Video Tutorials
Welcome to our Tutorial Series for Tabletop Simulator. These video tutorials give you a basic overview of how to use the game, from the various controls, to using and uploading to the Steam Workshop, to creating your own custom content and much more!
The Complete Tutorial Series is below. Each episode after the Introduction video includes a written transcript. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube channel to stay up to date or follow us on Twitter to get the latest development updates.
Using Tabletop Simulator¶
Basic Controls¶
Transcript
Welcome to the Tabletop Simulator tutorial series. I’m Kimiko with Berserk Games and this tutorial series will go over all the different tools, custom content and the various things you can do in Tabletop Simulator. This first video will focus on the basic controls and movement.
Before you begin playing around in Tabletop Simulator, I highly recommend to try out the tutorial in game. It goes over the very basics controls, but can give you a general idea of how it works.
There are a lot of controls in Tabletop Simulator to learn and master. And this is because we offer a lot of tools that you can use to create some amazing things. So while it may seem overwhelming at first, you will soon become a pro and be able to help others who are just starting out as well.
All of the info I’m going over can be found in the Help menu in game which you can bring up by pressing the ? key on your keyboard or the button next to the ENTER key if you are not using a US keyboard.
You can also find more in depth info in our Knowledge Base on our website, which will be posted in the description below. Additionally, most controls can be found in the Contextual Menu, which you can bring up when you right click on an object.
Now let’s get started.
You can move your camera with either the keyboard, mouse or even a mixture of both.
By default, you are in 3rd person mode. The general camera movement is with the WASD keys which enables you to move forward, back and side to side
To rotate your camera around, you would hold and press your RMB. To pan your camera around, just press and hold your MMB.
To reset your camera position to default, press the space bar.
If you want to quickly zoom in onto something, move your mouse to that location and press either your MMB once or the Z key. Press again to return to your original spot.
You can also move the scroll wheel of your mouse front and back to zoom in and out. This let’s you control how close or far you want your camera to be.
If you press the P key, that will toggle your camera to 1st person mode.
The keys we previously pressed will now work a little bit differently. W and S will now move you in and out. A and D will still move you side to side. The RMB will still rotate your camera, but you’ll want to do it in combination with WASD to be effective.
The CTRL key will move you down and Space bar will move you up. The MMB will still pan your camera around.
If you press P once more, you will now be in the Top Down view.
The settings are the exact same for Top Down view and 3rd person, but Top Down view allows you to see everything from directly above, which makes this easy for placing objects in the exact spot you want them to be.
Now that we have the camera controls out of the way, let’s try picking stuff up.
Hover over an object and you will see it highlight. That’s how you know that piece is active and you’ll be able to modify it in some way. You will also see your pointer change based on what action you do. So hovering over it, will make your hand open up. Press and hold your LMB to pick an object up. Let go to drop it. Picking up an object will make your hand close like you’re holding it.
To pick up multiple objects, while holding the first object, hover over a second object until it is highlighted and then press down on your right mouse button. You can do this as many times as you’d like.
If you want to pick up even more objects, you can box select them by clicking and holding your LMB anywhere on the table and dragging around the objects. You can see all those pieces are now highlighted. Pick up one of them objects and all that were highlighted will be picked up as well.
With dice, you can either hold the dice, shake it and throw it, or if you want to do things a bit more calmly, you can hover over the die and press the R key multiple times. The R key can be used for both rolling the dice and raising objects higher if you’re holding them.
Another cool feature is if you need to pick the number of the die manually, you can do so without having to pick it up. Just hover over the die and then press any number combination. In this case, I’m just going in consecutive order, but you can see how the die is moving to the number that I have pressed.
You can flip an object a couple of ways. While holding an object, press the MMB or the F key. Or you can hover over an object and press the F key to flip something that you aren’t holding on to.
For rotating objects, hold the object and scroll with your MMB or with the Q and E keys. Or, you can hover over an object and use the Q and E keys to rotate them while they are on the table.
Now Let’s get a deck of cards
A great feature that comes in handy is being able to zoom in on a specific object. To do this, just hover over an object and press and hold the ALT key. Now the object you have ALT Zoomed is magnified so you can see what’s on it. This is great for cards or any object that is farther away and you don’t feel like moving your camera around.
You can zoom in even closer if you need to see more details while ALT Zoomed – just scroll with the middle mouse button to zoom in and out. You can also use the Q and E keys to rotate the object if you need to see it in a different direction.
The Contextual Menu is great if you don’t want to worry about any hotkeys as you can do just about anything here. And the menu changes depending on what you click on. The top part of the menu will always apply to that object type.
Most notably, Cards will have extra options like shuffling and dealing and dice will have options like rolling and setting to a specific number.
Play around with it and see all the nifty things you can do. You can find more about it in the Knowledge Base. We will go over the Contextual Menu in a future video.
A couple more things with basic controls. You can quickly duplicate or delete objects by using the hotkeys, Ctrl C to copy, Ctrl V to paste and Ctrl X to cut or delete the object. Additionally, you can just press the delete key on your keyboard.
And that’s going to wrap up this video about the basic controls and movement in Tabletop Simulator. The next video will go over the advanced controls which may just cover some things even you veterans were not even aware of!
So stay tuned and see you next time!
Advanced Controls¶
Transcript
Welcome to the Tabletop Simulator tutorial series. I’m Kimiko with Berserk Games and this tutorial series will go over all the different tools, custom content and the various things you can do in Tabletop Simulator.
This second episode in the series will go over the advanced controls. If you missed the first one, I highly recommend checking that out first.
All of the info I’m going over can be found in the Help menu in game which you can bring up by pressing the ? key on your keyboard or the button next to the ENTER key if you are not using a US keyboard.
