Tips, Tricks & References

# Copy & paste in Creator

You can toggle horizontal symmetry in the Creator's menu or by hitting S, and vertical symmetry via Shift+S.

Copy & paste with rotation comes can also be used to mirror something. First we draw the top part:

Now we pick Copy from the menu (or hit C). Then we pick Rotate (or hit R) twice to get this:

Now we can move this a bit on the canvas if needed by using Ctrl-Arrow, or on tablets, the menu arrows. Then, we pick Paste (P) and get this result:

The general approach of Copying - Moving - Pasting can also be used for many other creations where you want to duplicate things, like for instance the legs of a table.

# Extending or shortening in Creator

On the desktop, when you place your mouse cursor over an area on the canvas, you can hit Ctrl+Shift+Arrows to expand or shorten the creation from this part onwards.

Before

After hitting Ctrl+Shift+Right 3 times

# Colors

There are many different ways to mix colors.

# Gatherables

Gatherables are a type you can pick in Creator with an open range of uses. Here's Godiva showing you some of the things you can do with them!

# Creating taxi-style mountables

Here Godiva shows you how to create a mountable that takes one to somewhere else on auto pilot:

# Creating a body and motion

Here's Godiva showing you how to create a body, and a body motion!

# Auto-triggered motions

You can trigger any motion by typing its name. For instance, you can type "haha" to trigger a motion named "haha".

Wildcards are allowed too, so if you have a special 'raising eyebrow' motion for your body, you can have it be triggered from any question by naming it "*?". Since questions end in the question mark, this motion will triggered whenever you ask something.

On top of that, there are some motion names which are automatically triggered by certain actions in the world:

# Animal sounds

Some names giving to your Living type creation have special sounds associated with them. You can also mix and match several into your creature name. For instance, create a Living named "Fred the Monkey", place it, and run past it.

Among the supported animal names are cat, kitten, cow, horse, bird, lion, liger, monkey, pony, hen...

# Making a sounds board

You can use the type Writable to create shared forums, but you can also keep a board unshared to make it private just for you. For instance, you can use a board just to collect Soundcloud.com sounds you like, pasting category threads with individual song links. This way you can easily play them back at any time later, but also find songs to play for others during parties and such.

# Manyland Time

The Manyland Time is always shown when you open the bottom left menu. You can see a table converting it to your time above. It equals Universal Time (UT/ UTC) or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), and is useful to coordinate events in the world across different global time zones.

If you want, you can set a phone clock of yours to Universal Time as below to always know Manyland Time!

# Writable calendar events

Every writable forum has a connected calendar that organizes events mentioned in thread-starting comments. To have an event be listed in the calendar, use the following format anywhere in your thread-starting comment:

2015-02-25 19:00 MT

For instance, this might be your full comment:

Everyone, join the birthday party!
Where: Near green mountain
When: 2015-02-25 19:00 MT
Bring: Gifts!

Once saved, your event is added to the calendar, which can be accessed by a top right link from the writable's frontpage. At the bottom of the calendar, there's also a way to compare your time. The table is also shown above.

Text formatting options in Readables and Writables

Please see this page.

# Spoken commands

A few things you say in chat, ended with a "!", have special effects:

# Searching

The search box allows different queries like:

# Adding Sound to creations

During creation, you can open the upper left menu and choose "Add Sound", then pick a sound block (or any creation which contains a sound). Currently, there's a set of ready-made sound blocks you can find shared at the Item Repo board, and you can also find a Holder with mostly all sounds in the second hut at Helptown. Adding sound is available for the following types:

• Changing Thing: Plays when approached in earshot
• Changing on Touch: Played when turned on to second cell, or when on and going over
• Flipping Living, Changing Living: Played when touched
• Motion, Interacting Motion: Played when motion is triggered
• Item, Equipment: Played when picked up
• Emitter, Consumable: Played when emitted or consumed
• Transforming: Played when giving result.
• Gatherable: Played when gathered
• Mountable, Flying Mountable: Played when mounted, and randomly every now and then afterwards
• Wearable: Played when worn
• Holder: Played when viewed/ opened.
• Environment: Like other environmental sounds, this plays semi-randomly when in sight. You need to set the attribute "Soundscape" for this to work.
• Dynamic: Referenced in the Dynamic text via the PLAY SOUND command, e.g. "1s: cell 1 show, play sound"
• Interactings: For this type, instead of using the top menu, add one or more Sound blocks into the object reference list. You can then play it via the action /PLAYS SOUNDNAME. (You can also trigger an Interacting Motion that has a sound.)
• Brain: Played when equipped.
• Changer: Played when change is performed.
• Mift: Played when the Mift is first received, and when it's later clicked on the Mifts page.
• Mover: Played when the Mover body first appears.
• Far Back: Played once when the center of the Far Back appears.

