Draw and edit gameplay areas

Draw an area around a yard, checkpoint or hunting ground in World Builder. Give it an ID your server resource can use for entry rules and NPC behavior.

Create an area

In Areas, choose + Box, + Shape or + Sphere. Draw it in the world, select it, and set its ID and name in the inspector. Use IDs such as village.yard, keeping them unique across your exports and scripts.

By default, an area is a region for scripts to test. Enable Collision to add an invisible physical boundary in 1.6.6. Drawing an area does not spawn an NPC or make native AI enforce a gameplay rule. Labels and metadata let your game mode describe its purpose. A virtual-world setting can restrict it to one world; leaving that unset makes it available in every world.

Edit the shape

Select	Edit
Polygon point	Drag its arrows or choose Point 1, Point 2, etc. in the inspector.
Polygon edge or midpoint	Drag to move both endpoints together.
Polygon edge	Double-click to insert a point, or use Split selected edge for its midpoint.
Sphere Radius handle	Drag the arrow to resize the sphere.
Box face handle	Move one face while its opposite stays fixed.
Polygon Height handle	Raise or lower the ceiling.

Delete removes a selected point or both ends of a selected edge. If fewer than three polygon points would remain, it removes the entire area. Escape or Move whole area returns to the whole-area gizmo.

Translation snap applies to new areas, whole-area moves and handles. Hold Shift while dragging to put a whole area’s bottom on the ground; points and edges snap directly to the surface. Shift while clicking + Box, + Shape or + Sphere grounds the new area. Ground snapping takes precedence over the vertical grid step and ignores the area’s own collision. If no ground is found, the translation stays where you moved it. Keep the vertical bounds high enough to include a standing body, and test entry from both sides of the boundary.

Make an invisible boundary

Select an authored area and enable Collision. Boxes, polygons and spheres block crossing from either side while leaving their interior empty. Boxes and polygons include a floor and ceiling. Press F7 and walk against the boundary to check its position.

Collision starts disabled, including on existing projects. Moving or reshaping the area updates it; undo restores the setting. Turning off Enabled disables both the trigger and collision. The setting survives project saves, blueprints, world exports and copied API calls.

Walls are 0.2 metres thick, centred on the drawn outline. Box dimensions and sphere radii must exceed 0.2 metres. Polygons need a height above 0.2 metres and a simple outline without crossing or repeated edges; concave outlines are supported. Their floor and ceiling remain horizontal. Spheres use a polygon mesh, which becomes coarser on very large spheres.

Enabling or moving a wall does not move a player already intersecting it to a chosen side. Test boundaries before opening the area to players.

Server scripts can create and toggle the same boundary:

const boundary = Area.create({
  id: "courtyard.boundary",
  type: "box",
  position: new Vector3(2500, 1500, 100),
  min: new Vector3(-10, -10, 0),
  max: new Vector3(10, 10, 8),
  collision: true,
});

boundary.collision = false; // Keep the area, remove its physical boundary.
boundary.collision = true;

Invalid collision shapes are rejected. area.enabled = false disables the boundary until re-enabled; area.toJSON() includes collision. Level areas are read-only, so make an editable copy before adding collision. Server boundaries follow the area’s virtual world and reach later joiners. They disappear when the area is destroyed or its world resource unloads. Use compatible 1.6.6 clients and server for multiplayer collision.

MCP’s wb_area_create and wb_area_update accept the same collision boolean inside the area definition.

Group and reuse areas

Shift-click an outline or list row to add or remove an area from the selection. Move and rotate selected areas together; scaling a selection preserves its proportions. Select one area to edit its individual handles.

Enter a Group name, then choose Group selected. Area group filters the list and Select group selects its members. Ungroup selected only removes the selected areas from their groups. Duplicate selected or Ctrl+D copies drawn areas.

Use Copy selected definitions, Copy group definitions or Copy all definitions with Paste definitions to reuse them. Pasting gives colliding IDs a free suffix, so check IDs before connecting scripts. The corresponding as API calls buttons copy Area.create(...) calls. Groups organize the editor and stay in the project; exports and API calls omit them.

Copy a game area

The tab can show the level’s trigger areas, unions and smart areas. Choose Create editable copy to make a custom polygon at the same place with its name, labels and vertical bounds. A union becomes separate polygons for its members. Shapes outside custom-area limits, including those with more than 256 corners, are skipped with a notice.

The original area stays unchanged. A copied outline does not transfer the original game’s ownership, quests or crime behavior to your new zone.

Export and use it

Save the project, export its .world.json, configure it and restart the server as described in World Builder. Look up the area once world resources are ready:

function findYard(): void {
  const yard = WorldResource.find("village")?.areas
    .find(area => area.id === "village.yard");
  if (!yard) {
    console.log("Export village.yard from the village project first.");
    return;
  }
  console.log(`${yard.name}: ${yard.players.length} players inside`);
}
if (WorldResource.ready) findYard();
else Events.once("worldResourcesReady", findYard);

containsPlayer tests a body’s position and world. contains(position) tests geometry alone. Crossing events can include bodies from other worlds; check matchingVirtualWorld when handling them. See Markers and trigger zones for events and queries.

Build a guard for an exported yard to combine the area with a patrol route and NPC combat.