Spark Editor Manual

Visual Glossary ................................................................................... 2

Viewports ........................................................................................... 3
Viewport Menu .................................................................................... 3
Camera movement .............................................................................. 3
Tools................................................................................................... 4
Select Tool .......................................................................................... 4
Line Tool ............................................................................................. 4
Rectangle Tool ..................................................................................... 4
Circle Tool........................................................................................... 5
Extrude Tool ....................................................................................... 5
Move Tool ........................................................................................... 5
Rotate Tool ......................................................................................... 5
Scale Tool ........................................................................................... 6
Paint Tool ........................................................................................... 6
Displacement Tool ............................................................................... 6
Pathing Tool ........................................................................................ 6
Layers................................................................................................. 6
Groups ................................................................................................ 7
Auto Backup ....................................................................................... 8
Hot Keys ............................................................................................. 8
Default Hot Keys.................................................................................. 8
Known Issues ..................................................................................... 9
Visual Glossary
Viewports
Viewport Menu
The viewport menu is opened by left clicking on the text in the upper left corner of the
viewport.

• Top, Front, Side, Perspective - These will change the selected viewport to one of the
three orthographic views (Top, Front, Side) or 3D camera view (Perspective).
• Wireframe, Textured Lit, Textured Unlit - These will change the render mode of the
selected viewport.
• Show Edges, Show Triangulation - Selecting these will display edges or triangles on
world geometry.

Camera movement
Holding down the right mouse button enables "first person" movement in 3D viewport.
While the right mouse button is pressed, moving the mouse will turn the camera, and the
W, A, S and D keys will move it forward, left, backward and right (respectively).
Right-click + W, A, S, and D will pan in orthographic viewports.

The camera can also be panned by moving the mouse with the middle mouse button held
down.

The mouse wheel moves the camera forward/backward in the perspective view, and zooms
in and out in the orthographic views.

Tools
Select Tool
Left-click to select objects and geometry. Hold ctrl to select multiple. Left-click and drag to
drag a selection box. Pressing delete deletes whatever is selected.

Clicking on a prop will allow you to change its scale in the edit window, as well as raw
numbers for world position ("origin") and rotation ("angles")

Clicking on a light will allow you to adjust its falloff point (blue circle or "distance") and
color, as well as raw numbers for world position ("origin") and rotation ("angles")

Clicking on a spotlight will allow you to adjust its falloff point (blue cone or "distance"),
intensity of the center and edge of the light (blue circles or "inner angle" and "outer angle"),
whether the beam of the spotlight is visible ("atmospheric") and color, as well as raw
numbers for world position ("origin") and rotation ("angles")

Note: The inner and outer circle gizmos snap based on the "angle" setting in the lower right
of the interface. If they don't seem to move, try lowering the setting to 5 or 2 degrees, or
turning off rotation snapping (hold alt).

Double clicking an edge will select all of the edges in the edge loop.

Line Tool
Left-click and drag to create an edge. Connecting multiple edges in a loop creates a face.

Single-left click an edge to split that edge and create a vertex.

Left-click and drag across a face to split that face. You must start and end on a valid vertex
or edge to actually split the face.

Rectangle Tool
Left-click and drag to create a rectangular face.
Dragging on an existing face "etches in" the new face.

Circle Tool
Left-click and drag to create a circular face. Change the number of sides in the settings
window.

Dragging on an existing face "etches in" the new face.

Extrude Tool
Left-click and drag a face to extrude it into a 3D shape. Dragging toward you creates a
shape with outward facing polygons (like a brush in Hammer), dragging away from you
creates a shape with inward-facing polygons.

Move Tool
The move tool is used to move vertices, edges, faces and entities.

The move tool has two different modes, free move and gizmo move. Free move is activated
when the mouse is pressed anywhere on the selected element; gizmo move is activated
when the mouse is pressed on top of the 3-axis movement gizmo.

Holding down shift will hide the move gizmo, which is useful when it is obstructing the
element you want to move in free move mode.

While in free move, holding down shift will lock the movement to the currently active axis. If
no axis is selected, it will lock movement to the current movement plane.

If snap-to-grid is enabled, holding down alt will temporarily disable snap-to-grid in both the
free move and gizmo movement modes.

Note: In free move mode the object will snap based on the point where you initially press
down on the mouse instead of its origin.

Rotate Tool

The rotate tool is used to rotate the current selection. Hover over an axis on the gizmo (it
will light up), then click and left-drag to see the rotation. Rotation will snap to the angle in
the lower right corner if the checkbox next to it is checked.
Scale Tool
The scale tool is used to scale vertices, edges, faces and entities.

