The Two Windows#
Shell Creator has two interfaces, and it helps to know which is which from the start:
Window | Opened with | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
The shell manager |
| Every saved shell: search, cover photo, statistics, rename, void, export code, edit, teleport and delete. The starting point for a new build. |
The builder | Create or Edit Build in the manager | The 3D editor where the interior is actually built, floor by floor. |
Both are admin-only — see Claiming Admin Access. A player without permission gets a no permission notice and nothing opens.
The Shell Manager#
On the left, the list of saved shells with their photo and a search box, plus the button to create a new one. Select a shell and the right side shows:
Section | What it does |
|---|---|
Shell Name | Rename the shell. The name is what the export code uses as its label. |
Has Void | Spawn a dark box around the shell so nothing of the sky or the map shows through windows and gaps. |
Export Code | Pick a housing script and get the config entry for this shell, ready to copy. See Integrations. |
Shell Information | The shell id, the creator's identifier, the creation date and the void setting. |
Building Statistics | How many floors, foundations, walls, windows, doors, stairs, roofs, construction pieces and decorations it holds. |
Edit Build | Reopen the shell in the builder to change it. Saving overwrites the same shell, so the model name and the export code stay valid. |
Save | Store the new name and void setting. |
Teleport | From the list: walk into the shell at its spawn point, exactly as a resident would. |
Delete | Remove the shell for everyone, after a confirmation. This cannot be undone. |
Inside the Builder#
Pressing create (or Edit Build) hides your character and the HUD, freezes the weather at a clear noon, and flies the camera to the builder's workspace: a 25 × 25 tile grid floating high above the airport, inside a dark void. Your position is remembered and you are put back there when you leave.
The panel along the bottom of the screen is laid out in three columns:
Where | What is there |
|---|---|
Left | The three modes — Construction, Style and Decorate — and the green Save button. |
Middle | The items of the current mode with a picture each, a search box and category filters. When the item can be tinted, a palette of 64 colours appears beside it. |
Right | The floor you are on, the object counter, and the buttons Build / Destroy, Preview, Undo, Forward (redo), Up and Down. |
The tool that is selected decides what a click does, and the Build / Destroy toggle decides whether it adds or removes. Clicking the selected item again deselects it and the tool returns to Foundation.
Controls#
Key | Does |
|---|---|
W A S D | Pan the camera over the grid, in the direction it faces. |
Right mouse + move | Orbit around the build. |
Mouse wheel | Zoom in and out. |
Left click | Place or remove the selected item, depending on Build / Destroy. |
Hold left click + drag | Rapid placement: keeps placing, removing or repainting on every tile the cursor passes over. Ideal for laying a whole floor or painting a whole room. |
Z / X | Rotate right / left while held. Only for furniture and the spawn point. |
Hold G (2 s) | Leave Preview and return to the builder. |
Esc | Open the exit dialog: leave without saving, or go to the save dialog. |
The outline under the cursor tells you what will happen before you click: blue a tile that will be built, green a valid position, red something that will be deleted or a blocked spot, light blue a wall that will be repainted, orange a roof, and purple stairs or furniture.
Undo and Forward keep the last 100 actions — foundations, walls, doors, windows, paint, furniture and the spawn point — and jump to the floor where each one happened. Doing something new clears the Forward list.
Construction#
The structure of the interior. Everything in this mode snaps to the grid.
Piece | What it does |
|---|---|
Foundation | A floor tile. Its outer walls build themselves on every side that has no neighbouring tile, and are rebuilt as you add or remove tiles next to it — so drawing a rectangle of foundations gives you a closed room. To delete one in Destroy mode, click the floor, not the wall. |
Wall | A full-height interior wall on the edge of a tile, to split a space into rooms. |
Half wall · Quarter wall | Lower dividers for counters, railings and open-plan kitchens. |
Doorway | An interior wall with an opening, with or without a door in it. |
Window wall | An interior wall with a window-sized hole. |
Spawnpoint | Where players appear when they enter the shell — see below. |
Interior pieces go on the edge of a tile nearest the cursor; a see-through preview shows the side before you click. They need a foundation under them and cannot stand where an outer wall already is. If the tile on the other side is also a foundation, a matching face is added there too, so the wall looks finished from both rooms — and deleting one side deletes both.
The spawn point#
A ghost copy of your character that marks the entrance: where a resident appears on entering, which way they face, and the point every export measures the door from. A shell cannot be previewed or saved without one.
It must stand on a foundation. Turn it with Z / X before clicking.
There is only one. Placing another moves it — the orange outline warns you it will replace the old one.
Put it just inside the front door, facing into the room: housing scripts use this spot as the exit marker too.
Style#
Finishes and fittings, in six categories. Most of them can be tinted with the colour palette: pick a colour, then click.
Category | Included | How it is applied |
|---|---|---|
Floors | 22 + Floor None | Click or drag over existing foundations. An empty tile flashes red. |
Walls | 16 + Wall None | Click or drag over any wall, outer or interior. Half walls, doorways and window walls keep their shape and only change finish. |
Roofs | 22 | Shows the ceiling of the current floor so you can click each tile. Needs a foundation on the floor you are on. |
Doors | 7 | Click a wall or doorway: a plain wall becomes a doorway in the same finish with the door fitted. Click an existing door to swap the model. |
Windows | 3 | Click a wall: it is cut open on both faces and the window frame fitted. |
Stairs | 3 | See Floors and Stairs below. |
Floor None and Wall None make that surface invisible — useful for a terrace open to the void, or to let a decoration piece stand in for a wall.
