Scene Design with Visual3D

Placing Objects into the Scene 

Different ways of placing objects and assets into the scene (as well as attaching them to other objects, or to layers), include:
 

1. "Painting" them on using Land Cover Brushes in the Terrain Editor (Scene > Terrain tab)

2. Drag-dropping them into the scene from Asset Explorer

Bridge Building (with Physics)
This video tutorial shows the user driving a car around a scene, placing objects, configuring them using Object Editor (for physics settings in this case) - all while the game is still playing (without even having to pause).

3. Adding Assets via Right-click (Context) Menus

4. Attaching Assets to an Object

You can also attach other types of Assets this way to an Object (or Entity / Actor), such as Behaviors, Scripts, Actions, etc.

4. Advanced Drag-drop for Selecting Attachment Site or Slot

If you hold down the right (instead of left) mouse key when drag-dropping an Asset / Object onto another Object (or the Scene), then you can select "how" you would like to attach an object, or specifically "which" object you would like to attach to (which is useful when you might want to attach to a parent object, instead of the specific Object Part you had drag-dropped onto). 
You can select from the "Attach To" context menu to attach to a certain "slot", such as Moint Points / Actor Attachment slots.

Equipping Weapons and Apparel using Attachment Slots

Additional Documentation

Also checkout the related Assets and Actors documentation:

Assets and Actors - Creating and Placing Avatars and Smart Objects; Configuring Behavior Presets

User Controls for Camera and Object Manipulation

User Controls Reference Sheet
Reference sheet for keyboard and mouse controls - both for editing/design using the toolset, and default user controls for demo games.

Camera and Object Manipulation Controls

Camera Controls for Default "Free Fly Mode":
1. Standard "WSAD" keys move the camera in Free Fly mode "forward, backward, and strafe".
2. Right-Click + Drag to turn the camera.
3. Middle-Click + Drag to do quicker analog motions of the camera. Very nice. Try it!
4. Mouse-Wheel levitates the camera (very convenient!).

"Standard Design Mode" Object Selection Controls:

1. Left-Click + Drag to move objects horizontally relative to camera. (Now press SHIFT to shift the plane of motion from horizontal to vertical!)
2. Press ALT key to slow down the manipulations for more refined control.
3. Left+Right buttons + Drag to Yaw/Rotate the selected object (convenient for quick placement). (Press CONTROL to toggle between group or local based rotations.)
4. Left-Click + CONTROL Key + Drag to Resize your selected objects (also convenient). (Press CONTROL to toggle between scaling the relative object spacing for Object Groups.)

"Object Focus Mode" - Design Mode Controls

(Note: many of the controls from "Standard Design Mode" controls still operate the same in this mode.) This mode is excellent for more quick/exact placement of objects relative to one another.
1. Mouse Wheel now does Zoom In/Out relative to your focus object.
2. Middle-Button + Drag to pivot your camera view around the focus object.
3. Right-Button + Drag to Yaw/Rotate the object (if allowed).

Real-time Scene Editing Tutorial

Transcript from this Video is shown here.

Welcome to the Visual3D Design Mode Tutorial, where you will experience the ease of our scene layout and object manipulation techniques.

What you seeing now is a short preview of the Lost Isle demo scene which is included in the most recent Visual3D Beta release. We encourage you to download Visual3D for free and experience our toolset firsthand. This Lost Isle demo scene was entirely created and painted using the Visual3D toolset. This tutorial will expose you to a few of the core techniques which help to make this an easy and fun experience.

After entering the Lost Isle demo scene, switch into Design Mode by pressing the F2 key or by clicking on the Design tab at the top of your Scene View window. To select objects for manipulation, Left-click them with your mouse. Use Shift or Control keys while left-clicking to select Multiple Objects. To move objects along the contour of this terrain, just Left Click and Drag. To move objects Vertically, press the SHIFT key. To rotate objects on the Y-axis, press the Left and Right mouse buttons together while dragging. To resize an object, press the Control key and Left button while Dragging the mouse.

Double-click and object to set camera focus on it for more exact manipulations. Now you will find yourself in Object Focus mode, where the camera view is centered on your selected object. In this mode, your camera motion is synchronized with the selected object's motion. Press the Middle-mouse button and drag to rotate your camera around the selected object to attain the optimum view angle. Right click and drag to rotate the object on its Y-Axis.

Visual3D provides the ability to create Object Groups for more convenient manipulation of many objects at once. To Toggle Grouping for the selected objects, press "Control-G" on your keyboard. You can save Object Groups to the Asset Library as a single asset that can be freely dropped multiple times into any scene. Here, we have saved these two huts to the Asset Library. Now we dropping into the scene multiple instances of these two huts to demonstrate the convenience and ease of using Object Groups.

Now we will employ these techniques to quickly create several stacks of barrels. The Green Lined Box you see here, indicates that these barrels all belong to the same group, which enables you to manipulate them in unison.

Now press "Control+D" on the keyboard to duplicate the selected assets in place. Now move the new duplicate objects by clicking and dragging on them. Here, we using the SHIFT key to drag our new barrels upwards to create a taller stack of barrels. Now we press "Control-G" to create a new group which encapsulates this taller stack of barrels.

We again use "Control+D" to duplicate the barrels to create two more stacks just like it. Again we use "Control+G" to merge these barrels into a single group, which can then be saved to our asset library for re-use. Notice how these barrels are now manipulated in Unison, and yet each column follows the contour of the ground independently.

With Visual3D, you can configure each of your 3D models with physics that will automatically behave realistically in the scene. Notice how these barrels are all pre-configured with an appropriate shape and mass which now behaves realistically in the scene.

Also Notice also the advanced shadows pre-configured for nearly everything in this scene, to produce the desired immersive gaming experience.

Older Video Tutorials

Placing and Manipulating Objects 

Video tutorial showing how to manipulate objects using the mouse, and using the "Object Manipulator" Widget / Gadget / Grips.
Camera User Controls
Controlling Avatars