missiles, darts and other projectiles.

The gizmo is for defining which way you want it to point - the "nose" of the object, as it were. Let's do a demo without one and then with one, so you can see the difference.

Stamp a cone and an emitter. Tweak the emitter and select the cone as the object to emit. Set time between emits to 0.5s. Make the gizmo point at a more or less 45° angle.

Hit start time. The cone comes out pointing straight up and stays that way. Now let's see it with a rocket rotator. Reset the object to emit. Snap a rocket rotator onto the cone.

Whack its rotation strength up to 100%. Grab the arrow gizmo on the cone and make it point in line with the pointy end of the cone (easier with grid snap on).

Set the cone as object to emit and hit start time. This time the cone comes out more like a rocket or a bullet, pointing in the direction of travel.

Moves an object to a given position. Differs from the mover in that it's completely instantaneous. Since this is rather physically improbable, it comes with a warning.

If you teleport something physical into the middle of something else physical, things will go terribly wrong. So use it with caution. Note that you need a tag to use a teleporter.

Stamp a shape, and a tag some distance away from it. Snap a teleporter onto the shape. You can use the positional gizmos to be precise about position and orientation.

Name the tag, and enter the name into the enter tag name... field on the teleporter. Hit start time and zap! Your object is instantaneously transported to the tag.

Note that the teleporter will stay on target while powered, so if you want to do a one-shot teleport, you'll need to pulse the power (using a timer, for example).

Creates an invisible force which can push or pull things around. Use it for explosions, wind, tractor beams and all that fun stuff.

You can make the force go in a specific direction (directional), or in all directions (radial). You can make it push, or you can make it pull. Let's see it do its thing.

Head into sculpt mode and pick a shape to stamp. Make it small before you stamp it. Head back to assembly mode and tweak it to set it to moveable.

Now clone it a bunch of times. You want a good few wee shapes to play with. Put a force applier nearby and tweak it. Under force type, make it directional.

Make sure the shapes are in the zone of the force applier and point the gizmo in the direction of the shapes. Hit start time and see what happens.

Have a good mess about with the force strength and force speed. Try pull instead of push. Radial instead of directional. Experiment till you get the effect you want.

Need a missile to fire from a spaceship? A chicken to lay an egg? Flames to shoot out of a dragon's mouth? An emitter can do all these things and more.

In the tweak menu, use object to emit to select the thing to be emitted. The emitter will produce clones of it. The position of the gizmo defines where to emit from.

The gizmo pointer defines which direction to emit in. Stamp yourself a shape and an emitter. Get a controller sensor, so that we can control when the emitter does its thing.

Set the controller sensor to remote controllable. Then connect the output to the power port on the emitter. Tweak the emitter and set emit mode to once.

Set the shape as the object to emit. Use start time and press to emit shapes at will.

Useful when you want an enemy to die, a ledge to crumble, or something to just plain disappear. Send it a signal and the attached object will be destroyed.

Place a shape and snap a destroyer onto it. Put a timer in there and connect timer finished (pulse) to the power port of the destroyer.

Hit start time. When the timer runs out it activates the destroyer and the shape is destroyed. It's not invisible - it's gone, and won't come back until you rewind.

Attach this to anything you want to have a concept of health. It could be a playable character, or an enemy, or it could be something like a destructible gate.

Whatever it is you can use this to handle how much damage it can take, whether it's gained or lost health and so on.

Let's make a shape "die" when it reaches 0 health. Stamp a shape and snap a health manager and a destroyer onto it. Stamp another shape above it.

Set the new shape to moveable so that it'll fall, and snap a health modifier onto it. The default tweaks on the health gadgets suit our purposes just fine.

The manager has a current health of 100. The modifier is set to impact, and to remove 100 health with one hit. So all we need is a way to activate the destroyer.

Connect the no health output on the health manager to the power port on the destroyer. Use start time to witness the "death" of your shape.

If you want to create an electrified fence, give a missile the power to damage things, or make a potion your characters can heal themselves with, you need one of these.

The health modifier will damage or repair something by sending signals to the health manager to affect its stats.

Let's make a shape "die" when it reaches 0 health. Stamp a shape and snap a health manager and a destroyer onto it. Stamp another shape above it.

Set the new shape to moveable so that it'll fall, and snap a health modifier onto it. The default tweaks on the health gadgets suit our purposes just fine.

The manager has a current health of 100. The modifier is set to impact, and to remove 100 health with one hit. So all we need is a way to activate the destroyer.

Connect the no health output on the health manager to the power port on the destroyer. Use start time to witness the "death" of your shape.

Whether you need speech bubbles, HUD, a sign, the page of a book... odds are you'll want text in your creations at some point. This is where the text displayer comes in handy.

You can finesse everything from the shape of the text box, the font and colours, right up to how quickly the text appears onscreen. Let's have a mess about with it.

Place a text displayer and a timer. Tweak the text displayer and put some text into the enter text... field. Pick yourself a cool font using the font slider at the bottom.

Right, let's make it look like a speech bubble. Go to the text box properties page and pick a tail shape. You can use the positional gizmo to drag it where you want it.

Choose a colour for your bubble while you're here, and whack that curviness slider up to 100%. If you turn off autofit you can use the handles to get the shape you want.

Let's make the text come up a letter at a time, shall we? Go to the settings page and set animation speed as 10. Now add a timer, so we can control when it appears.

Connect timer finished (signal) to start text on the text displayer. Hit start time and you'll see your text come up. What else can you play with in the tweak menu?

This does everything the text displayer does, but also has tweaks for giving your players button prompts and choices. Use it for prompts, menus and dialogue trees.

Let's make a tiny wee dialogue chain. Stamp a dialogue text displayer. Make it say something like "hello", and make it look the way you want using the tweaks.

Now choose a prompt to close button, and enable the show prompt in text toggle. You can move the prompt part to wherever you like. Now we want a response.

The quickest way to create a response dialogue is to clone the gadget and edit the text to say something else, like "hello yourself".

The clone will appear on top of the original, so just move it out of the way. You can edit the direction of the tail using the handle, and whatever other changes you fancy.

Finally, connect text finished on the first gadget to start text on the second. Hit start time. When you press your chosen close button, the second text will appear.

Also displays text, but specifically for subtitles. By default the system subtitle settings are used, but you can switch on custom subs to go your own way.

This is a pretty simple gadget, and works the way the text displayer does, just with a few less options.

Wire this up to other gadgets like the health manager, the counter, or the calculator to display stuff like a health counter, a countdown, or a score.

Let's make a countdown. Stamp a number displayer and a timer. Set the timer to count down. Set display format on the number displayer to time.

Enable show milliseconds, just for extra excitement. Connect the current time output on the timer to the number/range input on the number displayer.

Use start time to see the countdown. If you wanted the end of the countdown to set something off, the best outputs would be one of the timer finished ones on the timer.

Activates the controller's dual motors. A bit of rumble can give feedback and immerse your player in the action - like an explosion, a thunderstorm, or taking damage.

The left motor is the bigger one. You'll get a deeper, more powerful, controller-shaking rumble from it. The right motor is smaller and more buzzy.

Experiment with different strengths for the two. Preview the effect using test rumble in the tweak menu. Note that the rumbler won't do anything unless it gets a signal.

Try it out. Stamp a sphere, well above the floor, and set it to moveable. Increase the bounce to 75% to get a few impacts. Snap an impact sensor onto it.

Increase sensitivity on the impact sensor to 100%. Connect the bumps output to the power port of the rumbler. Dial up the motor sliders to 100%.

Hit start time and the rumbler will do its thing whenever the sphere hits the floor.