Holding control while dragging a handle in the scale tool will cause (symmetric) scaling to
happen around the center of the gizmo.

Holding shift while dragging a handle in the scale tool will result in uniform scaling along all
axes.

Paint Tool
The paint tool allows you to apply and manipulate textures on faces. Select a face while the
paint tool is active. Select a texture from the list on the right to apply it. Similarly, you can
select multiple faces to apply textures to groups of them.

When a single face is selected, you will see the texture manipulation gizmo appear on its
surface. You can use the sizing rectangle to manipulate the scaling and placement of the
texture on the face, and the circle can be used to rotate it. Additionally, you can more
precisely edit the texture manipulation parameters using the spin controls or alignment
options on the tool window.

Use the eye dropper (default hot key I) to lift a texture from a face.

Displacement Tool
The displacement tool is used to create terrain. Start by creating or selecting an existing
face, then clicking on the displacement tool icon in the toolbar. Press the create modifier
button and it will create a grid on the selected face(s). Then hover over the face and left
click to raise, and shift+left click to lower. You may need to expand the options box to see
all options of this tool.

Pathing Tool
This tool creates a pathing layer that can be modified, rather than automatically generated
pathing mesh.

Layers
Layers are used to group elements together for quick toggling of their visibility in the editor.

The layers window is opened by selecting Window/Layers from the main menu.

New layers are created by clicking the Add Layer ( ) button.

A layer can be removed by selecting it in the layers list and pressing the Remove Layer ( )
button.

Selected elements are assigned to a layer by selecting the check box next to the layer's
name. When there is a check in the box, the elements are assigned to the layer. And
element can be in more than one layer. To hide the elements in the layer, click the eye icon
next to the layer's name. An element will only be hidden if all of the layers it is assigned to
are hidden.

Properties of the layer can be adjusted by double clicking on the name of the layer in the
Layers window. The "color" of a layer is used to visually identify specific layers in the list for
easy browsing; it has no other effect. Adding a layer named Vents will highlight faces in this
layer yellow on the map. A layer names ReflectionsInvisible will hide anything in this layer
from being visible in reflections.

Groups
Groups are used by the game to perform certain functions. They work similar to layers but
allow interaction between the Editor and the game. The current group names that can be
used are the following:

OcclusionGeometry: Put occlusion geometry in this group in order for it to be used by the
engine.

CollisionGeometry: Put faces used for collision geometry in this group.

MovementCollisionGeometry: Same as CollisionGeometry

NonCollisionGeometry: Put faces in this group and they will not have collision.

InvisibleGeometry: Blocks everything a normal face would block but is invisible.

CommanderBuild: Works like collision geometry to allow easier placement for commander
on this face.

CommanderNoBuild: Works similar to CommanderBuild but disallows placement for

commander.

CommanderInvisibleVents: Vents invisible to commanders.

LowLights: Add lights to this group in order for them to be used when the low lights option
is enabled.

CommanderInvisible: Faces, props, and entities in this group will be invisible to the
commander.
Auto Backup
By default the editor will auto backup your current work every 5 minutes. The auto backup
saves the current level into a temporary directory, so in the even that the program crashes
or you experience other issues, you can restore your work.

The default directory is %AppData%\Natural Selection 2\Editor\autobackup (this path can

be entered into Windows Explorer). Because the auto backup will save up to 5 revisions,
look for the most recently modified file.

The auto backup save interval and other behavior can be configured from the General tab
accessed from the Tools/Settings... menu.

Hot Keys
The key bindings can be configured by selecting Tools/Settings... from the menu.

Default Hot Keys

Clear Selection Escape
Flip Face (Select Tool) Ctrl+F
Create Face (Select Tool) Alt+C
Refine Grid [
Coarsen Grid ]
Maximize Viewport Alt+W
Select Tool Space
Line Tool L
Rectangle Tool R
Extrude Tool X
Circle Tool C
Move Tool M
Rotate Tool Q
Paint Tool B
Eye Dropper (Paint Tool) I
Create Prop P
Cycle Manipulation Tool Tab
Layers Window F7
Select All Ctrl+A
Zoom to Selected Elements Z
Known Issues
• Control-double-clicking on an edge with the Select Tool does not add the edge loop
to the selection (it replaces it)
• Level geometry cannot be placed in a layer (not currently implemented)

• Selecting a perspective view, then an orthogonal view and then perspective view
does not return to the previous location in the perspective view
• Point lights do not create shadows
• When the screensaver or UAC prompt comes up, the viewports stop rendering
(application has to be quit)
• Spotlights cause a crash on nvidia 7900 series cards in Lit mode