Commands - Creation

In this section we are listing all the commands that are here to help you create objects, components, assets and scriptable objects

Add Components

Creates new components on the selected GameObjects, with the types specified

Quick Name: AC

Hot Keys: CTRL+'+'

Usage: This command adds few components at once to all the selected objects: this is useful when multi-selection is normally not available, or when you want to add more than one component at once. Because MonKey fuzzy search is more clever than Unity's, it's also easier to find components this way.

Example: You want to add a collider, a rigidbody and a navmesh obstacle component to few boxes on the scene: you can do that in one call of the command after having selected the objects!

Attach New Material

Creates and attaches a new material in the selected folder to the selected objects

Quick Name: AM

Usage: This command is especially useful when white boxing a level: changing the color of some elements in order to visually group them becomes extremely easy as you can create new materials on the fly and change their colors

Example: You are creating a white box level of a forest, and want to mark different cylinders as a placeholder for trees: using this command, you can instantly set the color of those cylinder to green to make them easier to recognize

Copy Component

Copies the first component of the first selected object of the type specified to use later

Quick Name: CC

Hot Keys: CTRL+ALT+C

Usage: The default "Copy Component" is hard to click on, and not convenient to access when many components are present on a game object. This command simply makes it easier to access!

Example: You want to copy a component that's hidden in a massive list of other components. You can manually look for it and waste your time, or you can let MonKey find it for you if you know its type or name :)

Duplicate

Duplicates the selected objects, by default 5 times

Quick Name: D

Hot Keys: CTRL+SHIFT+D

Usage: Works on both assets and scene objects. On assets, this is especially useful for large projects: duplicating an object is very slow in Unity as the engine needs to reimport some assets and keep track of the newly created asset. When you want to duplicate few objects few times this is both annoying and time consuming. For scene objects, this is useful when you duplicate an object a large amount of times at onces (to not have to spam the CTRL+D hotkey)

Example: You have a scriptable object representing damage type in your asset. You want to create 5 more damage types, but you work on a large project with a lot of assets. Duplicating the object even once can already take few dozens of seconds, which can lead to you switching to any time wasting activity, social medias and so on (it happens to us...), but when you need to do it several time, knowing that you will have to repeat the operation few times can really waste your time. If you use the duplicate command, you know that your duplication is in progress, and you can safely start another task while waiting for it to complete. It will also execute faster as you wont have to interact with the editor and wait for it to stop to freeze when the duplicated asset was just imported.

Duplicate On Axis

Duplicates the selected object along the axis indicated, separated by a given distance

Quick Name: DA

Hot Keys: CTRL+LEFT

Usage: This command is mainly useful when you want to create a geometrical repetition in your level, and ensure that the distance between objects is exact and not approximate.

Example: You are creating light posts on a street: by using this command you can duplicate the light posts along the street to have them properly aligned.

If the street is not entirely flat, you can then use the "Move Until Collision" command to make sure your posts are properly connected to the ground.

Duplicate Under Mouse

Duplicates the selected objects randomly under the raycasted position of the mouse (new instance for prefabs)

Quick Name: DM

Hot Keys: CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+D

Usage: One of our favorite commands in MonKey! This is extremely useful when you want to position few instances of the same object across a large level. The command will keep prefab instances as instances, which makes is very convenient. Polybrush has a similar functionality, but its interface slows down very much the process, here you just need to select your object to already be able to use the command. Once done, the command will select all the created objects, which lets you apply other operations on the selection right after.

Example: You want to duplicate a rock that is an instance of a prefab over a terrain in a precise way (or just scatter them around): this command will let you copy the instance around,

Duplicate to Scene

Duplicates the selected objects in another scene

Quick Name: DS

Usage: Lets you duplicate few objects to a scene without having to open it. Sometimes you are working on a functionality you want on few levels, or you want to use a scene as a template for other scenes: this lets you quickly update other scenes but allowing you to stay on the current scene while updating the ones you want.

Example: You are adding a new canvas on your scene that represents the score of the level, and want to ad the same canvas to two other similar levels: you can call this command twice to do that without having to open those two scenes.

New Instances Between

Creates new prefab instances between the two first selected objects

Quick Name: NB

Hot Keys: CTRL+ALT+I

Usage: This command is useful when creating repetitive elements between two other: this way you dont have to manually duplicate and adjust the position of each single copy.

Example: You are creating a room with columns, and want to create 10 columns between each corners of the room: using this command lets you create them at once.

New Children

Creates new children for the selected game objects

Quick Name: NC

Usage: This command may seem to have very little usage at first, but it can be a time save when you want to create few objects that will hold a reference without having to manually duplicate them.

Example: You are making an object that will contain references to states of phases of gameplay, and to which you need to add a custom behaviour so that it is registered by one other object. Using this command allows you to directly create all those states i one go: create the amount of object you need at once, and then add a component to all of them at once.

New GameObject With Components

Creates a new object with the selected component types

Quick Name: NGC

Usage: This command just combines the creation of a new object with components already attached to it: this can be useful when there are a lot of components you want to add to an object.

Example: You want to create a new object that contains few of your custom components right away: you can enter their type in the console and have it ready at once.

New GameObjects Under Mouse

Creates new objects under the raycasted position of the mouse

Quick Name: NG

Usage: Creates new emtpy game objects under the mouse. This is most useful when you want to create some objects only used for measurement . You can then spawn then in places that you know you will use as references, and add an icon / tag to them to reuse them later.

Example: You want to mark each corner of the room to use it for object placement and measurement: you can create empty objects at these location, and add an icon to them to reuse them later with MonKey.

