llamamod/docs/manual/06-geometry.md

Building geometry

Everything the llama walks on, bumps into or falls through is geometry. In the editor you build it in two ways:

• Brushes – editor shapes such as blocks, platforms, ramps, stairs, walls, water and death planes. You draw them with the Brush tool, resize them with handles and turn them freely. When the level is built, every brush is cut into the engine's tiles automatically.
• Tiles – the placed models of the base level's tile set, exactly as the original levels are made. The Tiles tool paints them onto grid cells.

Collision is part of both: the Collision tool shows and changes what the llama can stand on, where it dies and where the level exit fires.

How the engine stores geometry

A few engine facts explain most of what follows:

• The level is a grid of cells (1 cell = one grid square, 4096 game units). The llama is about 0.6 cells tall.
• Geometry is made of tiles: a tile is a model placed in one cell, turned about the vertical axis. A tile cannot be scaled or mirrored and its collision must stay close to its cell.
• A tile model may have at most 8000 vertices.
• Every collision polygon carries a material number. 0 is normal ground, 16 is the exit floor the level door needs, 30 is "no floor" (the llama falls and loses a life).
• Collision is looked up per cell, so geometry outside the level grid has no effect.

Brushes hide most of this: they can have any size, position and rotation, and the build splits them into 1×1-cell tiles with matching collision for you.

Brush tool (B)

Start it with the toolbar button, the key B or Geometry → Brush tool. The options bar shows one button per primitive plus Height, Drag height and Work plane; the Inspector shows the same primitives with names (section Draw) and the options of the chosen primitive below them.

Drawing a brush

1. Choose a primitive.
2. Drag in the viewport. Most primitives start with a footprint: press on the ground (or on top of other geometry), drag the rectangle and release.
3. For primitives with a height, now move the mouse up or down – the preview grows – and click to confirm. Enter uses the value of the Height field instead, Esc cancels.

The new brush is selected and shows its handles. The status bar shows the size while you draw.

Option (options bar)	Meaning
Height	height used for Enter and for a click without dragging
Drag height	after the footprint, the mouse movement sets the height; off = the Height field is used directly
Work plane + value	draw on a horizontal plane at this height instead of on the surface under the cursor; the grid moves to that height

Footprints snap to the move step of the snapping settings; hold Ctrl while dragging to toggle snapping for this drag. Shift+click selects an existing brush without drawing.

Tip: Drawing on the surface under the cursor is the fastest way to stack things: start a drag on top of a block and the new brush stands on it.

Primitives

Primitive	How to draw	Notes
Block	footprint, then height	solid box with top, sides and optional bottom
Platform	footprint, then the height of the top	floating slab with an edge row, bottom and Thickness
Floor	footprint only	flat floor, top only
Ramp	footprint, then the height of the high end	rises in the main drag direction
Stairs	footprint, then the top height	rises in the drag direction; Steps, Walkable (invisible slope)
Pillar	click for the default size or drag its size, then height	square column
Round	drag the diameter, then height	cylinder: round platform or column, Segments 3–64
Wall	drag along the wall in any direction, then height	a turned block when diagonal; snapped to the angle step; Thickness
Fence	click the corner points, double-click or Enter finishes	posts and rails along a polyline
Tree	click	block tree: trunk and two crown cubes
Water	footprint only	water surface without collision, with a death plane just above it
Death plane	footprint only	invisible no-floor plane (material 30) – falling onto it kills
Invisible wall	drag along its length, then height	collision only, nothing is drawn in the game
Invisible block	footprint, then height	invisible collision volume: floor, ceiling or blocker

Note: Stairs need Walkable (invisible slope): the engine has no step-up logic, so the llama walks up an invisible slope that lies over the steps. Stairs start at the floor in front of the first step (Start height (floor in front)).

Primitive options

The options section in the Inspector changes with the primitive. Textures are chosen with a swatch button: click it for a searchable grid of all textures of the level (names are the village texture names the base level has; #n is texture number n of the base level, see Textures). none leaves that part out.

