Geo Editing

What is Geo?

You build levels in The Last Exterminator out of meshes, known in this engine as Geo. They are the basic building blocks everything from world geometry, to doors, windows and moving structures. If you are familiar with classic Quake and Goldsource era level design, they are comparable to brush primitives, only using a versatile and modern static mesh workflow .

Let's Start Building

The Create Geo button with drop down

You start creating a new piece of Geo with the Create Geo button up on the toolbar, and then selecting the type from the drop-down. Currently there are three types: Box, Plane and Cylinder.

All Geo shapes are actually scripted, and can be modified with options relative to the chosen shape. Once a Geo shape is selected look at the Inspector Panel for more options on what you are about to draw.

Geo:

Draws a six-sided box shape. Dragging out the shape draws the bottom plane (relative to whatever viewport you start drawing in), and then you drag out the volume (height or width depending on the viewport) next. In the Inspector Panel you will have the option to draw it inverted (e.g. with the face normals reversed).

Geo Plane:

Draws a flat one-sided plane only, essentially just the first part of drawing out the regular box Geo. Options in the Inspector Panel include drawing with a surface offset, making the face double-sided and drawing it with the texture auto-scaled to the draw size.

Geo Cylinder:

Draws a configurable cylinder. Like the default Geo, the bottom plane will be drawn first, then the cylinder's volume will be dragged out. In the Inspector Panel you can configure the number of sides, the material for the end caps, and invert the faces like the default Geo.

info: The cylinder remains configurable after creation, and locked out of vertex, edge or face editing. In order to begin modifying it like the other Geo types you must click Convert to Geo in the Inspector Panel to bake it down to a regular mesh.

Common Options:

Geo options common to all shapes

There are two options in the Inspector Panel common to all Geo shapes. The first is to align the chosen Geo to the surface it's drawn on (Orient to Surface), useful for building off slopes or odd surfaces.

The second is where it should be placed in the Scene Tree (Parent). The default, Selected Group, is useful in most circumstances, but you have the following options:

Option	Behaviour
Scene	The new Geo will be created at the bottom of the whole Scene Tree.
Clicked Geo	The new Geo will be created as a child of any Geo first clicked on (in the 3D view) when dragging out the new shape. Clicking on no Geo will create it at the bottom of the Scene Tree.
Clicked Group	The new Geo will be created in the same Group as any Geo first clicked on (in the 3D view) when dragging out the new shape. Clicking on no Geo will create it at the bottom of the Scene Tree.
Selected Geo	The new Geo will be created as a child of whatever Geo is currently selected in the Scene Tree. If nothing is selected it will create it at the bottom of the Scene Tree.
Selected Group	The new Geo will be created as a child of whatever Group is currently selected in the scene tree, or the same group a selected Geo belongs to. If nothing is selected it will create it at the bottom of the Scene Tree. This is the default selection.

Lastly, once you have selected a shape and your options, simply draw on one of the 4 viewports to begin creating the Geo. You can do this on both the 2D and 3D viewports.

Subobject Modes

With a piece of Geo created and selected, the Inspector Panel will now display some new buttons relevant to building out your geometry. The most important here are the Subobject Modes. Clicking any one of these will take you in and out of the below modes, as well as revealing new mode-specific actions on the Inspector Pane. These are covered in more detail in Geo Editing (Advanced).

You can also enter these modes with the 1 (Vertex), 2 (Edge), 3 (Face) and 4 (Texture) hotkeys.

The Inspector Panel with Geo selected (Face Subobject Mode)

Vertex Subobject Mode:

The Vertex Subobject Mode allows you to select and modify the vertices of your selected Geo. Once selected you can modify one or more vertices with the Move, Rotate and Scale manipulators in the Toolbar. The Vertex Subobject Mode has the following Inspector Panel actions: Collapse, Merge Overlap, Target Weld and Remove.

Edge Subobject Mode:

The Edge Subobject Mode allows you to select and modify the edges of your selected Geo. Once selected you can modify one or more edges with the Move, Rotate and Scale manipulators in the Toolbar. The Edge Subobject Mode has the following Inspector Panel actions: Select Ring, Select Loop, Select Boundary, Collapse, Remove, Dissolve, Merge Overlap, Bridge and Target Weld.

Face Subobject Mode:

The Face Subobject Mode allows you to select and modify the faces of your selected Geo. Once selected you can modify one or more faces with the Move, Rotate and Scale manipulators in the Toolbar. The Face Subobject Mode has the following Inspector Panel actions: Create Faces, Flip Normal, Detach Faces, Extract Faces, Bridge Faces, Merge Overlap and Clear Lightmap.

Texture Subobject Mode:

This Subobject Mode is not relevant to sculpting geometry. It is a local version of the Texture Manipulator for working purely on one piece of Geo. It is covered in more detail in the Geo Texturing page.

No Subobject Mode

In addition to the Subobject Modes, there are some additional tools when a Geo is selected with no Subobject Mode active:

Additional Geo tools with no Subobject Mode selected

Attach Geo:

With a piece of Geo Selected, click on this then another piece of Geo to merge them into one. As the name suggests it attaches the last selected piece to the original, preserving the name and properties of the original. Use Escape to cancel.

Cut Tool:

The Cut Tool allows you to slice up the faces of your selected Geo in order to make holes, or add additional vertices and edges. You can begin cutting Geo by clicking a face of your your selected Geo. A line will be drawn demonstrating the cut, then additional cuts can be made, continuing from the last placed cut. Use Escape to cancel, or Enter to finalise your cut.

Edit Pivot:

Allows you to move the pivot point of the object, otherwise known as its origin. By default this is the center of the object, but can be moved as this is the point the Rotate Manipulator and Animateable Geo Components will rotate around, and can be useful with advanced Geo construction with the Pivot Toggle.

Clear Lightmaps:

This will clear all the lightmaps on the selected Geo. Not to be confused with the Clear Lightmap option within the Face Subobject Mode, which only clears the lightmap on a selected face. This is not relevant to building out your Geometry, but covered under Lighting.

Flip X / Y / Z:

Flip the Geo on the selected axis.

Material:

The material(s) on the selected Geo. This will have multiple values if the geo has multiple textures.You can select a material, or drag one from the Browser Panel to overwrite every texture on the geo (mostly useful for TriggerVolumes).

Collision Mask:

Here you can set the Collision Mask for the selected Geo. This influences how various elements interact with Geo in-game. There are multiple collision masks relevant to many different uses. They are covered in more detail on the Collision Masks page.

Collision Only:

Toggling this will remove the visual element of the Geo in-game, making it purely collision-only. Useful for invisible walls, and Geo Volumes.

Unlit:

This will remove lightmaps from the selected Geo and force it to always render unlit (full bright). Covered under Lighting.

Add Component:

This allows to you add one ore more Components to the selected Geo (for more advanced elements like doors and destructible walls).

info: Hotkeys for these tools, as well as subobject-specific actions are planned but currently unimplemented