Section 11: Side Toolbar - Terrain Sub-Menu – Sculpt

Sculpt

I originally planned to put all of this information as part of the section covering the Terrain Selection, but this feels as though it should be its own thing.

Click the Sculpt button and it will open this menu which allows you to use sliders to alter the brush size and strength of the sculpting.  This can also be accomplished with a variety of mouse and keyboard options which will pop up if you hit the ? button in the circle. 
They are as follows:

• Raise - Left Mouse Button
• Lower - Shift + Left Mouse Button
• Smooth - Ctrl + Left Mouse Button
• Increase Strength - Ctrl + Mouse Wheel Scroll
• Reset - Undo ALL sculpting. There is no verification pop up. Use wisely.

Section 12: Side Toolbar - Terrain Sub-Menu - Paint Paths

Paint Paths

The paint option allows you to paint along the terrain, creating paths and roads into your scene. Click paint and then left click on your terrain to place your path.  Erase will allow you to erase only certain parts of your path while clear deletes everything that’s been painted.  You can switch to different path types by selecting one of the 6 options next to the buttons.  You can only choose one path type for the entirety of your scene.

Section 13: Side Toolbar - Tree Menu

Tree Menu

This menu allows you to choose which types of trees you want in your scene.  Want palms next to your fir trees?  It’s completely up to you.  Have fun and experiment.

Select the tree of your choosing and then paint by holding down your left mouse button and moving your cursor where you want your trees to go.

Section 14: Side Toolbar - Bush Menu

Bush Menu

Exactly the same as trees.  Select your object and then hold down your left mouse button to paint.

Section 15: Side Toolbar - Flower and Grass Menu

Flower and Grass Menu

By now, you should be comfortable with this control and know what to do.  Select your grass or flower, hold the left mouse button down and paint where you want them to go.

As a reminder, if you want to delete all of one type of object, select the icon and right click to remove it from your scene.

Section 16: Side Toolbar - Natural Elements Menu

Natural Elements Menu

I wasn't quite sure how to differentiate labeling this menu button and the houses menu button so it made sense to call these Natural Elements because these are things that nature would put into a scene while houses and the like would be Man-Made Elements which you'll see next. 

This is where placement becomes a little different.  There are a few different options.  First is to click and paint as normal.  The next is single object placement as for the stone archway and mountains.  The third is falling from the sky using physics which is how the small stones and branches will be placed in your scene.  You can turn this off by toggling the drop physics button on the top menu.

Here you can see the larger boulders were painted in while the small stones are falling using physics.

Section 17: Side Toolbar - Man-made Elements Menu

Man-made Elements Menu

Now we're going to talk about placing houses, castles, carts, etc. into your scene. As with the other painting and items, you will use your left mouse button to place. 

With this menu, things are a little bit different.  When you select an icon, you will see a house or item pop up. Use your mouse wheel to scroll through a variety of choices.  In the above image, all three houses came from the same selected icon. 

Section 18: Side Toolbar - Animal Menu

Animal Menu

Here you will find a variety of animals, birds, and bugs to put into your scene which will help bring it to life. 

Just like trees, bushes and flowers, select your animal and left mouse button will paint them into your scene.

The exception to painting are the fantasy creatures.  Like the houses and ships, you will find these by highlighting the fantasy creature icon, scrolling through your options, then using your left mouse button to place.

Section 19: Side Toolbar – Backgrounds

Backgrounds

This menu is what lets you choose the background sky that you want to create the atmosphere of your scene. 

The Toggle Sky Rotation button will turn off and on the movement of the sky in the background.  If you want a particular image section of the sky, press that button and it will stop the rotation.  You can also move the sky image around with the slider at the bottom.

Section 20: Side Toolbar - Photo Controls

Photo Controls

This is where you can really start to affect the mood of your scene. 

The Sun/Moon toggle gives you the opportunity to create different day and night scenes.  Use the direction and height sliders to position your main light source for a variety of lighting and shadow angles.  The best way to understand and learn these controls is to just play with them.  You’ll start to see what works for your scene best by doing this.

Section 21: Side Toolbar - Environmental Animations and Sounds

Environmental Animations and Sounds

With this menu, you can add in some sounds and weather animations for your scene.  Want a winter scene, add some snow!  Storming, then thunder and lightning is but a click away!

Each one of these options has a different sound. You can mix and match to your heart’s content by turning them on and using the sliders.

Samples of animations

Rain… The lightning is hard to capture in a single image.

Cold snow

Section 22: Side Toolbar – Screenshots

Screenshots

This button captures your image.  The UI (user interface) is not visible in the screenshot.  There’s no menu but it does make a camera shutter sound when you press it.

Section 23: Conclusion and Thanks

Conclusion

So, there you have it.  A comprehensive guide to the controls and menus of FlowScape.  This should help you get a handle on using your game to its highest advantage.  As a reminder, a great many of the keystroke controls can be found in the Help icon on the top toolbar.

A huge thank you to Discord member JS for allowing me to add his tips about importing. Also, I am giving my express permission for anyone who wishes to translate this guide into other languages to please do so with my gratitude. 

If you do wish to translate then please send me a message, I will be happy to send you entire Guide in its markup language and the original images so that your work outside of doing the actual translation is minimal.

Mostly, however, I want to offer my thanks to Discord Channel Moderators Lavrans, Cynthia, and of course, Pixel Forest for creating a game and community that is unique, relaxing, fun, and something the world needs desperately. 

Flow on, My Friends,

Jen
August 2019

Thanks for the nice manual!

But still I could not find any information about how to save an animation as a movie file to disk.
Or did I overlook it?

Thank you for a clear and easy to understand Users Guide. The program itself is not difficult to learn, but for old turkeys like me, it's a real plus to have a manual lay down the nuances, etc., so we can get to enjoying the software faster. And thank you for creating such a wonderful "game." It's a real pleasure building the beautiful scenery and playing around with a digital nature!

Thanks for the tutorial! I have a question however. Can you make your own keyboard shortcuts? I have the game on mac which means I don't have a control key and the game doesn't register the command key as being the same thing. So for instance Ctrl Z is impossible.

Help?