• First thing to know about the 2D Shaper is, that the shapes it creates with whatever tool is used in it,
    are made at the Z-axis, meaning vertical axis.
    This means, that the shape you work on in 2D shaper are seen from it's topview.
    So, when you put the shape in your map by the use of any tool available in the 2D shaper like extrusion or spinning, the shape will first be created at vertical position.

  • For example, you have created a Circle shape in the 2DS, and you extrude it to 128, then you will obtain a vertical cylinder in UED, which you can see it's circel in topview. This is only an example to explain the behaviour of the 2DS, if you now make another shape it will also rise as a vertical shape in topview, but you can turn this right in place as any other brush or even element.
    (remember that you can turn anything the same way,like meshes or actors)

  • When you are back in the UED, go in top view, chose the rotating tool and in topview use both mouse buttonsand drag up, this will allow you to turn the shape in Front view. Now for a faster work, you may use the right mousebutton in top view to rotate it in place with the simple camera tool.

    The nice thing about this UED version is that the shape will keep this rotation, even if you rework the shape in 2DS. This is not the case in UED3.
    In UED3, each time you rework the shape, it will turn back to top view.

  • A good trick to work around with 2DS and UED togheter is to make the 2DS window half the UED screen, make it fit so that you have access to the viewbuttons. Then when you create your form in place, you may use the cheat tool to adjust the shape untill you get the right shape.
    This means that you can see both 2DS shape and the brush it will create in the selected view. This also means, that the windows you are using, are active where the mouse goes hovers.

  • If you hover from 2DS to UED topview, the mouse will have actions on the top view window. If you hover back to the 2DS window, the mouse will have actions in the 2DS window.
  • First something very important, the handles for the vertices made by the 2DS that build the actual shape have a certain order to respect, else you will end up with a closed shape if you intend to make an open shape.

  • An example will be easier to explain what i mean.
    If you intend to make a shape like the letter "C", then the shape is called open. If you don't respect the order of placing handles, you may end up with something close to the letter "O" instead of a "C".

  • So, very easy to understand, the order is clockwise. Select the vertex handle you wish to start from and add more handles using the "spilt segment" button in the 2DS toolbar or use CTRL+I. You can also use the DEL button to delete segemt handles, or use the Delete segment button , but know then that the next handle will come to the position of the deleted handle. You will see what i mean if you play with it for awhile.

  • You can select and drag several points at same time by holding the CTRL key. You could also select and drag the entire shape at once using it's "Orange" point, this is the shapes centerpoint, but beware of the small bug it contains. When you have created small segments using a smaller grid option earlier, If you are using the "Orange" point, the small segments you made at an angle may distort their shape and be put back to snap to the actual grid settings, so, better use CTRL and select each point you need to be moved.

  • You may also move the view of the window by using the right mousebutton and drag along. If you have difficulties to select the entire shape and drag it, you can always move the centerpoint of the 2DS creator, the "Green" which is the center "Pivot point" where the shape is spinned or rotated around. You can at any time see this point in UED. Have a look at any brush in UED, and you will see that it contains a midpoint or "Pivot".
  • You may want to create rounded shapes or curves called Bezier Segments.
    These are created using the "Bezier Segment" Button The first button you can see here allows you to pull the bezier segment back to a straight line segment, the next makes the actual bezier segments.
    Now, i'm pretty sure that you will have the next question > where can i find the bezier options then ? i can't see any here.
    OK, as i said before, all points are put in clockwise order, so select the first or sourcepoint that will start the curved line, then rightclick that point and a contextual menu will show up.

  • As shown here, select the "Segment" option.
    From there on you will have more options
  • Here you can select the bezier detail level, meaning, that you can define how many curve segments it will show.

  • This will show in the shape as, as many curve elements, as many surfaces on the 3D shape at the curve. The bezier handles are used and moved as any other vertex handle, just drag it around with the left mousebutton.
  • As creating a sheet or making the shape extruded, is very simple and contains also the same options as spinning, i will not explain them but put the options that spinning has more than those.

  • Now you know how to add handles (segments), make bezier curves and how to rotate the shape in UED. You also know what are the "Green" and "Orange" dot, I will explain how to make different spinning shapes with the "Green" Centerpoint called "Pivot Point".
    As i explained in other tutorials, this "Pivot Point" is very important, it allows presicion positioning of the brush, but also is used to spawn the sound used by movers, as i said before the sound of a mover or any other element comes from this "Pivot Point", and the movers also move from this "Pivot Point", So, watch and hear closely the next paragraph of how it works.

