M:STDIO HELP

Begin by picking the colour that you want the new block to be – click on a colour palette tile in the bottom right hand corner of the screen to select the colour.

The lower part of your screen is where you select the block that you want to add to your build area. Extend the tab to reveal all available blocks. Select the block you want by clicking on it. You may see a “progress” indicator displayed while the block loads.

Tip: if a block is selected when you choose a colour, the colour of the selected block will change.

The first block will be placed at the origin (X, Y and Z co-ordinate of 0, 0, 0). Notice the three differently coloured arrows near the block. Each block will have one of these and it will be displayed when the block is selected. The red arrow points along the block’s X axis, the green arrow points along the block’s Y axis and the blue arrow points along the block’s Z axis. You will see the impact rotating a block has on these arrows in step 10. It is also worth noting that in the bottom left hand corner is a similar (but smaller) red, green and blue axis indicator. These are used to indicate the current orientation of the view of the model being built. When you rotate the view, this indicator will rotate correspondingly.

Tip: the currently selected block is shown in red.

In M:STDIO a block is moved by moving the cursor onto the axis for the direction which you want to move the block. The arrow of the selected axis will change colour to yellow (fig. 5 shows that the Z axis has been selected). Click and hold the left mouse button down and drag the block in the direction which you want it to move.

Tip: when you move the mouse over the selected brick, it will turn blue.

When you select a block, orange points are displayed. One use for these points is to determine where the next part will be added. When you position the cursor over a point, the point will turn green (in fig. 6 the upper point has been selected). Clicking the left mouse button will “lock in” the point as the target point.

Pick the next block to be added by selecting it from the list at the bottom of the screen (repeat step 3). The block will be added to the model using the target point of the currently selected block. If a point on the model is not selected when the new part is picked, the new part will be added at the model’s origin (0, 0, 0).

Tip: to accurately position each block within the build area, the Transform Grids tab can be used (see step 8).

The Transform Grids tab can be used to more accurately position blocks after they have been added to the build area.  Click on the drop down menu to reveal three settings; small, medium, large.  Depending on which block you are moving, you will need to select the relevant setting.

Tip: for reference, the medium setting will move a block equal to the thickness of a single block (useful for stacking blocks), the large setting will move a block equal to the centres of the block posts (useful for lateral positioning) and the small setting will provide ‘micro adjustment’ as required.

As before, select a target point (step 6) and pick the next block to be added from the list at the bottom of the screen. The block will be added to the model using the target point of the currently selected part. Position the block using the Transform Grids tab.

Having placed a block, the arrow keys on your keyboard can be used to quickly rotate the it by 45 degrees along different axes. Pressing the right arrow key once will rotate the block clockwise around the Y axis (see figure 10a) assuming the viewpoint for the rotation is looking towards the block’s axes origin.

Pressing the right arrow key a second time will rotate the block clockwise another 45 degrees around the Y axis.

The key combinations to rotate a block around an axis are;
Left arrow – Anti-clockwise rotation around the Y axis
Right arrow – Clockwise rotation around the Y axis
Up arrow – Anti-clockwise rotation around the X axis
Right arrow – Clockwise rotation around the X axis