There are little tips and tricks out there which can help you with the more fiddly tasks involved in making a game and today I wanted to talk about one of them which I use all the time when building out levels.

Did you know you can use a keyboard shortcut to drop an asset so it is flush with a surface?

If you would prefer to watch the video version, check it out here

It’s super simple to do. First click on an asset, then press the End key on your keyboard. This will align the asset flush with the surface directly below as you can see in the GIF below.

This can be used on almost any asset in the editor viewport: static meshes, skel meshes, player starts, lights etc. It’s great when you are filling up your level with props. For example, rather than painstakingly trying to ensure your assets sit flush with the surface of your table you can simply drag them above and use the keyboard shortcut to quickly drop them.

I also frequently use this technique when placing player starts, as if they are not flush with the ground you can get problems where: either the pawn will not spawn (collision colliding with the ground) or they will have bumps when they spawn (collision too high off the ground).

An important thing to remember is that the surface that you are dropping an asset onto needs to have collision for it to work correctly. In the example below, you can see when using the End key when collision is turned off the red cube drops to the next surface down with collision. As soon as I re-enable the collision and try to drop the cube again, it works correctly.

This is definitely a technique that should add to your UE4 mental toolkit, you won’t regret it!

If you want more quick tips & tricks FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER @cbGameDev

Also, check out the parkour game I'm solo developing called Freerunners. Give it a wishlist if you like the way it looks!: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1430330/Freerunners/