You can also find more in depth info in our Knowledge Base on our website, which will be posted in the description below. Additionally, most controls can be found in the Contextual Menu, which you can bring up when you right click on an object. http://berserk-games.com/knowledgebase/morecontrols
Now let’s get started.
If you want to change the size of an object, you can easily do so by hovering over or holding an object and pressing the plus or minus keys. This is a quick way to uniformly scale an object bigger or smaller when you need to make adjustments. You can scale objects individually or box select to scale multiples at at once.
Did you know there’s a blindfold option? Certain games require players to not be able to see what’s going on, so this is our version of a blindfold. Just press the B key and the curtain will fall down to block your view of the table. While you can read the chat, you will not see any messages of other players who are blindfolded or unblindfolded. Just press B again to remove your blindfold or click the button on screen.
To quickly group items together that can stack, just hover over the objects and press G. If the objects are stackable, they will stack or group with its own object type. This works great for poker chips, cards, checkers and other stackable objects.
One thing people are not usually aware of is an alternative to ALT zooming. If you want to be able to see everything and not just a specific object, you can press the M key to magnify areas on the table. While holding down M, move all around so you can see everything close up. Then scroll with your middle mouse button to zoom in and out.
Another thing you can do is press and hold the N key to nudge objects around. You can now push objects around without having to pick them up.
If you need to quickly place objects beneath another without moving anything, then hover over the object and press the U key. This is great for placing a card underneath a mat, for example. This only works if the objects are unlocked.
To see the backside of a card without turning it over, hover over the card and ALT Zoom, then press the SHIFT key at the same time to see the under side. This is called peek and can be used on any object in game. When you peek at a card, an eye symbol of your color is shown on the card you are looking at, so others know you are peeking the cards. So make sure you are only doing this when you are supposed to!
The ALT key is also used as a modifier, which means you can do other things by holding ALT in addition to other controls.
While holding an object, press ALT + Q/E or ALT + scrolling with your MMB to FLIP objects on a different axis other than normal. This is great when creating a domino toppling setup or building a house of cards
Pressing ALT + F or ALT + the MMB will ROTATE objects on their other axis as well.
Pressing ALT + RMB or ALT + T will drop the last grabbed object or drops the last card of a deck or objects from bags. You can do this to drop multiple objects quickly or just one object at a time.
A very useful feature that is not widely known is how you can place a card on the bottom of the deck without having to pick up the entire deck first. While holding the card, press and hold your right mouse button and guide it under the deck. Voila!
Another cool thing to do with cards, is if you need to draw more than one, you can do it directly from the deck. Pick a card and while holding it, hover over the deck and press your right mouse button to grab other cards.
Did you know that you can setup different camera positions? Right click anywhere that isn’t an object to bring up the Global Contextual Menu. You will see a few options we’ve got over previously, but there’s also the option to load and save camera positions.
First, move your camera exactly where you’d like it to be. Now you want to save this position by clicking on Save Camera and then choose an open number slot. You can also use hotkeys to make it go faster, by pressing CTRL and a number.
Then move your camera around and when you want to quickly go back to this position, then click on Load Camera and the number you previously saved it as, or use the hotkey SHIFT + number.
Some important controls can be found in the host Options menu. Just click the Options button at the top and Options once again. These are settings that you can mess around with in single player, but when you’re in a multiplayer game, the host can decide what options to use and what permissions are set to allow or disallow players from doing certain things.
There are 3 different physics modes you can choose from. Full means that full physics are on. Objects can be thrown and knocked down. If you want the most “realistic” experience, then this is for you.
If you want a bit more control, then you would choose Semi-Lock, where the physics are a bit toned down. Pieces can be thrown, but when they bump into static objects, they won’t get knocked over.
And if you want a completely serious game, then you’ll want to choose Locked, where physics are reduced. Objects can no longer be thrown, lowered or clumped together.
The scripting option toggles whether the host wants scripting to be enabled in their server. Keep in mind, if you turn this option off, then any game that uses scripting will not work unless they made a non-scripted version.
Gravity let’s you control how fast objects fall. This can be fun for any spacey theme or just for silly fun in general.
The permissions tab lets the host choose what features they want enabled on the server. If you don’t want anyone to flip the table, then just uncheck it. If you don’t want people to draw things with the vector or paint tools, then you’d uncheck that as well. Just hover over each option to read the tooltip to see what they can and can’t do.
Some final things you can do is press /help in both the game and global tabs as they each have different information. You can see how to change your nickname, message people and the host can do things like kick and ban.
And one last and very important thing is to not forget about clicking your name on the top right! That’s how you can change your color or your team. And the host can click on other names to do admin commands.
You can also click on someone’s icon next to their name to view their Steam profile or add them as a friend.
And there you have it! That’s going to wrap up this video about the advanced controls in Tabletop Simulator.
The next video will go over how you can create a custom game in Tabletop Simulator from start to finish. So stay tuned and see you next time!
Custom Game Creation¶
Transcript
Welcome to the Tabletop Simulator tutorial series. I’m Kimiko with Berserk Games and this tutorial series will go over all the different tools, custom content and the various things you can do in Tabletop Simulator.
This third episode in the series will go over how to create a custom game from start to finish. If you missed the previous videos, they will be linked in the description below.
If you need assistance with hotkeys, press the ? key on your keyboard or the button next to the ENTER key if you are not using a US keyboard to bring up the Help Menu.
You can also find more in depth info in our Knowledge Base on our website, which will also be posted in the description below.
Now before we begin, it’s going to be assumed you already have your ideas in place and know what you’re going to be making. I’m going to be making a fictional game that I just made up on the fly, but you obviously will already have your games in place. This is just to show you how to take what you have down on paper and bring it into Tabletop Simulator.