  • The "Pivot Point" is the "Green" point in the 2DS, so you got to think how you will position it in the 2DS to make it spin correctly to your likings.
    Let's take the letter"C" as example again and see how it is rotated around the "Green Pivot Point". If you would place the "Green Pivot Point" on the left side of the "C" shape, then the "C" shape would turn inside like turning around the "Green Pivot Point".
    If you would place the "Green Pivot Point" on the right side of the "C" shape, then the "C" shape would turn outside like turning away from the "Green Pivot Point".
    This all, of course, is defined by you, how you make the shape and what you intend to make the middle of the shape, I hope you understand that the middle is always a straight line for objects that are closed in the middle, and this defines the midpoint that spins around the "Green Pivot Point".
    Anyway, just remember that it is the part that is the closest to the "Green Pivot Point" that will be close to the "Pivot Point" in the UED.



  • As you can see, however, the shape will always turn around the "Green PivotPoint" as the "Green PivotPoint" IS the middle, and this will determine what will be the outside and the inside of the created shape.

  • Very simple but some explanation on the sections used.
    you can select how many section would form the complete shape, and how much you only want to use. Let's take an example of 16/4. This would mean that the complete shape, if you would make it complete, would have 16 segments, but you only used 4 sections to make a quarter of the completeshape, to use for examples corners on tunnels.

  • As you can see here, you just used 1/4 of 16 segments, making it 4 segments in use. Some would say, why then 16/4 and not 1/4, maths say it's the same,

  • Well you have to tell the engine how many segments out of how many segments for the complete you want to use and that is 4 out of 16 or 2 out of 8,

  • this determines how detailed the corner-shape will be made, you could also say 64/16, then you would have a cornerpiece with 16 segments watch out for the uprising polycount.


  • Extrude to point is nothing special, but it contains some special things that i'd better explain, as some people still don't know where it comes from or why it works that way. I am talking about the point where the extrusion points to. Well, yes, it's that "Green Pivot Point" again

  • The "Green Pivot Point" in 2DS tells the engine where the point of the shape will extrude to and with the options or parameters tell how high it would go to on what base. The optional parameter you put in it will tell how high the top will be. And pay attention where you put the "Green Pivot Point", because that's where the top will be, if you don't put it in the center of the shape then it will go on the top-side of the brush.


  • Extrude to Bevel is the same things than Extrude to point. The "Green Pivot Point" in 2DS tells the engine where the point of the shape will extrude to.

  • Here you will be given the option to say how high it would go, then cut the shape at a given hight. Like here 128 would be the hight limit, then cut it to 32.


  • You can zoom in and out at any time,but not with the usual mouse buttons.
    You will be given tool buttons for that matter instead.

  • You can turn the shape in all directions at 90° or 45°

  • You can also flip horizontaly or verticaly the shape

  • Or grow or shrink the shape

  • Within the menu you will discover more nice features explained in next section.
  • In the menu you will find options like open, save, save as, image from disc, insert new shape all will be explained here.
  • Open ... will open a 2D brush you've saved earlier
  • Save ... will just do that
  • save as ... good guess, save with another name
  • Now, the image from disk option is very special and nice, but beware of the file format as it may crash the engine without warning, you will lose all your current work. As you will see, only BMP format are allowed. You can load a BMP file and then design your shape out of the texture parts you need, for example a doorway or even a machinepart, just imagine what you could do with it or load my DM-Dreadnaught2 and have a look inside, you will discover shapes that i have cutted out of some textures used in that map.

  • Here will comein handy some grid adjustements, if you have to make smaller parts but the grid settings do not allowed it because the gridsize is to large, then you can set a smaller gridsize via the menu > Edit > Grid > Select your value (by default 16).

  • You will also find in the menu the ability to make more shapes at once. Very handy if you want to make'm all fit inside one brush. The limit is One brush will always remain and you can only delete points down to 3, means, at least 3 points will remain.
  • Each shape will have it's own "Orange" centerpoint.

  • The way the 2D shaper works and what it offers is so vast that i would like to call it an editor on it self within the UED. You can make almost anything with a small amount of brainwork and effort of imagination.

  • You can make any shape by designing it as a flat 2D shape, then use this shape with different options like extrusion, extrusion to point, spinning, bevel, flat cheat as it is right now, all this to make it a real 3D object in the UED.

  • It is very important, as with any other program, to understand how it works, what it offers, and what tools are offered to make your work.
    Not to be pesimistic, but if you don't understand how it works or what tools do what, probably you will make nothing at all out of this 2D shaper Editor.

  • there will be grafics in this document, i promise, without grafics this would become difficult if not impossible.