Skip to content

Glossary

One name for each idea. Each entry says what the word means, where you meet it in HammerForge, the words not to use for it, and the code's own name where that differs on purpose. A pull request that adds an idea adds its term here, and a test fails when a label, tooltip, toast, message or page uses a word an entry lists under Don't use.

Building

Brush

A convex solid the level is built from, drawn with Draw, Polygon or Path, or made by a structure, a prefab or an import.

  • In HammerForge: the Build tab, the viewport, Validate and the Agent Bridge's hf_get_brushes.
  • Code name: DraftBrush.

Solid brush

A brush that adds its volume to the level. One of the two kinds a draw makes; the Build tab's Solid button and Toggle Solid / Cut (Q) choose it.

  • In HammerForge: the Build tab, the palette, the context toolbar, Validate.
  • Don't use: additive brush, add brush, union brush.
  • Code name: CSGShape3D.OPERATION_UNION. The bridge takes "union" for it.

Cut brush

A brush that removes its volume from the solid brushes it overlaps, for a doorway or a window. The Build tab's Cut button chooses it. A cut waits as a pending cut until it is applied.

  • In HammerForge: the Build tab, Validate ("Cut brush cuts no solid brush"), Apply Pending Cuts and Commit Cuts.
  • Don't use: subtractive brush, subtract brush, subtraction brush, cutout brush, negative brush.
  • Code name: CSGShape3D.OPERATION_SUBTRACTION. The bridge takes "subtract" for it.

Pending cut

A cut brush drawn and not yet applied. It shows as an overlay and changes nothing until Apply Pending Cuts.

  • In HammerForge: the Build tab, the palette, Validate.

Commit

To make pending cuts final: Commit Cuts keeps the cut brushes as hidden cutters the bake reads, so the solid brushes stay editable.

  • In HammerForge: the palette, the Build tab.

Cut preview

The live view of what a cut brush will remove from the brushes it overlaps, before the cut is applied.

  • In HammerForge: the Manage tab and the Console's Controls.
  • Don't use: subtract preview.
  • Code name: subtract_preview.

Carve

Cut one brush's shape out of every brush it overlaps, replacing them with their pieces and using the carver up. Not the same as a cut brush, which waits and can be undone by moving it.

  • In HammerForge: the palette, the context toolbar, Ctrl+Shift+R.

Hollow

Shell a brush into walls of a set thickness, inward from each face.

  • In HammerForge: the palette, Selection Tools, Ctrl+H.

Clip

Cut the selected brushes along a plane and keep one side or both.

  • In HammerForge: the Clip tool, the palette.

Merge

Join brushes into the one convex brush they make together. Refused when they do not touch or would make an L.

  • In HammerForge: the palette, the context toolbar.

Hull

One brush that is the convex hull of the selected brushes' corners, or of points clicked with the Hull tool, whether they touch or not.

  • In HammerForge: Hull of Selection and the Hull tool.

Sweep

A run of brushes made by carrying picked faces along a straight run, an arc or an S bend, one convex brush per piece, the pieces meeting face to face. A sweep is a structure: select a piece and Update Sweep builds it again with new values.

  • In HammerForge: Sweep Faces in the palette, its pivot and end handles in the viewport, the Build tab's Structure section.
  • Not to be confused with: Sweep Select, which picks brushes and makes none.

Sweep Select

Holding its key, I by default, and dragging in the Select tool: each brush or face the pointer passes over joins the selection, or leaves it when the first one passed was selected already.

  • In HammerForge: the Select tool and Face Select, the shortcut HUD.
  • Code name: HFSweepSelect, and sweep_select_hold in the keymap.

Grid angle

How far the floor grid is turned about up, so a part of a level set at an angle is drawn square to it. 0 is the world's grid.

  • In HammerForge: the Angle field beside the grid size, Align Grid to Selection with an edge or a turned brush, the HUD's grid label, Reset Grid.
  • Code name: HFGridSystem.turn_degrees.

Face

One flat side of a brush, with its own material and texture settings.

  • In HammerForge: Face Select, the Paint tab, the UV editor.
  • Code name: FaceData.

Face selection

The faces picked in Face Select, which the Paint tab's buttons and boxes edit.

  • In HammerForge: Face Select, the Paint tab.

Structure

A shape built from settings and kept editable: stairs, a spiral stair, an arch, a dome, a ring, a door frame, a trim run or a sweep. Change its settings and the pieces are built again; Detach makes them plain brushes.

  • In HammerForge: the Build tab's Structure section, the palette, the bridge's update_structure and detach_structure.
  • Don't use: generator.
  • Code name: generator (HFGenerator, HFGeneratorSystem), the record that keeps a structure editable.

Materials and texture

Material

What a face is drawn with: a texture and how it shades.

  • In HammerForge: the Paint tab, the material browser.

Palette

The level's list of materials, by slot. A face stores the slot it wears.

  • In HammerForge: the material browser's Palette view, Replace Material.

Active Material

The whole brush material every new brush is made with.

  • In HammerForge: the Build tab.

Texture group

Faces linked into one surface, which share one mapping, so an edit to any of them is an edit to all.