So let’s get started. Get all your assets in place and now we’re going to begin importing them into Tabletop Simulator.
To import a deck of cards, you’ll need to either use a deck template, the deck builder or create your own template to have it ready to import. In this case, I’m going to use the Deck Builder, which can be found in the Modding folder of Tabletop Simulator.
The Deck Editor is super easy to use and makes creating your decks a breeze. Once you open it up, click on New Deck and choose the size of your deck. By default, the size is 10x7, which is the max amount you can have at one time, which offers you 69 cards plus the hidden back card in the 70th slot.
I am going to be changing the template to 4x3 which will yield me 11 cards plus the hidden back card in the 12th slot. You want to make sure that every card in your template is unique, as in no duplicates, because that will eat unnecessary resources. Once the deck is imported, you can just copy and paste any extra cards you need.
Keep in mind if you need to create a deck that has more than our maximum, just import multiple decks and combine them together in game. It is recommended you fill up each template completely before importing as you will use up the same amount of resources regardless of how many cards you have on the sheet. So the less sheets you upload, the better.
You can now see you have a blank slate open. There are various options you can choose from, but right now, you just want to bring in your cards to the template. I have created my cards already and am going to just drag and drop them into the slots. You can drag and drop them individually or highlight them all and drag them in at once. The 12th slot is the hidden card in your hand, so you want to make sure you put that there.
Once you’ve got your deck sorted how you want, you want to save your .tsdb file so that you can refer back to it later if you need to make any changes.
And now you can export your files. Click on File and then Export. You will see the current size of your template. You want to check the Max Deck Size box and make sure it is set to 4096 or less. The recommended size is 4k for optimal quality.
Now that we have our deck created, we can bring it into Tabletop Simulator. Click on Objects, Components and Custom. Then click on Deck. Click on the folder icon to bring up the file browser to import your images.
If you plan on having different backs for each of your cards, then you would follow the same steps as above for creating your deck and then save that separately. Then when you bring it into the game, you input that URL for the back and check the “Unique Backs” box.
Choose the width and height of your template. The default is 10x7, but we changed ours in the Deck Editor, so you change these sliders to match yours. Then choose the number of cards you have in your deck.
If your cards are horizontal instead of vertical, then check the sideways box and if you don’t want the back image to be hidden, then check this box. Click import and now we have our deck!
You can also search the deck so you can see the cards in all their glory.
This is also the time where you can flesh out your deck by copying and pasting the extra cards that are needed to fill out your deck.
Now that we have the cards done, we can move on to the rest of the game. I have a mat that I want to use as the base. You can do a couple things here. First is to go to Objects, Components, Custom and choose Board. Input the URL or import the image with the file browser. Your mat is now mounted onto a board with a wooden border. Boards cannot be ALT Zoomed, so you’ll have to use the M key to zoom in on areas.
Another option you can do if you don’t want the wooden border, is to use the tile option. You can choose different shapes for your mat. In this case, I’m going to use the Rounded option so my edges aren’t straight.
Tiles can also have different images for the front and back, so this is a great option if your mat is double sided. You can then choose how thick you want your mat to be. And then you can choose if you want it to be stackable or not. This isn’t necessary for mats, but great for small tiles.
When you click import, you will see your mat is there, but super tiny. This is the default size as they are normally used for generic tiles. But all you need to do is hover over it and press the + key to enlarge it to whatever size you desire. You can also use the Gizmo tool on the left to adjust more precisely. And there we have it, our lovely mat with rounded corners.
Don’t forget to lock down your mat before placing objects on it, or you might accidentally pick it up!
Let’s say I wanted to make tokens to use as pieces instead of the generic pawns. Tokens are a great option for transparent objects. Import your image and make sure it’s a PNG file. If you don’t need to worry about transparency, then you can use the tiles in this case. Choose how thick you want it and the merge distance, which affects how accurate your image will be traced.
And if you want it to be stackable or not. Now I have two cat tokens I can use for my game. You can see how the whiskers on the grey cat got traced so it works really well. I created a second one so you can compare between the two. They are very similar but the one on the right, I chose the less accurate option, so you can see the edges are not as smooth.
Another option you can use in place of pawns or tokens are figurines. We have a simple option if you want a standing character. Just choose the front and back images (if you want it to be different) and import. You get a nice silver base and your images now look like paper figurines. Very simple and effective. Those are your 3 different options that you can use in place of pawns. Tiles, tokens and figurines.
Now we’ll need some dice. If you need something a bit different than the regular built in dice, you can create your own using our template, which can be found in your modding folder, where you found the deck templates and deck builder. Once you have your template setup how you’d like, it’s time to import it.
Click on Dice and choose the type and then import your image like we’ve done previously.
And there you have it, a simple way to create a custom dice without having to know how to model.
Assetbundles are a great way to enhance your projects by giving you the options for animations, particle effects, sounds and more! While I’m not going to go through the process of how to create an Assetbundle, you can go through the steps in our Knowledge Base. There will be a direct link to the page in the description below.
Once you have all your files in order, then you can begin importing your assetbundle. Just find your assetbundle and put it in the first box. Secondary AssetBundles are an additional assetbundle which are great for shared effects like sound or particle effects that you want to use on multiple objects without duplicating them in each individual asset bundle. Great for reducing memory and bandwidth usage.
Choose what type your assetbundle should be. In this case, I’m choosing a figurine. And then choose the material and import. Now you should see your complete assetbundle, which will have a purple icon when you hover over it if you setup a trigger or looping effect like I have.
Custom models are another advanced feature I will not be going over as that will depend on if you know how to model or not. There are plenty of tutorials on the web that you can find to get you started.
