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References - Build Keys

Build Keys

This is a complete listing of the available keypresses and their respective functions within the Build editor.



2D mode


General

Keypress Function
Escape Displays menu : (N)ew, (L)oad, (S)ave, save (A)s, (Q)uit.
Keypad Enter Switch to 3D mode.
Right Shift Selects a group of vertices and sprites which you can drag around with the Left Mouse Button. The selected sprites can be duplicated and stamped (copied) using Insert. Also note that highlighting multiple sprites allows you to change their elevation (with PGUP or PGDN) in 3D mode as if they were a combined unit.
Right Alt Selects a group of sectors (including the sprites) which can either be dragged around or duplicated. Use the Left Mouse Button to drag the sectors, or the Insert key to duplicate them. The duplicated sectors are pasted directly on top of the originals, and must be dragged off. After highlighting a group of sectors, you can load a different map and the highlighted sectors will appear in the loaded map (although you may encounter some problems with this feature, read the "References - FAQ" section for more information). Also note that highlighting multiple sectors allows you to shade them (with Keypad +/-), change their visibility (with Alt + Keypad +/-), or change their elevation (with PGUP/PGDN) in 3D mode as if they were a combined unit. The highlighted sprites will also be affected by the shading.
Enter Check pointers for highlighted sector (attempts to fix if corrupted).
Arrow Keys Move player's position. The player will be clipped. Hold Left Shift to move faster.
Spacebar Plots vertices which are used to create sectors.
Backspace Deletes the last vertex plotted. If continuously pressed, it will delete all of the previously plotted vertices until the sector no longer exists.
Insert Inserts a new vertex on a highlighted line. If pressed when a group of sectors/sprites are highlighted, the sectors/sprites will be duplicated and stamped (copied).
Delete Deletes sprites. To delete a vertex, drag it onto one of its two neighbouring vertices. If two vertices occupy the same space, one of them will be deleted.
J Used to join adjacent sectors (i.e. sectors sharing a wall). Press J once with the mouse cursor inside the first sector, then J again with the mouse cursor inside the second sector. The two neighboring sectors will be joined. The combined sector will keep the attributes of the first sector. Unfortunately, Build will make no attempts to stop you from accidentally joining non-adjacent sectors (which could very likely corrupt the map).
S Places a sprite on the position under the mouse cursor. A sprite looks like a circle with a line protruding from its center in 2D mode.
B Activates a wall's blocking flag, or deactivates both its blocking and hitscan flags; Activates or deactivates a sprite's blocking and hitscan flags. A blocked wall or sprite will appear pink in 2D mode. Players cannot walk through blocked walls or sprites.
C Changes the highlighted line into a semi-circle consisting of short line segments. Press Keypad + or Keypad - to increase or decrease the number of vertices in the semi-circle. Pressing C again cancels the operation, pressing Spacebar completes the operation.
E Changes a sprite's status list number. This is used for debugging, and I have no idea what it does or how it works.
, / . (aka < / >) Changes the angle of a sprite. If you highlighted a sector with Right Alt, then the selected sector will be rotated instead. Hold down Shift to get a more precise angle.
Tab Press Tab in a sector to display its attributes at the bottom of the screen. To clear it, press Tab in an empty area.
L Toggles grid locking. Grid locking means that vertices will lock to the closest grid point when moved or placed. If the grid is turned off, the grid locking will be turned off. A red mouse cursor means grid locking is on, a white mouse cursor means grid locking is off.
G Changes the grid resolution. The grid resolution cycles through this sequence: 1024 units, 512 units, 256 units (default), 128 units, 64 units, 32 units, OFF.
A / Z Zooms in and out respectively.
O Moves highlighted sprite to the nearest wall. The sprite's angle will be adjusted orthogonal (perpendicular) to the wall. You can use this to place wall-aligned sprites directly on a wall. This is especially handy for moving SectorEffectors directly onto a sector's first wall.
P Enter highlighted sector's floor and/or ceiling palette. The floor palette will affect all sprites within the sector (except wall-aligned sprites and special cases such as Multiplayer-only items).
Scroll Lock Sets the current camera position as the default player start position (represented by a brown arrow).

Function Keys

Keypress Function
F1 Displays a quick help. It also decreases your x-position by 1.
F2 Increases your x-position by 1.
F3 Decreases your y-position by 1.
F4 Increases your y-position by 1.
F5 Displays map statistics.
F6 If a sprite is highlighted, it will display a SectorEffector help chart. If no sprite is highlighted, it will display the actor status and the next free tag number.
F7 If the cursor is in a sector, it will display a Sector Tags help chart.
F8 / F9 Wall / Sector search. Insert the tag number then press [ or ]. F9 also decreases your angle by 1.
F10 Increases your angle by 1.
F12 Takes a screenshot and saves it to a file (CAPT####.PCX) where #### is the number (i.e. 0000...0001...etc).

