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Basics

Action Buttons

These toggles are all active in Paint mode (as shown on the preceding page).

In Edit mode, only None, Pick, Help, and Settings are available. In Grid Selection mode only Help and Settings are available.

Button Use Default Shortcut (Win)
Off Disengage Painter, cancels Move operation. ALT+O
Paint Paint the tile in the Clipboard. ALT+B
Erase Erase a tile ALT+D
Pick Paint: Copy a single tile or drag a multiple selection from the Scene to the Clipboard or Favorites List. Edit: Select a single tile in the Scene for editing ALT+I
Move Move a tile on the same Tilemap or to another Tilemap. ALT+M
Rotate CW Rotate the sprite of a tile CW. ALT+R
Rotate CCW Rotate the sprite of a tile CCW. ALT+T
Flip X Flip the sprite of a tile on the Y axis. ALT+X
Flip Y Flip the sprite of a tile on the X axis. ALT+C
Reset Transform Reset the transform of a tile (remove rotation/flip, restore size) ALT+Z
Help Displays some basic information. None
Settings Tile+Toolkit and Tile+Painter settings. None

The default shortcut to change modes is ALT+Q.

When operating on multiple-tile selections, hold down SHIFT when Rotating or Flipping to rotate or flip the entire group of tiles. Alt-E or Shift-Alt-E will rotate the pivot of the multiple selection.

When using the Paint, Erase, Pick, or Move tools in Paint mode you can use the Marquee Shortcut (default is ALT+1) to draw out a boundary in the scene view. This lets you Paint, Erase, Pick, and Move areas of tiles.

Mouse Cursor

When the mouse cursor is over the Scene view window, it’s accompanied by a marquee highlighting the selected position. The Grid Position of the cursor is also displayed, along with textural hints about the operation.

Certain actions have optional functions controlled by the CTRL, SHIFT, or ALT keys.

The Settings panel’s Chunk Snapping settings also affect the display.

Previews and most of the text drawn in the scene only appear in 2D mode.

A ‘D’ appears when you hold down the Marquee shortcut and vanishes when you begin to drag out an area with the mouse.

Special Action Buttons

The Rotate, Flip, and Reset Transform actions have two uses:

  1. Click on the button, then click on tiles in the Scene to Rotate, Flip, or Reset.
  2. While the PAINT action button is selected, use the shortcut (not the button) to Rotate, Flip, or Reset the transform of the Tile or Prefab that you want to paint while it is being previewed, that is, just before you click the mouse to paint the Tile. This also works during Move after you’ve picked a Tile.

It’s important to recognize the difference: the first live-edits tiles in the Tilemap after they’re placed. The second changes the transform of an Object (tiles/Prefabs/etc.) while being previewed prior to clicking on the Tilemap location where you want to place it.

When in Paint mode and previewing a multiple tile pick you can control what Rotate and Flip do with special shortcuts.

  • Rotate or Flip shortcuts: the individual tiles in the pick will rotate independently.
  • Alternate Rotate/Flip: (the defaults are the same keys with SHIFT held down) the entire Pick is affected.
  • ALT+E or SHIFT+ALT+E rotates the Pivot of the Pick. This is something unique to Painter: the UTE doesn’t do this.
  • ALT+Z will restore the original Pick.

UTE deals with Rotations and Flip only during preview. Painter also lets you change the transform of a tile without having to use an Inspector. For example, select the Rotate CW action button. If you click on a Tile while that Action button is selected the Tile’s sprite will rotate CW.

For tiles, these transform-modifying actions only work on tiles that are, or derive from, Unity Tiles (this includes all Tile+Toolkit tiles). Any tiles that derive from TileBase do not have a transform property. For example, these actions can’t work on Rule tiles or 2D Tilemap Extras’ AnimatedTiles since they derive from TileBase rather than Tile.

Modifying a transform during preview changes the small icon next to the clipboard to the Transform icon as an indicator.

Coders may be interested to know that rotations and flips of multiple-selection picks are done using a hidden GridBrush instance maintained in Painter. It’s not used for anything else, but this feature ensures that these operations will work in the same way as in the UTE.

Modifiers

Be sure to check out the “Modifiers” section. Custom transforms can be used to affect a tile or Prefab during preview: Position, Rotation, and Scale can all be affected. You can also set default transforms that apply to all tile and Prefab painting when appropriate. The Grid mode view has a button that can be used to apply modifiers to Grid Selections.

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