One door per tile: adding a door removes any other door on the same tile and any door facing it from the next tile. A wall cannot hold a door and a window at once — remove one before adding the other.
In Destroy mode, a door turns its doorway back into a plain wall, and a window closes its hole.
Choosing a Style item preselects the first colour of the palette; pick another before clicking if you want a tint.
Your own textures appear at the end of the floor, wall and roof lists as Custom Floor 01, Custom Wall 01, Custom Roof 01 — see Custom Textures.
You never have to place a roof by hand. When you preview or save, every tile without a floor above it gets a roof — the one you painted, or the first finish in the list.
Floors and Stairs#
Up and Down move the builder between floors. Each floor sits exactly one wall height above the last, and the floors above the one you are on are hidden so you can work inside.
Build the ground floor
Lay its foundations first. You can only go up from a floor that has foundations.
Go up and build the upper floor
Press Up and lay the foundations of the next floor, at least over where the stairs will arrive. A floor you leave with no foundations is discarded.
Go back down and place the stairs
Press Down, open Style → Stairs and click a tile. The stairs take that tile and the one behind it — the direction follows the cursor — and both must be foundations. The floor above is cut open over them automatically, with no roof in the way.
Clicking existing stairs with another model swaps it; the same model with another colour repaints it.
Decorate#
The custom props that come with the pack, filtered into Bathroom, Kitchen and Lights: toilets, sinks, bathtub, towel racks, washer and dryer, carpets, tables, a bar counter, cookers, fridges, kitchen corners and ceiling lights.
Placement | How it behaves |
|---|---|
Free | Placed exactly under the cursor and dropped onto the floor. Turn it with Z / X before clicking. |
Against a wall | Snaps to the nearest edge of the tile and faces into the room on its own. One per edge. |
Centred | Snaps to the middle of the tile — every ceiling light works this way. One per tile. |
Lights take the colour selected in the palette. Click an existing light with a colour selected to recolour it rather than add a second one. In Destroy mode, the decoration nearest the cursor is removed.
Which props appear, in which category and with which behaviour is set in Config.Objects.furniture — see The Builder Catalogue below.
The Object Limit#
Every tile is made of real props — its floor, each exposed wall, the roof — plus whatever you put on it. The counter on the right panel shows how many the build holds against Config.MaxObjects (800): green, yellow past 80%, red when full. At the limit nothing more can be placed.
The limit protects players from GTA's object pool. If some of them crash inside large shells, lower
Config.MaxObjectsrather than raising it.
Preview#
Preview closes the interface, puts every roof in place and drops you at the spawn point on foot, with your normal controls. Walk through the rooms, climb the stairs, open the doors. Hold G for two seconds to return to the builder where you left it.
Saving a Shell#
Press Save (or Esc, then save). A new shell asks for a name; an edited one keeps its own. Then:
Roofs are added and every floor is made visible.
A camera frames the whole building from above and takes the cover photo.
The server checks you are still an admin and stores the shell.
The new or updated shell is sent to every connected player at once — no restart.
Each new shell is given its own place in the world automatically, at height 800 and at least 300 m from every other shell, so two interiors never overlap.
To switch the void off for a shell, untick Has Void in the shell manager and press its Save button. Saving from the builder always stores the shell with the void on.
How a Shell Appears in Game#
A saved shell is registered on every client as the model qs_shells_<id> — qs_shells_1, qs_shells_2, and so on. The interior is assembled around it on demand:
When a player comes within 100 m of the shell's own spot, it is built there.
When a housing script spawns a
qs_shells_<id>object anywhere, the interior is built around that object instead, and follows it if the script moves or rotates it.When the player is further than 100 m away, the props are removed again, so a hundred shells cost nothing to players who are not inside one.
This is why a housing script needs nothing special: it spawns the model as it would any streamed shell, and Shell Creator does the rest.
The Builder Catalogue#
What the builder offers is listed in config/builder.lua. You can reorder, rename or remove entries, and add any GTA or streamed prop as furniture.
Table | Holds |
|---|---|
| Which categories appear in Style and in Decorate, and in what order. |
| The Construction pieces. |
| The finishes. Walls are listed by suffix ( |
| Door models, each with an |
| Window frames and staircases. |
| Every decoration prop and its category. |
| The 64 colours of the palette, as hex codes. |
A furniture entry looks like this:
{
label = 'Light 02',
model = 'qs_custom_light_01',
category = 'lights', -- bathroom · kitchen · lights, or one you add to Config.ObjectMap.decorate
offset = vec3(0.0, 0.0, 2.89), -- optional: lift or shift it instead of dropping it on the floor
colors = true, -- optional: show the colour palette for it
fixedPosition = { centered = true }, -- optional: true = against a wall edge, { centered = true } = tile centre
},The item's picture is loaded from web/images/builder/<model>.webp (or the image name you give it). Add a picture with that name for a new prop, or its card stays empty.
Do not remove an entry that saved shells already use. Shells store the models themselves, so they keep loading — but the item will no longer be offered when you edit them.