After playing Camera Obscura, why not create your own custom levels? Camera Obscura's mechanics interact in many ways, and there are plenty of interesting puzzles that have yet to be conceived.

This guide acts as a reference for using the Level Editor to create custom levels. Once you've made some levels, check out the Publishing Workshop Content guide to share level packs with other players!

You can launch the Level Editor by running Camera Obscura from Steam and selecting the "Launch Editor" option.

When the editor launches, you should see something like this:


On the left, you have a toolbar for manipulating Tiles and Objects. The editor has two basic modes: Tile mode and Object mode. The current mode is determined by what tab you have selected in this toolbar. These modes will be discussed in the following sections.

On the right, you have the map workspace. You can move the map around using the scrollbars, or by holding Space and dragging the Left Mouse button.

Finally, at the top you have the menu bar. This contains the usual stuff like saving and loading, as well as a few specific helper functions we'll mention later.

When the editor is in Tile mode, click on the map workspace to paint tiles. You can select different kinds of tiles from the list box on the left.

When painting a "triangle" tileset, you'll see an extra widget appear in the toolbar called "Triangle Direction". This controls the direction that the triangles you are painting will point. The editor will automatically figure out what shape the triangle should be based on the surrounding geometry.

There is also a checkbox labeled "Is Background". If this box is checked, tiles you draw will be drawn as background tiles - they'll be darker and uninteractable. You can you use these for decorative purposes. Background tiles will automatically spread behind adjacent solid tiles in-game to fill behind any transparent sections of those tiles.

Some Objects allow you to draw shapes for them. If you have one of these objects selected, you will be drawing into that object and not the map. More on that in the next section.

There are plenty of possibilities for interesting maps without using extra map features like moving platforms and lit tiles, but these can nonetheless be used to create even more challenges.

When in Object mode, click any object on the map to select it. Click and drag to move objects around.

Double-click an entry in the object list on the toolbar to create an instance of that object, or press the "Add Object" button to add an instance of the selected object.

Every Camera Obscura map requires exactly one start door and one end door. Naturally, these control where the player spawns, and where the level ends. You can make them invisible if it fits the theme of your map better, but ensure it is clear where the player must go to finish.

Instead of an end door, you can use an invisible end door zone. This is a larger trigger zone that you can draw into any shape you want. When the character touches this zone, the level will end and she will walk off the map in the direction you specify.

There are four types of enemies that you can use in your levels.

• Walker: Moves forward, falls off ledges, turns when hitting a wall.
  
• Pacer: Moves forward, doesn't fall off ledges, turns when hitting a wall.
  
• Flyer: Flies forward, turns when hitting a wall, ignores flashes.
  
• Climber: Moves forward, climbs on walls and ceilings.

You can change an enemy's starting direction in the object toolbar.

You can use this object to place special props in the level. These are completely aesthetic.

Buttons can be used to activate Light Zones, Moving Platforms, and Spawners. Buttons can be activated by the player, by enemies, and by moving platforms (but not by flashed tiles). There are a few different types of buttons:

• Single Push: When pushed, sends "on" signal permanently.
  
• Toggle: Pushing it toggles it between "on" and "off".
  
• Repeated Push: When pushed, sends "bounce" signal
  
• Weight Switch: Sends "on" as long as something is on it.

You can glue buttons to Moving Platforms by pressing the Attach to Platform button, then clicking the desired platform. You can add targets for the button's signals by pressing "Add Target", then clicking the desired target.

With Moving Platforms, you can make arbitrarily-shaped sets of tiles that can move around. To draw on a Moving Platform, select it while in Object mode, then switch to Tile mode.

Moving Platforms need Waypoints in order to move. After placing Waypoints along the desired route, select the Moving Platform. Click "Set First Waypoint", then click the starting waypoint. Link the remaining waypoints by selecting the Waypoint, clicking "Set Next", then clicking the next waypoint.

When linked to a button, a Moving Platform will move along its route as long as it recieves the "on" signal. When a Moving Platform recieves the "bounce" signal, it will move to its next waypoint. If the Moving Platform is set as "counterweighted", it will move backwards if it is not recieving an "on" signal.

You can draw Light tiles directly onto the map, but if you want to activate them with a button, you need to draw them in a Light Zone object.

When linked to a button, a Light Zone will turn on when recieving the "on" signal and off when recieving the "off" signal. It will toggle its state when recieving the "bounce" signal.

You can use a Spawner to dynamically create enemies in your level.

When linked to a button, a Spawner will spawn children at the Spawn Interval as long as it is "on". When recieving the "bounce" signal, it will spawn one creature as long as the Spawn Interval has cooled down.

When the character crosses a checkpoint in a level, a save state will be created that remembers the entire layout of the level. If the character dies, instead of restarting the level, she will restart at the last checkpoint.

Use "zone" tiles to define the region in which the player will activate the checkpoint. Use a "zone point" tile to define where the player will spawn when returning to this checkpoint.

Custom levels have eight themes to choose from - four interior, and four exterior. Each theme has a unique background, lighting setup, door graphics, and tileset. You can change themes by going to Edit->Map Theme.

The Level Editor allows you to customize the layout of the level background even further. To bring up the Background editor, go to Edit->Background.

You can offset the background using the X and Y numeric boxes.

The level's background is made of up a "stack" of available background sections. In general, sections must be in the proper order (can't have "middle" above "top"), and sections must be adjacent to their appropriate neighbors to show the proper transition elements (can't have "top" next to "bottom"). However, you can adjust the number of repetitions of a section with the Repeat button, and even exclude bordering sections altogether.

You can save your level at any time from the File menu.

In order to test your level, you must save it in the Camera Obscura/Levels/Custom directory. If you want to make a set of levels, you can save them in a subfolder of this directory. After saving your level, run the game and select 'Play' on the main menu. On the overworld, press Tab (keyboard) or a Trigger (gamepad) to view and play your custom levels.

The player character's jump height is approximately 2.5 vertical tiles.

Black tiles are always non-collidable, and can be used to hide machinery you might be using to control your level.