Option	Primitives	Meaning
Top / Texture	all textured ones	texture of the top (Floor and Water: the only texture)
Sides	Block, Platform, Ramp, Stairs, Pillar, Round, Wall	side texture
Top edge	same	texture of the top row of the sides (e.g. a grass edge), or none
Bottom	same	bottom texture, or none (no bottom faces)
Thickness	Platform, Wall, Invisible wall	slab or wall thickness in cells
Steps	Stairs	number of steps (1–64)
Walkable (invisible slope)	Stairs	adds the invisible slope (see above)
Segments	Round	number of sides of the cylinder
Collision	Block, Round, Wall, Floor, Ramp	off = decoration only, the llama walks through
Solid sides	Block, Round, Wall	off = the sides have no collision, so the llama can walk up onto low plinths
Material	Block, Platform, Round, Wall, Floor, invisible ones	collision material of the brush

Handles: resizing

A selected brush shows small cubes on its faces – orange for the sides, green for top and bottom. Drag one to resize: the opposite face stays where it is, also for turned brushes. The status bar shows the new size.

Keys while the Brush tool is active

Key	Action
[ / ]	turn the selection by 90° left / right
Page Up / Page Down	raise / lower the selection by the snap step
Enter	use the Height field (height step) or finish a fence
Esc	cancel the current drawing
Ctrl (held)	toggle snapping for this drag
Shift+click	select instead of drawing

Brush properties in the Inspector

Selecting a single brush shows two Inspector sections: Brush shape (below) and the brush's own parameters (all of them, as numbers and texture fields). Every parameter can be typed in; number fields accept arithmetic such as 2+0.5.

Common parameters:

Parameter	Meaning
X0 / Z0 / X1 / Z1	footprint corners in cells (x east, z = grid row, growing south)
Bottom / Top, Height	heights in cells
Top texture, Side texture, Top row of the sides, Bottom texture	textures (name, #n, a flat colour name or rgbRRGGBB)
Sides (n, e, s, w)	which sides of a block exist
Collision, Side collision, Collision material	collision of the whole brush
Casts shadows	the block shadows other geometry when lighting is baked
Texture rotation (0-3, −1 random)	turns the texture on every face; −1 picks a random turn per tile
Tile size	size of the generated tiles (floors, ramps, water)
Tint (r, g, b)	colour multiplier for the brush's vertex colours
Rises towards	direction of ramps and stairs: +x, -x, +z, -z
Base height	ramps and stairs: how far the closed sides reach down (empty = 0.5 below)
Post size, Post spacing, Post texture, Rail texture	fences
Trunk height, Crown size, Trunk size (0 = auto)	trees

Brush shape section

• The first line shows the kind and size, e.g. Ramp · 6.25 × 2 × 3.5 cells.
• Rotation° – three fields for the rotation about x (east), y (up) and z (south) in degrees, applied in the order x·y·z. The bottom centre of the brush stays in place.
• Left 90° / Right 90° – quarter turns about the vertical axis ([ / ]).
• Mirror X / Mirror Z – mirror east ↔ west or north ↔ south.
• Visible (off = invisible collision volume) – hides the brush in the game but keeps its collision. This is how invisible walls and blocks are made.
• Faces (collision and material) – a table with one row per face: top, bottom, north, east, south, west. Collision switches the face's collision on or off, Material gives it its own collision material (for example only the top face 16).

Water and death planes are laid out per grid cell: they can be resized and moved but only turned by 90°. A collider (a free invisible polygon) is edited through its corner list.

Note: Brushes are baked into tiles when the level is built, so any rotation and scale works. Tiles placed with the Tiles tool cannot do that – see Tiles tool.

Rotating, scaling and mirroring

The general transform tools are described in Selection and transforming. On brushes they can do more than on tiles and objects:

• Rotate (E): the green ring turns everything about the vertical axis. The red and blue rings turn brushes freely in 3D (imported meshes about their origin). Tiles and objects only turn about the vertical axis in the engine; the status bar says so and leaves them alone.
• Scale (R) on a brush changes the primitive's own sizes – width, depth, height, thickness, radius, crown … ; meshes stretch per axis. The bottom centre stays.
• Quarter turns and mirrors of unturned brushes change their parameters instead of adding a rotation, so textures stay aligned to the grid and ramp directions, sides and per-face settings follow.

