Placing and manipulating items are essential skills for building condos in Tower Unite. This guide will go over the basic methods of manipulating items. Knowing these methods will help you bould quickly and efficiently, allowing you to spend less time moving items, and more time creating an amazing condo!

Let's get started!

To place an item, hold the Q key and drag an item out from your inventory. The item will place wherever you let go of the mouse.



You can also rotate your items before placement using the scroll wheel.

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While placing items from your inventory, you can use a variety of snapping modes. To cycle through each snap mode, press the E key while holding an item. More advanced controls are listed on the bottom right of the screen, just above the condo inventory panel.

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To stash an item, right click it and select the "Stash" option.



Dragging items back into the inventory window will also stash them.



The Tower Glove can also be used to stash items. (Guide coming soon)

Items can be manipulated using the manipulation tool. To edit an item, hold the Q key and Left Click the item. A window will open in the top right showing some information on the item, along with a multi-colored icon on the item itself (We will call this icon the "manipulation gizmo"). Using this window and the manipulation gizmo, we can move, rotate, and scale any item in the game!

Note: Items move relative to their center point. The manipulation gizmo is located on its center.

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Select the Move option or press the Q key to enter Move mode.
Click and drag the arrows to move the item. The arrows will move the item along that direction in a straight line.



You can also click and drag the squares near the center of the gizmo. These will move the object along the 2D plane that consists of the two arrows its located between.

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Select the Rotate option or press the E key to enter Rotate mode.
Click and drag the colored circles to rotate the item. The circles will rotate along the plane that the circles are positioned.

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Select the Scale option or press the R key to enter Scale mode.
Click and drag the colored bars to scale the item. The bars will scale along the direction it is facing. Use the circle in the center of the gizmo to scale all three directions at once. This is useful for resizing an object, since it keeps the item's proportions the same.

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For more precise movements, you can click and drag on the values for an item's position, rotation, and scale. Just Left Click the numbers in the desired field and move the mouse.

Note: Pressing the lock icon next to "Scale" will change all three scale values when dragging the number. This acts just like dragging the circular scale icon from the previous section.



You can also enter specific values into the Position, Rotation, and Scale fields.

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Items can also be moved directly. Press and hold the Q key and Hold Left Click on the item you wish to move. The item can be manipulated similar to how you place an item from the inventory. This includes moving, rotating, and grid/item snapping.

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Snapping can be applied to the manipulation tool as well. You can toggle item snapping while manipulating an item by pressing the F key, or selecting the Snap option in the manipulation window.

Item snapping effects Position, Rotation, and Scale editing in different ways.

When Moving an item, enabling snapping will cause the item to place along a defined grid. Use the manipulation window to edit advanced options, such as the grid size. You can see the difference between snapping on and off in the following gif.



When Rotating an item, enabling snapping will cause the item to rotate at specific intervals of degrees. Use the manipulation window to edit advanced options, such as the interval it snaps to. You can see the difference between snapping on and off in the following gif.



When Scaling an item, enabling snapping will cause the item to scale at a specific interval. Use the manipulation window to edit advanced options, such as the interval it snaps to. You can see the difference between snapping on and off in the following gif.

Note: The snapping interval is small in this gif, so the modes look similar. With snapping on, the item scales through many decimal values, while snapping on causes it to go up from 1 to 2 to 3.... and so on, skipping the decmals inbetween.

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When manipulating an item, you have the option of doing so in Global mode or Relative mode. While they may seem similar, these modes have their uses. Let's go over the difference between the two.

When manipulating an item in Global mode, the item moves relative to the global grid that is built into the condo. Think of these directions like North, South, East, West, Up, and Down for your condo.

When in global manipulation mode, the manipulation gizmo will never change directions. This is because it will always move along the global condo axis, no matter how the item is positioned.

Think of this movement like placing your item on a conveyor belt that can only go in a few directions. No matter what direction the item itself is facing, it will still go forward in the same direction, along the conveyor belt.

As you can see in the following gif, the cube is not positioned along the grid, but still moves along the grid in global manipulation mode.



Note: When scaling in global mode, notice the item is scaled in more than one direction. Think of the item as being "pulled" in that direction, like pulling the corner of a block of clay.

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When manipulating an item in Relative mode, the item moves relative to itself. After each movement, the manipulation gizmo will re-orient itself to the center of your item, facing whatever direction the item is facing, rather than sticking to the global grid.

Think of this movement like placing your item on a cart. As you push and move the cart, the cart has to change directions, too. When you push from behind, it will always move forward, rather than only sticking to North, South, etc.

As you can see in the following gif, since the cube is off center from the global grid, the manipulation gizmo is facing a different direction. The gizmo is basically "attached" to the item, and will face wherever it is positioned.

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As mentioned before, each manipulation mode has its uses. What matters most is how you are wanting to move your item.

Global Manipulation should be used when you want to move an item along the global directions.

If you want to raise an item that is strangely rotated, you can use global manipulation. The blue Z axis (Up/Down) is locked, so your item will move up and down relative to your whole condo, even if the relative directions for X, Y, and Z aren't facing up and down.

Similarly, you can use the global mode for rotating on the blue Z axis. No matter how your item is positioned, it will rotate along the horizon of your condo. This is great for spinning already rotated items, since the relative mode gizmo will not align with the floor.

Relative Manipulation should be used when you want to move an item "normally". I personally almost always build in relative mode.

If you want to scale an item at all, I highly recommend using relative manipulation. The global variant of scaling can cause issues if your item is not aligned to the grid.

Editing an item's position / rotation is also more intuitive in relative mode. Once you leave the global grid, its essential for the gizmo to allow you to move items forward and back, or side to side. Think of it like moving in a car. In relative mode, you move the car forward, where it's facing, while in global mode, you would only be able to move north, south, east, or west.

To select more than one item at a time, hold the Shift key and left click items to select them. Shift-clicking them again will remove them from the selection.



Notice that the manipulation gizmo moves as you add more items. The gizmo is positioning itself at the center of your selection. It will treat the selection as one big item.

Note: Also notice that the items act strangely when scaling. This is because the scale tool is also scaling the space between the items.

You can copy items using the manipulation gizmo. First select your item or group of items you wish to copy. Then, hold the ALT key while you drag one of the arrows or squares of the manipulation gizmo. A copy of your item will be placed in its previous position, and you will begin moving the original one you selected around. This will copy your item, its rotation, scale, and any textures or settings you have in the original.




Please note that you must own and have a copy of these items available in your inventory to copy them. If you do not own or do not have enough of the necessary items, it will place as many as it can from your selection.

Some notes about item copying
1. When copying an item on a co-op condo, the copied item will not move after being placed. You will need to deselect, then re-select the item to begin moving it once it has copied.

2. Copying selections of items is more difficult in co-op mode, since you need to re-select every item in your selection after it places duplicates.

3. Copying anything with condo IO connections can cause issues. Remember: copying an item places a duplicate and moves the original. I will go over copying IO items in a different guide.

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The Tower Glove can also be used to copy items. (Guide coming soon)

That's all the basics! With just these simple tricks, building is a lot faster, easier, and more enjoyable!



Thank you for reading this guide, and let me know if I missed anything or need to clear something up.
Also, please let me know of anything specific you would like future guides on!