(If you want to have sound for a creation someone else made in an area you're preparing, look into Interacting's Someone syntax, and Area-Global Interactings.)

Most of the current Sounds are Creative Commons licensed, and you can find more creator info in the block's context menu. A big thanks to the terrific FreeSound.org, its community, and the Creative Commons initiative!

# Hiding interface in screenshots

When you hit Ctrl+F10, the side panel and other elements will be hidden. This can be useful for taking full-screen screenshots or videos where you don't want the dialogs to appear.

# The Sparkling type

# Special solid foot step sounds

The following words in a Solid's title cause special footstep sounds:

metal, grass, snow, sand, wood, energy, mud.

For instance, try naming a block "energy bridge", "metal ground", or "muddy puddle".

# Making chairs or beds

Things you create let people sit if you use one of these words anywhere in your Thing's title:
chair, sofa, cushion, bench, stool, couch, seat, bath tub, bathtub, pool, throne, beanbag, toilet, sittable.

To make something liable, use one of these in the name:
bed, mattress, lieable.

# Doing a motion while creating

To trigger a body motion while creating, on desktop press Ctrl+D and enter the name of the motion associated with your current body (like "waves").

# Finding hard-to-spot blocks

Sometimes when there's special weather or lights in an area but you may not immediately know what the block source for this is, you can make things more visible to find it. Click on create, select Wearable, and hit '...' to open the attributes. Check 'Sees all items', save your creation, and wear it. Now, the following types start to sparkle whereever they are:

Light, Top Light, Environment, Interacting, Harmful, Changing Harmful, Deadly, Moving Deadly, Emerging Deadly, Place Name, Gatherable, Music.

Also, if you want to find the placement origin of a Dynamic where the cell positions are moved quite a bit, you can use the Insight boost "Dynamic Origin".

There's also a Happening you can attach as boost to highlight different block types. If you have universe search, search for the word happening and pick the one titled "I can show you the world".

# 10 other things you can do...

Interactings

Interactings can be used to create a wide variety of living, thinking beings, machines, and everything else, so there's a full overview page for them.

# More Shortcuts

Here are some more shortcuts you can use (the start help lists the main ones).

In Painter:

• Ctrl+A toggles the Attributes picker.
• Shift+G toggles the grid display showing in front (instead of behind your drawing).
• Shift+i opens the Info text input, where you can put additional information about your item, like credits and a credits URL. This description then appears when clicking the (i) on an item's context menu.
• Shift+Click a color in your palette boxes to swap it with the currently selected one.
• Space stamps a copied part to the cursor position. You can copy from either the canvas by hitting C, or from your collection by right-clicking an item (which needs to be by your or clonable).
• Ctrl+J toggles on the left-side Live Preview for many different types (and not just Dynamics, Livelies and Far Backs).
• Shift + Arrow Keys moves the left-side Live Preview position.
• Ctrl-Click an item in the world or the side panel copies the pixel color.
• Ctrl-Right-Click an item in the world or the side panel copies the full item's color palette. (You may want to credit the palette's creator in the Shift+i item info box.)
• Ctrl+K Cycles through different strengths of the other animation cell shining through.

Miscellaneous shortcuts:

• Shift+Right-Click makes a Writable semi-transparent, in cases where you want to still read the chat behind it.
• Holding Ctrl while playing an instrument note holds the note back, to be played next time you hit a note normally. This allows playing chords (of up to 5 notes).
• Shift+Arrows move your wearable/ attached dynamic so it better fits your body.
• Shift+Ctrl+Arrows moves your wearable/ attached dynamic by a larger step.