To import your custom models, click on Model, and as you can see, you have a lot more options you can mess around with in two separate tabs. In the Model tab, you first want to import your model or mesh file in OBJ format. Then import a png or jpg file for the image. If a normal is needed, then you’d add that to the next spot.
By default there will be a custom collider added to your object. If you created a collider that goes with your model, then you’d add that here.
Check the Non-Convex box only if you also supplied a mesh collider, then choose the type your object is, in this case I’m choosing a coin.
Switch to the Material tab and choose the material your object will have. You can also adjust the specular intensity, color and sharpness, as well as the fresnel strength and if you want your model to cast shadows or not.
Hover over each option to read the tooltip for full details or read about it in our Knowledge Base.
So now we have almost everything we need for our game. The last thing we need are the rules. I’m going to add a link to the tablet so people can easily read through the rules. I’m also going to put a link to the rules in the Notebook, so that everyone can read and download the rules for future use.
Once we have our game complete, then we have to make sure we save it. In the Save & Load menu, click on the Create button to make a save file.
And now we can upload our final game up onto the Workshop! It’s very simple to do once you have everything laid out exactly as you want. At the top click on Upload and then Workshop Upload and fill in all the details for your project.
Click Upload and you’ll get a notification that it is uploading. After a few seconds, you’ll get a pop up with your Workshop ID. You can now go to your Workshop page, and find your new mod! By default, it will show up as hidden, which will give you time to make any changes needed before you release it to the public.
You want to make sure to add as much info as possible for the description of the game, with links to the rules or anything else you find necessary. You also want to provide screenshots of the game so people get an idea of what it looks like. The more detailed info and images you provide, the better chances you have at someone checking your game out.
Once you have everything exactly how you want it, you can now change the visibility to either be friends only or public. For now, I will be keeping it hidden, but as you guys are watching this, it will already be live, so you can check it out!
One other thing we want to go over is if you need to make any changes to your game. So let’s say I want to change what I’m adding to the game, move some pieces around, etc. Once I have the new layout how I want, you now go to Upload – Workshop Upload and Update Workshop.
Click on the Workshop Icon next to the input field to get your Workshop ID and make any other changes you need to do. You don’t need to re-import the thumbnail unless you plan on changing it. Click update and you will get confirmation once it’s done.
Now if you go to your Workshop page, you will see the version you just updated. So anytime you want to make a change, you just do this.
And that’s all there is to it! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and it helps you in creating your own custom games! If you have any questions, just post them in the comments below. And don’t forget to check out the Knowledge for a lot more info on what you can do in Tabletop Simulator!
Thanks for watching and see you next time!
Custom Asset Bundles¶
Transcript
Welcome to the Tabletop Simulator tutorial series. I’m Kimiko with Berserk Games and this fourth episode in the series will go over how to create custom assetbundles, from the very basics to a bit more advanced with animations, sounds and particle effects. If you missed the previous videos, they will be linked in the description below.
You can also find more in depth info in our Knowledge Base on our website, which will also be posted below.
So let’s get started.
First, you will need to go into our Knowledge Base and make sure you have the the proper project and Unity version. Download and install the Unity installer. As of this recording, you will need 5.6.2, but you must use the exact same version listed in our Knowledge Base, so it’s very important to check the version in the Knowledge Base to ensure everything works properly.
When installing Unity, make sure to check mark the Windows, Linux and Mac build support boxes.
Then download the Tabletop Simulator Modding Project from GitHub. Unzip the file and place in your drive of choice.
Now you want to open up Unity, click open and choose the folder from GitHub that you just unzipped. Once opened, you can see the list of assets, which includes example objects to provide scale (one Unity unity equals 1 inch) and scripts you can play around with, that enables advanced functionality like animations and sounds.
Let’s start with a basic object. At the top, you can click on GameObject, 3D Object and then the object of your choice. In this case, I’m choosing a sphere. Optionally, you can create the object in your Hierarchy, by right clicking in it, and then choosing 3D Object and your object of choice. If you’d like to name your object something else, just right click on it, choose rename and enter in whatever you’d like.
Now you want to add a material to your object so you can change the color of it. Click on the Materials folder and then right click in the folder, click Create and then Material and name it whatever you’d like. Drag and drop your new material onto your object. When you click back on your object, you will see your material has been added. Click on the arrow to expand the options.
You can now change the settings, colors and more of your object. Feel free to play around with the different settings to see what they do. I’m going to change the color of the material to red and change the metallic sheen a bit, as well as adjust the smoothness of it.
This is also where you can add in any textures and normals you may have created.
Once you have your object how you want it, you now need to create a prefab of it. Prefabs allow you to store a GameObject complete with components and properties to your liking.
You can make changes to the prefab to have all instances of that object change immediately, or you can edit the components of each objects individually without messing with the prefab.
To create a prefab, just drag your object from the hierarchy into the Prefabs folder. From here you can change the name of the prefab if you’d like to keep it separate from any others you create that are similar.
Now you need to assign that prefab to a unique AssetBundle name. Click on the prefab. Go down to the bottom right where it says AssetBundle and change it to “New”, then give it a unique name like so and press enter.
Now you will build your AssetBundles by right clicking anywhere in the project view and then selecting “Build AssetBundles”.
Now we’re going to check out our newly created AssetBundle in game!
Once you’ve got Tabletop Simulator opened, in the top menu, Click on Objects, Components, Custom and then AssetBundle. Use the file browser to locate your Assetbundle. AssetBundles can be found in your ‘Tabletop-Simulator-Modding/AssetBundles’ folder.
Load it to your cloud and then choose the type and material you wish your object to be. Click import and there you have it! Your own custom assetbundle.
