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Keyboard shortcuts

The full list is also in the app under Settings, Keybinds, where every keyboard shortcut below is rebindable: click an action to capture a new key, with a warning if two actions clash, then Save keybinds. Only the mouse and a couple of held modifiers (Alt to erase, Ctrl + right-click to sample height) are fixed. Your keybinds and slider defaults are saved to their own file, separate from the rest of your settings, so you can hand that one file to another user. Button tooltips in the app always show your own current keys, so they stay correct after you rebind anything.

In the in-game view, W, A, S, D and Q, E drive the fly camera, so the app’s default shortcuts deliberately avoid those keys. The in-game view has its own separate camera keybinds, edited in the same Settings section.

The groups below match the groups in the app’s Keybinds editor. The defaults are:

The Keybinds editor in Crucible Heightmap Settings: every action listed with its assigned key and a Clear button, ready to rebind

KeyAction
1In-game view
22D view
33D view
KeyAction
RReset view
TTop-down view, snap the 3D camera straight overhead for a flat map-wide look (R returns to the normal angle)
SpaceHold to orbit the camera (works while a brush panel is open, so you can reposition mid-paint without laying a stroke)
KeyAction
GCycle grid (off, lines, lines + labels)
FSlope overlay
YWater layer, hide the ocean surface to inspect the seabed
(unbound by default)Minimap, hide or show the corner map
(unbound by default)Sun down or up
KeyAction
CConjure a new map
NAdd island
HReroll salt, roll new inner terrain (and a new world) without moving the coastline
DeleteDelete the selected island(s)
Ctrl + ASelect all islands
Ctrl + GFlip vertical
Ctrl + HFlip horizontal

A flip takes the whole map with it: your painted splats, the biomes and topology, and the islands all mirror together, and the position and rotation sliders keep matching the map you can see. It is instant, and it does not reroll your world.

These apply to whichever brush panel is open: the terrain brush, the splat brush, or the biome and topology brushes.

KeyAction
[ or ]Shrink or grow the brush
O or PRotate the brush footprint (5 degrees per press). It turns whichever brush is open, the terrain brush’s stamp included
Tab or Shift + TabNext or previous target: the ground texture, the biome, or the topology layer, depending on which brush is open
Alt (held while painting, fixed)Erase
(unbound by default)Hardness down or up
(unbound by default)Spacing down or up
(unbound by default)Clear layer
(unbound by default)Cycle falloff: smooth, linear, sharp, soft
(unbound by default)Cycle stamp shape
(unbound by default)Cycle symmetry: off, X, Y, quad
KeyAction
BBrush mode
(unbound by default)Strength down or up
Ctrl + right-click (flatten brush, fixed)Sample height
Ctrl + scroll wheel (fixed)Brush size, in the 3D view and the in-game view
Alt held (fixed)Run the brush backwards: raise lowers, bluff softens, pucker digs, ripple inverts
KeyAction
VSplat mode (opens or closes the splat panel)
XSwap to blend, toggles the brush between your current type and the Blend smudge
Alt + right-click (fixed)Eyedropper, pick the ground texture under the cursor
KeyAction
JBiome brush
KTopology brush
LChannels, cut water clean across the map
Alt + right-click (fixed)Eyedropper, pick the biome or a visible topology layer under the cursor

Only one of these docks is open at a time, so picking one closes whichever was up.

Neither brush generates a world for you. On a generated map they edit the derived layers; on a bare map the first stroke starts a blank canvas you paint yourself.

Undo and Redo auto-repeat while the key is held. Both pause while a panel is open or a text field is focused, so typing in a box never fires them (your system’s own text undo still works).

KeyAction
Ctrl + ZUndo
Ctrl + Shift + ZRedo
KeyAction
Ctrl + NNew project (prompts to save unsaved changes first, then clears to a fresh random island)
Ctrl + SSave project (re-saves the open project, or opens the Projects panel to name it the first time)
Ctrl + Shift + SSave project as (opens the Projects panel ready to name a new project)
(unbound by default)Export now, run the export without opening the panel
(unbound by default)Save as seed
KeyAction
4Custom island panel, draw or import an island shape
5Open Settings
6Open Export
7Open Projects
8Open Saved Seeds
9Worldgen panel
IIsland randomizer drawer
EscapeClose the open panel, otherwise deselect everything

The shape pad and the channel pad take the keyboard while they are open, so none of the shortcuts above fire behind them. A bare letter cannot conjure a new map or flip a view out from under your drawing, and undo belongs to the pad rather than the map.

Shape pad:

KeyAction
1 to 6Pick a brush: round, coast, blobs, spit, coves, fill
EErase, every brush takes land away instead of adding it
[ or ]Brush size (Ctrl + scroll over the pad does the same)
SCycle symmetry: off, X, Y, quad
GGrid
Space (held)Pan the pad
TabSwitch between the Draw tab and the Map preview tab
Ctrl + Z, Ctrl + Shift + ZUndo and redo your drawing
EnterNew project from this shape
EscapeClose the panel

Channel pad:

KeyAction
[ or ]Draw width, in metres
Ctrl + Z, Ctrl + Shift + ZUndo and redo a stroke
EnterApply
EscapeCancel
InputAction
Click or dragSet value
Ctrl + dragFine, one step per pixel
TabFocus the slider (enables arrow keys)
Arrow keysStep by one
Ctrl or Shift + arrowStep by ten
Home or EndMinimum or maximum
Double-click sliderReset to default
Double-click valueType a value
InputAction
Double-click (2D or 3D)Select island
Ctrl or Shift + click an islandAdd or remove it from the selection (select several at once)
Ctrl + ASelect all islands
Click waterDeselect all
Drag a selected islandMove it (moves the whole selection together; painted textures follow)
Drag (3D)Orbit the camera
Scroll (3D)Zoom
Drag (2D minimap)Pan
Scroll (2D minimap)Zoom