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4. A two-storey house

In this tutorial you stack levels: a ground floor, an upper floor and a basement, joined by stairs.

You will learn: levels and basements, moving between levels, the Stairs tool, stair openings and horizontal portals, railings, floor cuts, and the cutaway view.

Time: about 30 minutes.

1. The ground floor

Section titled “1. The ground floor”
  1. Start a new project: File > New project… (Ctrl+N), name it two_storey and press Create.
  2. With the Room tool (R), drag an 8 x 7 m room from the origin, where the red and green axes cross (type 8,7 while dragging, then release).
  3. With the Wall tool (C), split it into a hall 3 m wide on the left and a lounge on the right: drag a wall from one long wall to the other, 3 m from the left corner. Call the long wall you will put the front door in the front.
  4. With the Door tool (I), click the hall’s front wall for a front door, and the new wall, near the front, for a door between the hall and the lounge.

The hall is 7 m long for a reason: a flight up to the next floor (a 3 m ceiling plus the 0.3 m floor slab, with the default 180 mm risers) has 19 steps and is about 5.3 m long, and the floor above needs 1 m of landing past its head.

2. Add the upper level

Section titled “2. Add the upper level”
  1. Press Ctrl+Page Up: a level is added on top of the top one and the view goes there. (It is refused while the top level has no wall.)
  2. The level list at the left end of the bar over the view shows where you are; it also has Add level above and Add level below. Page Up / Page Down (or the arrows beside the list) move between levels without adding any. The levels below the one you work on show dimmed, the ones above are hidden.
  3. Draw the upper floor on top of the ground floor: the same 8,7 room from the origin, split by a wall 3 m from the left as downstairs. The snaps only use the walls of the level you are on, so draw on the grid; the dimmed level below shows where its walls are.
  4. That makes a landing over the hall and a bedroom over the lounge. Put a door between them near the front, where the stairs will arrive.
The level list at the left of the bar over the view: where you are, and the commands to add or remove a level.

Select nothing and open the Levels tab of Properties (the tabs along its top are Interior, Levels, Object and Game). It lists every level with its Ceiling height, Slab above (the floor thickness up to the next level) and Level name.

The Levels tab: the height of every level and the slab between them.

3. Stairs

Section titled “3. Stairs”
  1. Go back to the ground floor (Page Down).
  2. Press U for the Stairs tool. In the strip over the view keep Up and Steps; the Width is 1 m.
  3. In the hall, press against the back wall, 0.5 m from the left wall (the middle of the flight’s foot), and drag towards the front door. Release. A flight never stands in a wall, and a side that comes within 20 cm of a wall goes against it.
The Stairs tool: press at the middle of the foot and drag the way the flight climbs.

The new flight is selected, and it is short: on a flat floor the tool makes a flight of four steps. To make it climb to the upper floor, find the Level above section of its Properties and press To the level above. The head rises to the floor of the level above and the flight gets its full length.

Because it now reaches the level above, it also:

  • cuts a stair opening in the floor above, and
  • adds a horizontal portal through that opening, so the game draws the upper floor when you look up the stairs.

The line under the button says whether the opening was cut, or why not. “No floor beyond the head on the level above (landing)” means less than the Landing (1 m) of the upper room’s floor lies past the head. Fit heights to the floors does the same as To the level above when the head lies under a room of the level above, and Problems lists a flight that reaches the level above but cuts no opening.

Level above: To the level above makes the flight reach the floor upstairs and cut its opening.

The rest of the flight’s Properties: Width, Tread depth, Max riser and the nosing under Shape, the materials under Surfaces, and Left rail / Right rail (seen walking up) under Rails. Give it a rail on its open side now: the railing upstairs can join it. In the view, the squares on its sides change the width and the arrow at its head raises or lowers the top.

4. A railing round the stair opening

Section titled “4. A railing round the stair opening”
  1. Go up (Page Up). The stair opening shows in the landing’s floor, and a faint outline shows the flight below.
  2. Press J for the Railing tool. In the strip choose a style (Posts, Balusters, Panel or Glass) and the Height (1 m).
  3. Click the start, then each corner along the open edges of the stairwell; every click after the first adds a railing from the last point. Leave the head open, where you step off. Right click to stop.
  4. If the flight has a rail on that side, start on its top post (the snap says “a stair rail”): the two join with one shared post.
  5. The corners of a stair opening are not snap points: hold Shift to place a click freely, or select a railing afterwards and type its Start and End in Properties.

A selected railing has its Style, Height, Posts every and materials in Properties; the arrow handle in the view changes its height.

Railings along the open edges of the stair opening; the head stays open.

5. A void over the hall (optional)

Section titled “5. A void over the hall (optional)”

A double-height hall looks great. On the upper level:

  1. Press Y for the Floor cut tool. In the strip choose Void (or Glass for a glass floor).
  2. Drag a rectangle (or click corners for a polygon) over part of the landing you do not need to walk on, for example beside the stair opening. It may touch or overlap the opening.
  3. The new cut is selected. Its Properties switch the Type between Void (open) and Glass (see-through floor); keep Portal through the hole on for a void.
  4. Put railings along its open edges: the Railing tool’s clicks snap to the corners of a floor cut.

A floor cut is also the ceiling of the level below, so the hall now opens up to the landing. Select the cut with the Select tool (V) to edit its outline with the handles: dots move corners, squares slide edges, the green + adds a corner and Ctrl+click removes one. A cut that builds nothing is drawn red, and its Properties say why.

A floor cut: Void or Glass, its corners, and handles to reshape it.

6. A basement

Section titled “6. A basement”
  1. Press Ctrl+Page Down: a level is added below the lowest one and the view goes there.
  2. Draw a room there. The levels above are hidden while you work on a basement, so start from the origin as on the ground floor: the same 8,7 room, dragged the same way, lies exactly under the house.
  3. Go back up to the ground floor (Page Up) and press U. In the strip choose Down: it now says “head here, foot on Basement”.
  4. In the lounge, press where the top of the flight should be, about 1.5 m from the front wall (the landing needs 1 m of floor past the head), and drag the way down, towards the back wall. Release. The foot lands on the basement’s floor and the opening appears in the lounge’s floor.

You can also draw the flight on the basement with Up and press To the level above, as on the ground floor. A selected flight’s Flight down to the level below button starts the Down mode too.

Down: press the head on this level and drag the way down; the foot lands on the level below.

7. Look inside with the cutaway

Section titled “7. Look inside with the cutaway”

The levels above the one you work on are hidden and the ones below show dimmed, but the walls of the current level still hide its rooms from a low camera. Ctrl+End once gives the cutaway view (the walls 1 m high), and once more walls down (only their footprints). Ctrl+Home goes back up a step at a time. The Walls up, Walls cutaway and Walls down buttons in the bar over the view (and View > Walls) do the same.

The cutaway view, and the three walls buttons in the bar over the view.

8. Check and export

Section titled “8. Check and export”

Problems (Window > Problems, or the counter in the status bar) lists anything missing: for example a room with no door, window or opening, which is sealed, or a flight that reaches the level above but cuts no opening, with the reason. Export as usual. Horizontal portals and stair openings are written automatically.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”