Now we’re going to try out a more advanced version of an assetbundle. In this case, it will be expected that you already have what you need to create them, as we won’t be going over how to model or create animations and the like. You can easily find free versions on various websites or you can purchase models for this purpose.
Since most of my custom videos include a cat of some sort, I will be creating an animated cat assetbundle, of course. You want to make sure you have all your assets already in your project, so that we can get to work.
First, drag in your model into the scene. At this time, you can make any adjustments to the size of it. I’m going to add two components to my cat model by clicking on Add Component in the Inspector. Animation and TTS Asset Bundle Effects. If I was going to add sounds then I would also add the TTS Asset Bundle Sounds component.
In the main Animation value, you want to add in your general animation that you want to show when you load up your model. In this case, I’m going to add in the Idle pose. You then want to decide how many animations you will be adding. I’m going to choose 4, including the idle pose.
You can now see that there are now 4 elements to choose from. Element 0 will be my idle pose, but I now need to change the other 3 elements to add in the animations I desire. I ended up choosing, idle, run, wash and sleep as my 4 animations.
You want to make sure the Play Automatically box is checked, so the animations will play right away and you want the Culling Type to be at “Always Animate”.
Now we go down to the TTS Asset Bundle Effects component and click the arrows to expand those options. At this time, we’re only going to be working with the Looping Effects, which will have our animations continually loop.
You want to put the same number for size that you had in the animations section and for each element, you need to name your animation, and either drag and drop your model into the animation section, or you can choose it from the list. And then you need to input the exact name of the element into the Animation Name section like so.
Once you’ve got your scripts in place, now you create a Prefab like before. Drag and drop into the Prefabs folder, name it what you’d like and then create a unique assetbundle name for it. Then right click anywhere in the prefabs folder and build your assetbundle!
Now we’ll go back into Tabletop Simulator and load it up. You want to do the same thing as before and go to Objects, Components, Custom and Asset Bundle. Look for your newly created Assetbundle, load it onto the Cloud, choose your type and material and import it.
Because my cat model has looping effects on it, when you hover over it, you can see the Assetbundle purple icon, which lets you know there are either looping or trigger effects. To see if your animations are working, right click on your model and choose one of the 4 looping effects.
One last thing I’m going to go over is how to add a trigger and sound effect to your assetbundle. Going back into Unity, we’re going to duplicate our first model with all the effects on it and then add on to it.
In the new copy, change the animation size to 5 and in Element 4, change it to whatever animation you want to be a trigger effect, in this case, I’m adding the dig animation.
Under the Assetbundle Effects, click the arrow under Trigger Effects to show more options. Change the size to 1 and add a name for the animation. Then under Sound, add in your audio clip and under duration, choose how long you want the sound to last. And drag in your object file into the animation component section.
Create a new prefab with a new name and new assetbundle name and then build your assetbundles like before.
Now when we load it up in Tabletop Simulator, when we right click and choose trigger effects, you can see my cat’s dig animation along with the sound to go with it! The animation will last as long as the trigger effect’s duration, so you want to make sure you have them at the correct length you want them to be.
And there you have it! You can create many different types of asset bundles to have various animations, sounds and particle effects. You can check out the Workshop to find some of the amazing things the community has already created.
Make sure to read over the custom assetbundle article in our Knowledge Base for even more info. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and it helps you in creating your own assetbundles!
If you have any questions, just post them in the comments below.
Thanks for watching and see you next time!
Understanding the UI¶
Tools Menu Part A¶
Transcript
Hi everyone, welcome to another Tutorial Series – all about the UI. I’m Kimiko with Berserk Games and this is part 1 – the Tools Menu. There are a lot of things we have added over the past year, so this is going to be an overview of the entire UI and how to use it.
Since there are a lot of different sections to the Tools menu, this particular tutorial will be broken up into two videos. This one is going to go over the Paint, Zones and Line tools.
The Tools Menu is located on the left side of your screen. These tools can be disabled by the host in the Host -> Options menu and will show up as grayed out if you cannot use them. I will briefly go over each tool and show you how you’d go about using them.
The drawing tools are pretty self explanatory. You can choose either the Vector or Pixel Paint tool to make pretty pictures, doodle while you’re waiting for your turn, or use it to write on objects if it’s needed in your games. There are some differences between the two, so you’ll want to see which option will work better for your needs.
The Pixel Paint tool only uses whatever color your player is. So if you’re blue, then your pixel paint color will be blue. If you want straight lines, then hold shift while drawing.
You can also click and then hold ALT and click again to draw a line from point to point. You can choose the eraser to erase what you want or click the trashcan to delete the entire drawing. You cannot draw on any objects or boards – just the table.
The Vector Tool has a lot more choices and has clean, crisp lines. It’s not dependent on your player color as you can use the color wheel to change the color of your pen. The eraser is used differently as it removes each vector line.
So if you draw an image with just one vector line and try to correct it by erasing, you will remove the entire image itself, so try to use multiple vector lines if you’re drawing something intricate.
There is also a limit to the number of vector lines you can have and that is 10,000 lines per player. Clicking the trashcan will remove all vector lines.
Another difference with the Vector Tool is that you can draw on objects. The object MUST be locked first, otherwise you will end up drawing on the table instead. You can also save and load objects that have been drawn on and they can also be placed in bags without losing the vector lines.
Both Vector and Pixel Paint drawings can be hidden in Hidden Zones, however you must make the Zone solid for them to be invisible.
The next tool is Zones. There are 4 options here to choose from – Hidden Zones, Randomized Zones, Hand Zones and Scripting Zones.
