Getting a resref or tag: If you want the resref, name, or tag of an object or creature, you don't have to plop one down to get its properties. Just select it in the palette and use the view menu (or the gold button that looks like a magnifying glass) to see the info. You can swipe over it and copy/paste it where you need it.

Add a script to an event: Type in the first few letters before hitting the triangle button. You will go directly to the first script with those first few letters.

To place multiple instances of same item/placeable/creature:: Normally “painting” an object clears the “paintbrush”. To keep the object on the paintbrush and so paint multiple instances: Select from palette, Holding down the shift key, and click as many as you want to place.

Clear the paintbrush: Either hit Esc button or right-click the tile somewher

The Hidden Colours: Below the last row of some of the colour palettes is a hidden row of colours. Left click on a colour on the bottom row and drag the mouse down to the border just below the colour you clicked on while holding down the mouse button. Colours such as 'pure white', 'pitch black' and 'silver' are amongst the colours here.

find out what item property does_ Use F1

To put an Item on top of a Placeable: you can do so by putting it underneath the placeable. When you load the module the Item will be on top of the placeable instead of underneath.

Adjust Location: If you have placed something like a placeable on your map and you cannot get it to face the exact direction you wish. Highlight the placeable and right click on it. You can 'adjust location' and position the placeable precisely by changing the compass degree settings. If you are altering the “Z” axis on an item and click on it the item will reset to ground “0”. To keep that from happening you can select the items on the area box to the left, click down until you find the correct one, and then right click on the name to select it for locations or other modifications. It keeps your hard work from getting reset back to ground level.

Combining Placeables: If you try to put two or more placeables together to make it look like a larger placable (such as 2 drow bars to make a longer, curved bar) you'll notice there is a flickering between the two that shows them as being two seperate objects. To solve this, go into the 'adjust location' menu of one of the objects and raise or lower its Z-Axis position by 0.01 . This is so small a change that you cannot see it, but it gets rid of the 'flickering' between them and makes them look like one object. This can be done (as far as I know) with all placeable objects

To rotate a placed item:left-click to select,Keeping the shift key depressed, hold in right mouse button and move mouse back and forth.

Polygon Drawing: When drawing your polygon for triggers, transitions or encounters left click on your map to start drawing the polygon, left click each time you want to change the direction when drawing. Double left click to close the polygon. If you are drawing a four sided polygon you just have to start the last line of the polygon and double click. It will automatically close the polygon for you. (For ages I was always trying to perfectly draw that last line thus causing myself all sorts of grief. )

Reset View: Pressing 5 will reset the camera angle in the area view(North up, etc..) This is usefull after you have been rotating the view on your area for a few hours and no longer have an idea which way is which

Editing Area Size: Tiles are always added or subtracted from the top or right, so if you add to or subtract from the bottom or left edge of you area, rotate it 180 degrees, make the changes, and then rotate it back.

quick jump to area: If you are testing an area, you can put the “start location” in the area. When the toolset loads, click the button with the start location graphic and an arrow to jump right to that area. No need to scroll down the area palette!

To move the camera around in toolset: Hold down the Ctrl key, left-click a spot and don't release the button, now move the mouse.

ctrl-c and ctrl-v also work with tiles. Left click and sweep across a range of tiles, and you can copy/paste them to another part of the area. Lighting is also copied over.

to connect road to a footbridge: In the rural tileset, you can drag a road across a stream and a footbridge will be placed over the stream. The road will actually connect to the footbridge if you do it that way.

To Select individual subtile: Shift-right-click cycles through the tiles in order. You must be in tile select mode (not tile paint mode) in order for this to work. Tile select cursor is an arrow, tile paint cursor looks more like the tip of a paintbrush. As mentioned before, press ESC to change from paint to select mode. It is a great way to get rid of all the rocks or trees randomly strewn about your terrain, or to make a nice floor pattern – especially when combined with copy/past

Copying indicidual tiles: Normally you can't alter individual tiles of a tile group because OnMouseUp the whole group is selected. HOWEVER, you can do whatever you want before you let go of the click Which means that you can hold down the mouse on one tile of a multi-tile group and delete it, or Ctrl-X, or whatever. Now you can get a 1×1 Windmill. Naturally some of the groups get sorta messed up when you do this, but you can extend, say, the Temple Good 3×2 to as long as you want. I did test it out ingame and found that the module behaved as expected, that it wasn't corrupted, and so on. Also note that sometimes it glitches a little bit with some Invalid Tile errors, but reloading the area fixes that for me. I'd definitely make a backup copy before trying this. But there's no guarantees if they decide to fix this little thing in the future…

Making door transitions without a door or a painted trigger: pick a door, right clikc and select “edit copy”, go to the “Appearance Type” Tab, Scroll down and select one of several types. For this purpose use “Castle Exit”, This may not show up right away. Go to your custom door in the menu and select “update instances” and the appearance will change. Note: Paint all entrances like this in your area before you start setting area transitions. You will probably have to update instances in the area and that will erase your transitions.

To set placeables off the bounds set by the map: Aurora normally restricts X and Y locations for placeables from 0.0 to ten times the number of grids (so an 8×8 map can handle XY locs of {0.0,0.0} to {80.0,80.0}. If you drag a placeable beyond these bounds, it will snap to {0.0,0.0}. Also, Z-axis is restricted from 10 to -10. BUT if you right-click on an item and select “Location”, you can edit ONE of the XYZ values to be WHATEVER YOU WANT, so long as you press the RETURN key and don't click the button or tab out of the field. Apparently this bypasses the error correction, and the toolset, it seems, doesn't give a damn. To make two or all three axes (axises?) “illegal”, just repeat the “Location” trick, selecting a new field each time. (Since x autoselects, do the X axis last)

complete a line in Scripting: Use F2. Also eliminates most spelling errors, as long as you know the first three letters of the words. Works for constants, functions, etc.

To get different colors in the conversation: <StartAction>Green</Start> <StartCheck>Red</Start> <StartHighlight>Dark Blue</Start>

Adding tokens to conversation: You can also do the above by right-clicking in the conversation to pop-up the Select Token pop-up window, the first tab (called Standard) lets you add a large number of predetermined tokens to spice up your conversation (boy/girl, GameMonth, quarterday, lawful/chaotic, and many, many more). The second tab (called Highlight) lets you highlight words in the colours described above by simply typing whatever you want in either the Action, Highlight or Skill Check fields.

Hidden Texture: Place the Armoire placeable in an area, Initial State opened, and then make it Unusable but not static.

Hidden Placeable: in the form of a spear in the Appearence menu that you can not access directly from the default menu

1. Something that is rarely seen is building a bridge over water tiles to a cliff in the opposite shore in the rural tileset: You can get a nice little castle like door in the cliff

2. Exterior ruins tileset with clear daylight and lots of doors and placeable trees make a beliveable elven like city