User Interface

First Look

Here’ what GAC looks like when first opened (minus the red overlay):

The interface is made of:

1. a top menu for project management, screenshots, and setting some options

2. a top toolbar with quick access to most useful tools to edit a model

3. shortcut links our socials, itch.io, discourse, bluesky - to give us feedback about your experience and get help

4. the vertical menu – vmenu – to quicly show/hide tools

5. a left & right panels with main editing tools – described below

6. the 3D scene - see there

7. a status bar for high level information

Tools

Tools are:

• the resource explorer

• the inspector

• the painter

• the actions log

• the exporter

• the settings – self-explanatory

Moving Around The Scene

The scene is where your creation takes shape. Drag & drop resources from the resource explorer onto the scene, and use your mouse to move around:

• left click + drag to pan the camera

• right click + drag to rotate the camera

• mouse wheel up/down to zoom in/out

• shift + mouse wheel up/down to raise/lower the camera

Selection

A model can be selected by clicking on it. Shift+click adds/remove a model from the selection. Wheel click + drag allows for multiple selection at once.

Top Toolbar

use tools from the top toolbar to put them into position:

1. mouse dragging modes ⤵

2. gizmo transformations toggler ⤵

3. local/global changes toggle ⤵

4. grid snapping ⤵

5. vertex snapping tool ⤵

Mouse Dragging Modes

Ignore Underlying Surface drags the selection on a horizontal plane centered on the selection.

Conserve Angle drags the selection along the surface under the mouse, and does not affect the rotation of selected models. centered on the selection.

Align to surface drags the selection along the surface under the mouse, and rotate the selection along the surface normal. centered on the selection.

Smooth Align drags the selection along the surface under the mouse, and rotate the selection along the surface normal, accounting for neighbor surfaces’ normals, so that the rotation is smooth. centered on the selection.

Gizmo Transformations Toggler

Those button show/hide translation/rotation/scale handles from the gizmo under the current selection.

Local/Global Changes Toggle

Changes are made in the global scope by default, where x/y/z axis are absolute for all models, no matter their current transformation. When local mode is enabled, transformation and rotation handles are aligned to the selection’s transform. This makes it easier to precisely place objets sometimes.

Grid Snapping

Grid snapping for translation (with gizmo handles) moves the selection by increments of n units, where n is set in the first text area after the button, 0.25 by default.

Grid snapping for rotation (with gizmo handles) rotates the selection by increments of n units, where n is set in the first text area after the button, 15° by default.

Grid snapping for scale (with gizmo handles) scales the selection by increments of n units, where n is set in the first text area after the button, 0.1 by default. Scale is relative to the size of the model, before a transformation is applied, so it’s never an absolute value.

Vertex Snapping Tool

Vertex snapping lets you precisely move a model so that the selected vertex of this model (source vertex) is at the exact same location as the selected vertex of another model (target vertex):

Note

Vertices are always moved from source to target. Please mind the order in which you select them!