Hidden Zones are areas you can draw around the table to simulate a type of Fog of War. You can use these for RPGs or to just have your own private section on the table that you don’t want anyone else to see. This is good for cards that need to be face down on the table and not in your Hand Zone. Any object within these zones are hidden from other players. You can only see in your own Hidden Zone – so if you were pink, you’d only see within the pink zone.
To create a Hidden Zone, make sure you click the icon button or the F4 hot key and then left click and drag with your mouse to create your Zone. You cannot adjust zones after you create them, so it may take some practice to get them exactly how you want.
You can create multi-level Hidden Zones as long as the surface area is locked. So you can reveal one level at a time and feel confident your castles and dungeons won’t be seen by other players when they are in your Hidden Zones.
To change the color of the zones, right click the zone and choose your color of choice from the color wheel.
Right click the zone again and click the settings icon for additional options. Here you can hide pointers – which means no one will be able to see anyone else’s pointer in Hidden Zones other than their own.
You can check reverse hiding to make it so that everyone can see in your zone EXCEPT you. And lastly checking the see-through box will make your zone solid so now other things like drawings and boards will be hidden.
If you want multiple people to see in your zone, then join the same team. Keep in mind that you will also see in their Hidden Zone.
It’s very important to note that Hidden Zones do NOT prevent other players from interacting with your pieces. But if you have hands enabled in zones, you can monitor what they’re doing.
To delete a zone, just click on it while you’re in the Hidden Zone tool mode. You’ll know you’re in this mode because you’ll have a mini hidden zone icon next to your pointer.
The Game Master (player color black) manages games and can see all Hands and Hidden Zones. Game Masters do not take up a spot on the table, but they can use any available Hand or Hidden Zone to hide information. Only the host can choose Game Master or promote someone to Game Master.
Randomized Zones let you load up a game with sections that can be randomized. To create a Randomized Zone, make sure you click on the proper mode or press the F4 hotkey twice.
Hold the left mouse button and drag. When you draw your zone, you will notice it looks very similar to a Hidden Zone, but when you let go, a “Randomize all objects in this zone?” message will pop up. You can ignore it for now.
Set up your pieces how you want in your zone. Then right click on the zone and click the yes button. You will see your objects in your zone have been moved around. This isn’t going to work for dice as it doesn’t roll it for you, but it will move the objects around in a randomized way. This is great for tiles, cards, memory type games, RPGs and anything else you can think of.
If you have objects that are stacked, it will randomize the stacks as well. You will continue to have a stack, but the stack may have different objects in them. So there’s all kinds of different things you can do. Test it out for yourself!
You can create multiple zones of varying sizes so you can have one zone work for one group of objects and one for another. Keep in mind that the zones aren’t visible when you go back to your hand mode, so you can always create special mats to place underneath or use the drawing tools to help keep you organized.
Hand Zones are the areas where your cards and dominoes go above your name on the table. Hand Zones are hidden areas so only you, your teammates (if you join a team), or the Game Master can see inside of them.
When you click the Hand Zones tool or the F4 hotkey 3 times, a colored cube similar to the Hidden Zones is shown where each color placement is currently set to. If you don’t like where the hands are placed, you can move them to another location.
While having the Hand Zones tool selected, you can click any of the color cubes to delete them. Then just click and drag to make a new Hand Zone.
You can have as many Hand Zones of the same color as you’d like. Just keep in mind when dealing cards, if there are Hand Zones in the middle of the table, they can “grab” cards that would normally go to another color if they are in the way. So to ensure cards are being dealt properly, just deal to a specific color.
To change the color of the Hand Zone, just right click and choose from the color wheel.
Another cool thing you can do is move your name and avatar off the table so you have more space. To do this, you’ll need to delete all existing zones of that color first. Then create a zone in the spot that you want your name. After that, create the zone where you want your cards to go – it will have to be in front of the first zone so that the cards only go into the one in front.
Now when you deal cards, they will only go to the zone on the table, but your name will be off the table along with your avatar.
The Line Tool has two parts to it. The first part is the actual Line Tool. If you click on the Line Tool Icon or the F5 hotkey, you will now be in this mode and your pointer will turn into a ruler.
The line tool can be used for very basic measuring and our method of units is in inches. So each number you see above the line tool will represent that number of inches. It’s not the most perfect tool in the world, but it can be useful at times.
The second part is the Ping Arrow. When you have the Line Tool selected and just click with your mouse, you will see a 3D arrow on the table and hear a ping sound.
You can use this when it’s someone’s turn and you’re trying to get their attention, or if someone isn’t sure where to put something down, you can “ping” the location so they know where it’s supposed to go.
You can use both the line tool and ping arrow at any time by just clicking tab for ping and and holding tab plus moving your mouse for the Line Tool (Don’t click it though). This lets you quickly take measurements or ping someone without having to switch to the Line Tool mode.
And that concludes of the first part of the Tools Menu tutorial. The second part will cover the Flick, Joint, Text, Points and Gizmo tools.
Be sure to check out the Knowledge Base on our website for additional info.
See you in the next video!
Tools Menu Part B¶
Transcript
Tutorial: UI Overview Tools Menu Part 1b
Hi everyone, I’m Kimiko with Berserk Games. Welcome to the second part of the Tools Menu in the UI Overview Tutorial Series. I’m just going to continue where I left off in the first video, starting with the Flick Tool.
The Flick tool is a fun one for games that call for certain actions where you wouldn’t normally be able to play them, like pool and mini golf. There are lots of different ways you can make use of the Flick tool!
Select the Flick tool icon or press your F6 hotkey. Then click on the object you wish to flick, pull back and let go when you think you’ve got it! You will see numbers on it just like the Line tool. This will help give you an idea of how to adjust your flick “power” the next time. The further back you pull, the stronger the flick will be.
