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 .

Geo Shapes

The Create Geo button with drop down

You create a new piece of Geo by clicking the Create Geo button up on the toolbar, and then selecting the shape from the drop-down. Currently there are three types: Geo (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.

I suggest leaving it on Selected Group. Once you have selected a shape and your options, simply drawing on one of the 4 viewports will begin creating the Geo. You can do this on both the 2D and 3D viewports. Next let's learn about Subobject Modes.

Subobject Modes

When a piece of Geo is selected, the Inspector Panel will 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 mode, as well as revealing new mode-specific actions on the Inspector Panel. 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.

Holding Shift and dragging a vertex will duplicate it, creating a new, orphaned vertex.

The Vertex Subobject Mode has a number of advanced actions on the Inspector Panel, covered here.

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.

Holding Shift and dragging a edge will extrude a new edge and face out, to rapidly build new Geo.

The Edge Subobject Mode has a number of advanced actions on the Inspector Panel, covered here.

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.

Holding Shift and dragging a face will duplicate it, creating a new, orphaned face.

The Face Subobject Mode has a number of advanced actions on the Inspector Panel, covered here.

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.

Making a Simple Room

So with the basic tools outlined above, let's make a simple room.

First thing we want to do is activate the Vertex Auto Merge toggle. This will automatically weld overlapping vertices and edges together, making this a fairly quick and simple process.

There are two ways you can create a simple room: create a standard box Geo and reverse the faces, or create a Geo Plane, and extrude the edges to construct an enclosed room. For learning purposes let's do it the more involved way.

Start by creating a new Geo Plane the size of your desired floor.

Switch to Select Mode, and pick your newly created floor.

Now select the Edge Subobject Mode, and, by either holding Control to select multiple edges, or drawing a lasso around them with the mouse (in any viewport), select all the edges.

Now, in Move Mode, hold Shift and drag the green Y-axis gizmo up to your desired height, creating the walls of your room.

Finally, let's manually bridge some edges together to make the ceiling. Select one of the open, upper edges, and again holding Shift, drag it over to the opposite edge. Vertex Auto Merge should weld these together and enclose the room.