  • In HammerForge: Link in the Paint tab, called Linked Surfaces in the guide.
  • Code name: uv_group.

Floor paint

Painting the floor by grid cells on a paint layer, with walls raised round what is painted.

  • In HammerForge: the Paint tab's floor tools.

Paint layer

One layer of floor paint, at its own height.

  • In HammerForge: the Paint tab.

Connector

A ramp or a step that joins two paint layers.

  • In HammerForge: the Paint tab.

Sculpt

Heights laid over a four cornered face to make it uneven, for terrain.

  • In HammerForge: the Paint tab's sculpt tools.
  • Code name: displacement (HFDisplacementData).

Objects

Prefab

A saved piece of a level, brushes and entities with their wiring, that can be placed again.

  • In HammerForge: the prefab library, Save Prefab, Quick Save Prefab.

Prefab copy

A prefab placed in a level. A linked copy follows its prefab when it is pushed or pulled.

  • In HammerForge: the prefab library, Unlink Prefab Copy.
  • Code name: instance (HFPrefab instance records).

Variant

One of a prefab's alternative versions, which Cycle Variant switches a copy between.

  • In HammerForge: the palette, the prefab library.

Visgroup

A named set of brushes and entities that is shown, hidden or locked together. A brush can be in several.

  • In HammerForge: the Manage tab's Visgroups & Groups.

Group

Brushes and entities that select and move together, under a name. A brush is in one group, and a group can be inside another. Opening a group lets its members be picked one at a time. A visgroup decides what is seen; a group decides what is picked up together.

  • In HammerForge: the Manage tab's Visgroups & Groups and its Groups list, Group and Ungroup, Open Group.

View Filters

The editor's own way to hide a kind of thing, such as triggers or lights, without a visgroup. Never saved with the level, and ignored by the bake.

  • In HammerForge: the Manage tab.

Brush entity

A brush that is an entity, a trigger, a door or a button, with a class and properties.

  • In HammerForge: the Entity tab, Tie to Entity.

Point entity

An entity at a point, with no brush: a light, a sound, a prop, a spawn or a piece of logic.

  • In HammerForge: the Entity tab, the Entities palette.
  • Code name: DraftEntity.

Output

What an entity sends when something happens to it, aimed at another entity's input.

  • In HammerForge: the I/O section of the Entity tab.

Input

What an entity does when an output reaches it.

  • In HammerForge: the I/O section of the Entity tab.

Wire

One connection from an output to an input, drawn between the two in the viewport.

  • In HammerForge: the I/O section, the viewport's I/O wires.

Spawn

Where the player starts in a playtest.

  • In HammerForge: the Test tab, the spawn entity.

Dimension

A length kept in the level. Each end is attached to the brush vertex, edge middle or face centre it lies on, or is a point of its own, and a check can hold the length to the player's sizes or to a value. Like a note, it is never baked or exported.

  • In HammerForge: K in the Measure tool, Keep Ruler as Dimension, Validate.

The level and its files

LevelRoot

The node a level lives under, which holds its brushes, entities and settings.

  • In HammerForge: the scene tree.

.hflevel

The level's own file, the source of truth for what a level holds.

  • In HammerForge: Save and Load in the Manage tab, autosave.

Autosave

A copy of the .hflevel written in the background as you work.

  • In HammerForge: the Console's Controls.

Cordon

A box that limits what a partial bake takes.

  • In HammerForge: the Manage tab.

Bake

Turning the brushes into the meshes, collision and lighting a game runs.

  • In HammerForge: the Bake section, Bake, Bake Selected.

Bake profile

A saved set of bake settings, to switch between fast and full bakes.

  • In HammerForge: the Bake section.

Chunk

One piece of a level the bake splits a big level into.

  • In HammerForge: the Bake section.

Collision

The solid shape the player bumps into, which the bake makes from the brushes.

  • In HammerForge: the Bake section, clip brushes.

Playtest

Running the level from the editor to walk round it.

  • In HammerForge: the Test tab, Quick Play.

Validate

The check that lists problems in the level, each with a way to fix it.

  • In HammerForge: the Manage tab, Ctrl+Shift+Enter.

Tools and history

Console

The dock panel with the log and the level's Controls.

  • In HammerForge: the dock.

Agent Bridge

The connection an agent drives HammerForge through, by MCP.

  • In HammerForge: the Agent Bridge guide.

Revision

The bridge's count of changes to a level, so an agent can tell when it moved.

  • In HammerForge: the Agent Bridge.

Undo step

One entry in the undo history. Most commands make one; a run of quick nudges merges into one.

  • In HammerForge: Ctrl+Z, the Undo History browser.

Adjust Last

Changing the settings of the command that just ran. Its step is made again with the new values, so the history still holds one step for it.

  • In HammerForge: the Adjust panel in the viewport's corner, Adjust Last in the palette.

Repeat Run

Every command, move and turn since the selection last changed by hand, played again on what is selected now as one undo step. Repeat Last Command plays only the last command.

  • In HammerForge: the palette.

Guide

A dotted line from a marked snap point along a world axis. A point placed near one lands on it, or where two cross.

  • In HammerForge: rest the pointer on a snap point, Track Point for Guides, Clear Guides.