If you made a mistake on what you’d like to flick or the position of where the flick is pointing, just move the line tool back to the zero position and try again.
The Joints Tool is an advanced feature and there’s a lot to it, so it will take some time to master. I’ll be giving you a basic overview to get an idea of how it all works.
The Joints Tool allows you to connect objects together to create all sorts of things, like spinners, wheels, dials, and many other fun things.
Some good examples of the Joints Tool can be found in our Battle For Souls DLC with the Victory Points dial, the Monster Truck mod on the Workshop, and the Analogue Clock also on the Workshop. Links to the mods can be found in the description below.
To create a joint, select the Joint Tool or press the F7 Hotkey. Your pointer will turn into a chain link. Draw a line from one object to another, remembering to always connect to the base. Here, I’m connecting the red blocks to the larger blue block since I’ll be making the red blocks my wheels.
If you want to remember which part is your base, you can always lock it and mark it with the Vector Paint Tool or you can change the color of it by right clicking and choosing Color Tint.
We’ve linked objects together, but now what? Let’s see how we can manipulate parts of the joint.
Right click on the object you wish to modify. Here I’m selecting all the wheels by ctrl clicking and then right clicking on one of them to open up the Joints menu.
The Joints menu will pop up with 3 tabs for the different joints: Fixed, Hinge, and Spring. Each have their own properties that you can tweak. Mousing over each property will give a brief description.
Fixed Joints restricts an object’s movement to be dependent upon another object. So the object is welded in that exact position and orientation.
Fixed Joints are good for compound objects, like attaching a bunch of smaller objects to make a bigger object.
Hinge Joints group together objects, constraining them to move like they are connected by a hinge. Objects are connected positionally so things can rotate freely, but are still in the same relative position. Motor components also help to add power if needed.
Hinge Joints are good for making cars, doors, wheels, and spinners.
Spring Joints are a combination of fixed and hinge, but there’s some leeway so it can move away from itself. It’s like connecting an object with a rubberband.
Spring Joints are good for making snake-like objects, or objects that swing from the ceiling like a wrecking ball. We haven’t really seen anyone make good use of springs yet, so if you make something, post it below or on our forums so we can see it!
For this particular overview, I’m going to make changes to the Hinge tab. Since I want the red blocks to work like wheels, I need to make some changes to the Motor Force, Motor Velocity and check the Motor Free Spin box.
The Motor Velocity is the speed that my wheels are trying to attain, so this will make my little block car move super fast or super slow. Here it is moving slowly. Now if I increase the amount, you can see it moves much faster.
The Motor Force is how long it will take to get there. Just play around with it to really get a feel for it. It will take a lot of practice to get it right.
I have a few examples here showing how they move when I changed the Axis. One uses the X axis, one uses the Y and the one I wanted to use to make my little car move forward was the Z axis.
To unhinge a joint all you do is use the Joint Tool and click and drag from your jointed object to essentially nothing. Basically just drag it over the table and your object is now unjointed!
This is just one of many things you can do with the joint tool. Remember to check out the examples I mentioned earlier and have fun with it!
The Text Tool can be used on the table or on any locked objects, similar to the Vector Tool. To use the Text Tool select it on the side menu or press the F8 hotkey. Your pointer will turn into a T for the 3D pointer or a text caret for the 2D pointer.
Click anywhere on the table and enter in your text. You can modify the size of your text as well as change the color.
To delete text, just click the trashcan icon. To delete all the text that you have on the table, hover over the Text Tool icon on the left and click the trashcan icon from there.
To write text on actual objects like cards, books, etc, you need to first lock the object in place. So put the object where you want and then lock it. Then use the Text Tool and write on it as normal. Make sure the object is where you want permanently, because if you unlock it and try to move it, the text will remain on the table and will no longer be on the object.
At this time there is no way to move the text from the original spot. You’ll just need to delete it and type it out again.
The Points Tool is a fun one because it can really enhance the quality of your game and make moving and placing objects that much better.
There are two different kinds of Points.
First is the Snap Points.
While having the Snap Points Tool selected or pressing the F9 hotkey, you can place Snap Points anywhere on the board to make pieces “snap” into place like a magnet at specific locations. To make placement easier, you can also make use of the grid lines to easily place the Snap Points down if you need to do so in a straight line.
Rotation Snap Points are fun because while they work like the regular Snap Points, they go a step further. You can press the arrows to change the rotation of the Snap Point. This is good for things that are curved or need to be facing a certain position.
The points can be rotated every 15°. So if you placed a Rotation Snap Point and rotated it 45°, then when an object is placed down, it will snap into place and also rotate to that position.
Using points really make the positioning and rotation of objects easier to use and place down.
Points can also be placed on locked objects with the Points attaching to the locked object so you can easily move these around.
A couple important things to note:
Clicking on an unlocked object will place the snap point right where the object is, but is attached to the table and not the object.
Points can easily be moved by click-dragging if you don’t want to delete them. To delete a snap point, you just click the point while the Point Tool is selected. It will be highlighted red.
To delete all snap points, hover over the Points Tool icon and click the trash can.
The Gizmo Tools allow you to rotate and move objects without any limitations.
The Move Tool lets you move objects up, down, left and right. While you can also do this normally, you can use this for locked objects and intricate placement. There’s no need to unlock the objects to move them – keep them locked and use the Move Tool to place them where you want.
The Rotate Tool is used to rotate objects from 3 different axis. The colors are red, blue and green. When you have an axis selected, it will change to yellow. And just like the Move Tool, you can lock an object in place first and then rotate it to make it easier and get the exact positioning that you want.
And that covers everything about the Tools Menu. The next video in this series will be going over the Contextual Menu. You can find all this info and more in our Knowledge Base. If you still have questions about something, then please ask in our forums as we have a very helpful community!
