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UserGuide.md

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User Guide - Scape

Giliam de Carpentier
http://www.decarpentier.nl/scape
June 9th, 2012

This document (very) briefly introduces Scape’s most important features from a user’s perspective, providing the minimal set of know-how to start experimenting with the Scape terrain editor.

Running the application

Follow the following steps to run Scape. Obviously, only the last step is needed every time. The other steps are needed only once.

  • Install a recent graphics driver for your specific hardware
  • There is currently no binary package for Scape. At the moment you have to build it yourself. See /Docs/ProgrammersGuide.md for details on how to do this.
  • Run /Bin/Scape.exe from this folder

The UI Elements

The following image shows the different basic user interface elements

Overview of UI elements

Input

All menu items show their own keyboard shortcuts. True/false values in the Properties pane can be toggled by double clicking on them. Number properties can either be typed in, or dragged to (roughly) the right value by vertically dragging the appropriate up/down widget: Up/Down widget. The exact meaning of all these properties is very tool specific and will not be described in this brief user manual.

The keyboard / mouse mapping used in the 3D View is set through the settings file /Bin/Settings/config.json, making it possible to fully customize the mapping using a text editor. You can also use the built-in Button definitions editor to change this. By default, the following mapping is provided:

Navigation

  • Use the W, A, S, D keys to move around.
  • Press and hold the RMB (i.e. right mouse button), and drag to look around.
  • Press and hold Ctrl-RMB (the control key plus the RMB), and drag to pan while keeping the same 3D location under the mouse pointer.
  • Press and hold Alt-RMB, and drag to rotate around the 3D position that was under the mouse pointer when the drag started.
  • Press and hold Ctrl-Alt-RMB, and drag vertically to zoom from/to the 3D position that was under the mouse pointer when the drag started.

Brushes

  • Press and hold the LMB (i.e. left mouse button), and drag to apply the primary effect of the active brush.
  • Press and hold Ctrl-LMB, and drag to apply the alternative (e.g. inverse) effect of the active brush, if available.
  • Press and hold R while dragging vertically to change the outer brush radius.
  • Press and hold F while dragging vertically to change the inner brush radius.
  • Press and hold P while dragging vertically to change the brush hardness / falloff shape.
  • Press ESC to cancel the current brush stroke’s application in progress.
  • Press Ctrl-Z to undo the last brush stroke.
  • Press Ctrl-Shift-Z to redo the last brush stroke.

Note There's currently no limit to the number of undo levels kept in memory, making it possible to undo every step. The downside of this is that Scape will eventually crash after all available memory has been consumed to store the intermediate heightfield versions. So, for the time being, safe your work often and restart regularly as a precaution.

Lights

  • Press and hold L while dragging to change the sun’s direction.

Terrain size and scale

Currently, Scape does not allow the user to change the terrain size and scale from within a running instance of application. However, the default parameters can be altered by using the built-in Startup settings editor or editing /Bin/Settings/config.json and (re)starting Scape.

Import/export

Note: Importing a heightfield image that has a different size than Scape's current size will not affect the Scape's terrain size. Consequently, importing smaller images will only load over only a part of the full terrain, while importing larger images will result in a clipped heightfield.

Note: To reset the terrain to a flat one you can use the Reset heightfield menu item.

The following file formats and per-channel bit depths are supported for both reading and writing:

File format 8-bit 16-bit 32-bit int 32-bit float
BMP + + 1    
PGM + +    
PNG + +    
TGA +      
TIFF + + + +
RAW + +   +
OpenEXR2       +

116-bit U3 BMP: 8-bit BMP using Unreal 3’s convention to encode 16 bits
2Only supported if OGRE was built with the corresponding support.

License

See /Docs/ScapeLicense.txt

Copyright (c) 2007-2012, Giliam de Carpentier. All rights reserved.