Simultaneous

Keypress Function
Ctrl + Right Shift Highlight a wall and use this key combination to select all the vertices of the sector, which can then be dragged around. Use the Left Mouse Button to drag the sector. Note that all nested sectors and sprites within the sector will remain stationary (this is what differentiates this function from Right Shift).
Ctrl + H Toggles wall hitscan. Hitscanned objects will appear thick in 2D mode.
Ctrl + Shift + H Toggles one-sided wall hitscan. Hitscanned objects will appear thick in 2D mode.
Ctrl + T Toggles tag boxes.
Right Ctrl + Delete Deletes the entire sector which the mouse cursor is in. Note the Right Ctrl for protection. Read the "References - FAQ" section for more information about deleting sectors.
Shift + B Toggles one-sided blocking of wall.
Ctrl + Shift + Enter Check all pointers. Attempts to fix corrupted pointers in a map. This function wasn't documented.
Alt + Tab Has the same function as Tab, except used for walls and sprites. An unfortunate choice for a key combination, since Windows uses this to switch between programs. This has been changed to Ctrl + Tab in modern ports.
Alt + F Sets highlighted wall as that sector's first wall. The first wall is the axis line for slopes. Make sure the mouse cursor is on the proper side of the wall before pressing Alt + F (this is important for two-sided walls especially, as each side has different attributes).
Alt + S Place the mouse cursor within an inner loop, make sure that an inner wall of the loop is highlighted (flashing), and press Alt + S to turn it into a nested sector (valid player space).
Apostrophe ( ' ) + M Displays memory status (Build will crash if you try to switch to 3D mode after using this key!).
Apostrophe ( ' ) + 3 Toggles tag display (7 settings).

Hi-Tags/Lo-Tags

Keypress Function
T Used to enter a sector Lo-Tag. Place the mouse cursor inside the sector first.
Alt + T Has the same function as T, except used for walls and sprites. Highlight the object with the mouse cursor first.
H Used to enter a sector Hi-Tag. Place the mouse cursor inside the sector first.
Alt + H Has the same function as H, except used for walls and sprites. Highlight the object with the mouse cursor first.

Mouse

Buttonpress Function
Mouse Moves the cursor.
Left Mouse Button Hold to drag vertices, sprites, or copied sectors.
Right Mouse Button Hold to lock the camera to the mouse cursor's position. Useful for getting to sectors which are difficult to access in 3D mode.
Middle Mouse Button Hold to lock the camera to the mouse cursor's position.
Right Shift Use this in combination with the mouse to highlight vertices/sprites for mouse dragging.
Right Alt Use this in combination with the mouse to highlight sectors for mouse dragging.



3D mode


General

Keypress Function
Escape Asks if you'd like to quit (Y/N). Also asks if you want to save your changes to the map.
Keypad Enter Switch to 2D mode.
Arrow Keys Move player's position. The player will be clipped. Hold Left Shift to move faster.
A / Z Moves the camera up and down respectively. Hold Left Shift to move faster. Hold Ctrl to look up and down instead.
Caps Lock Switches between three z co-ordinate modes: Game mode, Height Lock mode (default), and Float mode. A and Z move vertically up and down for all three.
PGUP / PGDN Changes an object's elevation (floors, ceilings, or sprites). If a wall is highlighted, then the ceiling of that sector will move. If you highlight multiple sectors in 2D mode, then switch back to 3D mode, you can adjust multiple floors and ceilings.
V This will activate tile selection mode. Press V on the texture you would like to change. An image list of all the textures currently being used in the map for the currently highlighted object type (floor/ceiling, wall, or sprite) will be displayed. See "Tile Selection Mode" further below for a full list of keypresses.
[ / ] Slopes floors/ceilings up and down respectively. The sector's first wall is the axis line for slopes. Holding Shift slopes in smaller increments for fine-tuning.
Keypad 2/4/6/8 This adjusts the repeats of the pixel columns/rows (effectively smooshes them together, or spreads them apart). Used on walls or sprites. If used on the floor or ceiling, they will be panned instead. Hold Shift to use the same panning functionality on walls. In any of these cases, use in conjunction with Keypad 5 to make the values align at multiples of 8 (speeds up the process).
Keypad +/- Adjust the shade of currently highlighted object. Floor shade affects all sprites within the sector (except wall-aligned sprites), unless the ceiling of the sector is parallaxed.
/ Resets a wall's panning, repeats, and flags. Resets a sprite's repeats.
. The period key adjusts the panning of all the walls in a loop. It scans along the walls to the right as long as the picture number is the same as the last wall. It basically "straightens" up your walls to make them look neater. Note: This can cause Build to freeze, save before you attempt this.
F Flips textures. For sprites and walls, the textures are flipped in up to four different ways (none, x-wise, y-wise, or x+y). For ceilings and floors, the textures can be flipped up to eight different ways (all of the possible combinations of none, x-wise, y-wise, and x/y axes swapping). Just keep pressing F to see the variations.
S Insert sprite at mouse cursor's current location. If aimed at the floor or ceiling, the relative alignment will be set as face-aligned. If aimed at a wall, it will be set as wall-aligned.
Delete Deletes the highlighted sprite.
, / . (aka < / >) Changes the angle of a sprite. Hold down Shift to get a more precise angle.

