Modify Terrain & Place Objects into the world

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Snowhunters Guide Version 1.0Snowhunters Guide Version 1.0
==Section One: Opening The World and Navigating Height Maps==
===Step 1===
Open your Conan Exiles DevKit.
===Step 2===
Open Select active mod or Create new mod.
===Step 3===
Go to file Open Level.
===Step 4===
# Go to Maps.
# Open Conan Sandbox.
# Double-Click the Conan Sandbox height map file. This may take a few minutes depending on your computer.
Once the Persistent Levels map opens it will begin to read shaders and other game assets. This can take some time.
===Step 5===
# Go to top of the Level Editor.
# Go to Windows and Select Levels.
===Step 6===
You will now have the Levels window open and you can now open a particular area of the Exiled Lands. Think of a world broken into a checkerboard. Each height map is broken down by squares and contains sublevels of each of the height maps.
:Note: not all height maps contain a sublevel
Reading the height maps, approach it from west to east south to north direction when looking at it to find a particular area of the world.
* You can use the World Composition button to bring up the world map. This is an easy way to find an area of the world.
It will display what area of the world you have opened.
* You can Double-Click the height map you would like to open from here.
Personal preference and your comfort with the engine will help you decide your method.
===Step 7===
 Double Click Heightmap_x0_y0. This is the player starting area/character creation area of the world and is the farthest height map area to the west and most located to the southern portion of the map.
:Note: DO NOT open All heightmaps you will run your system out of memory and then crash("and you will &%@!*&").
You will notice that the height map is now a blue color listed in the Levels window. This indicates that
* The level is open.
* It the current level and any changes made will save to this level only.
* The Green Pencil icon is a quick save button.
* The Lock icon will allow you to lock the level from being edited if you're working on multiple height maps.
* The Eye icon hides the entire height map from your view in the Persistent Levels map.
===Step 8===
Let's now travel to the Heightmap_x0_y0. The player starting area/Character creation area of the world.
* You can speed up the default camera speed at the top right side of your screen.
* Using your ,,, WASD keys and holding your Right Mouse button down you can move the DevKit camera.
:Note: Unreal has other controls for the camera to use. Refer to the Unreal Engine documentation for alternate method.
You should now be familiar with how to navigate the height map process and how to open locations of the world and find them.
:Note: Be careful when navigating through the Persistent Levels, you can shift Physics volumes, Post processing volumes and light volumes on the persistent map. This can affect your mod and game play adversely. This makes for nasty unwanted bugs! See Below image.
Let's now move onto placing some Static Meshes into the world. Keep in mind you don't want to exceed too many meshes in a given area. To many static meshes will increase load times and hit performance along with level streaming performance on the client and server.
===Step 9===
Let's start by opening up the height map Heightmap_x0_y2. Ensure it's the current height map loaded and is listed as blue in the level window. This is an empty height map currently when this guide has been written and will allow for you to make mistakes and get used to moving placing objects without touching the important height maps until you are ready.
# Double Click to open your content browser.
# Open the Buildings folder.
# Open the Meshes folder.
Now you should see the Meshes folder that contains a large amount of in game assets or buildings etc.
To place an object we will grab the BP_Acheron_watchtower_01 static mesh.
* Holding your Left Mouse button down drag it from your Meshes folder onto the height map terrain in front of you.
:Note: You might have shader's compile during this process.
Once placed you can
* move the object holding Left Mouse button down on the desired X, Y, Z, Axis arrows.
* change the rotation of the object by hitting the Spacebar to get the rotation Axis.
** Hit the Spacebar a third time and you can change the size of the object.
 	 	
Hit Spacebar 1 once.	Hit Spacebar 2nd time.	Hit Spacebar 3rd time.
===Step 10===
Let's group some objects together. Let's grab static mesh SM_acheron_wall_01. You will have to Scroll down through the meshes folder using your mouse wheel, or use the slider on the right hand of your content browser to find the mesh.
# Drag one SM_acheron_wall_01 over to the terrain next to our BP_Acheron_watchtower_01 static mesh.
# Left Click the BP_Acheron_watchtower_01 static mesh. It will glow in a yellow outline indicating it's the selected object.
# Group it by holding down Ctrl key and then Left Click our SM_acheron_wall_01.
# Hit Ctrl + G Key.
Note: Ensure you don't click on the terrain in this process you can group the landscape terrain and will have to repeat the process.
Now move the objects around and in one piece.
* To break groups of objects apart hit Shift + F and then hold down Ctrl key and Left Click the object you want to deselect from the group.
:Remember: Hitting Shift + F and not hitting Ctrl + G will break all objects from the group and make them individually selectable.
That completes this section of the guide. Hope this helps and gets you moving in the right direction. There is much to learn and [Snowhunter] covered only the basics with this guide.
==Section Two: Modifying Terrain with the Landscape Tool & Painting Terrain==
==References==
Category:Guides
Category:Modding