Thanks for watching and see you next time!
Contextual Menu¶
Transcript
Welcome to the next video in this Tabletop Simulator UI Overview Series. I’m Kimiko with Berserk Games and I’m going to show you everything related to the Contextual Menu.
The Contextual Menu is the menu that pops up when you right click on an object. Depending on the object, you can get a different set of options in the menu. The contextual menu will work on all selected objects.
This video will go over the basic commands that you will find in the contextual menu for all objects. In future videos, we will cover the other object specific contextual menu options.
Toggles are what you can set on each object. You have 7 options to choose from – Lock, Grid, Snap, Auto Raise, Tooltip, Sticky, and Persistent.
Hovering over each option will give you basic information in the tool tip. These toggles are useful when you want to remove or add certain toggles to just one object, but keep them on for all the rest.
The Lock toggle let’s you lock or unlock an object. When the box is checked, the object is locked. The shortcut for locking an object is just hovering over it and pressing the L key.
The Grid toggle is on by default which allows an object to snap to the grid. The grid is a universal snapping system which allows you to snap objects into place with set size and spacing. You can check out all the grid options in the top menu under Host -> Grid.
Snap points are similar to the grid, but can be placed anywhere in the scene using the Points tool. This chess board has snap points in each space, so as you can see, the object snaps into the center of each space. If I no longer want it to snap, I just untoggle it in the menu and now my piece can move without snapping.
Auto Raise is also on by default and it automatically raises pieces you are holding above other objects to avoid collision. No matter how fast you try to move the piece over and around other objects, they won’t collide.
If you need the collision to happen in your games, then just untoggle the Auto Raise and it will no longer rise above other objects. You will have to manually do to it by pressing R.
The Tooltip can now be toggled on or off if you don’t want it to show up on a specific object. This is good for certain objects that need to be hidden in games, but the other objects still need to be named publicly.
The Sticky toggle is great, because you don’t have to wonder why you can’t get something to stack together like chips and cards. In some games, you need to place a token on a card and move that card around with the tokens on them.
Thanks to the Sticky toggle, you can do just that. If you don’t want pieces to “stick” on top of another, just make sure the bottom object has the Sticky toggle unchecked and it will no longer hold objects that are on top of it when lifted.
The final Toggle is Persistent. What this means is that you can mark an object as Persistent and it will continue to stay on your table no matter what game you change it to. This is good for those who want to keep listening to music on the mp3 player or watch videos on the Tablet, or anything that you need to have continue between games.
The next option in the basic menu is Save to Chest. Everything that you have on your table you can save for future use. You can save individual objects or save multiple objects all at once to your chest.
Just click Save to Chest in your Contextual menu, and name it what you want. You can either save it to one of your folders in your Chest or just save it as is. To create folders, you need to do it in the Chest under the Saved Objects folder.
Color Tint allows you to tint objects a wide variety of colors. This is a quick and easy way to create different game pieces with the same basic shape.
The Physics button brings up a separate menu with all kinds of options to play around with. In the Rigidbody tab, you can choose whether you want the object to use gravity or not, and you can modify the amounts for the Mass, Drag and Angular Drag of the object. Hover over each option to bring up the tooltip for more info.
In the Materials tab you can set the amounts for the Static Friction (when the object is lying still), Dynamic Friction (for when the object is already moving), and the Bounciness of the object.
The next section are actions you can do with an object like flip, rotate & scale. You can use the contextual menu for these actions or use the hotkeys for flip, & for rotate (or scrolling with the middle mouse button when holding an object), and the + or – keys for scaling up and down.
The Scripting option is an advanced feature and can be used to bring up the scripting window to add in scripts to a particular object. You can read more about Scripting in our Knowledge Base – the link is in the description below.
You can quickly duplicate or delete objects by clicking on the copy button and then right clicking on the table to paste. Keep in mind that you need to right click on a non-object in order for the paste to work. If you prefer to use hotkeys, you can use Ctrl C to copy, Ctrl V to paste and Ctrl X to cut or delete the object.
The final thing in the basic contextual menu is the Name and Description. You can name all objects here and when you hover over those objects, you will see the name in the tooltip.
If you want to add more info about this object, then you can add a description. When you hover over the object and stay hovered, the description will pop up after a couple of seconds.
If you want to name objects but don’t want them to show up so quickly, then you can use the description to name your objects since there is a delay before the tooltip pops up.
Naming objects is great because when you use the search feature on bags and decks, the objects are clearly named and easy to find. If you don’t name them, they will just show up as numbers in chronological order.
Named objects automatically show up as tooltips, but if you don’t want the tooltips to be shown, you can now disable them per object in the Toggles as mentioned previously.
And lastly, I’d like to go over the Global Contextual Menu. Right click anywhere that doesn’t have an object – like the basic tables and you will get a Global Contextual Menu.
This gives you a new option to save and load camera views. Move your camera where you want it to go, then click on Save Camera and choose a number. Press the spacebar to go back to your normal view. Now choose Load Camera and the number you chose previously. Your camera view will now move to the one you had saved. You can also use the hotkey ALT + the number to load, and CTL + the number to save. You can save up to 9 views.
You can also change your camera mode here from 3rd to 1st person view or you can easily use the Hotkey P to switch between them.
You can also access the Blindfold in the global contextual menu. Just click it to turn it on or you can use the B hotkey.
And that covers the basics of the Contextual Menu in this series. While there are still other parts of the Contextual menu, we will be going over those in more detail when we create other videos that will go over specific areas of Tabletop Simulator. We’ll also be making some fun videos like how to create a custom game from start to finish. Thanks for watching and see you next time!