Function Keys

Keypress Function
F1 Displays quick help.
F2 Move right.
F3 Move forward.
F4 Move backward.
F9 Turn left.
F10 Turn right.
F11 Gamma correction.
F12 Screenshot (CAPT####.PCX).

Simultaneous

Keypress Function
Alt + P Adjust an object's palette value (floors, ceilings, walls, or sprites). The floor palette will affect all sprites within the sector (except wall-aligned sprites and special cases such as Multiplayer-only items).
Alt + F Sets the sector's first wall. This can be set while highlighting either the wall itself, the floor just below it, or the ceiling just above it. It actually rotates the wall numbers of a sector. The first wall is used as the axis line for slopes. When you use relative alignment mode on ceiling and floor textures, you can press Alt + F to choose a new wall to align to.
Alt + D Change a sprite's clipdist (clipping distance). This only works if the sprite's relative alignment is set to "face-alignment" (always faces the player). It does not work on all sprites. This is actually a very useful feature.
Alt + [ / Alt + ] Used to align a slope perfectly to the adjoining floor or ceiling respectively.
Alt + Keypad +/- Adjusts sector visibility.
Shift + Alt + Keypad +/- Adjusts sector visibility in smaller increments.
Ctrl + Alt + Keypad +/- Adjusts the engine's base visibility (same as adjusting the DEFAULTVISIBILITY value in USER.CON). This does not affect the map, only the way it is displayed.
Ctrl + A Look up.
Ctrl + Z Look down.
Ctrl + P Used on a parallaxed floor/ceiling to change the mode of parallaxing (default, elongated, and cylindrical). Note that this has no effect in the actual game, and therefore is useless.
Ctrl + PGDN / Ctrl + PGUP Places a sprite exactly on the floor or ceiling, respectively.
Shift + / Sets xrepeat to yrepeat (squares the dimensions). Only works on sprites.
Apostrophe ( ' ) + Delete Clear all cstat flags for wall/sprite.
Apostrophe ( ' ) + C Changes the global shade of the highlighted object (ceiling, floor, wall, or sprite) to the shade of the currently copied object, provided that they are both the same texture.
Apostrophe ( ' ) + G Toggles buffer texture display (Displays the currently copied texture).
Apostrophe ( ' ) + R Toggles FPS (Frames-Per-Second) display.
Apostrophe ( ' ) + S Insert a shade value for the highlighted object. Floor shade affects all sprites within the sector (except wall-aligned sprites), unless the ceiling of the sector is parallaxed.
Apostrophe ( ' ) + V Insert a value for the sector's visibility.
Apostrophe ( ' ) + W Toggles sprite display (all sprites/no effectors/no actors/none).
Apostrophe ( ' ) + Y Display undefined textures as "purple" (looks more pink) instead of creating a HOM (Hall Of Mirrors) effect. Personally I think this feature should be enabled by default.

Copying and Pasting

Keypress Function
Tab This copies the attributes of an object into a temporary buffer. The attributes it copies are: picnum (texture), shade, palette, tags, extra, x-repeat, y-repeat, and cstat flags.
Enter This pastes the stored attributes over the highlighted object. The y-repeat value stays the same, and the x-repeat value is adjusted so the pixels of the bitmap have a square aspect ratio.
Ctrl + Enter Pastes the picnum, shade, and palette attributes to every wall in a loop (if a wall is highlighted).
Shift + Enter Pastes the shading/palette attributes only.
Ctrl + Shift + Enter Auto-shades walls. First make any wall in a loop the lightest shade you want. Then make the last wall in the loop the darkest shade you want. Now place the mouse cursor over the wall that you want to be the lightest and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter.
Alt + C Pastes the stored object texture globally. For example, if you wanted to replace all of the shotguns in your map with chainguns, you would simply copy the chaingun texture to the buffer with Tab, then highlight a sprite using the shotgun texture and press Alt + C. Every sprite in the map using that texture would be replaced with the stored texture! This is object-specific, meaning it will only affect the textures of the currently highlighted object type (floor, ceiling, wall, or sprite), and it only affects the picnum (texture). No other attributes are modified. All of these traits combine to make this one of the most useful functions in the editor.

