Copies: Alt+Drag and Alt+Enter

Copy the selection with an Alt gizmo gesture, repeat the last copy with Alt+Enter, lay out rows of copies from the Touch&Type window and stamp copies in Quick mode.

Alt+Drag copies

As in the standard editor, a copy is made with the same gesture as a move: hold Alt and drag.

1. Select one or more actors.
2. Hold Alt and start dragging any part of the gizmo — Translate, Rotate or Scale.
3. The moment the drag starts, SuperPlacer copies the whole selection. The originals stay where they are, and the rest of the gesture moves, turns or scales the copies.
4. Release the mouse button. The copies stay selected, so you can keep working with them right away.

Good to know:

• Alt must be held when the drag starts. Pressing Alt in the middle of a gesture does not make a copy.
• The pivot is not reset: if you moved it in Edit Pivot, the copies turn and scale around the same point.
• Copies are made the same way as the editor's standard duplicate, so Blueprint actors and other complex actors are copied whole. The editor names the copies itself.
• The copy and its move are undone in one Ctrl+Z step.

Cancelling a copy with the right mouse button

If you change your mind in the middle of an Alt+Drag, click the right mouse button without releasing the left one. The whole gesture is cancelled: the copies are deleted, and the selection returns to the originals, which never moved.

Once you release the left button, the copy is done. Remove it with a regular Ctrl+Z.

Repeating with Alt+Enter or Touch&Type Copy Checkbox

Alt+Enter outside the Touch&Type window repeats the last copy: it duplicates the current selection and applies the same move, turn or scale as last time. Like Ctrl+D in Illustrator, only in 3D.

1. Make a copy with Alt+Drag — for example, move the copy 200 units along Y.
2. Press Alt+Enter. One more copy appears, another 200 units further. The new copy becomes the selection.
3. Keep pressing Alt+Enter — each press extends the row. Hold the keys down, and copies keep coming at the keyboard's auto-repeat rate.

A repeated turn runs around the same axis and the same pivot as the original gesture. That is how you get copies along an arc: put the pivot in the middle of a table in Edit Pivot, copy a chair with a 30° turn using Alt+Drag, then press Alt+Enter until the chairs close the circle. Scale repeats around the pivot too: move the pivot aside and scale a copy down with Alt+Drag — each Alt+Enter places the next copy smaller still and closer to the pivot.

The same circle can be built with exact numbers. In Edit Pivot, with the Translate gizmo, take the table's position with the eyedropper (I) — the pivot moves to its centre. Leave Edit Pivot, click the Z ring of the Rotate gizmo, type the angle in the Touch&Type window and turn on the Copy checkbox with the number of copies you need (see A row of copies).

Each repeat is undone as a separate Ctrl+Z step.

Copies made with Alt+Drag and with the Touch&Type window (see below) are remembered. A plain drag without Alt does not overwrite the last copy.

Copies with Transform Each

With Transform Each on (Shift+E), a gesture applies to each actor separately — and to copies as well. Alt+Drag copies the whole selection, but each copy moves, turns or scales in its own place, and Alt+Enter continues each of them.

It shows best in the Local coordinate system, where each actor moves along its own axis. Select a few chairs turned slightly differently, turn on Transform Each and Local, copy them with Alt+Drag along one of the gizmo axes, then press Alt+Enter a few times. Each chair grows its own row — in the direction that chair faces.

Copying spline points

Spline points can be copied too — the point is copied, not the whole actor:

• a copy of the end point of an open spline becomes its new end — the spline gets longer;
• a copy of a middle point lands next to the original — the spline gets a new point.

Every method on this page works here: Alt+Drag, the Touch&Type window and the Alt+Enter repeat. For example, extend a polyline with evenly spaced points:

1. Select the end point and pick the Local coordinate system — the gizmo axes are derived from the curve itself (see Spline support).
2. Click the X arrow of the gizmo and type the step. In Local the Position (Local) field starts at zero, so the number you type is the offset.
3. Press Alt+Enter — a new point appears on the continuation of the spline and becomes the selection.
4. Keep pressing Alt+Enter: each press adds one more point with the same step.

Copies with Touch&Type

In the Touch&Type window you can copy with exact numbers.

One copy: Alt+Enter in the window

1. Make a gesture or type a number — the Touch&Type window opens, and the selection already stands in its new place.
2. Hold Alt. The selection goes back, and a preview of the copy shows where it will appear.
3. Press Alt+Enter. The originals stay where they were, the copy lands at the typed value and becomes the selection.

The hint at the bottom of the window reminds you: Enter=OK Alt+Enter=Clone Esc=Cancel. The copy is undone in one Ctrl+Z step, and the next Alt+Enter outside the window repeats it with the same step.

A row of copies: the Copy checkbox

Below the input fields there is a Copy checkbox. It appears when the window is open for position, rotation, scale or move distance.

1. Type the step — for example, press + as the first key in the X field and type 200.
2. Turn on Copy. A Count: field appears next to it — the number of copies, from 1 to 100.
3. Set Count. Previews of all the copies show in the viewport right away, and the originals stay in place.
4. Press Enter — in this mode the hint at the bottom of the window reads Enter=Copy Esc=Cancel.

The copies line up: the first is one step from the original, the second two steps, and so on. The last copy of the row becomes the selection, and the pivot stays where it was. The whole row is undone in one Ctrl+Z step.

Alt+Enter after such a row continues it: each press adds as many copies again with the same step. For example, after Count: 3 the next Alt+Enter places copies at the fourth, fifth and sixth step.

The Copy checkbox and the Count value are remembered between openings of the window.

Copies in Quick mode

In Quick mode you stamp copies with clicks, like a brush, while the selection follows the mouse.

• Hold Alt — the original stays in its starting place, and a preview of the copy follows the mouse.
• Left-click with Alt held — a copy stays at the current spot, and the preview keeps following the mouse. Release Alt, and the mouse leads the original itself again.
• Start the Quick gesture by clicking the yellow dot with Alt held, and the whole gesture stamps copies: every click leaves a copy without holding Alt.

Ctrl+Shift + wheel with Alt held scales only the future copies: the original keeps its own scale in its place. Release Alt, and the scale returns to the original's. Scale with the wheel without Alt, and the original itself changes — the copies then start from its new scale.

Each copy is a separate Ctrl+Z step. In this gesture the original serves only as a "brush": end the gesture with Esc or the right mouse button, and the original returns to its starting place while all the copies stay. Switch to a gizmo instead (W, E, R) or press Enter, and one more copy stays at the current spot and becomes the selection, while the original returns home as well. C does not end the stamping: it pauses while you change the pivot in Edit Pivot and resumes after you leave — see Quick mode.