New Instances

Instantiates the specified prefabs under the selected objects (by default one of each prefab selected)

Quick Name: NI

Usage: One of the most useful command, with two main usages: if you want to quickly instantiate few prefabs to edit them on the scene and then applly the changes, or if you want to quickly add to your scene a bunch of prefabs that cover a functionality.

Example: You have an action game with few prefabs representing the attacks of the character: you want to edit the damage of 3 attacks: using this commands lets you directly instantiate the 3, so that you can then make the modification you want and even use the "Apply Prefab" command to directly apply all the changes

New Instances Under Mouse

Instantiates prefabs interactively at the mouse position, randomly from a list of selected prefabs

Quick Name: NIM

Hot Keys: CTRL+I

Usage: Another very useful command, very similar to "New Instances". Here the instances created are position under the mouse, which accelerates a lot the level design. When you select few prefabs to instantiate it will select randomly the one to instantiate which is perfect for creating environments

Example: You want to create a forest, and have 3 tree models: using this command allow you to quickly place them around to create a convincing forest. To reinforce the effect, you can then use the "Randomize Rotation" or the "Randomize Scale" commands to bring more life to it.

New Parent

Creates a parent object for the selection

Quick Name: NP

Hot Keys: CTRL+M

Usage: This command is one of the ones we use the most often: it creates a parent for all the selected object no matter where they are in the hierarchy. The new parent will be under the upmost common transform of all the selected object. This is very useful when you want to group few objects together to clean your hierarchy or group objects for an easier selection later. The command will also automatically add a RectTransform if needed.

Example: You position big stones in circle to represent a magical ring, and want to group the together so that they're easier to select all at once: using this command will do exactly this.

New Parent For Each

Creates a new parent for each of the selected objects

Quick Name: NPE

Hot Keys: CTRL+ALT+N

Usage: This command is useful when you want to create few pivot points at once. This is especially useful when working on UI: very often you need to reparent few images so that they can fit in a background, or have a different anchor point.

Example: You are creating a UI with few images, but you now want each images to have a framing: you need to add a parent object to all images to do so: this command will help do that faster.

New Primitive Under Mouse

Creates a new primitive object under the mouse

Quick Name: NPM

Usage: Primitives are quite central in white boxing, so this command is very useful when you want to accelerate the very start of your scene creation.

Example: You are making a new level and want to put few boxes to represent obstacle: using this command will help you do this fast.

New Siblings

Creates new siblings for the selected game objects

Quick Name: NS

Usage: Creating new siblings can be useful when you want to create a lot of them, for instance to represent grid positions. You can then use this command to create exactly the amount of siblings you want without having to spam the duplicate key.

Example: You want to create a grid of points where each point is a game object. You can use this command to create all your point, and then spread them as a grid using "Align Axis".

Paste Component As New

Paste the previously copied component as a new one on the selected gameObjects

Quick Name: PN

Hot Keys: CTRL+,

Usage: This command is equivalent to clicking on the gearbox next to a component in the inspector window, but it's more convenient and faster: the gear icon is very small and annoying to click... What's more is that this will paste the component on all the objects selected, which can save a lot of time.

Example: You want to copy one component that represents some character abilities form one character to another while keeping the same values. After using the "Copy Component" command, you use this one to paste the component on the object quickly.

Paste Component Value

Paste the previously copied component values in place of the first one of its type in the selected object

Quick Name: PV

Hot Keys: CTRL+.

Usage: Similar to "Paste Component As New" but only pastes the values.

Example: you want to change the health component of one enemy so that it has the same values in use as another one: you can replace the values on few of them using this command.

Paste Component Value All

Paste the previously copied component values in place of all of its type in the selected object

Quick Name: PVA

Usage: Similar to "Paste Component As New" but only pastes the values, and pastes the values on all the components of the copied type present on the selected gameobjects.

Example: you want to change the health component of one enemy so that it has the same values in use as another one: you can replace the values on few of them using this command.

Replace Components

Replaces the first component of the type specified by another one of another type on all objects

Quick Name: RC

Hot Keys: CTRL+/

Usage: This command switches one type of component into another. This is especially useful when wanting to change the behavior of a lot of objects at once when the component you are using does not require much configuration.

Example: You are using an asset for a tree that by default has a meshcolldier on it. You want to use some trees as dynamic objects on the seen, so you want to replace the mesh collider by a box colldier: you can do that in one call by using this command.

Remove Component

Removes the first components of the type specified on all objects

Quick Name: REC

Usage: Sometimes you just want to use an asset as a graphical one without all the components it normaly has, or you want to quickly remove a faulty behavior on few objects.

Example: You are using a tree that contains a collider, but you just want to use a group of them in the background, far from any interactions: you can remove all the colliders from the trees with this command.

Replace Selected GameObjects

Replaces the selection with objects specified

Quick Name: RS

Usage: One of the most useful command: replacing object happens to us all the time. In Unity, there is no quick way to do that: you need to manually delete the previous object and put a new one. This command can help you quickly iterate the look or the balance of the game.

Example: You want to switch few tree models in the area of a forest while keeping the same position and scale just to iterate the looks and make tests. This command will help you change pine trees into oak trees in one call.

Replace Material

Replaces the first material on all the meshrenderers of the objects selected

Quick Name: RM

Usage: This command is very useful when you want to do local modifications to objects without changing prefabs, and experiment with the look of your game.

Example: You have wooden barrels on your level, and you want to change some of them into metal ones just as a visual test: this command is a faster alternative to finding the material and linking it.

Duplicate Mirror Point

Duplicates an objects following a point symmetry

Quick Name: DMP

Usage: This can be very useful when dealing with repetitive patterns, and to make sure that the positioning of objects is exact.

Example: You want to create a perfectly symmetrical room centered around a pattern on the ground: this command can help you create an exact symmetry