Sector (Ceiling/Floor) Flags

Keypress Function
P Toggles parallaxing, which is basically a sky effect. Note that a parallaxed ceiling will cause sprites within the sector to ignore the floor's shade and take on the ceiling's shade instead. However, the floor will always have priority on the sprite's palette.
E Expand/compress a ceiling or floor texture.
R Toggles relative alignment mode for ceilings and floors. When you use relative alignment mode on ceiling and floor textures, you can press Alt + F to choose a new wall to align to.

Wall Flags

Keypress Function
B Enables/Disables the blocking flag. Use Shift + B to toggle one-sided blocking.
H Toggles hitscan flag (basically means 'hittable'). Allows a masked wall to be shot by bullets. Use Shift + H to toggle one-sided hitscan sensitivity.
T Switches between three different modes of transparency: opaque, semi-transparent, and transparent.
M Masks both sides of a two-sided wall. This can be set while highlighting either the floor just below where the two-sided wall would be, or the ceiling just above it. The texture will be the same on both sides, except it will be flipped x-wise.
Shift + M Masks a two-sided wall on only one side. This type of one-sided masked wall will still be compatible with transparency settings and invisible (pink) pixels. Note that blocking/hitscan flags will affect both sides of a one-sided wall unless the Shift modifier key is used to set the flags.
1 Makes a 'solid' one-sided masked wall. This differs from Shift + M in that the wall will not be compatible with transparency settings or invisible (pink) pixels. This type of wall must be used to make mirrors. Note that blocking/hitscan flags will affect both sides of a one-sided wall unless the Shift modifier key is used to set the flags.
2 Allows the floor step and the ceiling step of a wall to be separately editable. Just press 2 on the top half of the wall. This feature isn't perfect, and it will cause shading problems if used with the light switch effect (bottom half of the wall will not respond). The walls will still share repeat values.
O Wall orientation. Changes whether the texture aligns to the ceiling or floor.

Sprite Flags

Keypress Function
1 Toggles one-sided sprites. This is only relevant for wall-aligned or floor-aligned sprites. Note that only the visible side will be blocked/hittable.
B Sets the sprite as both Blocked and Hittable, or disables both if pressed again. A sprite with this attribute set will appear pink in 2D mode, and blue if it is disabled. Note that most 'active' sprites are automatically blocked and hittable in the game.
H Toggles hitscan flag (basically means 'hittable'). The sprite will appear thick in 2D mode. Note that a sprite which is blocked will also be hittable regardless of the hitscan flag setting.
C Toggles between "true-centering" and "foot-centering". With true-centering enabled, the sprite's elevation will be relative to its actual center. By default sprites are foot-centered.
O Moves highlighted sprite to the nearest wall. The sprite's angle will be adjusted orthogonal (perpendicular) to the wall. You can use this to place wall-aligned sprites directly on a wall. This is especially handy for moving SectorEffectors directly onto a sector's first wall.
T Switches between three different modes of transparency: opaque, semi-transparent, and transparent.
R Relative alignment. Switches between face-alignment (sprite always faces the player), wall-alignment, and floor-alignment. Floor-alignment can cause some sprites ('actors' such as enemies, health, etc.) to malfunction in the game, and some sprites will also look meshed. As a general rule, only textures with squared (power of 2) dimensions will look proper in floor-alignment mode. For example, some compatible texture sizes would be 32x32, 64x128, 32x256, etc. Some incompatible texture sizes would be 13x17, 57x9, 21x55, etc.

Hi-Tags/Lo-Tags

Keypress Function
Apostrophe ( ' ) + H Sets the Hi-Tag of the current object (wall/sprite/sector). Aim at the floor or ceiling to set the sector Hi-Tag.
Apostrophe ( ' ) + T Sets the Lo-Tag of the current object (wall/sprite/sector). Aim at the floor or ceiling to set the sector Lo-Tag.

Tile Selection Mode

This mode is accessed by pressing the V key on a texture.

Keypress Function
V Display entire texture list.
Arrow Keys Move selection cursor.
PGUP / PGDN Move selection cursor by page increments.
Keypad / Zoom in.
Keypad * (asterisk) Zoom out.
G Goto specific texture number.
Escape Cancel texture selection.
Enter Accept texture selection.

Mouse

Buttonpress Function
Mouse Moves the cursor.
Left Mouse Button "Lock" the currently highlighted object. The object will stay selected regardless of the mouse cursor's position. This helps you move things up and down even when they've left your field of vision. This feature is extremely useful, to the point of being necessary for many tasks.



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