Geometry menu commands for the selection:

Command	Key	What it does
Turn left 90° / Turn right 90°	Ctrl+[ / Ctrl+]	quarter turn about the vertical axis
Mirror X (east ↔ west) / Mirror Z (north ↔ south)		mirror about the centre of the selection; tiles and objects are moved and turned (tile models themselves cannot be mirrored)
Array duplicate…	Ctrl+Shift+D	see below
Align ▸		see below

Array duplicate

Geometry → Array duplicate… (Ctrl+Shift+D) makes several copies in one step – a row of platforms, a staircase of blocks, a ring of pillars.

Field	Meaning
Copies	number of new copies
Offset X (cells), Offset Y, Offset Z	offset of each copy from the previous one
Turn per copy (°)	each copy is turned once more than the previous one
Turn about the selection centre (circular array)	turn around the centre of the selection instead of each item's own position: arranges copies on a circle

Objects in the selection get a copy of their waypoint chain. The whole array is one undo step.

Align and distribute

Geometry → Align lines up the selection with the last selected item (select two or more):

• Align West (min X), Align Centre X, Align East (max X)
• Align Bottom, Align Middle Y, Align Top
• Align North (min Z), Align Centre Z, Align South (max Z)
• Distribute along X / Distribute along Z – spaces three or more items evenly between the outermost two.

Grid and snapping

The options bar holds the quick settings: Snap (G), the move step (1 … 1/16 cell) and the angle step (90° … 1°). Geometry → Grid & snapping… sets any value:

Field	Meaning
Snapping on	same as G; hold Ctrl while dragging to invert
Move step (cells)	any step from 1/64 to 16 cells
Angle step (°)	any angle step
Scale step	step of the Scale tool
Show the grid	grid display on or off

The engine places tiles on whole cells; brushes and objects can sit anywhere.

Tiles tool

The Tiles tool paints tile models of the base level onto grid cells – the way the original levels are built. Start it with T, from the toolbar or Geometry → Tiles tool.

Tile palette

The Inspector shows the Tile palette: every tile model of the level with a thumbnail, its vertex count and how many tiles use it. Filter by name or number narrows the list as you type (model names as in the Outliner; a number matches whole numbers only, so "12" finds Model 12 but not Model 120), Only models used in the level hides unused ones. Click a model to make it the current one, or Shift+click a tile in the viewport to pick it.

Modes and options

Mode	What a click (or drag) does
Paint	puts the palette model into the cell under the cursor
Pick	takes the model, height and rotation of the clicked tile (also Shift+click in any mode)
Erase	deletes the clicked tiles
Raise / lower	raises a tile by the height step, Shift+click lowers
Swap model	replaces the model of the clicked tile with the palette model

Option	Meaning
On surface	paint at the height of the tile or ground under the cursor; off = the fixed Height
Height	height of painted tiles (Page Up / Page Down)
Rotation	0°, 90°, 180° or 270° ([ / ])
Step	height step for raising, lowering and Page Up/Down

Painting onto a tile at the same height swaps its model instead of stacking a second tile. New tiles copy the vertex colours of an existing tile with the same model.

One drag is one undo step: Ctrl+Z brings back all tiles a stroke painted over, erased or swapped.

Tip: Prefer swapping, moving or hiding original tiles over erasing them. Object scripts can address tiles by their number, and erasing a tile shifts the numbers of all later tiles. The status bar warns you when you erase an original tile.

Tile section in the Inspector

Selecting tiles shows the Tile section:

• Left 90° / Right 90°, Up / Down (by the snap step).
• Use palette model – gives the selected tiles the Tiles tool's palette model.
• A reminder that tiles only turn about the vertical axis and cannot be scaled or mirrored (the level stores one position and one angle per tile). For free shapes use brushes.

Tile swaps (doors and bridges)

Some levels let object scripts switch a tile to another model – an opening door, a bridge that appears. This is a tile swap. The Tile section shows the swap of the selected tile:

• Swap entry in cell … with the current and the alternative model,
• Alternative = palette – sets the alternative model from the Tiles tool's palette,
• Remove swap – deletes the swap entry,
• Add swap (door / bridge) – gives the tile an alternative model.

The layer Tile swap alternatives (View → Layers) draws alternative models in cyan. Tile swaps need a base level with the feature flag WFPC 0x10000; on other bases the section says so.

Collision tool

The Collision tool shows and paints collision materials. Start it from the toolbar or Geometry → Collision tool. It switches the collision layer on: every collision polygon is drawn in the colour of its material.

