In this series you’re going to learn about using Hand Tools in Horizon’s Build Mode. These tools are fundamental to creation, and include incredible features like; Grouping, Snapping, Duplication, and even Painting!

The grab tool is used to move and select objects in the world.

To select an object, put your pointer inside of the object, when it is highlighted in yellow, press and release the index trigger. Selected objects are highlighted in blue.

To select multiple objects, start with your pointer outside of any object, while pressing and holding your index trigger, move your pointer through all of the objects that you want to select, then release your index trigger. A blue box will appear around all of the selected objects.

The lock tool prevents objects from being selected or manipulated. To use the lock tool, pull down on your thumbstick towards the lock icon to highlight it in blue.

Grouping allows multiple objects to act as one. To group objects, place your pointer inside the grouped selection and push your thumbstick to the left towards the group icon.

You can edit the objects within a grouping. With your hand’s pointer inside the group, press forward on your thumbstick towards the three dot properties icon.

The snap tool allows you to move objects by precise units and angles. To use the snap tool, pull your thumbstick down towards the magnet icon.

With the snap tool highlighted, put your pointer in an object, and you will see dots around it. Those dots show you which points on the object can be snapped to.

You can align an object with another object within the world. To do this grab and hold one of the object handles with the index trigger.

When ‘snap to grid points’ is turned on in the settings page objects move one unit at a time. This makes it easy to move and scale objects by specific amounts.

When ‘Snap to Angle’ is turned on, objects rotate by the angle you selected on the settings page.

When two object faces overlap each other, their colors rapidly flicker. Some visitors to your world may be photosensitive, so it is important to prevent flickering in your worlds.

The duplicate tool allows you to make a copy of an object. Press your thumbstick to the right towards the square plus icon.

When you duplicate an object, the difference in position, scale, and rotation between the copy and the original is saved into the array tool. If you push the thumbstick on your left hand towards the array icon, another object will duplicate relative to the latest duplication.

You can undo any changes you made quite easily. On your controller push your thumbstick to the left towards undo, and it will revert back to the previous change.

To delete an object, with the object held, pull down on your thumbstick towards the delete icon. You can also do this by selecting the object, and with your pointer inside of the selection, pull down to delete.

Welcome to Style, in this series we will be learning about painting, texturing, and changing object material settings. Facebook Horizon comes with a selection of premade color palettes to use in your world.

Once a color is selected, press your thumbstick left towards the paint tool. Then place your pointer in the object you wish to paint and press the index trigger once.

The eyedropper tool is useful for copying style settings from one object to use on another object. When you place your pointer in an object, you will see the eyedropper icon appear.

From the style tab, we can adjust material settings, this changes the way light reflects and emits off an object. If you click on the material drop down you will see there are five material settings; solid, plastic, metal, glow, and unlit.

Glowing objects emit colored light on their surroundings. Increasing the glow’s brightness raises the amount of light emitted and whitens the color of the glowing object.

Below material settings we have textures that wrap around the object. Different combinations of color, material, and texture can create many unique styles.

The color slider allows you to easily select your own colors. On the Style tab, click on the drop down menu for the color palette, and then click Manual Color Slider.

First, put your pointer inside of an object, and then by pressing forward on your thumbstick towards the three dot icon, you can open the object’s property panel. Pressing forward once more will close the property panel.

Object naming allows us to easily differentiate various objects. You can rename an object by clicking on its current name in the top left of the object’s property panel. Then type in a new name and press ‘return’ on the keyboard to save.

To the right of the object’s name within the properties panel, you will find a series of buttons.

On the behavior tab is a toggle for visibility, if ‘visible’ is toggled off, the object is invisible. You can then choose if it casts shadow or emits light.

Below visible is a toggle for collidable. If collisions are turned off, you will see players and objects pass through the non-collidable object.

Under Collidable we can change Motion from None to Animated. Animated objects can be as simple as a script making it visible and invisible, or as complex as recording an animation and playing it back and forth on a loop.

Next to Animated, is Interactive. When you click interactive, your object will default to being grabbable.

From ‘Attributes’ in the property panel, grouped objects have the attributes: position, rotation, scale, and tag.

On the more tab of the object’s property panel, you will find Collision Events From. This allows the object to receive collision events from players, objects, or both.

When an object is set to grabbable, the ‘Hand Off Grab To’ section allows you to define who can grab the object.

Grouped objects can be attached to a user’s avatar. If ‘Sticky’ is selected, the object will attach wherever the group is let go by the player.

Invisible walls restrict players from certain areas of your world. To make an invisible wall open a cube’s property panel, set it to invisible and collidable, then stretch and position it accordingly.

You can add non collidable layers to your world like grass, water, or clouds. This allows the user to walk through the object.

The collidable layer of large rounded objects has fewer sides than the visible shape itself. For example, a large cylinder may show you walking on air, or even falling through its edges.

With your snap and duplicate tools turned on, grab the bottom snap point and duplicate a copy of the cube to the top snap point. After releasing the object, you will now be able to thumbstick right towards the array tool, and create as many steps as you need.

Array can also be used with snap rotations to create incredible symmetry, consider two candles on a cake.

Just when you thought the array tool was all about symmetry, let’s take a look at this stump and see how we can use it to create organic structures. With snapping turned off, turn on your duplicate tool, then grab a duplicate copy of the stump, apply a slight amount of shrinking, with a bit of rotation, and release it at the edge of the stump.

The text gizmo can create unique designs, for example, the “@” symbol can create knots in wood. While other symbols can be used to create character faces.

Invisible objects can be used to create unique lighting. If you create a lamp or other light source, It's recommended to paint the light bulb with the unlit material. This is because glow causes strange lighting effects on the objects it touches.