Hover over geometry: the polygon (on a brush: the whole face) under the cursor is highlighted and the status bar names it and its material. Then:

Mode	Action
Paint material	click or drag over polygons to give them the current material; Shift+click picks the material of a polygon
Toggle collision	click a brush face to switch its collision on or off

The Inspector shows the list Collision materials; Material in the options bar does the same, and Other… accepts any number from 0 to 255.

Material	Name	Effect
0	Normal	ordinary ground and walls
16	Exit floor (LevelDoor)	the level door only fires while the llama stands on it in the door's cell
30	No floor / death	the llama falls through and loses a life
17	Selective: only flagged objects	only affects some objects
18	Selective: not flagged objects	only affects the other objects
1–15, 20, 26–28, 33, 255	special, meaning unknown	read by object scripts of the original levels

Shared models: original tile models are often used by many tiles. Choose Shared models: change all tiles (paint the model, every tile using it changes) or Shared models: copy for this tile (the painted tile gets its own copy of the model first).

Brushes have one material per face class (top, sides, bottom); tile models are painted per polygon. A painting drag is one undo step.

Tiles without collision

To make a tile only visual, select it and tick No collision (Inspector, section Build; works for several selected tiles at once). The built level then uses a copy of the tile's model without collision polygons: the llama walks through the tile (a wall) or falls through it (a floor). Other tiles of the same model keep their collision. In the editor the tile no longer shows collision lines, and checks such as "no floor under the player start" ignore it.

The layer Invisible collision volumes draws invisible walls, invisible blocks and colliders translucent red so you can see them while editing.

Special floors

Exit floor

The level exit is an object, the LevelDoor, but it only fires while the llama stands on collision material 16 in the door's own cell. The quick setup Exit in the Objects panel places both at once – the door and a 1×1 floor with material 16 (see Objects). To make an existing surface the exit floor, paint its top face 16 with the Collision tool or set the face's Material in the Brush shape section.

Death floors and the death plane

Material 30 means "no floor": the llama falls through and loses a life. Use it for pits, lava and the ground under a parkour:

• the Death plane primitive – an invisible plane of material 30 in every cell of its area that is not completely covered by floor,
• a Floor or Block with material 30 (a visible deadly floor),
• Water – carries its own death plane just above the water surface.

Geometry → Death plane height… moves all death planes at once: death-plane brushes and the original level's material-30 tiles. It shows how many of each exist; Add a death plane over the whole grid creates one if there is none. The same height is in Level settings.

Invisible walls and blocks

Invisible wall and Invisible block draw boxes that have collision but are not drawn in the game – to keep the llama on a path or to give a decoration a simple collision. Any brush becomes invisible with Visible off in the Brush shape section.

Water

The Water primitive draws a water surface without collision (the llama sinks) and, by default, a death plane just above it. Its parameters: Water height, Texture, Death plane (none, whole = under the whole water, area = only in Death plane area) and Tile size.

Geometry checks

Level → Check for problems and every build run these checks (see Building and play-testing):

Problem	What to do
a tile lies outside the grid	move it in or enlarge the grid in Level settings
a tile model (also one generated from a brush or mesh) has more than 8000 vertices	simplify or split the shape
two identical tiles overlap exactly (same model, cell, height and rotation)	delete one – it causes flickering and double collision
no floor collision under the player start	the llama would fall at once – put floor under it
the player start is far above the floor	lower it
no exit floor (collision material 16) in the LevelDoor's cell	add or paint the exit floor
a small gap (under 0.2 cells) between neighbouring floors at the same height	close it, the llama can get stuck or fall
brush warnings	messages of the brush compiler

Double-click a problem to select the item.

Engine limits

Engine limit: at most 8000 vertices per tile model. Brushes are split into 1×1-cell tiles, so only very dense meshes or many brushes overlapping one cell reach it.

• Tiles only turn about the vertical axis and cannot be scaled or mirrored; brushes can.
• Collision materials of brushes are per face class (top, bottom, each side), of tile models per polygon.
• Water and death planes are cell based: they can be moved, resized and turned by 90° only.
• The gap check looks only at unturned block, platform and floor tops.
• Geometry outside the level grid has no collision.